Radio Free Charleston 185, “Neverending Fight Shirt,” features music from Crystal Bright and The Silver Hands and Volt 9000, and showcases the work of RFC Big Shot, Frank Panucci.

This is our first show back after nearly a month’s hiatus due to an exploding battery back-up on the Popcult/Radio Free Charleston computing desk.  The resulting surge took out all our computers and we’ve just now gotten back up to speed.  Happily, we’re back with a really strong show with two great musical guests and loads of new work from our resident animator/Big Shot, Frank Panucci.

Crysttal Bright and The Silver Hands, at The Empty Glass

“Kaliedophrenic Cabaret” is how Crystal Bright describes the music she makes with The Silver Hands. This collective of multi-talented, multi-instrumentalists from North Carolina create what is, in its truest sense, danceable world music. Crystal is an amazing talent and in addition to being a great singer and songwriter, she’s also devoted to educating people about music around the world.

Crystal and her Adungu

We feature two songs by Crystal Bright and The Silver Hands this week, “Adungu,” which is named after the Ugandan harp she can be seen playing during the tune, and “Especially Your Mother,” a sing-a-long song with the patrons of the Empty Glass chiming in.

“Adungu” wins the award for Rudy’s most-mangled pronunciation of the week, as he keeps calling it “Adungo” in his intro. He would appreciate it if people would think he’s only doing that for comedic effect.

The Silver Hands include Crystal Bright, Diego Diaz, Aaron Bond, Robbie Link, Seth Oldham, and appearing as “The Bolshevik” on trumpet, Jeremy Denman. 

Some of the denizens of Volt 9000’s “Toybox”

Volt 9000 is a Canadian Industrial/Electronica duo who collaborate with our own Frank Panucci on the occasional music video. You can see their previous collaborations in RFC 108 and RFC 147, or you can check out the videos outside of RFC, in last night’s Sunday Evening Videos here in PopCult.

Volt 9000’s new album, “Conoploly” is out this week on Artoffact Records, and it’s their first label release. You can catch Cory Gorski and Andrew Dobbels on June 27, if you’re in Toronto.

Send in the drones

Cyclops Dance Party

Frank really cut loose with the video for “Toybox,” featured in this episode. Not only is it a killer tune in the first place, but Frank tossed in so many classic toys that viewers will have a blast trying to spot all the real toys mixed in with the the new ones created just for the video. 

From “Up Down” These are not Tribbles

Frank Panucci is also responsible for the “Lost In Space Cyclops Dance Party” film and the “Up Down” animation. He’s sort of the local artist starring in this episode of the show, since Crystal Bright is from North Carolina and Volt 9000 is from Canada. Luckily, nepotism has nothing to do with this!

RFC welcomes Steven Allen Adams back to our crew with this episode. Steve helped out quite a bit with Radio Free Charleston back around episode 100, before life and work commitments took him away from us. Now he’s back in the mix, and contributed camera work to the Crystal Bright Shoot, which he also blogged about. Many thanks also to our old pal James Vernon Brown, who provided the terrific board mix for Crystal Bright’s Empty Glass performance.

Rudy, hanging out at the docks

Host segments were shot in Dunbar, near the dock of the West Virginia Spirit Sternwheeler. On this particularly windy day, we decided to forego using our handheld microphone, which is very susceptible to wind noise, and instead, RFC host, Rudy Panucci, just shouted at the camera, which surprisingly enough, turned out slightly better. The title shirt for this episode is “Neverending Fight,” a Teefury.com shirt designed by The Letter Q that is inspired by “The Neverending Story.”

Our next episode will feature music by Qiet and an unplugged Mother Nang, plus, if we get it done on time, a film that will showcase the already-erected signs in the East Eand Main Street Streeworks Project. Look for it in a couple of weeks.