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Instrumental Invasion, 12/29/21 December 30, 2021

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Golf, History, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, New Year, Personal, Radio, Travel, TV.
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The December 29 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded in two days: the first segment at home on November 9 and the other five at my remote location on the 10th. The denoise filter was applied to all talk breaks but the first. Pickups were recorded on December 14, without the filter, for three shortened segments.

The playlist was created on November 7 and annotated on the 8th with the script draft carrying into the 9th. I forgot to include the New Year’s Eve host succession included in the annotation for “Auld Lang Syne,” but it’s fine. It was better to focus on Guy Lombardo and my Freeport beginnings. The use of Fourplay‘s “Auld Lang Syne” makes this the second week in a row where the show begins with a song from their Snowbound album. It’s also the second regular show in a row with an extra 2017 to present segment in place of 1984 and earlier.

Michael Brecker‘s rendition of “Song for Bilbao,” which followed “Auld Lang Syne,” was first played last June 24. This time, listeners got to hear the correct information as my segment redo the last time didn’t air. I played “Groove Reflections” by Jay Rowe to make up for the end getting cut off on November 3.

The last time I visited my grandparents’ condo, in March 2011, I photographed grandpa Carmen’s hole in one trophy from two angles:

As I said coming out of “Hole in One” by the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Carmen shot a hole in one on the eighth hole of Tarpon Springs Golf Course on August 11, 1995.

The show had its share of running gags, including “plural” and a flat “yes” response to musical questions.

Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:

See you in 2022!

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Instrumental Invasion, 12/22/21: Christmas December 23, 2021

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Christmas, Country, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, New Age, Personal, Radio, Video, Video Games.
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My festive thumbnail

The December 22 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded from home on November 4 (four segments) and 5 (two segments and pickups) with the denoise filter applied to all talk breaks. Additional pickups were recorded on November 23 and December 13, both without the denoise filter and the latter while shortening four segments. It was recommended on the 13th that I make 18-minute segments. Between this week and January 26, I’ve shortened any segments that were padded by liners or songs that don’t start with a talk-up. The first show with 18-minute segments in mind will be February 2, 2/2/22. Wait till you hear what I have in store.

The playlist for the Christmas show was created and annotated on November 3.

Like last year, the show included two songs each by David Benoit and Mannheim Steamroller, but also two versions of “Carol of the Bells” (1 1/2 last year) and “Jingle Bells.” One of those versions was Jay Rowe‘s that I referenced last year. This year, a slightly longer version was included on Jay’s new album, Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas, from Jay Rowe. The November 23 pickup came after Jay announced the album’s release on Facebook. Here’s the original single version, not the album version that aired:

I was glad to reference Roy’s poem in Game Dave‘s video posted exactly a year before the show aired:

Roy’s portion is about 8:20 in.

Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:

Merry Christmas!

Instrumental Invasion, 12/15/21 December 16, 2021

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Rock, Technology, TV, Video.
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The December 15 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded its entirety at my remote location on November 1, immediately after annotating the playlist and drafting the script. The playlist was created the day before, on Halloween (October 31). It’s the fastest turnaround from creation to completion since the July 14 show, which was created, annotated, and script drafted on June 2, and recorded on the 3rd.

To play it safe, I applied the denoise filter to all talk breaks, except for the pickup I recorded from home which is the first time I noticed how echoey my room is.

Back at home, I was a few days into re-digitizing my DAT and analog cassette recordings of The Mike Chimeri Show on WebRadio WCWP and the original The Instrumental Invasion on WGBB. Those shows were fresh on my mind during recording, as was Full House, a show from my youth, which I was four seasons into on HBO Max. Hence, “you got it, dude!,” and allusions to my early radio shows and its lead-ins: Jay Mirabile (2001-02) and Ryan Grabow (2003). It’s too bad that the stock laugh that The Nanny ran into the ground – as noted in the October 27 post – was used first by Full House starting in season 7. That laugh again:

Torture.

For the second time in the last four weeks, I swapped out the 1984 and earlier segment for an extra 2017 to present. I also opted to list release dates for 2021 releases instead of billing them as “all-2021 segments,” which I’ve overdone. One of the 2021 songs was the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio‘s cover of “Careless Whisper” by George Michael. Bill McClintock did a great mashup that combines the backing track to George’s version with the vocals from “Love Gun” by KISS. Watch:

This was the second week in a row with a song from David Benoit‘s album, Here’s to You, Charlie Brown: Great Years! This time, I cited the accompanying TV special, which was the last Peanuts special on CBS before ABC took over broadcasting rights. What I didn’t mention is rights now belong to Apple TV+ and PBS.

As for the December 15 Instrumental Invasion, click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:

Festival of Games recap December 13, 2021

Posted by Mike C. in Animation, Aviation, Christmas, History, Internet, Media, Personal, Photography, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games, Weather.
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Saturday, for the first time in two years and four months, I made the pilgrimage to the Cradle of Aviation Museum along Museum Row in East Garden City. The event was Festival of Games, spun off from the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. The main expo returns next August, but video games were calling for me. So, I bought a ticket to the Festival on November 23.

