Once again we have come to Tuesday on The AIR  but our script is a bit different this week. Today we deliver unto you a brand-new episode of Radio Free Charleston, while The Swing Shift is in rerun mode this week while I work on The 2021 The PopCult Gift Guide.  However, we have a special treat as Dexter Checkers, the host of Ska Madness, who stepped down a few years back for health reasons, returns for one week to bring you tracks from a brand-new album of protest songs by THE Two-Tone group, The Specials.

So that’s still two new programs totalling four new (ish) hours of particularly nifty internet radio!  You simply have to twonk your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the cool embedded player over at the top of the right column (If you’re reading PopCult on a desktop, that is. Phone readers have to go to the website).

We have a  killer new Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  This week we open with new music from a great Charleston Metal band, Disarm The Fallen,  and we continue with a pretty darned epic line up of music that includes great new and vintage local stuff, particularly swell releases from major artists, a few classic tracks and a whole hour of live tracks recorded for the RFC video show (and recycled from RFC Volume 4).

In our second hour, we go back over fifty years to bring you the legendary Morgantown band, Mind Garage, and their “Electric Liturgy,” which is often credited as the first example of Christian Rock. It’s a 17-minute epic.

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store (live links will take you to the artist’s pages)…

RFC V5 068

Disarm The Fallen “Cold Dead Night”
Mediogres “Mon Cherie”
Skafish “Executive Exhibitionist”
Red Audio “Holograms”
The Gods “Garage Man”
Billy Bragg “Ten Mysterious Photos That Can’t Be Explained”
Static Fur “Temporary”
Cassius At Best “Alabaster”
CHVRCHES “Violent Delights”
The Inmates “Dirty Water”
Joseph Hale “Soap Opera Camera Eyes”
Safetybelt “All In Stride”
Tori Amos “Speaking With Trees”
David Essex “Monlight Dancing”
Hello June “Momma”

hour two
The Specials “The Lunatics (Live)”
Lost Decades “My Poison”
The Stranglers “If Something’s Going to Kill Me (It Might As Well Be Love)”
Guitarmy of One “Emma Belle Cintronella”
The Renfields “Transylvania High”
The Lickerish Quartet “Snollygoster Goon”
Feast of Stephen “Mystery Hole”
Mind Garage “The Electric Liturgy”
“Processional-Kyrie-Gloria”
“Offeratory (Sunday Christian)”
“The Lord’s Prayer”
“Communion (Water)”
“Recessional”
PFM “We’re Not An Island”
Gary Myrick “Guitar, Talk, Love & Drums”
Kid Creole & The Coconuts “Endicott”

hour three
John Radcliff “Body”
Punk Jazz “Little Star”
Raymond Wallace “Variations”
Lady D “Go Higher”
Spurgy Hankins Band “Blue Parrot Set”
The Paris Project “Sugar”
The Clementines “Soundscapes”
Jeff Ellis “Fade”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Thursday at 3 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 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 an encore of MIRRORBALL at 1 PM, and a special new Ska Madness at 2 PM.

Dexter Checkers returns with the first new episode of Ska Madness, I think, since 2017 at 2 PM. He has recovered nicely from his serious health issues and has returned to work at The Haversham Recording Institute. He’s been threatening to give us a new Ska Madness, and the release of a brand-new album by The Specials prompted him to put together something for The AIR.

The Specials released an acclaimed new album, Encore, in 2019, and were preparing work on a follow-up. When the pandemic hit, the band couldn’t assemble for their usual songwriting meetings, so they decided to do a covers project in the interim.

The band decied to look at “the protest song,”  compiling a list of protest songs from the last hundred years or so.. They found around 50 songs and then picked 12, and in  April of this year they went into the studio and recorded Protest Songs 1924-2012. You will hear tracks from that newly-released album during the hour of Ska Madness. Included in the show, The Specials give their takes on songs by Leonard Cohen, Frank Zappa, Pops Staples, Rod McKuen, The Talking Heads, Bob Marly and others. Dexter even let me preview his show with one of the bonus tracks on Radio Free Charleston.

Ska Madness will be repeated this week Thursday at 9 AM, Friday at 11 AM and late Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM we have a couple of encores of recent episodes of The Swing Shift, covering everything from Tuba Skinny to Benny Goodman.

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesdays at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM, Friday at 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.