Instrumental Invasion, 12/9/20 December 10, 2020
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The December 9, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded one hour per day on November 11 and 12.
The playlist was created on November 9 with annotations on the 9th and 10th.
I swapped out the 1984 and earlier segment in favor of a third 2017 to present segment.
While recording the second segment on the 11th, I was informed of a change to the segment length standard, from an even 19 minutes to 18:45. I tweaked the first segment accordingly and scaled down my talk breaks for the rest of the show. To that end, some of the annotations seen in the playlist were omitted. Among them, Paul Brown‘s arrangement of “Grazing in the Grass” was #1 for Boney James and Rick Braun on their Shake It Up album in 2000. That’s why Paul’s album is called Ones Upon a Time: it’s new recordings of songs he arranged for other musicians throughout his career.
Nonetheless, the end of the show was cut off again. It was only eight seconds this time, but I’m still scaling segments back to 18:40 from now on.
Last week, I dubbed tenor sax as the “MVP” of the show since it was in so many songs. This week, it was the Hammond B-3 organ.
If you still don’t think Rio.com, the name of Alex Bugnon‘s song, is a real website, here’s proof.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 12/2/20 December 3, 2020
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The December 2, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded one hour per day on November 5 and 6.
The playlist was created on November 2 and annotated on the 3rd.
It was the last of the three shows where segments had to be edited from 19 minutes down to 18:45.
I felt like I’d hit my stride with scripting talk breaks and reading from that script, ad libbing when necessary. I liked all the callbacks, too. (Those are references to earlier in the show.)
I originally had a Game Dave liner coming out of “ReJoyce” by David Benoit, which led to a funny moment at the start of the talk break. Unfortunately, that had to be edited out a week after recording when the segment length standard was trimmed from an even 19 minutes to 18:45. Here is how that talk break originally sounded:
I worked in Lindsey Stirling‘s rendition of “Let It Snow” (or rather, “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!“) because it was the best song I could find with the time remaining in that segment. That was good as I got to segue from her to Jessy J since Lindsey was runner-up in season 25 of Dancing with the Stars and Jessy is part of Ray Chew Live, the show’s house band. I neglected to acknowledge the Hungarian Studio Orchestra playing on “Let It Snow” or the “Theme from New York, New York” motif at the end.
I was eager for the release of Elevate, Will Donato‘s new album, so I could play songs from it. “The High Road” is a great start.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
And here is an unfiltered scope of the original 19-minute segment cut, including the aforementioned funny moment and the original transition from “Portal Love” by Anders Enger Jensen to “Speak Love!” by Najee:
Instrumental Invasion, 11/25/20 November 26, 2020
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The Thanksgiving Eve (November 25, 2020) Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over three days. The first hour was recorded on October 29, the first segment of the second hour on October 30, and the last two segments on Halloween (October 31). On November 11, the show was re-edited to 18:45 and a pickup was recorded. Despite this, the second spot break of hour 1 ran twice as long as normal, which led the last segment of the show to be cut off with 1:36 remaining.
The playlist was created and annotated on October 26.
Like two weeks ago, I played a song from an unaired segment: “I Told You So” by George Cables, which would have been heard on April 8.
There wasn’t enough time to acknowledge that prior to Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown!, David Benoit recorded “Linus and Lucy” along with other cues for episode 6 of This is America, Charlie Brown, “The Great Inventors.” It was interesting hearing David’s work playing underneath dialogue by voice actors Frank Welker and Gregg Berger. I watched This is America, Charlie Brown on DVD back in August while my cable was out following Tropical Storm Isaias. (The outage meant I couldn’t aircheck the August 5 show.)
I made a rare (at the time) dated reference (in the original cut) – in this case, Thanksgiving being the next day – when I quipped that “tomorrow,” “The Chicken” would be known as “The Turkey.”
The end of the October 31 session was prolonged by needing to tweak the last talk break. David Mann is credited for the horn arrangements on “Musaic” by Alexander Zonjic, but I didn’t hear horns. So, that credit was removed and I had to redo two sentences at a slower pace to fill the gap. I had to reprise the faster pace when re-redoing the talk break, not that it mattered since the last 1:36 of the segment went unheard.
Click here to download this show’s aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Like last week, I’m also including an unfiltered scope of the original 19-minute segment cut:
Instrumental Invasion, 11/18/20 November 19, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Video Games.add a comment
The November 18, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded one hour per day on October 22 and 23 with a pickup recording on November 11.
The playlist was created and annotated on October 19 with additional annotations during the recording sessions.
This is the first show where I scripted out every talk break, though I give myself freedom to ad-lib. (The remark about “a lot of classic rock in this show” was an ad-lib, for example.)
The show was originally recorded with 19-minute segments, but they all had to be trimmed down to 18:45 through editing out portions of talk breaks, and even speed compression. I had to do the same to the November 25 and December 2 shows. This is another danger of recording shows well in advance.
My reading of “Lucky,” while talking up the Fourplay song, was an homage to Mario‘s exclamation in his eponymous Nintendo video games when he snags a 1-Up Mushroom.
I originally recited the joke that inspires Jeff Lorber‘s “He Had a Hat” while talking up the song, but it was ten seconds over. I’m proud of the talk-up that made the show as I still shouted the punchline. Here is the joke (which Jeff told differently in a promotional interview):
“The Jewish Grandmother”
A Jewish lady’s grandson is playing in the water, she is standing on the beach not wanting to get her feet wet, when all of a sudden, a huge wave appears from nowhere and crashes directly over the spot where the boy is wading. The water recedes and the boy is no longer there. He simply vanished.
She holds her hands to the sky, screams and cries, “Lord, how could you?
Have I not been a wonderful grandmother?
Have I not been a wonderful mother?
Have I not given to B’nai Brith?
Have I not given to Hadassah?
Have I not lit candles every Friday night at dusk?
Have I not tried my very best to live a life that you would be proud of?”
A loud voice booms from the sky, “Okay, okay!”
A few minutes later another huge wave appears out of nowhere and crashes on the beach. As the water recedes, the boy is standing there, smiling, splashing around as if nothing had ever happened.
The loud voice booms again “I have returned your grandson. Are you satisfied?”
She responds, “He had a hat.”
Incidentally, I recorded the segment, and the entire second hour, on a Friday afternoon.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
As a bonus, I made a scope of the original 19-minute segment cut of the show. No broadcast compression filter was applied:
As still another bonus, here is how Jeff and Pat Kroll signed off my lead-in, a live edition of The Rock Show:
11/21 UPDATE: I forgot to note in this post that I swapped out an extra 2017-present segment for another 2007-2016. When I made the playlist, I didn’t have much material from the last four years to fill a second segment. Since then, I’ve received five more albums, which you’ll hear in the coming weeks, except for the last two weeks of December.
Instrumental Invasion, 11/11/20 November 12, 2020
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The November 11, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over two days: the first hour on October 15 and the second hour on the 16th.
The playlist was created on October 12. The first hour was annotated that same day and the second hour the next day.
For this show only, segments are 19 minutes long, expanding from 18 minutes in the first 31 shows. Next week and beyond, segments will be 18:45 a piece.
Most talk breaks were scripted as I had no faith in my ability to ad-lib.
Four songs were included to make up for unaired segments. “Off Broadway” (not to be confused with “On Broadway”) by George Benson and “Snake Eyes” by Grover Washington, Jr. were part of two segments that didn’t air in the second show on April 8. “Mr. Rodriguez’s Opus” by David Benoit and “Something About You” by Jeff Kashiwa were part of the unaired July 8 segment.
My reading of “percussion…by Henry Gibson” while back-selling “Michelle” by Ramsey Lewis was an homage to the actor of the same name. Henry Gibson was a player on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a show that I watched from start to finish on Amazon Prime Video over 58 days in 2018. One of Henry’s characters was The Poet, a southern man who recited poetry while holding a giant flower. Here’s an example (along with a Dick Martin elevator sketch):
Sadly, both Henry Gibsons passed away in the 2000s.
I had to redo the line later because I forgot to write flugelhorn player Arthur Hoyle’s name while annotating. Art passed back in June.
I was glad to debut Nelson Rangell‘s new liner after playing “Nana’s Song,” and I’m equally proud of the grandma synonyms riff I went on afterward.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 11/4/20 November 5, 2020
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The November 4, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over four days:
- September 25: Hour 1, Segment 1
- September 26: Hour 1, Segments 2 and 3
- September 27: Hour 2, Segment 1
- September 28: Hour 2, Segments 2 and 3
The playlist was created and annotated on September 22.
I made up for last week by successfully including “Beyond the Seventh Galaxy” by Return to Forever.
I had to script out all talk breaks in the first segment, but only two others after that.
