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Instrumental Invasion, 3/8/23 March 9, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Comedy, Comics, Computer, History, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Radio, Technology, TV, VHS, Video, Video Games.
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Since there’s much to discuss and many photos and videos, I’ll post the scoped aircheck up here (and below) instead of at the end:

The March 8 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded from January 14 to 16: the first hour on the 14th, the next two segments on the 15th, and the last on the 16th. Pickups were recorded that day and the next (January 17).

Due to a facility issue at the Abrams Communication Center, WCWP activity was not allowed the day this show aired. Station manager Pete Bellotti informed me the show would air at 7PM and 9PM since there couldn’t be a live edition of The Rock Show. The above scope is from the 7PM broadcast.

The playlist was created and mostly annotated on January 11. The rest of the annotations came on the 12th, followed by the talk break script draft that carried into the 13th. A timing error in the first segment meant I had to make up a 72-second surplus. I successfully made up that time without having to remix segments.

Five songs in this show have appeared in prior shows:

“Freda” was preceded by David Benoit‘s arrangement of “Frieda with the Naturally Curly Hair” from Here’s to You, Charlie Brown: 50 Great Years! I had yet to see the special that gave David’s CD its name, but watched a few days after completing production. Here it is:

A chance viewing of a video that showed the differences between the original and subsequent airings of A Charlie Brown Christmas got the ball rolling on Peanuts documentaries and specials. The first video YouTube recommended was the documentary A Boy Named Charlie Brown, not to be confused with the later film:

I challenge fellow Peanuts fans to count how many scenes foreshadow later specials and films.

The second video chronologically was the third recommended to me: Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown.

The second special I watched was It’s Your 20th Television Anniversary, Charlie Brown. (I originally omitted the “television” part, correcting the error in my January 17 pickup.)

The last special I watched on YouTube before working on this show was You Don’t Look 40, Charlie Brown. This special coincided with the unrelated CD Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown! David Benoit appears in a “Linus and Lucy” music video, concluding with his anniversary wishes to Good Ol’ Charlie Brown.

10/14 UPDATE: I originally posted another channel’s upload and lamented losing my VHS copy of this special. Earlier this week, I found that tape in a basement bin and digitized it through my RetroTINK-5X and Elgato Game Capture 4K60 Mk.2.

After Here’s to You, I watched the CBS News special Good Grief, Charlie Brown: A Tribute to Charles Schulz, hosted by Walter Cronkite:

This aired February 11, 2000. Schulz died on the night of the 12th, and his last Peanuts strip ran on the 13th. The above thumbnail is of Donna Mae Wold (née Donna Mae Johnson), who inspired the Little Red-Haired Girl.

And just this Sunday, the following ran on CBS Sunday Morning (4/12 UPDATE: CBS removed the YouTube version, so here it is via Facebook):

Lee Cowan’s report featured Schulz’s widow Jean and Pearls Before Swine cartoonist Stephan Pastis (first name pronounced like Stephen Curry).

As my Facebook friends and Instagram followers know, I obsessively archived Brian Simpson‘s Closer Still CD for posterity since it’s rare for anyone to find the real thing. (You can’t even find it on eBay!) I won’t share my WAV and MP3 rips from the CD since you can buy and stream the tracks digitally from places like Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Spotify. I will, however, share my camera photos and flatbed scans. Photos first:

The Discogs seller may have paid $2.99, but I was more than willing to pay their asking price of $39.97, plus shipping and tax. Archival!

Scans:

I used the magic wand tool in Adobe Photoshop to edit out the black background, then cropped the image.
This was also cropped after removing the white background. Each of the last two were scanned in grayscale. All the rest were RGB color.
I even scanned the CD.

“Hidden Pleasures” (track 4) was the centerpiece of my three Brians segment (two Brians, one Bryan). The talk break that followed paid homage to two video game-centric content creators: Game Dave and Metal Jesus, with a reference to Frank Cifaldi and the Video Game History Foundation for good measure. Metal Jesus occasionally posts “hidden gems” videos, highlighting overlooked video games. Here’s a marathon of six episodes he did on Wii hidden gems:

Thank you for reading to the end of this post. I’ll return to the regular show recap format next week.

My city pop discovery (and reacquaintance with Garfield and Friends) March 5, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Animation, City Pop, Comedy, Comics, Film, Game Shows, Health, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Phone, Pop, Radio, Technology, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games, Weather.
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NOTE 1: This is also a Garfield and Friends story with several montages among the city pop material. Those montages led me to city pop.

NOTE 2: I consulted my computer audio recordings of the Garfield and Friends DVDs to ensure the video embed caption quotes are verbatim.

NOTE 3: I even spend a paragraph on The Weather Channel tribute site TWC Classics, a simulator that re-creates the old local forecasts, and recently departed announcer Dan Chandler who lent his narration to the sim.

