Tuesday and Wednesday bring some very special new programs to The AIR this week. Listen at ">the website, or on this embedded radio player…

First of all, our friends at Haversham Recording Institute are still battling various ailments, so our British shows are still in reruns this week, but our new stuff is top-notch, and you won’t want to miss it.  You can find an embedded widget at the bottom of this post so you can see what’s on anytime.

Tuesday

Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM we have a new Radio Free Charleston. This week we present the first of a two-part “Night at Livemix Studio.”  LiveMix Studio was our production partner when we revived RFC as a video program (AKA “RFC Volume 2) and for a time, the studio space also operated as a performance venue. This week and next we will take you back to February 13, 2009, about ten years ago, for a pre-Valentine’s concert featuring several LiveMix Studio bands. This week you will hear the Electro-fusion-funk of Electro Biscuit, featuring LiveMix partners Greg Wegmann, Kai Haynes and Brian Young, and Whistlepunk, which also featured Brian Young, along with Spencer Elliott and Dan Jordan (and Karen Allen singing on one song). Next week we’ll have even more from this evening. All this year we’re celebrating 30 years of Radio Free Charleston, and there was no way we could go without mentioning LiveMix. Without them, we never would have had an “Act II.”

Also of note: This week and next week’s shows are episodes 98 and 99 of “Volume Four” of Radio Free Charleston, and that means that two weeks from Tuesday, it will be time for episode 100. I’m hoping to cook up something extra special for that, but can’t tell you what it is yet.

Radio Free Charleston can be heard Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, with replays Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at noon and Midnight, and Sunday at 3 PM exclusively on The AIR.

At 2 PM Tuesday Nigel Pye checks in from Haversham Recording Institute with a 60-minute mixtape of groovy Psychedelic Rock. This week it’s a replay, as Nigel is still under the weather.

Psychedelic Shack can be heard Tuesday’s at 2 PM, with replays Wednesday at 11 AM, Thursday at 9 AM and 10 PM and Saturday at 7 AM and the following Tuesday at 9 AM.

Tuesday at 3 PM your PopCulteer returns to host a new hour of The Swing Shift as we continue to bring you the best Swing Music of the last century. This week we present an assortment of Swing that runs the gamut from current European revivalists to classics from the Golden Age to Elektro-Swing, 90’s revivalists and more.

Here’s the playlist:

The Swing Shift 063

Boa Brass Band “Experimental Pt. 2”
Steve Laffont Trio “Night In Corsica”
Group N’ Swing “Tour De Swing”
Indoio Swing “Memory of You”
Javier Botella and Cope Illustrada Big Band “Sunny”
Lester Young “Jumpin’ at Mesners”
Robbie Williams “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head”
Dean Martin and Helen O’Connell “How Do You Like Your Eggs In The Morning”
Fred A. Stare “Dancing Cheek To Cheek”
Teddy Wilson “I Got Rhythm”
Benko Dixieland “Doktor Jazz”
Stan Kenton “Limelight”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “The Ding Dong Daddy”
Swing Sisters with The Pasedena Roof Orchestra “In The Mood”
Glenn Miller “The Little Man Wasn’t There”
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy “Go Daddy-0”

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM, Thursday at 7 PM and Saturday at 9 AM, only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Wednesday

On Wednesday at 2 PM, Beatles Blast presents a one-hour mixtape of some of the Fab Four’s trippiest tunes, performed by the band, by the solo members of the band and all mixed in with covers.

Beatles Blast offers up a new episode every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursdays at 9 PM, Saturday mornings, and Sunday at 5 PM, exclusively on The AIR.

Wednesday at 3 PM Mel Larch brings us a very special episode of Curtain Call. This week’s new show presents a look at the musical treatment of Don Marquis’ beloved “archy and mehitabel.” Archy, a cockroach, and mehitabel, an alley cat, appeared in hundreds of humorous verses and short stories in Marquis’ daily column, “The Sun Dial”. Their exploits were first collected in the 1927 book archy and mehitabel, which remains in print today, and in two later volumes, archys life of mehitabel and archy does his part.  In case you’re wondering, archy was purportedly the author of these adventures, who wrote by jumping on the keys of a manual typewriter, which is why there is no capitalization, nad little punctuation.

The major story of archy’s unrequited love for mehitabel, a love which must not speak its name due to society’s attitude toward inter-species romance, was such a delight to so many people that, in 1953, an attempt was made to turn these stories into a musical for radio, which starred Eddie Bracken as archy, and Carol Conners as mehitabel. A few years later, the radio musical was expanded for the stage under the name, Shinbone Alley (with additional book and lyrics by a young Mel Brooks) and ran for a criminally brief time on Broadway. The stage version saw Eddie Bracken return as archy, but the role of mehitabel was taken over by Eartha Kitt.

This week Curtain Call brings you all of archy and mehitabel: A Back Alley Opera, the original radio musical, as well as its sequel, echoes of archy, and selections from the Broadway musical, Shinbone Alley. Fourteen years after the musical closed on Broadway, an animated features based on it was released, with Carol Channing returning to take over the role of mehitabel once more. You will see that this weekend in PopCult’s Sunday Evening Video.

Curtain Call can be heard Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 7 AM and 8 PM and Saturday at 7 PM. An all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight and a six-hour marathon can be heard every Sunday evening at 6 PM.

Remember, you can tune in to The AIR at all hours of the day and night for a variety and quality of programming that you will not find anywhere else. Check PopCult regularly to see what our new schedule will bring. Or just scroll this handy widget…