I was interested to learn about Larriland Farm after including Ken Navarro’s tribute to them. In addition to their website, this video neatly explains them:
The stream was down, so I couldn’t aircheck the show, but I was assured that the station was still broadcasting over the air. To make up for that, just as I did three months ago, I combined the segment files into one big file in Adobe Audition, applying the broadcast multiband compression filter to each segment.
Click here to download the scoped “aircheck” MP3 or listen below:
11:05 AM UPDATE: I was wrong to refer to TLC as a band when talking up Steve Cole‘s cover of “Waterfalls.” Bands play instruments; they just sang. They were a group.
Instrumental Invasion, 10/28/20 October 29, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Baseball, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment
The October 28, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over two days: the first hour on September 18 and the second on the 19th.
The playlist was created on September 16 and annotated on the 17th. I also had to revise the end of the first segment. There wasn’t enough time for “Beyond the Seventh Galaxy” by Return to Forever, so I replaced it with “Excerpt from the First Movement of Heavy Metal.” Time constraints also led me to omit various annotations, particularly most of the personnel on Bernie Williams‘ “Go For It.” I may be a Mets fan, but as I said on the air, Bernie should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. “Maybe someday.”
Each talk break of each hour’s first segment was scripted with partial ad libbing.
I worked in “Silverado” by Fourplay after noticing a red Chevy Silverado while riding west on Sunrise Highway. In the talk break afterward, I forgot to acknowledge that Silver commemorated the band’s 25th anniversary. I did acknowledge that back in the third show when I played “Quicksilver.”
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 10/21/20 October 22, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Travel.add a comment
The October 21, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over four days. The first hour was recorded one segment per day from September 8 to 10; the second hour was recorded entirely on the 11th. Two talk breaks in the second hour were re-recorded on the 24th. The first talk break of the hour had to be redone to acknowledge Chuck Loeb‘s association with Stan Getz, which led to his cover of “The Girl from Ipanema,” the song that closed hour 1. (10/26 UPDATE: Unfortunately, I didn’t say his last name. “Chuck’s”? Chuck who?) The second was to note at the end of the hour’s second segment that Côte d’Azur is another name for the French Riviera.
The playlist was created and annotated on September 6, along with last week’s show.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 10/14/20 October 15, 2020
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The October 14, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded exactly one month and one week earlier on September 7.
The playlist was created and annotated on September 6, in tandem with the one for next week’s show.
I only scripted a few talk breaks, but did need to script ADR in two hour 2 segments.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 10/7/20 October 8, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Comedy, Country, Film, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Technology, Video.add a comment
The October 7, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over three days. The first segment was recorded on September 3, the next three on the 4th, and the last two on the 5th. One talk break each in the first and last segments of the show were re-recorded on the 24th. The show intro was redone on the 26th. I originally said Herb Alpert was “the subject of a forthcoming documentary,” which was to premiere October 1, the day after the intended air date. Due to the September 23 programming error, the air date was moved back a week, so I redid the intro with the words “new documentary.” (And that documentary is fantastic!)
The playlist was created on September 3 and annotated on the 4th, hours before recording that first segment.
This show had the most scripted talk breaks to date.
The re-records were to acknowledge that I played songs by (or featuring) three different Browns, none of whom are related. There was Alison on banjo, Paul on acoustic and electric guitar, and Norman only on electric guitar.
I did mention in the initial recording sessions that The Champs’ song “Tequila” – covered by Larry Carlton – always makes me think of the Pee-wee Dance, which originated in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure:
I also mentioned that Anders Enger Jensen‘s cover of “Floaters” by Jimmy Fontanez and Media Right Productions was an homage to the Technology Connections YouTube channel, which he supports on Patreon. I, too, proudly support the channel, which puts out great content like this:
I like how, in the captions, creator Alec Watson identifies the song as a different adverb of “smooth jazz” in each episode. For the above episode, the caption read “glaringly smooth jazz.”
Thank you, Ryan Grabow, for getting me into the channel, which he recommended to me during his visit last October.
Click here to download this week’s aircheck MP3 or listen below:
12:45 PM UPDATE: I don’t know how I missed it, but I misspelled “ones” while referring to Paul Brown’s Ones Upon a Time album. I erroneously spelled it O-E-N-S, not O-N-E-S. The later line about “French Cafe” by David Benoit and Marc Antoine acting as the “second serving” of David is technically correct if you go by lead musicians. I forgot while recording the last two segments that David was also on “Samba del Luna” by Craig Chaquico and Russ Freeman in the show’s first segment that I recorded two days earlier.
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