Tuesday is always a great day to tune into The AIR  and today we prove it with a new episode of Radio Free Charleston that was recorded very late in the day of one of the Mondayest Mondays in recent memory.  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 we open with a full hour of brand-new local, independent and cult-following music, and that is followed by an extremely rare episode of Radio Free Charleston Voume Three that hasn’t been heard since February, 2015.

But back to that first hour…we open with brand-new music from Jeff Ellis, and fill the rest of our hour with new tunes from Sasha Colette & The Magnolias, William Matheny, Shakey Graves, Temp Wishes, The Jasons, Samuel S.C., Option 22, Paul McCartney, Gong and more.

Option 22  are the folks who created CultureFest and the Riff Raff Artist’s Collective in Princeton, West Virginia, making that area a hotbed of creativity in the state. I first recorded them for the video incarnation of RFC back during FestivALL in 2009, and it’s wonderful to have new music from these elcectic artists. The song you hear this week is the second of a trilogy of new releases from the band.  We’ll bring you the concluding song next week.

Josh Chicoine’s (The M’s, Cult Canyon) newest band is called Temp Wishes and they quietly released a single entitled “Flash Fantasy” a couple weeks back. The single is streaming via Spotify and they have an accompanying music video that was just premiered this past Friday via the blog Music Defined. Temp Wishes also features Edward Anderson (1900s, Mazes), Colby Starck (Mar Caribe, Bobby Conn), and Glenn Rischke (AM Slingers, Bora Bora, Arks) and the band’s first-ever show will be at the Hungry Brain in Chicago on Friday, June 5 as you can see HERE.

Dave Thomas, someone who isn’t Eric Thompson, and Joe Vallina, as they were on this radio show.

Our second and third hours bring you an episode of RFC Volume Three that hasn’t been available in any form since early 2015.  What’s really notable is that this particular episode of the show includes airchecks from a November, 1989 edition of the original broadcast version of RFC, and it was the first time we brought a band into the studio to perform live.  We unleashed The Blind Blue Leper Society on an unsuspecting planet.

Joe Vallina, Eric Thompson and Dave Thomas were the band, and Joe has gone on to an impressive musical career with Feast of Stephen, Wiley Sonic and terrific solo albums and is now the guiding light of The Heavy Editors. Dave Thomas sprouted an impressive beard/washboard combo and became a beloved fixture on the Charleston music scene as “Washboard Dave,” once the guiding light of The Boulevard Tavern. I’m still hoping that Dave or Joe will chime in on the comments and tell me what Eric has been up to.

Brian Diller, circa 1989

This episode of the show also featured a visit from Stephen Beckner, which is remarkable as he never really was much of a night owl, and he showed up around 3 AM.  You will hear a ton of local music circa 1989 and you’ll get an idea of the controlled anarchy that prevailed on the original  RFC.

Before that we offered up about 45 minutes  of the best local and regional music there was, kicking off the show with another gem that we dug out of the archives–Brian Diller, live and solo, performing in the commercial production room at WVNS/WCHS Radio. Brian came in to do his song, “Hey Mister Auctioneer” and we aired it about nine hours after it was recorded back in January, 1990.

Since then we’ve played it on RFC Volume Five a few times.

Check out this playlist, with links to the artist’s page, in the first hour…

RFC V5 271

hour one
Jeff Ellis “When We Meet Again As Strangers”
Sasha Colette “Sacred Places”
William Matheny “If I Were A River”
Shakey Graves “When The Love Is New”
The John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band w/David Lee Roth “Jump”
Cricketman “Awkward and Weird”
Temp Wishes “Flash Fantasy”
The Jasons “Blood In The Streets”
GRPPLNG “Hollowed”
Samuel S.C. “Mind Flies”
Option 22 “Cry For Freedom”
Paul McCartney “Never Know”
Gong “Relish The Possibility”
The Stickmen “Breathless”

hour two
Brian Diller “Hey Mister Auctioneer”
Jordan Searls “Any Kind of Wind”
Dina Hornbaker “Black Coffee”
Sheldon Vance “Birthright”
Hitchcock Circus “Dirty Girl”
Three Bodies “My Friend”
Blue Million “Don’t Leave”
The Bounty “Buffalos”
Science of the Mind “Son of Sam”
David Synn “Anesthesia”
Karm To Burn “Bobbi, Bobbi, Bobbi, I’m Not”
BobaFlex “Strangle You”

hour three
Studio chatter with Blind Blue Leper Society
Blind Blue Leper Society “Fogtown”
The Swivels “Timeclock of Love”
Cathouse Thursday “Born Under A Bad Sign”
The Hepcats “Shut Up I Love You”
Blind Blue Leper Society “White Riot”
Blind Blue Leper Society “Gimme Danger”
The heart-breaking Godzilla story
Blind Blue Leper Society “Mister High Test Man”
The band sends shout outs
Blind Blue Leper Society “Rockin’ In The Free World”
More studio chatter and goofing around and we are joined by Stephen Beckner in the studio.
Blind Blue Leper Society “Mrs. Brown”
Go Van Gogh “Kiss Me Goodbye”
Three Bodies “Gardens of Hope”
Blind Blue Leper Society “Kick Me In The Spine With Your Love”
Even more studio chatter
All Quiet “Part Time Criminal”
All Quiet “Talking Islands In Africa”
Blind Blue Leper Society “Red House”

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. 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 get ready for two classic episodes of The Swing Shift, featuring the best Swing Music from the last century!

 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.