Nearly 50 years ago, Japan’s economy was booming and a new leisure class developed. That leisure class begat a new Japanese pop music genre, borrowing elements of various Western music genres. They called it city pop. What began in the 1970s, peaked in popularity in the ’80s, then fell out of the Japanese mainstream.

City pop found a new Western audience in the 2010s thanks to blog posts like mine (but earlier), Japanese reissues of the genre’s albums, and YouTube uploads of the albums’ tracks. From a 2023 perspective, I give YouTube most of the credit. Today, it is the best city pop recruitment tool.

The rest of this post is about how I discovered city pop and recounts my first nine days as a fan. If you want to read more about the genre and its resurgence, I recommend Cat Zhang’s 2021 Pitchfork article and Wikipedia’s city pop entry.

On February 19, YouTube recommended a video with random clips from my favorite cartoon series, Garfield and Friends:

Jim Davis created the Garfield comic strip and CBS TV specials, but Mark Evanier (with Sharman DiVono for three seasons) spun comedy gold on CBS Saturday mornings from 1988 to 1994 (the last rerun aired in ’95). I can quote parts of episodes or even whole episodes. So, when watching the above clips, I knew what happened next.

The next Garfield and Friends clip in my recommendations came on February 20:

The evening of February 21 was my city pop entry point, but we’re not there yet. The prelude to the entry was this:

“Today [Monday], Garfield, we’re going to eat nothing but raisins!”

Full disclosure: I met Jim Davis at a signing in March 1995, but I was too shy and just had him sign a sketch. And I interviewed Jon Arbuckle voice actor Thom Huge (HUE-ghee) three times for The Mike Chimeri Show. (In retrospect, I would have held off on the first interview until his voice was back to normal.)

The Jon Arbuckle montage led YouTube to recommend this:

According to Know Your Meme, the video originated in the 1991 CBS TV special, Garfield Gets a Life, where it was set to “Shake Your Paw,” performed by The Temptations. The score and three songs (including “Shake Your Paw”) were written by David Benoit (music) and Desirée Goyette (lyrics).

Whoa! What is that song that sounds vaguely like “Burnin’ Up the Carnival” by Joe Sample (from Voices in the Rain)? I scrolled down and saw the song was “4:00 A.M.” by Taeko Onuki (or Ohnuki). I searched Google on my iPhone and the Taeko’s Wikipedia entry (linked in the previous sentence) and found the song. That prompted the YouTube app where I heard the whole thing:

Whoa again, it appeared on an album with the last name of a few of my friends, but with an extra N. Lyrics are here.

1:30 PM UPDATE: A member of the My Life in Gaming Discord server told me the album title was part of Taeko’s fascination with French media, which I confirmed after a Google Search yielded this 2017 interview. Still, Mignonne is one letter off from my friends of Italian descent.

3:10 PM UPDATE: I just finished reading the interview linked in the prior update. It was an interesting read, but I was disappointed to learn Taeko did not like Mignonne because of what transpired during production. The resulting disenchantment, and poor sales, made her take a two-year hiatus from the music industry. Anyway, back to the good stuff.

Taeko’s Wikipedia entry led me to the one on city pop. That’s what I heard and I wanted more.

I could not stop listening to “4:00 A.M.” Ironically, it kept me up past midnight, but not as late as 4AM. I was up at 4AM on March 4 when I drafted this blog post thanks to a period of strong easterly winds that buffeted my bedroom window. The song’s refrain may sound vaguely like the later “Burnin’ Up the Carnival,” but the song otherwise had more in common with the works of Bob James and Grover Washington Jr. The line “ima o” was phrased like “that’s the time” in “Feel Like Makin’ Love” by Roberta Flack, which Bob played on and then covered. The guitar solo on the ending breakdown sounded like it came from Eric Gale‘s hands. (It was from Tsunehide Matsuki‘s hands.) I have repeatedly imagined Grover Washington himself covering “4:00 A.M.” on alto saxophone, soloing (improvising) from the last refrain, through the breakdown, all the way to the end.

I should probably acknowledge that I am on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, formerly known as Asperger Syndrome. That probably explains my intense focus on one thing or another, and attention to detail.

I was busy with radio show production on February 22, but “4:00 A.M.” was in the back of my mind and I was intent on extracting the audio and assigning the WAV file to a vintage Weather Channel local forecast flavor in my WeatherStar 4000 simulator. Now, I could hear all but the last 36 seconds with the current conditions and forecast, peppered with Dan Chandler’s re-created narrations. (I was in touch with Dan for a few weeks midway through my tenure at WGBB, and he even called in while I was playing a song. I didn’t put him on, but relayed what we talked about, including “reading the sports pages” as he listened to the live stream. After writing that sentence, I’m sorry to learn that he passed away on February 7 [obituary].) The simulator was already populated by music cues from The Price is Right and adjacent Goodson–Todman game shows. See the February 15 Instrumental Invasion recap for more on that obsession.

