Three Years! 75 Shows! Unknown Hinson! The Pistol Whippers! RFC 75 is LIVE!
July 6, 2009 by Rudy PanucciRadio Free Charleston celebrates three years of terrorizing the internet with local music, film and animation with our 75th episode! “Unknown Hinson Shirt,” our third-anniversary Rock And Roll Extravaganza, is online now!
This landmark edition of RFC features music by The Pistol Whippers and Unknown Hinson, both legends of honky-tonk psycho-billy stage. We also have a snippet of Princeton’s Option 22 over the end credits.
Our first musical guest is The Pistol Whippers. We originally planned to have the Whippers on our first Halloween show, back in 2006, but the fates conspired to keep them from appearing at full strength. We did have a really cool unplugged performance by Guy Parker and Dirt Reynolds.
The Pistol Whippers parted ways shortly after that, but a year-and-a-half later they put aside their differences (rumored to be over liquor and wimmens) and Guy, Dirt, Billy Dynamite and Lance Steele reunited for a one-off show at The Empty Glass, celebrating the Glass being named one of the top 100 bars in the country.
Eamon Hardiman was in charge of recording the March 2008 event for a documentary (editing is still in progress) and I was on hand as a hired gun to run camera. It was a wild, sweaty night of rock-n-roll excess. The Empty Glass was packed like a beer-soaked Black Hole of Calcutta. Through the good graces of Eamon, we’re able to bring you The Pistol Whippers doing “Roller Derby” from that night.
This is a one-camera video, shot by yours truly, and I hope it manages to capture some of the magic of that night. I was thrilled to witness that epic night of musical debauchery.
Introducing the Whippers we have legendary wrestler Bull Pain. Bull recorded this intro for us way back in 2006, and we finally have a chance to use it. Thanks Bull! Thanks also to Oderus Urungus, for the salutation you see after the Whippers tune. We know we used it a couple of weeks ago, but it’s SO COOL!
Headlining RFC 75 is Unknown Hinson. The King Of Country Western Troubadours was kind enough to introduce Hasil Adkins back on our fiftieth episode, but this time we’re able to bring you a full performance by the man.
We caught up with Unknown Hinson in May at The Sound Factory. Unknown, backed by Tiny Kohrs on bass and Frank the Tank on drums, tore through an amazing set that left the crowd weak-kneed and clutching their chests. From that night, we bring you “Peace, Love and Hard Liquor.”
Thanks again to Unknown Hinson and his band, and to Roadblock for helping us get permission to record that night.
That’s most of the background info on the production of RFC 75. We do have a few unsuspecting co-conspirators in the show. Eagle-eyed viewers may spot Chuck Biel, Bain Ashworth, Scott Elkins, Jack Dent Jr., Rebecca Burch, Jenna Brooke Smith,and RFC’s official Barista, Chelsea Cook in various places in the show. Also, even though it looks like we shot our special guests in the same location, Ann was recorded at The Clay Center, Necrobutcher was recorded backstage at The Schoenbaum Amphitheater at Coonskin Park, and Bull Pain was recorded at The South Charleston Community Center. We just made it looked like they were all in the same place by using millions of dollars of CGI. It is our third anniversary, after all. We wanted to pull out all the stops.
You will want to come back in two weeks. Just because we wrapped 75 shows in three years, it doesn’t mean we’re done. We have Suburban Graffiti and Option 22 penciled in for the show, plus a Plant Ro Duction Mini Movie and God only knows what else.
In the coming weeks we plan to feature music by Flare Baroshi, The Universes, Melty Melty, Tofujitsu, Whitechapel District, Watt 4, Jonathan Glen Wood, The Spurgie Hankins Band, The Scrap Iron Pickers, OVADA, J. Marinelli, The Limbs, The Concept, The Big Bad and more! This is only the beginning.