Production Notes RFC Halloween

Episode Eight of Radio Free Charleston, the conclusion of our two-part Halloween special is in the books. You can see it here. Be sure to check out the first part of the Halloween special here. I was killed in the first half, and you can see me revived in the second half. So sit back and read the detailed production notes, as promised.

We brought back Professor Mike, who had first appeared on episode six, to kick off the Halloween festivities with their song "Poolshark." The Mikes just put on a great show Saturday Night with Ten Carp Lie at the Blue Parrot Halloween Party. Their performance was directed by Brian Young, and taped at LiveMix Studio (the area's only DVD showcase production facility for bands).


Tim Nichols, late of The Todd Who Project, is the driving force behind BetaJesus and Pentagram Flowerbox. You can expect more of his irreverent humor aided by a crack crew of animators and collaborators on future episodes of RFC. Timmy seems to be the breakout star of Pentragram Flowerbox, so don't be shocked if we see a lot more of him as well.


The Pistol Whippers have one of the most fanatic followings of any band in town, but even their most die-hard fans must have been shocked to hear them UNPLUGGED! Guy Parker and Dirt Reynolds came in to do an acoustic number when our schedule prevented us from getting the full band. We will have the entire lineup of the Pistol Whippers on a future show. Also, the song they perform is called "Nothingville." In the show, we called it "The Clock Is Ticking," because when we gave them a clipboard and told them to write down the song title, they gave us an entire page of jokes and "thank you'" for our end credits, but forgot to give us the song title. So we had to guess. We guessed wrong.

Clownhole was a legendary new-wave band of the late 1980s, fronted by John "Sham Voodoo" Estep, who had previously been in the even more legendary group, The Defectors. I wrote about trying to track Sham down a few weeks ago, when I featured him (and me) performing the song of the week. Since then, I was able to contact him, and got his blessing to have Clownhole's massive hit, "Heads On Fire" remixed by my brother Frank, who also created a video for the song. This has been so well received that I pulled the song out of the show and uploaded it to YouTube. You can watch it at the end of this post.


I have written many times about my notoriously camera-shy significant other, Melanie Larch, who is well-known among area theater and symphony aficionados. I was able to coax Mel on-camera with the plum role of my "Fairy Ghostmother," who brings me back to life at the end of the episode. Mel's actually been the voice behind the RFC Jingle since episode two, but you can finally see her on-screen, albeit in a white fright-wig. Yes, it's the same wig I wore in last week's Local Music Report.

So there you have it. Our big epic production that wore everyone out as we delivered the two-most intensively-produced episodes of RFC within eight days of each other. I hope you enjoyed them. We will have Professor Mike and episode seven's The Concept back on future shows, and we hope to bring you the entire line-up of The Pistol Whippers very soon. Whistlepunk will also be back on RFC, and you can expect more Pentagram Flowerbox. The big news that I've saved for last, we are in the very early stages of arranging for at least a partial reunion of Clownhole, sometime before the end of the year. Stay tuned to PopCult for more details. And check out the video below.