While my “4:00 A.M.” obsession continued, YouTube had more city pop recommendations, including a modern music video for Mariya Takeuchi‘s “Plastic Love“:

Mariya only appears audibly through the original 1984 song. In ’82, she married the king of city pop, Tatsuro Yamashita. I was impressed that her English vocals were English, not transliterations.

Oh, and another Jon Arbuckle montage:

As the “Plastic Love” video wound down, I pretended to be Dan Ingram back-selling the song, quipping that it was better than polyurethane love.

My vocal city pop discoveries halted for the next few days when I found a city pop creation befitting my love of instrumental music: jazz fusion supergroup Casiopea!

First, I found “Midnight Rendezvous“:

Then, “Eyes of the Mind” before the “the” was added:

Groups like Casiopea and T-Square (formerly The Square) have influenced generations of video game music composers.

I woke up on February 23 after a full night’s sleep and was greeted with two more Jon Arbuckle videos:

“He can’t cook! He can’t get a date! He’s Jon Arbuckle, and we’re giving him away absolutely free! In fact, we’ll pay you to take him!”
“Let’s not ask questions. Let’s just get out of here.”

As I listened to my radio show aircheck from the night before, I began extracting audio from whatever Casiopea albums were on YouTube (mostly via their “topics” channel), provided the cover art available online was clear and at least 1500×1500 pixels. If AI upscaling in Adobe Photoshop yielded poor results, I’d buy the CD myself and scan the artwork. That’s what I did for Flowers (1996), but I bought Euphony (1988) because it wasn’t on YouTube. I will eventually buy the actual CDs, but given the inflated import prices, collection take a while. Here’s what I do have:

I’m still working my way through the albums chronologically in my spare time. Flowers is gradually on its way from a Japan Discogs markeplace seller, so I jumped from Freshness to Light and Shadows. That’s where I am as of publication on March 5. (I got in eight hours of sleep the night before.)

The last item in this post’s Casiopea segment is T2norway‘s video profile of them, preceded by his city pop story:

Thanks to my college friend Phil Federico for bringing this to my attention. I can overlook T2’s mispronunciations of Harvey Mason and Lee Ritenour, who also appeared on Casiopea albums. In fact, they, Bob James, and Nathan East – future members of Fourplay – all appeared on Casiopea studio recordings.

The night of February 23, YouTube recommended two more Garfield and Friends videos. One was yet another montage:

And the other was a series review by Nostalgia Critic, played by Doug Walker (who was born the same day as me!):

I was let down by his critiques of certain characters and the animation style, not to mention his disdain for U.S. Acres. Nonetheless, I respect his dissent.

My city pop discoveries resumed on the night of February 25, related to “Plastic Love.” Leading off, a Super Famicom/Nintendo rendition:

That was followed by the infamous long version of the Mariya Takeuchi original (lyrics):

(As of March 13, the video was taken down. In the long version, one verse repeated and the ending chorus was extended, exemplified below.)

Since I was watching in a web browser, I saw recommendations on the right side of the tab. The one that caught me eye was an English version of “Plastic Love”:

The singer-songwriter was Caitlin Myers, also a voice actress with a focus in anime and video games. She has two YouTube channels: one in her name and one called Interlunium. I was unaware of the scope of her work as I watched this first video. (3/31 UPDATE 1: Interlunium is a virtual idol group where Caitlin portrays Junko.) (3/31 UPDATE 2: Caitlin’s version of “Plastic Love” was reworked with original instrumentation and new vocals for her 2021 compilation, City Poppin’.)

More city pop discoveries came way on February 26. Figuratively waiting at the door to this new day was “Mayonaka no Door* (Stay with Me)” by the late Miki Matsubara, recorded when she was just 19 (lyrics):

*”Door” is lyrically transliterated “doa.” The full term means “midnight’s door (literally, door of midnight).” In another ironic twist, there were nights after discovering this song when I’d be awake around midnight as the refrain bounced around in my head. Sometimes, I imagined a fast tempo, “Spain“-esque Chick Corea version with a Minimoog solo. Others, I thought of McCoy Tyner.

Sure enough, Caitlin Myers wrote an English version of this, too:

The anime artwork is based on a 1980 photo of Miki.

Incidentally, I added both versions of “Plastic Love” and “Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me)” to the WS4000 simulator, again using the five-minute local forecast flavor.

Knocking on afternoon’s door was the biggest discovery yet: Caitlin covered “4:00 A.M.”!

