Episode 77 of RFC

This is the first episode of Radio Free Charleston that was produced and posted independently of the Charleston Gazette. When it first went live in August, 2009, it was posted directly to MySpace.

And that's why it's being re-posted again, because MySpace turned out to be a bag of idjits. We have taken the oppurtunity to remaster it into psuedo hi-def at this writing, in May, 2014.

This episode features music by Universes and OVADA, both recorded at The Empty Glass, plus a snippet of The Contemporary Youth Arts Company’s 2008 production, “Jack The Ripper,” featuring Ryan Hardiman who has done just under 300 local musical theater productions since.

The timing for bringing this show back from limbo couldn't be better. Universes was a duo consisting of Jason Reese and Justin Gardner. After a while, Universes sort of faded away, and Jason joined the group, Farnsworth, which was another duo, this time with Chris Vance.

Farnsworth, has decided to change things up a bit, and they've brought in a new member--Justin Gardner. So it's sort of like a reunion of Universes, or a supergroup, or a Rugby team or something. 

Editors note: Hours after writing this, we discovered that the new member of Farnsworth is not Justin Gardner, but is in fact a different guy named Justing.

Sadly, Ovada has not yet gotten back together, but we're still hoping. Rad, Joseph, are you listening?

Our title shirt was from the band, Joy Division. Our location was on the East End of Charleston, and our "Fake Rudy" at the end was the one I was asked not to use when the show was hosted on the Gazette servers.

The original production notes follow the video. Keep in mind that the links is busted, prolly.

Universe And OVADA Fire Up RFC 77

August 5, 2009 by rudy panucci

Radio Free Charleston’s latest episode is RIGHT UP THERE! Click on it and watch it. In the event that you see nothing up there but raw code, that means that printer’s devils have snuck over from the print version of the newspaper. You can thwart them by watching the show at THIS LINK.

This episode features music by Universes and OVADA, both recorded at The Empty Glass, plus a snippet of The Contemporary Youth Arts Company’s 2008 production, “Jack The Ripper,” featuring Ryan Hardiman, who can be seen this weekend in “Rent.”

Host segments were shot while strolling around the East End of Charleston Tuesday evening. In addition to the music, we also have vintage animation and a Plant Ro Duction Mini Movie. This is the first episode of the show that we’re posting directly into PopCult, so let us know if it’s working okay in the comments section below.

Our first musical guest is Universes, featuring the music of Justin Gardner and Jason Reese. We knew Jason from his time as the drummer for The Synergy Collective, and we’ve been watching with great interest as Universes gestated over the past several months and finally became a full-blown band. 

Their atmospheric music and evocative lyrics are unlike any other band in town. We look forward to hearing them play out more in the future, and you can rest assured that we’ll have more songs from this up-and-coming band in the coming weeks. We recorded this show, one of the band’s first, at The Empty Glass, where they performed their song, “My Ears Don’t Burn.”

Our second musical guest is OVADA, who made their RFC debut (and, in fact, their debut as a band) just a couple of months ago. We captured Joe Rita, Cliff Boyd, John Radcliff and Joseph Hale at The Empty Glass back in May, and you can hear them firing up their searing tune “The Electric God” on this episode of RFC.

Our animation this time is a 90-year-old cartoon by Glenn Bray, re-edited with a new score by yours truly. It’s a sad story, really. The story in the cartoon, that is. My score is only bad, not pathetic.

Bray, by the way, was the inventor of the acetate animation cel. He is also world renknown for his variations on Bach.

We also feature the Mini Movie, “Deliberately Tainted Drink” by The Plant Ro Duction Zionist Conspiracy To Serve Pancakes To Calligraphers. A trivia note, this film stars the sister of Orly Taitz, the Obama “Birther” conspiracy hound. Whorly Taitz has been a Plant Ro Duction starlet since she came to West Virginia as a Russian mail-order bride a few years ago. In addition to being an actress, Whorly is also a dentist, lawyer, pastry chef, children’s book author, semi-professional plate spinner and cosmonautologist (she does hair and make up for Russian astronauts).

We wind up the show with a clip from last year’s production of “Jack The Ripper.” I recently discovered this snippet of the show tucked away on a spare 2 GB card for my camera, and thought it’d be cool to use this so folks can get an idea of how powerful Ryan Hardiman will be this weekend performing in “Rent” for the Charleston Light Opera Guild. Click here for ticket info and show times. Also in this clip, the amazing Tanya Dillon-Page and the wondeful Alicia Lewis, both of whom have been featured on RFC before.

Next week Radio Free Charleston welcomes back our old friends, Tofujitsu, and legendary Charleston cool person Deni Bonet to the show. Deni will be playing a special concert at LiveMix Studio on August 15, and we’ll offer up a little preview of what you can expect. Also next week, the long-awaited real, honest-to-goodness start of The First Great Guitar Giveaway courtesy of RFC and Route 60 Music.