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Instrumental Invasion, 5/17/23: More Three-of-a-Kind Showcases! May 18, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, City Pop, Comedy, Game Shows, Internet, Jazz, Media, Personal, Radio, TV, Video.
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The May 17 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was the sequel to February 8’s theme week, containing six more Three-of-a-Kind Showcases and more Bob Barker era Price is Right references (Fremantle’s Barker era YouTube channel). The show was recorded and mixed entirely on March 15, but I had to do pickups on the 16th.

The playlist was created on March 9 with annotations on the 11th. The talk break script was drafted up to the top of hour 2 on March 14 and completed between recording sessions on the 15th.

Let’s get the scoped aircheck out of the way before all the background info:

The line “I wouldn’t think of it” while back-selling “Unthinkable” by Casiopea referred to a scene in Futurama episode 2ACV03, “A Head in the Polls.” Here is the relevant portion from the transcript:

Morbo: Morbo demands an answer to the following question: If you saw delicious candy in the hands of a small child, would you seize and consume it?

Johnson: Unthinkable.

Jackson: I wouldn’t think of it.

Morbo: What about you, Mr. Nixon? I remind you, you are under a truth-o-scope.

[The truth-o-scope hovers over Nixon’s head and he starts to sweat.]

Nixon: Uh, well, I, uh … the question is-is vague. You don’t say what kind of candy, whether anyone is watching or, uh…

[He clears his throat.]

At any rate, I certainly wouldn’t harm the child.

[The truth-o-scope beeps.]

Maurice LaMarche as Morbo, John DiMaggio as Jack Johnson and John Jackson (same voice for each), Billy West as Richard Nixon’s Head

Aside from that, there were many Bob Barkerisms in my talk breaks, such as the way I teased the next segment, and the “Sir John, who cometh from the flock…?” shtick with announcer Johnny Olson. Examples can be found at the start of these two videos:

I channeled Johnny and Rod Roddy with the “something for every room in the house!” bit leading into the Fourplay and Ken Navarro showcases. I was going to end the show with a Marc Antoine Three-of-a-Kind Showcase, but my signed copy of Ken’s Love is Everywhere CD arrived on March 9. Thus, an opportunity arose to end on a new recording.

This time, four songs were retreads (again, listed in order of appearance):

And The Price is Right music cues I used were (italics are not in the video title):

For the first time in the show’s Wednesday night history, I went more than a week – two weeks – without a David Benoit song. That’s still only seven weeks out of 163. He will definitely be back next week.

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Audiobooking 8 March 24, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Animation, Audiobooks, Basketball, Comedy, Film, Game Shows, Golf, History, Media, Music, News, Personal, Podcast, Politics, Radio, Rock, Sports, Technology, Theatre, TV, Video Games.
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It’s time for the annual “audiobooking” post. Most are visible in the thumbnail, but here are all the audiobooks (with links) that I’ve listened to on Audible since post #7 last year:

That’s a total of 27 audiobooks (two co-written by O’Reilly, one wholly by Reilly), plus two returns. Everything from I’m a Still a 10-Year-Old Boy through Face the Music was purchased in October while Audible steeply discounted their catalog. Since then, I only use Audible credits on audiobooks over $14.95, the monthly membership fee. Of course, if I buy three credits for $35.88, then I’ll buy anything over $11.96.

Next year’s “audiobooking” post will be the ninth overall, but the tenth anniversary. Until then, happy listening.

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“:

Instrumental Invasion, 2/8/23: Three-of-a-Kind Showcases February 9, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Game Shows, Health, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, TV.
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The February 8 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded in December 2022: two segments on December 20 and four (plus pickups) on the 21st.

The playlist was created on December 13 after realizing I’d be too sick to record anything that week. (Read about my flu experience in last week’s post.) Annotations for this show and next week’s milestone 150th show were written on the 14th and 16th with this week’s talk break script drafted on the 18th. I went 61 seconds over in the first segment and spent the rest of the show compensating. I did so at the expense of some extra information.