Caitlin and her two backing vocalists came closer to the gospel choir sound for the line “Lord, give me one more chance!”

My city pop journey had seemingly come full circle. Now, I had English versions of the first three vocal city pop songs I discovered to complement the originals.

The Garfield and Friends video journey definitely came to end on the morning of February 28 with this video showing one second of each episode from show (or rather from each cartoon in each episode):

However, there was more city pop to be had that afternoon. Other Caitlin Myers English adaptations were in my YouTube feed, and I felt I had to hear the originals before listening to hers.

“Do You Remember Love?” was adapted from its directly-translated Japanese title, “Ai Oboete Imasu ka.” Sung by Mari Iijima, it underscored the intense climax to the 1984 film, Macross: Do You Remember Love? I foolishly watched that sequence on YouTube instead of a straight recording of the song, unable to unsee or unhear any of it. (And I thought Disney villain deaths were rough.)

Lucky for you, the reader, I found a straight recording (lyrics):

And the Caitlin Myers version:

3/13/23 UPDATE: “Do You Remember Love?” was J-pop rather than city pop, illustrating how songs from the subgenre led me to ones from the main genre.

“Dance in the Memories” was next, written and performed by Meiko Nakahara (lyrics):

It was the third closing theme (tema) to Kimagura Orange Road, which I assume was a lighter anime series.

Caitlin’s turn:

She even matched the quirky “mem-morries” pronunciation.

Closing out my first week in city pop, “Telephone Number” by Junko Ohashi (lyrics):

Magical was a 1984 compilation. “Telephone Number” originated on Tea for Tears in ’81, co-written by her husband Ken Sato.

I had to make a 3-minute, 30-second local forecast flavor to accommodate the song’s 3:58 run time (3:59 for Caitlin).

As a suburban New Yorker, I like Magical‘s cover art of Lower Manhattan featuring the original World Trade Center. I passed by One World Trade Center in 2014 while running the Tunnel to Towers 5K.

The hook – “ah-uu, 5-6-7-oh-9” – brought two things to mind:

Musically, Caitlin did a masterful job replicating the sound of each song she adapted into English. On behalf of city pop fans everywhere, thank you, Caitlin, for your efforts.

Thank you to the many city pop artists whose works inspired by our (the West’s) music have boomeranged back to us.

And thank you, the reader, for making it to the end of this post. Wish me luck on the rest of my city pop journey. Be sure to catch Instrumental Invasion April 26 at 9PM Eastern (April 27 at 11AM in Japan) on WCWP. It’ll be the first show with music by Casiopea, and about ten minutes into the last segment, I allude to some of what I laid out in this post because I play Scott Wilkie‘s cover of “Burnin’ Up the Carnival.” (5/2 UPDATE: Here is that show’s recap, along with my journey since writing this post.)

I’ll leave you with Caitlin Myers’ Japanese versions (lyrics by Datenkou) of “Never Gonna Give You Up“…

…and “September“:

Festival of Games 2022 recap December 16, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Animation, Aviation, Christmas, Game Shows, History, Internet, Media, Military, Personal, Photography, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games, Weather.
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Last Saturday, the second annual Festival of Games was held at the Cradle of Aviation Museum along Museum Row in East Garden City. The so-far one-day spinoff of Long Island Retro Gaming Expo (read about the 2022 LI Retro here) was my latest chance to walk and snap photos in as many sections as possible. Then, back to the vendor halls to add video games to my multi-console, multi-generation collection.

Thanks to my past recaps, I have made friends with the organizers, volunteers, and a week before this Festival of Games, the museum’s director of marketing and community relations, Jerelyn Zontini. I’m honored to know them and to promote special events like this.

I did not think to check the Festival of Games website for this year’s schedule, so I missed out on the panels in the main stage (planetarium) and classes in the classroom, but I saw everything else on offer, and was surprised to meet legendary collector, YouTuber, and streamer Pete Dorr at his vending table. More on that later.

To photograph the event, I brought my Canon EOS R7 with RF-S 18-150mm lens and Speedlite 430EX III-RT. When writing about my initial experience with the mirrorless camera, I did not lower the resolution on test photos. Considering the camera’s higher native max resolution (6984×4660) with the same 3:2 aspect ratio as my previous camera, it made sense while editing Saturday’s photos to increase my default blog post/social media resolution. Thus, going forward, photos will be no lower than 2000 pixels vertically, stepping up from my max horizontal resolution of 2600 pixels.

Again planning on a two-hour stay, my mother dropped me off at 12:43 PM:

Once inside (and having my bag searched), I presented my e-ticket printout to a box office attendant who stamped my left hand.

