Instrumental Invasion, 6/17/20 June 18, 2020
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The June 17, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded exactly one month earlier on May 17.
Work on the playlist began on May 2 with annotations coming on the 11th and during the recording session on the 17th.
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Instrumental Invasion, 6/10/20 June 11, 2020
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The June 10, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP marked the first time original musician liners were included. The first ten shows featured repurposed liners from The Mike Chimeri Show and Homecoming Weekend.
After linking to the April 29 show post on LinkedIn, saxophonist and vocalist Paula Atherton contacted me about recording a liner. I gladly accepted and also received her current single, “Can You Feel It?” Flushed with success, I reached out to my other musician friends to record liners of their own. Within six days, I had liners from each of them. I suggested Chieli Minucci acknowledge our in-joke about how my surname should be pronounced “key-mary” like “key-ellie,” but he took that further than I expected. I’m satisfied with how it came out, especially after I padded the reverb at the end. Another pleasant surprise came from Bill Heller who ended his liner with a piano flourish from his song “Blackbird on a Fence.”
Regarding my last name’s pronunciation, my father Bill said “key-mary” is correct, but our Italian ancestors endured mispronunciations so often that they gave up and went with “shimary.”
I began crafting the playlist on May 1 with annotations on the 11th and during the recording session on the 14th. To accommodate the new liners and music, I replaced the “1984 & earlier” segment in favor of a third “2017-present” segment.
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Instrumental Invasion, 6/3/20 June 4, 2020
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The June 3, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was the last of the initial ten shows I recorded in March and April.
The playlist was created and annotated on April 14 with additional annotations on the 25th and during the recording session on the 27th.
I was laughing as I said bassist Michael Palazzolo’s name during the back-sell of “Topside” by Bob James Trio because of a part I edited out where I tried to imitate the song’s synth voices.
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Instrumental Invasion, 5/27/20 May 28, 2020
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The May 27, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was #9 overall.
The playlist was created on April 12 with annotations on the 14th, 15th, and during the recording session on the 25th.
The “woo! yeah!” excerpt I used while back-selling “Hustlin'” by Eric Marienthal is from the Wikipedia entry.
I had Pat Summerall on my mind when I said “Touchdown.”
The way I talked up Steve Cole‘s “Good News Day” was an homage to Professor Farnsworth’s “good news, everyone!” exclamation on Futurama.
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Instrumental Invasion, 5/20/20 May 21, 2020
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The May 20, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was the eighth show to air. It was the first to include liners provided by fellow WCWP alumni Bruce Leonard, Father John Commins, Jay Mirabile, and Pete “The Body” Bellotti.
The playlist was created on April 11 with annotations on the 14th and 15th. The show was recorded on the morning of April 23 with a talk break rerecord in the afternoon. I said “but first” twice while talking up the last two songs of hour 1 and initially missed the mistake.
David Benoit‘s cover of “Eye of the Tiger” marks the first time I’ve played a song off a cassette as his Waves of Raves album only came out on cassette and LP. I was unaware this compilation album even had an original track until last summer. Once I found out, I checked YouTube and found this:
Then, I bought a cassette on eBay. After it arrived, I connected a USB phono preamp to my cassette deck and recorded the track to Adobe Audition, saving as WAV and MP3 files. The WAV file is what you heard on the show, a decision unrelated to originating on Waves of Raves.
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Instrumental Invasion, 5/13/20 May 14, 2020
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The May 13, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was the seventh show recorded. By this time, I had eschewed theme weeks in favor of five segment formats:
- 1984 & earlier
- 1985-1995
- 1996-2006
- 2007-2016
- 2017-present
The formats can be implemented in any order and one can be used twice. In this show, and most shows going forward, that honor goes to 2017-present.
The playlist was created and annotated on April 5 and the show was recorded on the 6th. The current photo for the blog header and about page was taken after recording the first segment.
After hearing arrangements of Super Mario World music in the Splash Wave retrospective on that game and its sequel, Yoshi’s Island, I just had to seek out the game’s two-CD soundtrack album. The arranged music is on the first disc and Koji Kondo’s in-game music is on the second. My favorite arranged track is “Welcome to Mario World,” based on the title screen song, thanks to Sadao Watanabe on saxophone. Once I got my theme weeks out of the way, I found a spot for the song on Instrumental Invasion.
If you’re interested, here is the Splash Wave video:
“Welcome to Mario World” is heard during the end credits.
7/25/21 UPDATE: While preparing for the September 8, 2021 show, which included another cut from the arranged disc (“Thank You, Mario!”), I realized I incorrectly referred to the Mario World Band as “the Mario Club Band.” I don’t know what led me to believe that was right.
I like my regal talk-up for “Proclamation” by Metro at the top of the show and the risque talk-up for Spyro Gyra‘s cover of “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream. It’s also fascinating when I crack myself up as I did back-selling “Katy’s Groove” by Jay Rowe.