As noted during the show, the Three-of-a-Kind Showcase was a staple of The Mike Chimeri Show with each hour having a set of three songs in chronological order by an artist or group. I only had one hour to work with on the original The Instrumental Invasion, so there was only one showcase per week. The “showcase” part came from my love of The Price is Right, and I eventually introduced them by saying “[artist/group], this is your showcase.” Music cues I found on this YouTube channel, and saved as WAV files, meant I could introduce the six showcases in this show with showcase cues (and the main theme) from the Bob Barker era. I closed with Bob’s original “…saying goodbye, everybody” sign-off. (The spay/neuter version was implied.)

Eight songs made their second appearance, listed by artist/group (original date in parentheses)

That last one was also part of my live October 14 show (Homecoming Weekend).

For reference, these are the music cues used in order of appearance:

And I made another jingle hybrid, tacking the “ding” sound onto the end of the WCWP jingle:

Click here to download the scoped aircheck or listen below:

Next week, 150!

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 year’s Festival of Games (the first)

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, 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, 9/7/22: Dan Ingram Tribute September 8, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Game Shows, History, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Pop, Radio, Rock, TV.
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The September 7 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was a tribute to the late New York radio personality Dan Ingram on what would have been his 88th birthday. The tribute came 18 years after I played my re-creation of his closing theme edit of “Tri-Fi Drums” by Billy May and His Orchestra (from Wild Stereo Drums) to close The Instrumental Invasion that aired on Dan’s 70th. This tribute covered most of the show. The theme was songs that start with a letter in any of the call letters of stations Dan worked for. Talk breaks were supplemented by edits of jingles, led by my mashup of a WCWP jingle with the bell at the end of the WABC Chime Time jingle:

As I said on the air, thanks to Allan Sniffen and Jon Wolfert for their inspiration. I absorbed Big Dan’s lore from repeatedly listening to archives of The Life and Times of Dan Ingram: In His Own Words that Allan produced for Rewound Radio, and Jon’s The History of Musicradio WABC Jingles, also for Rewound Radio.

The show playlist was created on July 5 and annotated on the 6th, followed by the talk break script draft that carried into the 7th.

Unlike previous weeks, the show was mostly recorded sequentially, two segments per day from July 8 to 10. I recorded the last segment before recording the fifth because I anticipated going over or cutting it close. Instead, I was 14 seconds short, increasing my surplus to 22 seconds. The fifth segment dropped the surplus to 12 seconds. In the process of recording pickups on the 10th, with 12 seconds left to make up, I remixed the second and fourth segments that I painstakingly tweaked to run exactly 18 minutes during initial recording. The third talk break of the second segment was originally speed compressed and I cut my quip about most Love Connection contestants going home solo (a false memory, as the linked entry reminds me) – playing off the name of Julian Vaughn‘s album with “Love Connection” on it. I redid the entire talk break at regular speed with the quip included. Thus, that segment went 8 seconds over and the fourth went 4 over, completing the 18-minute average I strive for.

Speaking of “love,” “jeg elsker deg” (pronounced “yale skaday”) means “I love you” in Norwegian and the “I love you” vocal in Nick Colionne‘s cover of “Hurry Up This Way Again” (on Arrival) allowed me to reference Dan Ingram’s on-air affirmation while married to Norway native Anita Strand.

Enough talk. Click here to download the (tele)scoped aircheck MP3 or listen below:

This was my first aircheck (mostly) recorded from a new computer. More about that in an upcoming post.

Bonus material:

Instrumental Invasion, 5/25/22 May 26, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Drama, Game Shows, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Radio, TV, Video.
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The May 25 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded one hour per day on April 2 and 3. A pickup was recorded on May 2.

The playlist was created on March 31 and annotated on April 1. The talk break script was drafted before recording the first hour on the 2nd. This was the third time the playlist did not include David Benoit. The other two times were the 40th birthday special last November 17 and the 100th show on March 2.

