It’s “Milestone Week” on The AIR as we debut the 150th episode of Radio Free Charleston Volume Five and also episode number 150 of The Swing Shift on Tuesday! 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 tons of replays throughout the week.  This week we have three full hours of glorious free-format radio with lots of local acts mixed in with independent artists from around the world and a few classic tracks from major artists, just to keep you on your toes. But that’s not all, even though this is not a huge milestone, since RFC has been around in four previous incarnations since 1989, it does mark 150 episodes in the three-hour format that we introduced in January, 2020.

Our first two hours are a sort of normal RFC, with a mix of local, independent and big fancy-ass musical artists, while our final hour is an all-local mixtape.

We open with a newly-remastered song by The Tunesmiths. This band was Mark Beckner, from Go Van Gogh, and Mark Mingrone, and it was around back in the original RFC days. Mark has been cleaning up his archives, and I hope he’ll be putting it up on Bandcamp soon. This song was recorded by The Tunesmiths right before they left to form Hitchcock Circus in Nashville, and I don’t think I’d heard it before.

We also have great new tunes from Hello June, Corduroy Brown, Todd Burge, Ringo Starr, The Dollyrots, Jerks, Hawthorn Heights and more. Plus we play another track from Sideshow Villains, who have a very cool show coming up next Sunday in Chicago. You can find ticket details on that show HERE.

The third hour this week is a mixtape with a solid uninterrupted hour of local artists (or expatriot artists) and it’s a deep-dive into the RFC archives, with some tracks being more than thirty years old.

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store. Live links will take you to the local and indie artist’s pages (where possible)  so you can find out more about them, buy their music and find out where to see them perform live…

RFC V5 150

hour one
The Tunesmiths “Farewell”
Hello June “23”
Corduroy Brown “I Think I Like When It Rains (live)”
Todd Burge “Weed”
boygenius “Powers”
Mapped By A Forest “Even We Are Wrong’
Ringo Starr “Rewind Forward”
The Dollyrots “Hot Mom With The Skinny Pants On”
Jerks “ESA”
Golden “I Want To Run”
The Living End “Prisoner of Society”
Stereophonics “Roll Up And Shine”
Hawthorne Heights “Storm”
Sideshow Villains “Monsters”
Galen and Paul “Room At The Top”
Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands  “Drowned Out”

hour two
Aaron Emerson and Friends “Lucky Man”
The Paranoid Style “Print The Legend”
Miniature Giant “Leave Me Out”
Sgt. Van and the Highway Dogs “Exit Only”
Astrodot “The Impossible Mission”
Backstreet Girls “Too Cool For You”
R.E.M. “Radio Free Europe”
Human League “Love Is All That Matters”
Klaus Nomi “The Cold Song”
Abandon The Ship “Bottom Feeder”
Bane Star “The Thrall”
Guitarmy of One “Top Secret Agent Man On A Wire”
The Madeira “Into The Deep”

hour three
Ann Magnuson “It’s A Great Feeling”
Farnsworth “Erased”
Feast of Stephen “Forbidden Dance”
Mother Nang “Knee Deep In Wine”
The Amazing Delores “Love Magic”
Three Bodies “Shingles And Tar”
Strawfyssh “Graveyard Shift”
Mad Scientist Club “Save The Whales”
dog Soldier “Blanket”
Joe Vallina “Suzy Said So”
HARRAH “Gotta Get Out”
Emmalea Deal “Ghost”
Brian Diller & The Ride “Caroline”
Go Van Gogh “Shut Up I Love You”
Stark Raven “Why Can’t White Boys Dance”
The Tom McGees “Country Roads”
The Panucci Brothers “Dancing Midget Spider-man Fantasia”

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,  and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different classic episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

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 brand-new episode of The Swing Shift.  This week our showcase of more than a century’s worth of Swing Music also hits episode 150, which is a teensy bit embarrassing since I’ve been doing this show for more than seven years, but have had to take a lot of weeks off.  However, I did pull out the stops and assemble a killer show will full announcing and I think it’s a good example of what The Swing Shift should be.

Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 150

Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers “It Don’t Mean A Thing”
Artie Shaw “Special Delivery Stomp”
The Gentlemen’s Anti-Temperance League “Stella”
Squirrel Nut Zippers “Pay Me Now (Or Pay Me Later)”
Lil Hardin Armstrong & Her Orchestra “Harlem on a Saturday Night”
Megan & Her Goody Goodies “Do Your Duty”
Tyler Pederson “53”
Woody Herman “Who Dat Down Dere”
Marcella Puppini “I Do (Do I?)”
Louis Prima “You Rascal You”
Lester’s Blues “The Goon Drag”
Slim & Slam “The Flat Feet Floogie”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Dr. Bones”
Brain Setzer Orchestra “My Baby Only Cares For Me”
Royal Crown Revue “I Love The Life I Live”
Lionel Hampton “It Don’t Mean A Thing (Electro Swing Remix)”

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 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 Thursday and Sunday evenings.