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Instrumental Invasion, 5/6/20 May 7, 2020
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The May 6, 2020, Instrumental Invasion show on WCWP was the last of the six shows I recorded between March 25 and 30. During my phone conversation with Jeff Kroll two hours before recording, Jeff told me I should work the legal ID into my hour 2 intro in case it doesn’t run in automation. So, I did. When he spoke to me again via text as the April 1 show began, he clarified that I should do it at the top of both hours, which I started in the May 13 show. As it turns out, the legal ID has run for all but the first segment of that first show.
The playlist was made March 23 with annotations the next day and during the recording session on the 30th. I had to redo talk breaks for the second hour’s first segment on the morning of April 30 due to a factual error in the original record. In a callback to Nelson Rangell‘s “By Light,” which Jay Rowe co-wrote but did not appear on, I noted that he was the keyboardist on Ken Navarro‘s “Walking Each Other Home.” A check of the liner notes last Thursday morning revealed it was really Dan LaMaestra. The redo instead acknowledged Rob Holmes playing three saxophones and Ken and Greg Grainger playing virtual drums. To get the segment to 18 minutes, I also had to shorten the top of the hour intro and back-sell of “Rise” by Ben Tankard. With that complete, I edited the playlist scan to remove my incorrect annotation.
I only cited album release dates in this show and the one on April 22. During the outro, I neglected to mention that Keiko Matsui‘s Echo came out on February 22, 2019.
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Instrumental Invasion, 4/29/20 April 30, 2020
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The April 29, 2020, Instrumental Invasion show on WCWP was the fifth to be mixed and recorded between March 25 and 30. It was the last show with hours dedicated to one year.
The playlist was made on March 23 with annotations the next day and while recording on the 29th, exactly one month before it aired.
The way I said “Spoons” while talking up Eric Marienthal‘s song was a reference to The Tick‘s catchphrase, established in this scene from the episode “The Tick vs. Arthur’s Bank Account“:
I missed an opportunity to call back to Gerald Albright‘s bass work on “Sassy” by Bobby Lyle while backselling “Highway 70” in the 2010 hour.
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Instrumental Invasion, 4/22/20; Show banner April 23, 2020
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The April 22, 2020, Instrumental Invasion show was the fourth to be mixed in Adobe Audition 2020. The talk breaks were recorded March 25, but I had to pad a few out during the mix on the 28th. David Benoit coincidentally hosting a show on another 88.1 FM – KKJZ-FM – had to be acknowledged. I was listening to it while writing the first draft on April 1.
I made the playlist on March 23 and annotated it the next day. I made additional annotations while mixing and re-recording.
After recording this show, Dan Cox, WCWP Director of Broadcasting, informed me that my show would be airing weekly starting the following week. He suggested I should also record a promo:
The excerpts I included in that promo were inspired by what I had played:
- “To the Top” by Adam Hawley
- “Feel It Still” covered by the aforementioned David Benoit
- “Tidal Wave” by Nelson Rangell
- “When We Dance” by Ken Navarro
For the second week in a row, the show aired flawlessly. Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Four days earlier, on April 18, WCWP‘s social media handler, Kim Brander (a.k.a. The Original DGunboats) suggested I make a logo or banner for Instrumental Invasion. After 45 minutes in Adobe Photoshop CS2, I came up with this:
The keys are from my Yamaha YPG-625 located in the basement, which I photographed with my iPhone 11. The WCWP logo is from the icon toward the bottom of the station’s website homepage. If you right-click “view image,” you get this. From there, you can “save image as” or just do that directly from the homepage without opting to view it.
Kim is another male, just like the ones I referenced after playing female Kim Scott‘s “Take It to the Rink.”
Instrumental Invasion, 4/15/20 April 16, 2020
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The April 15, 2020, Instrumental Invasion show on WCWP was the third I mixed between March 25 and 30, but the fourth show I recorded talk breaks for.
Like the first three shows, work on the playlist began March 22 with annotations on the 24th along with the other five.
I’m proud of the anecdotes about listening to “Heartbeat” by Spyro Gyra on the way back from my sister’s college graduation and Jessy J writing my name and then signing hers for my copy of My One and Only One. I also liked the allusion to Batman while talking up Jessy’s “The Tango Boy” and quoting Chieli Minucci’s March 7 Facebook post. I regret forgetting to say his last name, forgetting that I played Jeff Lorber in the first hour while talking up “Right On Time” in the second, and not acknowledging the Pat Bianchi Trio’s album, A Higher Standard, while talking up their song and signing off. I got wrapped up in the “from the bottom of my heart” segue.
The show was correctly programmed into automation and aired flawlessly. Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
MikeChimeri.com 