After finishing last week’s show, it occurred to me that I hadn’t played many live recordings on Instrumental Invasion: ten songs in 111 shows. Five of those were Pat Metheny; one with his Group, two versions of “Better Days Ahead.” This week alone had five live recordings in it, four of them long. Spyro Gyra‘s Access All Areas version of “Heliopolis” was part of Extended Cuts Week on the original The Instrumental Invasion on WGBB. That show aired January 27, 2005, 17 years and four months ago tomorrow (May 27). The phrase “almost live” was part of The Gong Show announcer’s intro spiel: “From Hollywood, almost live, it’s The Gong Show!” (I’d link to video of the intro, but all the videos on YouTube are poor quality.)

I ended my talk-up of “Seventh Heaven” by Jeff Lorber with the line “the seventh heaven is, of course, the best,” an homage to a bit in the Technology Connections video on touch lamps. I’ve clipped the bit here, but the full video is worth watching:

I was going to reference the bit after playing “Tenth Victim” by the Jeff Lorber Fusion last week, but realized that would be in bad taste, even if I added “at least in positive situations.”

Incidentally, the inclusion of “Seventh Heaven” plus “Supernatural” by Brian Simpson made for two songs sharing their name with a WB/CW drama. 7th Heaven was family-oriented while Supernatural was dark fantasy.

As for last night’s show, click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:

I had Homer Simpson in mind when I used the word “dealies” at the end of the first segment.

Instrumental Invasion, 3/30/22 March 31, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Game Shows, History, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Radio, TV, Video.
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The March 30 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP marked two years since my Wednesday night premiere. The show was recorded one hour per day on February 5 and 6 with a pickup on the 7th.

The playlist was created on February 3 and annotated on the 4th. The script was drafted on the morning of the 5th.

As on the first anniversary show last year, the first hour format was 1984 and earlier, with songs released between 1963 and 1980, and the second hour format was 1985 to ’95, with songs running the gamut.

The talk breaks for the first two segments were wordy enough that I resorted to short liners and had to hurry the third talk break of the second segment, removing tidbits about Wes Montgomery‘s Goin’ Out of My Head album. The other four segments required padding with extra liners, starting songs after a talk break, or fading them up (not out) early.

“Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione finally aired in its entirety after getting cut off by automation in the first show.

“Give It One” by Maynard Ferguson led off the show, as I had bought a compilation CD of Maynard’s three M.F. Horn studio albums days before recording. I’ve been aware of the song since I downloaded an MP3 in the mid 2000s upon learning it was used as the theme to the 1974 pilot episodes of Wheel of Fortune. I incorrectly thought it was made for the show. The first part of the song reminds me an interchange on I-95 in Miami because I was looking at a photo of it while listening. When my travels took me past what’s known as the Midtown Interchange in March 2019, I took a photo of my own:

Thanks to a video slideshow I made for my family of the trip, including my cousin’s wedding, the new photo also makes me think of “Gods of Brazil” by Alison Brown. And speaking of Brazil, I was glad to talk about Iguazu Falls after playing the misspelled “Iguassu Falls” by Jeff Lorber.

Getting back to “Give It One,” trumpeter Eric Miyashiro, once part of Maynard’s big band, posted a great arrangement on YouTube back in October, featuring a solo by fellow Maynard alum Wayne Bergeron, then by him. Enjoy:

5/12 UPDATE: I learned in thanks to this interview with Eric that Maynard’s name was pronounced as it looks, not “may-nerd.”

As for the second anniversary edition of Instrumental Invasion, click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:

Perfect Bid: The documentary that set me straight May 16, 2019

Posted by Mike C. in Game Shows, Internet, Interviews, Media, Personal, TV.
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About a decade ago, when I regularly watched The Price is Right, I would post about major accomplishments that I saw. One of those involved Terry Kneiss (“nees”), who went on a run that ended with him winning both showcases with a perfect bid. Host Drew Carey deadpanned in response, not at all excited by the achievement. Unaware of the circumstances, and considering how I reacted in a recording I made after bowling a 221 in 2002, I defended his reaction.

