We have a star-studded episode of Radio Free Charleston for you this week with music videos from Byzantine and Radiohead, plus a performance from The Third Eye Cabaret. The Wayward Girls School of Burlesque stars in animated form in our Radiohead video and we also have animation from Andrew of Hellblinki! Host segments were shot in the living room at Stately Radio Free Charleston Manor, and our show’s title shirt is “CameraBot 600” by the artist, Zomboy.

But before all that starts, Linda Blair meets Penn Jillette.

On February 23, our first musical guest will release their long-awaited, self-titled album, Byzantine. This legendary West Virginia Heavy Metal band has reformed with their original line-up after a few years apart, and they’re sounding stronger than ever.

The group used kickstarter to fund their new album and it’s a powerful, personal musical statement, recorded with no record label interference. The music video for “Soul Eraser” debuted online just a couple of weeks ago. It was directed by Matt Maloney and shot right here, in West Virginia. We are proud to help herald the arrival of Byzantine by sharing their video here on Radio Free Charleston

Our animation this week is, “Big Head” by Andrew Benjamin, from Hellblinki. Hellblinki (sometimes known as The Hellblinki Sextet) have been RFC favorites since their debut back on episode 49. Just a couple of weeks ago Hellblinki released a new collection of demos and rare tracks from their entire recording history. You can order it here.

You may be wondering how we managed to get Radiohead for RFC. Well, a few years ago, Radiohead held a remix contest on their website, and our own RFC big shot, Frank Panucci, entered his remix of their song “Nude.” This is a pretty drastic remix…Frank tells us that he got death threats over it…but even though he didn’t win, we had this cool piece of music that we could use for the show The only thing was, we needed a video for it.

That’s where The Waywrd Girls School of Burlesque comes into the picture. Charleston’s own burlesque troupe made their live performing debut last fall at The Empty Glass and our cameras were there. I figured that, since the Radiohead song is called “Nude,” it would be the perfect place to use that footage. But I didn’t just want to plop it out there as raw video.

Instead, I used my graphic programs to alter, manipulate and paint over the dance stylings of Penny Maple, Elle Zombeah, Lilli Lugosi, Kitty Killton, Pepper Fandango and Lavender Menace. The end result is what you are about see in this week’s show. One side note. On the night of the recording, I was taking still photos, and we only had one cameraperson, Lavoy Ure, who managed to get me in most of her shots. That’s why I can be seen in the background during most of the video as the cartoon creepy old guy with a camera. Luckily, if I hadn’t mentioned it here, nobody would have noticed.

You can see The Wayward Girls School of Burlesque in the flesh at their Valentines Day show on February 8 at Kanawha Players at 9:30 and on Valentines day itself, February 14, The Wayward Girls will be at The Empty Glass as part of the annual Empty Glass Anti-Valentine party. There will be live music and all sorts of cool goodies at both shows.

On our way out this week we are visit a cool new fixture on the Charleston Music Scene, the Third Eye Cabaret, created by our old Gazette liason, Douglas Imbrogno. Every Thursday night at the Cellar on Capitol Street, it’s a multimedia cabaret for the 21st century, with music, video, spoken word and more. Playing us out we feature Doug and Albert Perrone, two-thirds of The Brothers Sisters, with Albert’s song, “Twenty Thousand Days.”

At some point in the near future, we’re going to bring you an entire show from The Third Eye Cabaret. For now, enjoy this episode of RFC.