Blue Haze, Christmas, Mingling With Art And The Blues: RFC 46 Production Notes
July 15, 2008 by Rudy PanucciThe 46th episode of Radio Free Charleston is online now! Rush on over to watch it. This installment features full songs from Casi Null (singing about the infamous Blue Haze) and Dog Soldier (singing about the infamous Christmas). We also have parts of songs from future RFC guests The Buttonflies (in the 120 Second Art Show) and The Diablo Blues Band (over the end credits).
The host segments were shot in and around the Hansford Art House just last Friday, and I’ll tell you why my performance was so inept on the other side of the jump, along with photos and more details on the production of RFC 46, “Charleston The Opera Shirt.”
Our first musical guest this time is Dog Soldier with “The Christmas Song.” We captured them on tape the same night that we recorded Quick and Dirty for episode 44. We will have them on again in the future. This dynamic group has a unique sound and they put on one hell of a show. The next time we record them, we want to bring in extra cameras. Dog Soldier has a busy week this week. On July 17 they’ll be at Mulberry’s in Ravenswood. On the 18th they’ll be part of the tribute to Randy Lee Walden at The Blue Parrot and the next night they’re at The Fairplain Yacht Club in Ripley.
It looks like I’m failing to resist the urge to make a “Christmas in July” remark. Sorry.
Casi Null is one of the most versatile and irresistible performers in town. Whether she’s playing percussion or acoustic guitar as half of The Clementines, ripping out progressive electric riffs as part of Punk Jazz, or doing her own thing or jamming with someone new, Casi just exudes pure bliss when she’s making music. We have her in a somber mood on this show, with a song she co-wrote with her dad, Ed Null, “Blue Haze.”
Our animation this time is an old classic, familiar to viewers of Night Flight back in the 1980s, it’s the first part of “The Mascot” by Wladislaw Starewicz. This was made in 1934 and to quote Wikipedia, it’s ” a long and strange story about a loving dog puppet who practically goes through Hell to get an orange to a girl dying of scurvy.” The remainder of this classic will be brought to you in the Radio Free Charleston TV Archive project. Longtime viewers of RFC may have noticed that our first 26 shows are no longer online here at The Gazz.com. We were simply taking up too much server space.
Since there’s been demand for the early shows (from all the way back in 2006) we’ve launched the RFC TV Archive page at MySpace, which will bring back from weblivion the first installments of our little music, animation and weird stuff program. However, we’re not bringing them back unchanged. Since the early shows went up, we have parted ways with some of the contributors, notably Third Mind Incarnation and the cartoon “Pentagram Flowerbox.” Essentially, neither of us were happy working with each other, and because of that, I didn’t feel right leaving their work in the old episodes of the show. So those segments will be cut out and replaced by “The Mascot.” If you want to see Pentagram Flowerbox the way it’s creator intended, visit their webpage. The first RFC Archive Show featuring The Mascot will appear This Friday.
Finally, we have my performance as host. It stinks. The show is great, one of our best, but I was really off that night. Part of the reason was that Melanie and I had a wonderful dinner at The Bluegrass Kitchen right before we headed over to Hansford Street for the exhibit. Normally a great meal is not a problem, but this dinner was so good that I wanted to crawl off and take a nap. Couple that with the fact that, not only did I not have a script for this show, but I didn’t even have an outline, and you can see why I had to do a hatchet job on my segments while editing the show. We also decided, after shooting the host bits, to switch the contents of episodes 47 and 48. I sort of explain that during the show.
But the reason I come across like Max Headroom at times was that I kept losing my train of thought and saying “Damn, that was some good catfish!”
So that’s the dirt on RFC 46, “Charleston The Opera Shirt.” In one week we’ll smack you upside the head with episode 47, featuring Mark Bates and The Vacancies and The Diablo Blues Band. One week after that, come back for our tribute to Randy.