My plan Saturday was to attend for two to three hours, walking through the vendor hall, free play zones, and ticketed arcade zone. (Patrons were given a ticket with their wristband at the front desk.) If any arcade games caught my eye, I’d play them. Then, I’d go back to the vendor hall and pick up games. I followed that plan to the letter upon my arrival just after 12:30. Here are the photos:

  • A R.O.B. quintet “dances” to Christmas music.
  • Computer Space is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month (and last month)!
  • Ah, Tetris. As I noted in my recap of the 2019 LI Retro (the expo’s preferred shorthand, rather than LIRGE), I have fond memories of playing the Tetris arcade game at Kutsher’s Hotel and Country Club in March 1995. It was the third of four years in a row of weekend retreats with my fellow congregants of Union Reform Temple. We went to Kutsher’s in ’95 and January ’96, and prior to that, the Nevele Grand Hotel in January ’93 and ’94. Sadly, URT and the two resorts are now defunct.
  • The next arcade machine I played was Street Fighter II. I picked up where the previous players left off, but didn’t realize they were in two-player mode until I had my way as Guile with Dhalsim.
  • After this, one-player mode kicked in and I was summarily defeated by Ryu, despite somehow winning round 2.
  • I am better with the NES port of Donkey Kong Jr. than with the arcade original.
  • “Body blow! Body blow!”
  • Out of privacy, I chose to remove the boy’s face from this photo.
  • I’d heard about Rolling Thunder, but never played it until Saturday. Again, I didn’t get far.
  • After that, I gave Double Dragon a go. Yet again, I didn’t get far, but it was far enough for me.
  • I could not get a handle on Arkanoid, nor am I the best at its spiritual sibling Breakout. I’m great at Alleyway on Game Boy.
  • NFL Blitz isn’t the same off N64.
  • Last but not least, another game I saw in the arcade room at Kutsher’s: NARC.

I didn’t play NARC then (or now), but I videotaped two of my friends playing, per these vidcaps (12/27 UPDATE: I upscaled the vidcaps with Bigjpg):

I left this out of the stacked gallery, but one of the free play TVs was connected to a Famicom Disk System, which ran a festive program:

Back at the vendor hall, I picked up 33 games for various consoles. I don’t remember what I bought from which vendor, but the business cards show they were Geek Guilt, Flashback Gaming, The SemiCollector, and Joega’s Comic Chaos. When greeting one of the vendors, I inadvertently said “hello” like Sheldon Cooper, Jim Parsons‘ character from The Big Bang Theory (and Iain Armitage‘s from Young Sheldon). Noticing, I repeated and got a laugh. As I edited Saturday’s photos, I noticed I missed a couple of vendors over the course of my shopping spree. Oh, well.

As I shopped, I checked my video game collection Word document to make sure I didn’t buy a game I already had. I didn’t.

While waiting for a ride home, I photographed my haul:

Once I got home, I photographed my pickups by console.

Going chronologically, I picked up 15 NES games:

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode is out of order because I mistook the subtitle for the lead title. Thank goodness for Pat Contri‘s Ultimate Nintendo: Guide to the NES Library.

Five for Sega Master System:

The vendor took $10 off Rastan.

Three on Game Boy:

Two for Super Nintendo:

One for Super Famicom!:

Two for Sega Genesis:

One for Sony PlayStation:

One for Nintendo 64 (N64):

Two for PlayStation 3:

Two for Microsoft Xbox 360:

And one for Nintendo Switch:

In writing, the games were:

Nintendo Entertainment System:

Sega Master System:

Game Boy:

Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom*:

Sega Genesis:

PlayStation:

Nintendo 64:

PlayStation 3:

Xbox 360:

Nintendo Switch:

Thank you to LI Retro for an enjoyable Festival of Games. I’ll see you in August.

Instrumental Invasion, 12/8/21 December 9, 2021

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio.
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The December 8 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded on October 25 (four segments) and 26 (two segments) with pickups on the 27th. Hour 1 was recorded from my remote location (with the fluorescent lights turned off); hour 2 and pickups were recorded from home.

The playlist was created on October 24 with annotations and the script draft following on the 25th, immediately followed by recording.

This was the first show I worked on after Homecoming Weekend, and the first with 18:30 segments in mind.

It was the second show in a row where a song from Norman Brown‘s debut album led off the second segment. “Top of the Tower” by Jay Rowe returned to make up for the last 25 seconds getting cut off on October 20.

Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:

Instrumental Invasion, 12/1/21 December 2, 2021

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, History, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Radio, Technology, Travel, Video.
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The December 1 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded one hour per day on October 10 and 11.

The playlist was created and annotated on October 9 while the script was drafted before recording on the 10th.

I chose to take the next two weeks off to focus on covering WCWP’s Homecoming Weekend and then to unwind, but was pressed into service on October 21 after an additional underwriting spot at the top of each hour necessitated shortening segments to 18:30, and also picking up where I took out a liner. The first segment couldn’t be shortened.

This is the first show with a new thumbnail, after updating my profile photo on my various platforms last Saturday. I took the photo on a GoPro Hero 7 attached to a 10″ flexible tripod. I held a tripod leg with my right hand while taking the photo in an iPhone app with my left hand. It was time-consuming adapting the photo to the show banner, and then updating thumbnails for all completed shows recorded to date, but the end results were worth it, even if the image is darker without a flash.

I led off the show with “Unisphere” by The Dave Brubeck Quartet because I had purchased their Time Changes album – an ironic title, considering my later circumstance – after watching video of a live performance on Dave’s Facebook page:

The song was inspired by the steel structure that served as the theme symbol to the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. As noted on the air, I saw the Unisphere firsthand back in July 2017:

This is the documentary I spoke of, After the Fair:

I saw The Rippingtons live at My Father’s Place in Roslyn in March 2019, the night before Open Road was released. Their set included “Tangerine Skyline.”

I made up for last week’s mistake by including “Watch Your Step” by Chris Geith in the second hour’s second segment.

Click here to download this show’s aircheck MP3 or listen below: