Radio Free Charleston 169, “The Black Knight Rises,” features music from Emily Burdette, Godmode Broadway and The Nanker Phelge, plus two short films by Frank Panucci. Host segments were shot at The Mound in South Charleston about an hour later than we’d planned, and we plug a couple of cool local events, both of which are coming up this Saturday.

This week’s episode is hosted from The Mound in South Charleston, where September 29, part of Shocka Con will take place. This year’s Shocka Con will be a fundraiser/preview of what organizers hope will be a full-blown horror and fantasy convention next year.

This year there will be horror movies, including Eamon Hardiman’s “Porkchop 3 D,” screened just down D street at The historic Labelle Theater, seminars at the South Charleston Public Library, and at the Mound, following the Monster Parade, it’s live music from The Dead Ringers, The Nanker Phelge and The Renfields, plus performances from The Monster Dolls and the cast of Kanawha Player’s Evil Dead.  

We have a great episode of our show this week. I mentioned that there’s music from Emily Burdette, Godmode Broadway and the aforementioned Nanker Phelge, plus the two short films by Frank Panucci. We also have some sorry-looking host segments, thanks to bad timing on my part. We’d intended to shoot our segments at the Mound right before twilight, when you could still see the surrounding areas. A delay of just a few minutes, plus a dumb choice of hat by me, meant that we were shooting in total darkness, with only street lights to help us. Plus my black hat keeps disappearing against the background. It’s as pretty as if I wore a green shirt for a chroma key show.

It also makes it hard to see our namesake shirt, “The Black Knight Rises,” by Nathan Davis. Any design that mashes up Monty Python and Batman deserves a closer look.

This episode leads with the first of two shorts by Frank Panucci. “A Guide To International Road Signs” is a classic, award-winning educational short made by Frank way back in 1990, before the fall of the Berlin Refrigerator and the collapse of the Potrzebie regime in Eastern Europe. We also get a new LAX animation, which includes a subtle subliminal advertisement.

Our first musical guest this week, Emily Burdette is a talented singer/songwriter, and a filmmaker to boot. She made her RFC debut this summer on our FestivAll special, and on this episode we are proud to bring you her debut music video, “Fall Air,” just in time for our first show of the autumn. This video was directed by Curtis Baskerville, and shot in Lewisburg, West Virginia.

In a future episode, you’ll get to see Emily’s work on the other side of the camera, as we bring you a music video directed by her.

Godmode Broadway made their debut on RFC earlier this year, and they’ve been tearing up the local music scene ever since with their progressive eclectic audio assault. On September 29 they will be part of September Slam, An all-day show put on by our friends at Wood Boys Music at Kanawha Players Theater.

We recorded Godmode Broaday earlier this month at The Blue Parrot, and they treat us to their song, “Origins.” .

Our final guests this week will be performing on the Mound stage at Shocka Con at 7 PM. It’s our old friends, The Nanker Phelge, and they play us out with a song recorded on Christmas Eve, 2010 at The Empty Glass, “Killer Took a Holiday.”

You can find this song on their CD, which can be ordered here.

That’s it for this week’s show. Next week we return with music from Farnsworth, Johnny C and The Scurvy Dogs and the new CYAC musical, “The Legend Of Ginger & Billy Joe, The Stock Car Musical,” Plus a new Prelinger clusterfilm by Frank Panucci.