Instrumental Invasion, 8/19/20 August 20, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, History, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games.add a comment
The August 19, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded on July 24 (hour 1) and 25 (hour 2).
The playlist was created, modified, and annotated between July 21 and 23.
To accommodate my chatty second talk break of hour 1’s second segment, I had to replace the Jeff Lorber Fusion song I had in mind. Instead of “Bright Sky” off Galaxian, I went with “Lava Lands” from Wizard Island. It was a fitting choice, having watched the Oregon episode of Smithsonian Channel’s Aerial America on their YouTube channel a few days before recording. The Fusion’s album is a reference to various landmarks in Oregon, including Lava Lands Visitor Center and, of course, Wizard Island, which is located within Crater Lake.
I had to rerecord the second and third talk breaks of the above segment on the morning of the 25th, shortly after waking up. That’s why my voice sounded the way it did. I realized that morning I’d mistakenly left out Will Lee on bass while talking about “Some Down Time” by Steve Khan, and wanted to correct that immediately. I had to script the talk breaks so I wouldn’t get flustered or forget what to say.
As I did in my 2018 and ’19 Homecoming Weekend shows, I dedicated the Keiko Matsui song I played – in this case, “Marlin Club Blues” – to Game Dave, citing a video where he suggested you listen to her music rather than in-game music:
I neglected to mention that Randy Waldman played keyboards and Hammond B-3 organ on “Marlin Club Blues.” Keiko was only on piano.
And speaking of YouTube, here is the music video for “Living Out Loud” by Joyce Cooling that I recommended:
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
8/22 UPDATE: While watching the Houston portion of The 8-Bit Guy‘s second Tech from Texas video, it occurred to me that David Benoit‘s song “El Camino Real” was not about the road in California, but the trail in Texas. It should have been obvious since a song called “Houston” precedes it on his Inner Motion album. As a California native, I assumed David had the California road in mind when I annotated the playlist. Clearly, I was wrong.
Instrumental Invasion, 8/5/20 August 8, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment
The August 5, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over three days in July.
The first segment was recorded on the 10th, the next four on the 11th, and the last two on the 12th.
The playlist was created on July 6 and annotated on the 7th with additional annotations during the recording sessions.
There was a lot of ADR (automated dialogue replacement) in the various segments, but I still forgot to acknowledge David Benoit when I was naming Rippingtons alumni in the last bit of ADR. By the time he came to me, a day had passed since submitting the show for air.
Two hours before air, my cable went out and stayed out until around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon. This means I was unable to aircheck my show as it aired on WCWP. I had to make one out of my segment files, applying the broadcast multiband compression filter in Adobe Audition.
Click here to download the “aircheck” MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 7/29/20 July 30, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Drama, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, TV.add a comment
The July 29, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded on the 9th.
The playlist was created on July 3 and annotated on the 4th with additional annotations while recording.
Click here to download this week’s aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 7/22/20 July 23, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment
The July 22, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded on July 5. I would have recorded on the 4th, but various neighbors were shooting off fireworks long before dusk.
The playlist was created on July 3 and annotated on the 4th.
For some reason, while recording the second hour’s first two talk breaks, I thought Kim Waters played alto sax on “Shakedown” and Euge Groove played tenor on “Hey Boo,” but they both played soprano. As a result, I had to rerecord parts of those talk breaks.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 7/1/20 July 2, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment
***THIS IS MY 500TH BLOG POST!***
The July 1, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded on May 28.
Work on the playlist began on May 20 with annotations on the 24th, 25th, and during the recording session on the 28th.
My back-sell of Chicago‘s “Elegy…” originally included an explanation of the suite’s meaning and referenced what preceded “The Approaching Storm.” I had to cut it for time, but I saved the outtake:
“Progress?” was quite jarring the first time I heard it two years ago. It’s discordant horns mixed with traffic jam sound effects and other industrial cacophony. It’s still jarring, but less so each time I listen.
I didn’t intend to have two segments of songs from one year each, but I’m proud of how it turned out.
My talk-up for “The King is Here” by Norman Brown included the line “it’s good to be the king,” which was a running gag in Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part I. Mel uttered the line as a different historical figure in each period.
Click here to download this show’s aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 6/24/20 June 25, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, TV.add a comment
The June 24, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded on the afternoon of May 26 with rerecording on June 5.
Work on the playlist began on May 19 with annotations on the 24th and during the recording session on the 26th.
I was proud to incorporate Dave Pike and Randy Waldman into the show.
