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.add a comment
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 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, 11/30/22 December 1, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Comedy, Dogs, Football, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Pets, Radio, Travel.add a comment
The November 30 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded out of sequence between October 31 (Halloween) and November 2. Three segments were recorded on October 31 (first, fifth, third), one on November 1 (second), and two on November 2 (fourth, sixth) followed by pickups.
The playlist was created alongside next week’s show on October 28. Annotations began on the 29th and were completed before recording on the 31st. To keep up my four-week buffer, I did not write a talk break script, going by annotations instead. Ironically, that made raw recordings longer as I searched for the right words to say.
“Tickle Time” by Herb Alpert makes me think of a video posted to Briar the Lab’s Instagram page: “Chomp the [imaginary] pickle. … Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle!”
This week and next, I include(d) songs that were played on my live Homecoming Weekend show (also unscripted). This week, it was “Pioneer Town” by David Benoit and “Eddie’s Groove” by Gerald Albright. Those songs were previously played on Wednesday nights – April 20 and July 27, respectively. I was unaware “November’s Child” by Special EFX was their latest single when I made the live show playlist on the afternoon of October 7. I found out via Watercolors during the car ride to Dutchess County that evening. I almost forgot to include it this week, but as you heard, it was the last song of November.
As you also heard, Bernie Bernard played “Time Out of Mind” by Steely Dan during her show after the Homecoming football game, hence its inclusion this week. I did not expect to find my description of the song’s antagonist so funny while backselling Grover Washington, Jr.’s cover, but the reaction speaks for itself. It’s funnier to call him a “pretentious, pseudo-religious” meshuggener (crazy person) than to end on the word “crank,” as Stewart Mason did in his review (per the “music and lyrics” section of the Gaucho Wikipedia entry). Next week, a nod to Jett Lightning’s inclusion of “Blue Train” in his show. (Read about the entire weekend here.)
Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:
Bonus: the post-“Pioneer Town” (get it, Post Pioneers?) excerpt of a Jeff Kroll touchdown call from the 2017 Homecoming football game:
Photos from Dutchess County trip, drive back home October 28, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Aviation, Baseball, Biking, Comedy, Film, Fire, Health, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Politics, Radio, Running, Sci-Fi, Sports, Technology, Travel, Video, Video Games, Weather.add a comment
In two of my Homecoming Weekend posts (live show, main post), I referenced a family trip to Dutchess County the prior weekend. This post is about that trip.
Back in the spring, my mom sprung the trip on me: a few of my relatives were going to run a race – The Fall Foliage Half Marathon and 5K – in Rhinebeck on the Sunday of Columbus Day Weekend and we would all be put up in a nearby AirBNB. I initially panicked, worried that it would conflict with Homecoming Weekend (henceforth, HCW), but one of my alumni friends assured me the LIU Sharks‘ Homecoming football game would likely be the following weekend. And in recent years, it has been held on the third Saturday of October. My conscience was clear and I was prepared for the trip.
I assumed the AirBNB would be in Rhinebeck and my parents, sister, and I would leave for there on the morning of Friday, October 7. Instead, we were to leave in the mid-afternoon and the house was in Staatsburg. I had an extra day to prepare since I decided not to go to New York Comic Con this year, or ever again, due to my disenchantment with the event and a need to save money for paying off my PC build. (And then, a week later, I went and bought a new camera and related equipment, which I’m still trying to get the hang of.)
I have a mixed record when it comes to time management. More often than not, I mismanage my time, and that’s what I did prior to departure on Friday afternoon. In the days leading up to the weekend, I tried to get as many radio shows recorded as possible to allow for a sizable buffer of weeks ahead. I only managed to produce and record the HCW prerecord and one regular show (November 16). I finished creating the playlist for the live HCW show with only an hour to spare before leaving the house.
Annotations for the live show and next regular show (November 23) were done from my laptop during downtime at the AirBNB. It was not an easy task with constant action at breakfast time or with babies occasionally crying indefinitely, all amplified by the hardwood floors on the main floor. Most of the regular show annotations were done on Sunday evening when I had the house to myself and then in my bedroom with white noise blaring in my earbuds.