A promotional banner for Cradle-Con:

Each section I walked through at Festival of Games has a dedicated photo gallery. We start with the vendor hall gallery:

Sure enough, it’s Pete Dorr! I would definitely return to his table.

The board game section:

One of the photos taken here was posted to the museum’s Facebook page.

In all the years I’ve been inside the Cradle of Aviation Museum, I never observed its exhibits. I rectified that after passing the board games section.

I assume the title says “we have” instead “we’ve had” because the misattribution is more popular.
Coincidentally, the next day (Sunday) marked the 50th anniversary of the final Apollo mission‘s lunar landing. Their final EVA on the moon occurred 50 years ago Tuesday. Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 50 years ago next Monday (December 19).
Then, I turned my attention to commercial aircraft and airports.
“Long Islanders see more commercial air traffic than any other people on Earth. How many of these planes can you name?”

MY ANSWER: Most of them, thanks to my proximity to John F. Kennedy International Airport. The planes are either on final approach or just took off. I also see general aviation aircraft coming to or from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, which is even closer to my house.

Back to video games in the free play area:

Tournaments:

On to the second floor:

PC games…
The holiday games section, starting with a dancing R.O.B. quartet…
The middle TV shows the 1996 TV special Sonic’s Christmas Blast.
You may recognize the name Howard Phillips in the credits for Home Alone 2 on the Super Nintendo. It was a LucasArts game released shortly after Howard left Nintendo for LucasArts.
Arcade games…
A pinball machine

Of course, most of the arcade games were housed on the Air & Space hall sky walk:

I chose not to play any of the arcade games or free play console games. I just wanted to buy games, and where better to start than at Pete Dorr’s table? I didn’t introduce myself to him right away, but he approached me after a few minutes of rummaging. That’s when I complimented him on his work. I ended up buying five Sega Genesis games from Pete’s table, which he gave me a great discount on. Then, we posed for a photo:

An hour of vendor-hopping yielded 42 games in all, including seven imports! Four games were for the Family Computer (Famicom) and three were for the Super Famicom. Final Fantasy V was a timely get as GTV Japan posted a retrospective the day before (last Friday).

Satisfied, I proceeded to the parking lot for my mom to pick me up.

As I stood in the lot, I photographed all my bagged pickups. (I put Pete’s games and ones from the second vendor in my backpack.)

Back at home, I spent nearly two hours photographing my pickups, removing price stickers, and cataloging the games.

Pete Dorr’s games are on the left, the ones from the second vendor are on the right.

Now, photos of all pickups by console, starting with Family Computer (Famicom):

Super Famicom:

Nintendo Entertainment System:

Yes, I passed on Deadly Towers again.

Super Nintendo:

I didn’t notice a crack on the upper left of Tecmo Super NBA Basketball until cataloging later. I bought a better condition cart on eBay Tuesday night and put in an offer for another Looney Tunes game, Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos. I bought that on Wednesday when my offer was accepted.

Sega Master System:

Now, I have the original Zillion to go along with the sequel I bought last year.

Sega Genesis (Mega Drive outside North America):

And one Nintendo Wii game: The Price is Right: 2010 Edition:

That last pickup was the culmination of all the time that I spent this year watching various winning pricing games and showcases from the Bob Barker era of The Price is Right, and with my resulting renewed obsession with Barker era music cues, many of which can be found on this YouTube channel.

It was another successful and enjoyable Festival of Games. Thank you to Pete Dorr and all the vendors I bought from, to the LI Retro staff including George Portugal (who I saw on Saturday), and to Jerelyn Zontini. It was great to meet her in person after she connected with me on LinkedIn a few weeks ago.

Instrumental Invasion, 12/7/22 December 8, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Christmas, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Travel, TV, Video.
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The December 7 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded out of sequence on November 5 and 6. I did segments 1, 3, 5, and 4 on the 5th, and 6 and 1 on the 6th. Pickups were recorded on the 6th and 7th.

The playlist was created on October 28 alongside the one for last week. Annotations began on October 29 and didn’t resume until November 3. I went back to a script this week, which I drafted on the 4th and 5th. I’d have done it all on the 4th, but I had errands to run, including shipping the last of my eBay items referenced in my new camera post.

Like last week, I chose to record out of sequence so I could get the presumably short segments out of the way and bank time for the ones I expected to run long. Also like last week, I was still short after principal production, having to make up 15 seconds by reinstating my “fun fact” about Lynne Scott being friends with Laraine Newman.