I bought Dave’s Jazz for the Jet Set after listening to “Sweet ‘Tater Pie” on Spotify. I was first exposed to the song after hearing WABC-AM DJ Dan Ingram play it on his WABC-FM (later, WPLJ) show in 1967. The jazz and blues show differed greatly from the top 40 he played the AM side. The aircheck I heard can be found on the Musicradio 77 website.
As for Randy Waldman, my musician friend Nelson Rangell recommended Superheroes to me during a phone conversation the night before I bought it and Dave Pike’s album. The first song I was drawn to was the “Mighty Mouse Theme.” It made me think of a routine in Andy Kaufman’s stand-up act. As Foreign Man, he would stand next to a record player while the theme played on an LP. He would stand perfectly still until the line “here I come to save the day!,” which he would lip-sync while heroically moving his arm.
Speaking of stand-up acts, I unknowingly channeled comedian Timmie Rogers both times I said the title of Brian Hughes‘ song “Oh Yeah!” That was Rogers’s catchphrase, exemplified in this 1960s performance:
I have a feeling I’m the only DJ in North America to play Anders Enger Jensen on the radio. His music is all over YouTube – on channels like The 8-Bit Guy, Techmoan, Technology Connections, and of course, his own channel – but it needs the terrestrial treatment, and I provided it.
The end of the first hour’s second segment and all of the third had to be rerecorded on the morning of June 5. After referencing Norman Brown‘s “Something Just for You,” on the same album as “It’s a Feelin’,” my segue to the tease should have been “A Song Just for Bilbao,” but I inverted “just” and “for” and didn’t notice the mistake until a day after recording. Since it wasn’t a factual error or repeated phrase (i.e. “but first”), I initially chose not to rerecord. A week after recording, I realized I neglected to acknowledge Dave Holland, the bassist on Michael Brecker‘s cover of “Song for Bilbao.” Since there was music playing under both omissions, I had to redo the entire segment. After that, I fixed my flub at the end of the previous segment.
Unfortunately, as I feared, the redone segments were not added to automation. So, listeners heard the original “for just” and Dave Holland-less segments. The lesson here is to thoroughly check your recordings before submitting them.
Click here to download this show’s aircheck MP3, which I modified to include the corrections, or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 5/27/20 May 28, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment
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.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 5/13/20 May 14, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Video, Video Games.add a comment
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.
Click here to download the aircheck or listen below:
New header April 6, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Internet, Personal.add a comment
I changed the header and about photo to reflect my current setup. Here’s the header:
Instrumental Invasion to air weekly on WCWP! March 30, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Technology.add a comment
Wednesday night will mark the beginning of my first weekly stint at WCWP since the Evening Jazz era a decade ago.
Instrumental Invasion with Mike Chimeri began life on WCWP in 2015 as a new name for my annual Homecoming Weekend show. I’ve done two shows a year: a live one on Fridays and a prerecorded show early on Sunday mornings. The name Instrumental Invasion was recycled from my WGBB-AM show in the mid 2000s.
The closure of WCWP during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a call for alumni to create original programming to run while the station was entirely automated. After receiving the blessing of WCWP Director of Broadcasting Dan Cox, I planned out six shows to record. I’ve been recording since last Wednesday and will record the last of the initial six today.
Two days ago, Dan gave me a regular slot: Wednesdays from 9PM to 11PM for at least ten weeks. I am thrilled to be given this opportunity and I thank Dan very much for it.
Make plans to listen to WCWP every Wednesday night starting April 1. If you can receive the signal, you can listen on your radio at 88.1 FM. Otherwise, go to WCWP.org or the WCWP app for iOS and Android.
In case you’re wondering, here’s my setup:
I use an Audio-Technica AT2020 XLR condenser mic with a compatible windscreen by Whisperteknik. (If that windscreen is unavailable, get one by VocalBeat instead.) The mic is connected to a Koolertron shock mount which attaches to a Neewer boom scissor arm stand. A six-foot AmazonBasics XLR male to female cable runs to a FocusRite Scarlett 2i2 USB interface. I’d been using Adobe Audition 3.0 for 12 years, but it does not take kindly to USB, regularly freezing while recording. Adobe Audition 2020 does not have that problem. I subscribed to the software early in the recording process. My shows are recorded in multi-track sessions. Airchecks are recorded and music and liners are added. The duration of an aircheck depends on how much time is left in a segment or to the next song’s post. Audition 2020 lets you record files up to 48 kHz and 32 bits, but I stick with 44.1 and 16.
MikeChimeri.com 