Don’t chalk this up to disdain for the experience that weekend. Overall, I had a great time seeing the sights and catching up with relatives.
My parents and I left at 3:15 Friday afternoon and drove five minutes east to pick up my sister at her apartment. Four hours of traffic and spotty cell service later, we arrived at the AirBNB on Connelly Drive in Staatsburg.
For privacy’s sake, I won’t include photos of the house’s interior or of my family, but here are two exterior shots I took Saturday afternoon:
The rest of the post is dedicated to scenery photos taken from Saturday, October 8, to the ride home on Monday, October 10.
First, two more negatives:
- The Mets completed their unraveling by losing their National League Wild Card Series to the Padres. I found out about their game 1 loss Saturday morning, game 2 win Sunday morning, and game 3 loss seconds after it happened Sunday night. It was extremely demoralizing. I spent five months of my life believing this was the year the Mets would win their third World Series, allowing me not to care if they’d win a fourth in my lifetime. Five months of my life were wasted for nothing, including hours spent editing photos from the two games I attended. Obviously, I won’t make a slideshow of photos from that second game, which turned out to be the apex of the Mets’ season; all downhill from there. I hadn’t thrown away so many months expecting an outcome that didn’t happen since the 2012 presidential election. And I was away from home that night, too, at a family friend’s house in Rockville Centre, waiting for power to be restored back at my Wantagh home. (It was the next afternoon.) (11/1 UPDATE: Whoops, forgot to note power was lost during Sandy. I wrote about my experience here.) Incidentally, that family friend now lives an hour north of where we were and she met up with us Sunday in downtown(village) Rhinebeck.
- In another case of time mismanagement, I hurriedly and anxiously shaved my face and neck on Saturday and Sunday, making everyone wait before we could drive to wherever we were going. I cut myself in multiple places, and contemplated going back to an electric razor after nearly 20 years of a manual razor with five-blade cartridges. My dad generously bought one for me as an early birthday present on Monday morning. As of publication, I’m still mastering it. Most of my face is easy to shave, but I can’t get all the hairs off my neck, above my chin, or below my sideburns.
Now for the photos. Saturday morning, October 8, included a trip to the Kesicke Farm Fall Festival (more alliteration) in Rhinebeck. One day after warm and slightly humid conditions, conditions were sunny and breezy with temperatures in the 50s. I brought a winter hat and light gloves on the trip, but only needed the gloves.
Returning to the AirBNB:
Sunday, October 9, brought us back to Rhinebeck. I packed my camcorder and tripod on Friday because I thought we’d be watching the end of the races Sunday. I thought wrong. I did use the camcorder Saturday afternoon to record soccer practice with my sister and our cousin. We did, however, walk up and down Market Street in Rhinebeck. That made me think of a song bearing that name by Yellowjackets from the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home soundtrack. Of course, the film was based in San Francisco, not Rhinebeck, but Rhinebeck was the location of Spyro Gyra‘s last album of original music to date, The Rhinebeck Sessions.
A recent episode of Sound Sack included misheard lyrics Joe Redifer imagined for music in Tengai Makyō: Fuun Kabuki Den for PC Engine (making me laugh real hard) and Sega Rally 2 for Dreamcast. Misheard lyrics for a cue from Sega Rally 2 included “because your fear of Daryl’s pager.” It may have an extra R, but this clothing store on Market Street made me think of Joe’s lyric. 
For my dad, a Freeport firefighter, I photographed this firehouse. 
Notice the lens flare? 
I walked through the Rhinebeck Farmers’ Market with my mom, aunt, and their high school friend (the aforementioned family friend). 
The folk stylings of Eric Erickson 
A selfie (with the blemishes and shaving cuts edited out) 
Another pair of road signs on the way back to Staatsburg:
While I was walking through Rhinebeck, my dad biked to and from the Ashokan Reservoir via the Ashokan Rail Trail. Those are the first two photos below. He took the third Sunday evening while everyone but me traveled to the Walkway Over the Hudson. (I stayed in Staatsburg.)
