As promised in last Tuesday’s episode of Radio Free Charleston, above you see the music video for Chuck Biel‘s latest tune, “RIPStaVEr.”

Billed as “Original Progressive Metal featuring Chuck Biel (Composer/Creator) and International Mallet Artist Scott Milam and featuring the RiPStaVEr Strings” on YouTube, this remarkable piece of music (and video) features the Maestro, Chuck Biel, along with another Maestro, Scott Milam, and The RIPStaVer Strings (featuring Kristi Holstein), and it’s pure Film Noir eye candy.

As for what it means, the Oxford English Dictionary describes the word as a colloquialism that originated in the US in the early 19th century and is now archaic. According to them, a “ripstaver” is an impressive person or thing—a beaut, a corker, a crackerjack, a doozy, a humdinger, a knockout, a lollapalooza, a jim-dandy, or a ripsnorter.

The earliest example of the usage in the OED is from an 1828 issue of the Bower of Taste, a short-lived magazine in Boston: “She beheld him striding down the street, lustily exclaiming to himself, ‘She’s a ripstaver, so help me Davy Rachel!’ ”

The dictionary’s next citation is from the anonymously published Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett of West Tennessee (1833): “In ten minutes he yelled enough, and swore I was a ripstavur.”

Eventually, Chuck’s tune and video will be cited in the OED.

Dive in, it’s a mini-epic.

You can hear “RIPStaVer” on last week’s Radio Free Charleston Sunday at 8 PM and Monday at 11 AM on The AIR, or listen on demand at the RFC PopCult post.