On the last day of 2024, The AIR and PopCult present the 53rd episode of Radio Free Charleston released in this calendar year (that is, if you count the Video Episode we dropped last Sunday).

Tuesday is always “New Show Day” on The AIR.  As such, we have new episodes of  Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift for you. To listen to The AIR, you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.  

You can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with boatloads of replays throughout the week.

This week RFC kicks off with a brand-new song from Novo Combo, and in the rest of our three-hour show we’ll treat you to new tracks from Shining Glass, Dinosaur Burps SPACE FREQ and more.   We also bring you a bonus live track from the Defectors that was recorded at the same show at the Criel Mound in South Charleston in 1983 that gave us the tunes for the latest video edition of RFC.

This being a holiday show, where our listenership is likely to be lower, I basically just decided to toss in whatever I felt like…which isn’t really that much different than what I do every week anyway.

Our third hour brings you the songs from RCA Record’s 1981 BLITZ sampler, a collection of great New Wave songs that thrilled and delighted me back in the day. If you had it, it will jog your memory. If you didn’t, it’ll make you wish you did. If you weren’t born yet, it’s not polite to mention that to me.

As I mention in the show, this was a budget-priced collection of new and innovative artists who could not get airplay in the deregulated and overly-consulted corporate radio landscape of the early 1980s.  A few months ago I reconstructed Warner Brothers’ “Survival Sampler,” and in the future I may tackle a few more of these gems of my youth.

The links in the playlist will take you to the pages for the artists in this week’s show where possible…

RFC V5 208

hour one
Novo Combo “Please Don’t Do That”
Messer Chups “Living Through Another Cuba (live at the Mound, 1983)”
Shining Glass “Garden of Knives”
Chloe Florence “Don’t Tell Him”
Queen “Keep Yourself Alive”
Arthur Brown & Jordan Rudess “Karn Evil #9, First Impression Part 2”
SPACE FREQ “Trickle”
Dinosaur Burps “Dubious Distinction”
Sublime “What I Got (Skunk Sampler Mix)”
Poppy “Lovefool”
Mega Ran “They Don’t Make Em Like They Used To”
Messer Chups “Experiment In Terror”
Gardenn  “Chance”
Sgt. Van and The Highway Dogs  “Flies On Mars”

hour two
Speedsuit “Elephant Gun”
Mystery Artist “Mystery Song”
Buni Muni “Caitlin Clark”
Dave Strong“Molly’s Lips”
Lesser Creatures “Don’t Come Around Here No More”
The Dickies “Magoomba”
SkyFlake “Firmament”
Orville Rex“She’s Built”
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess “Ignorant”
The Struts “Ballroom Blitz”
Golden “Defeated”
Jerks “Taillights”
Astrodot “Stormy Blue”
A Certain Ratio “We All Need”
The The “Life After Life”

hour three
The Stranglers “No Mercy”

The Blitz Sampler
Bow Wow Wow “Chihuahua”
Slow Children “Spring In Fialta”
Robert Ellis Orrall “White Noise”
Sparks “Tips For Teens”
Shock “Angel Face”
Polyrock “Love Song”
Bow Wow Wow “Orang-Outang”
Landscape “European Man”
Robert Ellis Orrall “Call The Uh-On Squad”
Polyrock “Changing Hearts”

Midge Ure “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes (Live at The Royal Albert Hall)
Ann Magnuson “Moonage Daydream”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR, even during out holiday programming blitz.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

 

After RFC, stick around for encores of last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM we offer up a new episode of The Swing Shift that uses the occasion of New Year’s Eve to transport you to Las Vegas in 1963 for highlights of a recording of Frank, Dean and Sammy, the Rat Pack, holding court as “The Summit,” singing songs, making jokes and pointing out celebrities in the audience.

It’s a swinging way to ring out the old year and ring in the new. And since it’s on at 3 PM, that means you can party all you want and still be in bed before it gets too late.

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 AM,  Friday at 10 AM and 8 PM and Saturday afternoon, only on The AIR . You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursdays and Sundays.