Monday morning, October 10, I spotted three wild turkeys walking through the AirBNB’s backyard. I went outside to take photos with my phone, and ended up following them several yards into the woods.
Trembling from excitement and anxiety (I wanted to go home), I shot this shaky video:
We left for Wantagh at around 10:30 AM. These photos were taken on the way to the Taconic State Parkway:
On the parkway:
“Lucky” by Ken Navarro was playing on SiriusXM’s Watercolors. 
A rest stop 
I-84:
I-684 (briefly in Connecticut):
No longer content with my phone’s 3x zoom, I switched to my DSLR. 
The Hutchinson River Parkway/I-678 (supplementing my photos from May 1):
Viewing Manhattan from the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge 
The Cross Island Parkway:
And finally, the Grand Central Parkway/Northern State Parkway:
The last photo of the trip
It took less than 2 1/2 hours to drive from Staatsburg to Wantagh. After a short treadmill run to compensate for Friday’s shortened run, I tried my best to unwind. I edited Saturday’s and Sunday’s photos at the AirBNB, but took care of Monday’s photos at my remote location on Tuesday and Wednesday (October 11 and 12). After uploading the scenery photos (and selfie) to WordPress and making a rough draft of this post with only the photos, I shifted my focus to HCW (Homecoming Weekend, if you forgot) and finally wrote a recap on the 24th, publishing today, the 28th. Thank you for reading it all and I hope you liked the photos.
Instrumental Invasion, 10/26/22 October 27, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Baseball, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, News, Personal, Radio, Sports, TV, Video.add a comment
The October 26 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded in sequence on September 17 (four segments) and 18 (two segments).
The playlist was created on September 9, following a production hiatus while assembling and setting up my new computer and drafting the subsequent blog post.
As noted in the October 5 post, going forward, annotations are made in a separate Microsoft Word document, from which the talk break script is drafted in its usual document. I never share the script, but since annotations are an extension of the playlist, I will share those. This week’s annotations were made on September 13 and 14 with the script drafted on the 15th.
This is also the first week with 18:05 segments in mind, and a desired total duration of 1:48:30. Segment 1 of hour 2 was exactly 18:05, the first exact duration since segment 2 of hour 2 on October 5.
I used the phrase “leadoff hitter” to describe the first song – “There’s No One Else” by Robben Ford – in honor of the World Series, which starts tomorrow night. I wish the Mets were the National League representative, but I’m proud of all their other accomplishments this season. (I wrote that presumptuously on September 20. On October 26, I’m writing that I’m glad the Phillies eliminated the Braves in the NLDS and Padres in the NLCS. The Mets blew the NL East lead to the Braves and lost their NL Wild Card Series to the Padres.)
The inclusion of “Spring High” by Ramsey Lewis preceded his death on September 12, but that was acknowledged in the annotations and script. With “After Chicago” by Ronnie Foster coincidentally included, I called back to Ramsey’s Cabrini-Green upbringing.
In all the years I’ve heard “Schmooze” by Eric Marienthal, I’m reminded of longtime WFAN host Steve Somers, a.k.a. The Schmoozer, a.k.a. Captain Midnight (a la the radio serial). I dialed down my impression of Steve, limiting it to his name and removing his phraseology at the start of the talk-up (i.e. “Eric Marienthal on a Wednesday night on WCWP Brookville”). This was the WCWP-FAN jingle hybrid I made:
Then, there’s Fourplay‘s “Little Foxes,” evoking Festrunk Brothers lingo (the “foxes” part). It helped that most of the backing vocalists were women, hence my “adult foxes” tangent. Here is one such Festrunk Brothers Saturday Night Live sketch:
Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 10/19/22 October 20, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Comedy, Internet, Interviews, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Weather.add a comment
The October 19 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded (and mixed) non-sequentially on August 31 (segments 1, 5, 6) and September 1 (segments 2 through 4). Pickups were recorded on September 2.