The Futurama reference after “Robo Bop” by Fourplay dates back to an episode of Mike Chimeri’s Music Collection, my short-lived YouTube series. The excerpt I played was from this video (the title sequence for episode 4ACV17, “Spanish Fry”):

The November 7 pickups were for the second segment after missing an opportunity to link Amy Poehler and Laraine Newman as Saturday Night Live alumnae (that show has come up a lot lately) and memoir authors (Yes, Please and May You Live in Interesting Times). I met Laraine at New York Comic Con in 2019:

There were more callbacks to Homecoming Weekend this week. I returned the favor to Jett Lightning after he played the original “Blue Train” on his Sunday show, and I played two songs that were on my live Friday show. The songs are the respective artists’ current singles and previously heard on the regular Wednesday show (original air dates are in parentheses):

I was told not to play music from Lisa Hilton‘s new Paradise Cove album until after its release date last Friday. Since the title track shares its name with a favorite Russ Freeman composition, I bookended the show with each “Paradise Cove,” marking Lisa’s album’s debut on the show.

I referenced the Dutchess County trip yet again, doing so after “El Swing” by Hudson.

My “beat Army” line after acknowledging Dan LaMaestra‘s tenure with the U.S. Navy Band was coincidental. I forgot the annual Army-Navy [football] Game is this Saturday.

The Dan Ingram joke about Jack Jones stemmed from Dan’s backsell of “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” on June 25, 1966 (heard in Rewound Radio’s The Life and Times of Dan Ingram: In His Own Words):

I slowed the clip down three percentage points to the correct speed.

I excluded the 1984 and earlier segment to allow for an extra segment of music from 2022 releases. The Hudson song filled a gap.

Excluded for only the fourth time in 140 shows was David Benoit. He will be back next week.

Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:

Instrumental Invasion, 11/23/22 November 24, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Blu-ray, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Travel, TV.
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The November 23, Thanksgiving Eve Instrumental Invasion on WCWP took a while to develop, as Kenny Mayne would say. The playlist was created on September 27, annotations began on October 4 and weren’t completed until the 10th while in Staatsburg, the talk break script was drafted on the 12th followed by recording of the first hour, and the second hour and pickups were recorded a week later on October 19. I was going to record on the 13th, but my time mismanagement skills reared their ugly head, and I had a breakdown while rushing to complete errands. Thank goodness WCWP station manager Pete Bellotti talked me down. Per his advice, I suspended production on this show until after Homecoming Weekend, and production was completed on videos of two Saturday shows (Bernie Bernard; Mike Riccio and Bobby G.).

I usually have a wealth of inside information about this reference or that reference, but I’ve wasted enough time. So, click here to download the scoped aircheck or listen below:

Since writing the above text on October 19, I’ve published posts about Homecoming Weekend and what I now call the Dutchess County trip. Listening to “Far Away” by Robben Ford took me back to how far away I felt at times in the AirBNB on Connelly Drive. Watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on 4K Blu-ray on Tuesday (November 22), I realized I forgot to acknowledge Chuck Bennett’s trombone was also the “voice” of the adult whom Charlie Brown spoke to on the phone.

Happy Thanksgiving. Here’s hoping you get the long end of the wishbone like Woodstock (the bird, not the town half an hour northwest of Rhinebeck/Staatsburg).

Instrumental Invasion, 11/2/22 November 3, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Film, History, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Politics, Radio, Sci-Fi, TV, Video.
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I replaced my thumbnail/show banner photo with a selfie taken with my new camera. You can read all about that tomorrow. (11/10 UPDATE: Read here.)

The November 2 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded and mixed entirely on September 19, the first one-day record/mix since June 27 when I worked on all of the August 17 show and the first segment of August 24. I made a timing error when remixing the third segment, which I didn’t notice until September 20. An extra liner and a pickup were required to add five seconds so that “+:13” on the playlist below was true. Additional pickups were recorded on October 10 (after returning from Dutchess County) to correct a factual error about bassist Harvie S‘s “Pyramid” composition, and then to react to a shorter replacement liner.

The playlist was created on September 10 (a day after last week’s show) and annotated on the 14th (after completing last week’s annotations). The talk break script draft began on the 16th, but didn’t resume until the 18th once production was completed on the prior show.

“Incumbent Waltz” is the seventh Vince Guaraldi-composed music cue for a Peanuts special that I’ve played, and a timely one with the midterm elections next Tuesday. Here’s where you can buy those Glenn Cronkhite Custom Cases I referenced in the backsell.

Two songs that aired previously are listed below with the first air date (in parentheses) and the reason for playing again:

I originally had the 2011 version of “Altair and Vega” by Bob James and Keiko Matsui in mind last July 14, but a different timing error – miscalculating the song’s duration – required a replacement. I made up for that this week, complete with the story of Tanabata/Hoshimatsuri, a festival centered around the two titular stars. You can read the Wikipedia entry in the previous sentence, but I also recommend this short video by GTV Japan:

Coincidentally, the show last July had a Star Trek reference leading into the first song. This week’s first song, complete with my paraphrase of the opening spiel, was Maynard Ferguson’s cover of the “Theme from Star Trek.” I had no idea Larry King adopted it as his radio show theme.

Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:

Instrumental Invasion, 9/21/22 September 22, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Comedy, Film, Game Shows, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, News, Personal, Radio, TV, Video, Western.
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The September 21 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded on July 24 (third and first segments) and 25 (all the rest) with a pickup on the 26th.

The playlist was created simultaneously with last week’s show on July 17. Annotations followed on the 19th and the talk break script was drafted on the 22nd. I didn’t realize I had put so many blank-and/n-blank songs in the playlist until drafting the script.

I made another cartoon reference this week – to Freakazoid! – while talking up “Primal Scream” by Maynard Ferguson. The “Candle Jack” segment of episode 2 starts with Joe Leahy announcing that the cartoon would be “presented in SCREAM-O-VISION.” The excerpt leading into “Primal Scream” had Jeff Bennett as the prompter – “scream” in deadpan – and Tress MacNeille as the screamer. The day after I recorded that segment, I learned that David Warner, voice of The Lobe, had died of cancer. Paul Rugg – writer, producer, creator, and voice of Freakazoid – reminded his social media followers of The Lobe’s musical turn in episode 14, “Dexter’s Date.” In the spirit of “Hello, Dolly!,” Lobe, Freakazoid (as Louis Armstrong), and ancillary characters (including Jeff Bennett) sang “Bonjour, Lobey“:

Regarding the Dancing with the Stars tangent I went on in the third segment, a premiere date for season 31 hadn’t been announced when this week’s show was recorded. That date ended up being earlier this week – Monday, September 19. It’s their first season on Disney+, and that platform’s first live show. As noted last night, there are two hosts again, but the dynamic has shifted. Tyra Banks remains in the lead host role originally held by Tom Bergeron with Alfonso Ribeiro (season 19 champion) in the secondary role last held by Erin Andrews. Jessy J had a tenor sax solo during one of the dances!

In a similar vein, playing “Treasure Hunt” by Dan Siegel allowed me to refer to the two iterations of the game show Treasure Hunt. The New Treasure Hunt had a great closing theme: a jazzy rendition of Elmer Bernstein‘s “Main Title” piece for True Grit.

For the second week in a row, songs made their return appearance:

In between the two songs, I played “Don’t Stop” by Paul Brown, leading to my early Mike Chimeri Show anecdote. Go to the 2:13 mark in “anecdote” for my “wouldn’t you know it, they stopped” quip. Jay Mirabile also brought it up at the WCWP Hall of Fame Ceremony in June.

Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:

For airchecking, I scheduled timer records in Audacity on my computer and the one in the guest room. The loopback recording on my computer was flawless, so I deleted the alternate guest room recording, loaded what I kept into Adobe Audition, and went through the usual post-production process.

Instrumental Invasion, 9/14/22 September 15, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Audiobooks, Books, Comedy, Computer, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Technology, TV.
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The September 14 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded from July 22 to 24. The fourth segment was recorded on the 22nd because I rightly anticipated it would be the longest. That was followed on the 23rd by all but the last segment, which was recorded on the 24th along with pickups. I started recorded next week’s show later that day.

An additional pickup was recorded on August 26, the day after the untimely death of organist Joey DeFrancesco, who appeared on Lee Ritenour‘s “78th and 3rd” with drummer (and future collaborator) Byron “Wookie” Landham.

The playlist was created simultaneously with next week’s show on July 17 with annotations on the 18th and 19th. The talk break script was drafted on the 20th and 21st.

Three songs made their second appearance, one of which I’ll elaborate on in the next paragraph (two weeks in a row with a false memory):

I played “Angela” in order to correct my January 19 mistake, a mistake I also made in my pre-recorded 2019 Homecoming Weekend show. Listening to Jimmy Burrows‘s memoir on Audible, Directed by James Burrows, set me straight about the “Blind Date” episode of Taxi, featuring the titular character Angela Matusa (Suzanne Kent). (Oh, Suzanne was an original member The Groundlings! No wonder she did Pee-wee’s Playhouse!) Angela wasn’t literally blind; just gruff and cynical, the opposite of her answering service persona. I don’t know where the false memory originated, but I regret the twice-told error.

Nowhere else will you get a reference to SpongeBob SquarePants after playing “Secret Sauce” by Paul Brown (adjacent to the Krabby Patty secret formula that Plankton tries to steal) or to Phineas and Ferb after playing “Candice Dance” by Richard Elliot and a song featuring guitar solos by Perry Hughes (hence, the Perry the Playtpus reference). As noted on the air, Candace Flynn spelled her name differently.