Two years later, Terry released a book called Cause and Effects, which defended his actions.

Three years after that, I heard Drew’s side of the story on a podcast: the tape clearly showed Terry got his exact prices from an audience member with a grudge. I updated my original post about Terry’s book with Drew’s remarks. I considered it closure to my years of watching The Price is Right. George Gray’s announcing delivery didn’t sit right with me and I no longer liked watch contestants lose on any game show. So, I stopped watching.

5/30 UPDATE: Watching old episodes of TPiR on YouTube last weekend led me to DVR Monday’s episode for comparison. Whatever distaste I had in the show when I stopped watching went away. I’m back on the bandwagon. I’m also watching Jeopardy! again to see how long James Holzhauer can last as champion. I’m in awe and wish I had watched sooner.

6/6 UPDATE: Never mind. Holzhauer was unseated after 32 wins and contestants lose too much on TPiR. I’m back off both bandwagons because tonight’s new champion, knocking off the woman that knocked off Holzhauer, says “please” nearly every time he makes a selection. I like assertiveness in contestants. Shorthanding category names and dollar amounts is also a plus. Picky, aren’t I? It’s the curse of having Asperger Syndrome: nonsense like this bothers you. Anyway…

This week on Netflix, while searching for Still Laugh-In: The Stars Celebrate, I noticed an entry in one of the queues called Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much. So, that’s why the Cause and Effects post was getting hits on my blog. Yesterday, I watched it.

Perfect Bid profiles a “loyal friend and true,” Theodore Slauson. Ted became a fan of TPiR early in its CBS run and noticed that the same items were up for bids with the same prices on several shows. So, he kept track of those items through spreadsheets, word processing documents, and original computer software. Starting in the early ’80s, he regularly attended tapings, giving contestants in contestants’ row and on stage the prices of prizes. There were plenty of $100 bonuses awarded for perfect One Bids and Bob Barker gave him his due during the tapings. He even came on down once in 1992, winning One Bid and Punch-a-Bunch.

After his day as a contestant, he stopped attending tapings to focus on other things. He returned in 2002 and helped a fellow audience member win over $39,000 in cash and prizes.

When Drew Carey took over for Bob Barker in 2007, the rule that contestants could only appear once was rescinded. That opened the door for Ted to return. At the start of season 37, Ted went to a taping in the hopes of coming on down again. He didn’t, but Terry Kneiss did. The two met in line before the taping.

Perfect Bid notes that Ted was edited out of several camera shots during the show which aired in September 2008. The note came as an excerpt began from host Drew Carey’s appearance on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show. The impression given to Drew by producer Kathy Greco, who Bob dubbed “Fingers” when he was the host, was that Ted was sent by Roger Dobkowitz, fired as producer the season before, to sabotage the show. Giving Terry exact prices was revenge exacted by a fan group. Drew later found out Ted was innocent, but didn’t know that as the show was taped.

Kathy stopped production after Terry and his fellow showcase contestant gave their bids, trying to make sense of what had happened. When taping resumed, Drew deadpanned the results, assuming the show would never air because of Ted’s involvement, shook Terry’s hand, and wrapped up the show. But it did air. In the aftermath, TPiR staff never used the same item more than once. The price one day will not be the price another day.

In the final moments of the documentary, Ted remarked:

You know, I’ve been called a lot of ugly names on the Internet, and in podcasts and things like that, and it’s just sad that people don’t know the whole story. So, I appreciate being able to tell it.

And I appreciate having seen Perfect Bid. It cleared the air about what happened on that September morning a decade ago. Thank you, CJ Wallis, for setting me straight. Thank you for interviewing Theodore “Ted” Slauson, Bob Barker, and Roger Dobkowitz. I highly recommend you watch it. This post only scratches the surface.

Sincerely, Mike Chimeri, a loyal friend and true starting with summer 1992 reruns.