The playlist was created right after finishing last week‘s playlist on August 25, annotated on the 27th, and the talk break script was drafted on the 30th. I was able to break even this week with a total duration of exactly one hour and 48 minutes. Starting next week, I will go to 18:10 segments, a total of 30 more seconds. This should limit the amount of dead air before automation’s fill song kicks in.
I did not expect the story of “St. Thomas” to be so involved. The Sonny Rollins interview (from April 5, 2007) where he shared the origin story is accessible via this link, but the media player disappears from sight after you start it. So, I downloaded it to share here:
He definitely wrote “Airegin,” though.
Regarding my talk-up after “Hello Tomorrow” by Larry Carlton, Lloyd Lindsay Young‘s “hello…!” bit had been circling in my head ever since a recent George Carlin documentary showed his introduction at the start of George’s 1988 special, What Am I Doing In New Jersey? I’ve said it before, but only on Instrumental Invasion can you get references like that. That goes for the MythBusters reference I made at the end of my “St. Thomas” origin story. On that series, if a myth in a given episode couldn’t be replicated, it was given a “busted” rating.
Speaking of Larry Carlton, I acknowledged that he was Fourplay‘s second guitarist, Lee Ritenour was their first, and Chuck Loeb was the third. Kirk Whalum played tenor sax on “Hello Tomorrow,” and I neglected to mention that he was the fourth member of Fourplay whenever there wasn’t a guitarist.
Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 10/12/22: Pre-Homecoming Weekend Edition October 13, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, TV, Video.add a comment
The October 12 pre-Homecoming Weekend edition Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was made in two parts. The talk breaks were recorded all at once on August 29 and the segments were mixed on the 30th. Most pickups were recorded during mixing on August 30, except for one each on September 2 and 15.
Not expecting a secondary slot this weekend, I applied its 50/40-year musical journey format to this week’s Wednesday night show. As you heard, I opted for a 60-week musical journey so I could play songs by The Jazz Crusaders in 1962 and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in ’67.
After production wrapped, I was asked if I’d be interested in a secondary slot, after all; of course, I accepted. It is slated to air at 6AM Sunday, but may air at other times since there aren’t any time-specific references. Out of laziness, I opted not to redo talk breaks to acknowledge the extra show this weekend. Surprise!
Sunday’s show will have the same music, but with new talk breaks, additional liners, and two extra songs. (10/20 UPDATE: Here’s the recap of that show and of the live Friday show.)
The playlist was created – after a week and a half production hiatus (due in part to the LI Retro recap) – on August 24 and 25 immediately followed by next week’s playlist. Annotations were written on the 26th and the talk break script was drafted on the 28th. Doing the math, you’ll notice that I went four seconds over. So be it. I’m willing to go a minute or two over my desired total duration of one hour and 48 minutes.
Many shows were on my playlist wish list for weeks and I finally got around to them here. The only retread was “Q’s Motif” by David Benoit, previously heard on June 24, 2020. “Q’s Motif” was preceded by Darren Rahn‘s “Wave of the Future,” which made me think of this Saturday Night Live sketch from October 18, 1986:
Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:
On to Homecoming Weekend!
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.add a comment
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:
- “Over the Horizon” by Willie Bradley (January 12)
- “Friday@5” by Paul Taylor (March 9)
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.add a comment
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):
- Dave Pike‘s cover of “You’ve Got Your Troubles” (July 1, 2020)
- “What I’m Waiting For” by Brian Simpson (August 18, 2021)
- “Angela” by the Bob James Trio (April 20, 2022)
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, 8/17/22 August 18, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Baseball, Comedy, Health, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, News, Personal, Radio, Sports, Travel, TV.add a comment
The August 17 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded entirely on June 27, along with the first segment of next week’s show, the most segments I’ve recorded in one day. Coincidentally, this came five days after the previous show recorded in one day aired. June 22’s show was recorded entirely on April 18, but whereas that was the last show produced before the Smooth Jazz for Scholars hiatus, this was the first show after the WCWP Hall of Fame hiatus.
