Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM, The AIR will present a special episode of Radio Free Charleston devoted to the music of Johnny Rock and Go Van Gogh. You can tune in at the website, or on this cool little embedded player…
If you read PopCult yesterday, you know that we lost Johnny Rock last week. In addition to being a good friend to me and many others, Johnny is responsible for most of my social circle. If he hadn’t beckoned me to come to The Charleston Playhouse back in 1989 I would never have met most of my closest friends, and I would probably never have met my wife, Mel Larch.
I will be honest with you. I was still not quite in the mood to record a new episode of Radio Free Charleston, so this week I just did one new segment and the rest of the show is a partial rebroadcast of an episode of RFC that I produced for Voices of Appalachia Radio over two years ago.
This show was an attempt at doing a “Rock Family Tree,” this time focusing on one of the hottest bands from the original RFC, Go Van Gogh. Stephen and Mark Beckner and Tim and Johnny Rock made up this four-piece, and you will them in action below with a couple of episodes of the RFC video shows.
In addition to bringing you some Go Van Gogh classics, we’re going to check out music from the pre-Go Van Gogh and post-Go Van Gogh bands that feature the brothers Beckner and Rock, and we’re going to catch up with solo material by The Beckners and tunes from their band, The Nanker Phelge.
The Go Van Gogh Rock Family Tree
Go Van Gogh “Shut Up, I Love You”
Songs from the bands that the Rock brothers and the Beckner brothers were in prior to forming Go Van Gogh.
True Rumor “River Beyond”
Meadow Blasters “Da Da Da, I Love You”
Meadow Blasters “She Doesn’t Want My Love”
Go Van Gogh “Planet Freedom”
Go Van Gogh “I Don’t Like Trains”
The Tunesmiths were a side project by Mark Beckner.
The Tunesmiths “Ballet Dancer”
Tunesmiths “For Your Love”
The core of The Tunesmiths moved to Nashville and became Hitchcock Circus
Hitchcock Circus “Telescope”
Hitchcock Circus “Song For A Friend”
Meanwhile, Stephen Beckner released a great solo album, “Apples.”
Stephen Beckner “Those Eyes”
Stephen Beckner “Scream”
Mark returned from Nashville, and formed a new band with Stephen, The Nanker Phelge.
The Nanker Phelge “Johnny’s Got A Problem”
The Nanker Phelge “That’s What She Said”
The Nanker Phelge “The Nanker Stomp”
We managed to squeeze in one of Mark’s solo tunes, too.
Mark Beckner “Habitual Preoccupation with Self”
I will probably do another Go Van Gogh Tribute Show in a few weeks.
I’m also posting a couple of shows below that feature Johnny and Go Van Gogh:
This is Johnny’s college film, “Coalfinger,” presented as an April Fool’s Day episode of Radio Free Charleston. The bogus production notes were a collaboration between Johnny and me.
We also have vintage footage of Go Van Gogh on The RFC MINI SHOW, in an expanded form, shot at The Levee, in 1991. The Levee is better known today as The Boulevard Tavern.
PopCult will continue to pay tribute to Johnny over the next week.
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