Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Return of Musical Cheese! Sept 12, 2012

Here we are with a new semester at good ol' WIIT, the voice of Illinois Institute of Technology. The little radio station that could now has a new board and all us DJ's have had to go in for re-training.
I discovered that this board is much easier to use than the last one,  as long as I don't try to do anything fancy, like try to put phone calls on the air. The two CD decks will start playing when you hit the "on air" button on the board. And best of all, they have another deck for digital media: Flash drives, USB drives, etc. We are even closer to realizing my dream of being able to bring in all my music for a show on the half-a-postage-stamp sized chip in my cell phone. However, I can't crossfade between songs on the same flash drive yet, but I can still alternate between the flash drive and my CDs.
And I discovered that the class I'm taking this semester will actually run the entire alloted length of the class: right up to 9 p.m. Luckily the guy waiting to train me did wait until I could get my CDs out of the car. After about half and hour of watching me, he decided I was good to go.
So we have a "practice" run of the Musical Cheese Show. With no real special segments or anniversaries to mark, just running though my usual selections: Once-hit songs that are now obscure or sound outdated, modern hits that just plain sound "cheesy," and the occasional novelty record thrown in, too.
http://markmcdermott.com/MusicalCheese/Musical%20Cheese_2012_09_12.m4a 

Musical Cheese Practice Show: Sept 12, 2012 on WIIT 88.9 FM

Twilight Zone, Golden Earring 1982
Pop Muzik, M 1979

A little instrumental break here:

Hawaii Five-O theme, Ventures 1969
Peaches en Regalia, Frank Zappa 1969 (LP: Hot Rats)
Baby How'd We Ever Get This Way, Andy Kim 1968 (Another of the Brill Building songwriters who occasionally stuck out on their own, Andy had a bigger hit with "Rock Me Gently" in 1974, but is best known for writing "Sugar Sugar.")

Some Classical Gassers:

Hungarian Rhapsody (Dueling Pianos), "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" Soundtrack 1988, featuring Daffy and Donald Duck.
Pal-Yat-Chee, Spike Jones with Homer & Jethro, 1950
Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker), Parliament, 1976
Rocket Man, William Shatner, 1979 Science Fiction Awards (If you can't get down with the Shat-man, you can't claim to be playing Musical Cheese!) 
White Bird, It's a Beautiful Day, 1969
Woo-Hoo, Rock-A-Teens, 1959
Makin' Our Dreams Come True, Cyndi Grecco, 1976
("Schlemiel! Schlamozl! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated")
Hot Rod Lincoln, Charlie Ryan & the Timberline Riders, 1959 (Itself an answer song to another "Hot Rod Race" song, this is best known in its 1972 cover by Commander Cody)
I've Been Everywhere, Hank Snow, 1962 (Originally written by an Australian, with all Down Under place names!)

Maybe I'll feature songs that reference super-heroes each week:

Kryptonite, 3 Doors Down, 1999
What's the Name of This Funk (Spider-Man), Ramsey Lewis 1976
Galaxy, War, 1976

A selection whose cultural importance I labored hard to explain:

Solfeggio (Song of the Nairobi Trio), Robert Maxwell 1953
The Teddy Bears' Picnic, Edison Symphony Orchestra 1908
I Wanna Rock, Cab Calloway, 1942
The Happy Whistler, Don Robertson, 1956 (There's just something oddball about any instrumental hit. Whistling songs even more so)
No No Song, Ringo Starr 1974 (As it turned out, there were still some substances Ringo couldn't say "No No" to when he recorded this. But he got better.) 
We Have All the Time in the World, Louis Armstrong ("On Her Majesty's Secret Service" Soundtrack) 1969 ("What a Wonderful World" is probably the most overplayed song of this century. But you can't go wrong with this, the last song Satchmo recorded!)