The playlist was created on June 21 while I was in the early stages of what turned out to be an ear infection. COVID-19 was ruled out by two negative home tests (that day and on the 23rd), and a doctor trip on the 24th showed it was an ear infection rather than my fallback assumption of a cold. Since my voice was compromised, albeit slightly, I chose to start working on next week’s show, annotating and talk break script drafting simultaneously with the intent to record them both once I was better. (I still sounded nasal while recording.) This week’s show was annotated on the 23rd with the first two segments of the next show, and the talk break script was drafted on the 25th.
I continued the new habit of recording segments out of sequence to determine which to shorten, accommodating for ones that run long.
It was the second week in a row with only two songs in the middle segments of each hour. The “Shim Wha” gag came to mind while listening to The Dave Brubeck Quartet‘s Time Changes album on the way back from the Mets’ 3-2 win over the Marlins at Citi Field on June 18. I combined all the photos I took at that game in a slideshow that’s part of this blog post. I hope to have the slideshow of photos from last Wednesday’s game finished before October.
The “Cahla” gag for “Carla” by Peter Horvath had been in mind since watching every episode of Cheers on Netflix over a few weeks in March 2017.
Speaking of 2017, with a lack of music to play from new releases, I replaced the first 2017-present segment with another 1984 and earlier segment.
Click here to download this week’s aircheck MP3 or listen below:
The aircheck includes a new promo I recorded on Tuesday.
9:10 AM UPDATE: It’s been a while since I made a mistake that went unnoticed until after airing, but I made one here. Jay Beckenstein did play soprano sax on “Captain Karma” by Spyro Gyra, but his solo was on alto.
Instrumental Invasion, 5/11/22 May 12, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Travel, TV, Video.add a comment
The May 11 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over three days: the first hour on March 21, the first segment of the second hour on the 22nd, and the last two on the 23rd. Pickups were recorded on April 22 and May 2, the latter of which incorporated a new liner by WCWP/LIU Post alumnus Travis Demers.
The playlist was created on March 20 with annotations and the talk break script draft on the 21st.
For the second time in three weeks, speed compression was involved. The last talk break was sped up to 98% (except for the pickup) to keep the segment as close to 18 minutes as possible. This was after removing extemporaneous tidbits, which I also had to do for the last talk break of the first hour.
One tidbit I removed was about the music video for “Mornin’” by Al Jarreau, billed only as Jarreau:
In the show’s last talk break, while back-selling “Shandling” by Ken Navarro, I referenced “This is the Theme to Garry’s Show,” the theme song for It’s Garry Shandling’s Show:
My talk-up for the short “Funky Song (SC-55)” by Anders Enger Jensen ended in rhyme: “This is Anders Enger Jensen with ‘Funky Song.’ It isn’t very long.” That was a reference to this moment on Drew Carey’s Improv-A-Ganza:
I swapped out the 1984 and earlier segment for an extra 2017 to present, something I haven’t done since December 29, as four new albums came my way before working on this show.
Guitarist Wayne Bruce’s appearance on “95 North” by Kim Waters allowed me to make up for my oversight last June 23. Coincidentally, tomorrow’s blog post has photos taken on I-95 north in New York and Connecticut. (5/26 UPDATE: Here’s the post.) Kim had the Maryland portion of the interstate highway in mind for “95 North.”
I didn’t mention on-air that May 11 marked 28 years since my first “radio show” with my cousin Chris. He held a Talkboy cassette voice recorder and I held a Panasonic microcassette voice recorder. 11 years after that – May 11, 2005 – The Mike Chimeri Show returned to WebRadio WCWP, six days after ending the original The Instrumental Invasion on WGBB. He’ll be introducing me at the 2020-21 WCWP Hall of Fame Ceremony exactly one month from last night, on June 11.
Click here to download the May 11, 2022, aircheck MP3 or listen below:
MikeChimeri.com 