After recording last week’s aircheck on my new PC, I noticed that audio levels were bumped up when certain songs faded out or on vocal pauses in liners and talk breaks. Those bump-ups were replaced with audio from an alternate aircheck on the Dell PC in the guest room. I chalked it up to an audio enhancement setting and thought to have that enhancement off this week. Sadly, the problem was still there this week. I wasted nearly three hours figuring out how to stop that from happening. I now assume it’s related to the motherboard’s “Audio Boost 5” feature.

Finally, at around 2:45 this morning, I came across this webpage. The solution was option 2:

Don’t have a Stereo Mix option? No problem. Audacity has a useful feature that can record the audio coming out of your computer – even without Stereo Mix. In fact, Audacity’s feature may be even better than Stereo Mix, assuming you’re willing to use Audacity to record the audio. This method takes advantage of a feature that Microsoft added in Windows Vista named the Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI) [link added by me]. The feature also functions in Windows 7, 8, and 10, and helps make up for the lack of a Stereo Mix option on modern Windows PCs.

In Audacity, choose the “Windows WASAPI” audio host, and then choose an appropriate loopback device, such as “Speakers (loopback)” or “Headphones (loopback).”

Click the Record button to start recording the audio in Audacity, and then click Stop when you’re done. Because you’re using Audacity, you can easily trim and edit the sound file when you’re done.

How to Record the Sound Coming From Your PC (Even Without Stereo Mix)

It’s ironic that the solution came via free software while a program I paid for years ago – Easy MP3 Recorder 2.0 – and one I pay for monthly – Adobe Audition – are no longer useful on the new build for recording system audio.

The angst caused by the problem is the reason this post wasn’t published until afternoon. I still needed to add these paragraphs and then scope the aircheck.

Click here to download that scoped aircheck or listen below:

Instrumental Invasion, 8/3/22 August 4, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, TV.
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The August 3 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over two days: four segments on June 8 and two on June 9. Pickups were recorded on June 12 and 15.

The playlist was created alongside next week’s show on June 5 and 6. I worked on each show’s first hour and middle of their second hour on the 5th, and the 2017-present segments on the 6th. Annotations for this week’s show began on the 6th and carried into the 7th. Each show’s talk break script was drafted on the 8th. I hoped to start recording that day, but was preoccupied with setting up my new iPhone 13 Pro.

I tried to get as many segments as possible recorded before the WCWP Hall of Fame Ceremony on June 11 because I knew I’d be busy with post-production afterward. I was right. While I recorded nine segments combined in two days, it took four days to record next week’s second hour.

Picking up on an idea from last week, I purposely allowed myself to go under 18 minutes in a given segment to allow for more time in one that runs long. I only had three seconds of extra time going into the last segment, but they came in handy.

The “you latched onto Instrumental Invasion with Mike Chimeri” line coming out of the Dan Ingram liner referenced the gasser promo for WABC in 1964. (More WABC promos can be heard here.) Be sure to listen on September 7 as I pay tribute to Big Dan by playing songs that start with letters in his radio station call letters.

The quip coming out of “Take That” by Julian Vaughn – “where do you want me to take it?” – was a nod to Mark Evanier‘s great line for Binky the Clown in the “Binky Goes Bad” episode of Garfield and Friends:

Judge: Take the stand.

(Binky takes a chair and presents it)

Binky: Where do you want me to take it, huh?

Early in the show, I noted that “The Jive Samba” by The Cannonball Adderley Sextet (on Jazz Workshop Revisited) incorporated the Minsky Pickup, one of many things I’ve learned from TV Tropes.

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

Instrumental Invasion, 7/13/22 July 14, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, TV, Video.
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The July 13 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was the third straight show with the 1-3-2 recording configuration: one segment on May 20, three on the 21st, and two (and a pickup) on the 22nd.

The playlist took three days to create: May 15 (the segments with singles), 17, and 18 followed by annotations. The talk break script was drafted entirely on the 20th before recording the first segment.

The show led off with “Is It James or Charlie?”, a cue from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving found on the second Lost Cues CD. Until reading the linked Wikipedia entry earlier this year, I naively thought most incorrect track listings were correct. This is the page I referenced on the air, cited in the entry.

Five songs made their second appearance, two of them singles on the smooth jazz radio charts at the time of recording, which is why I worked on those segments first. In order of appearance, the songs are:

If that wasn’t enough, I played both of Nelson Rangell‘s studio recordings of “Sonora” by Hampton Hawes in honor of his latest live whistling and piccolo rendition at Smooth Jazz for Scholars in April. Watch the performance here:

Marion Meadows also performed “Marcosinho” that night.

This was the first show with instances where the second song of the set will start, and is faded down for a liner before going back to full volume. I did that at the start of “Fantasy in D” and “Throw Yo’ Hands (In the Air)” by Gerald Albright.

Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below: