Showing posts with label RIT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RIT. Show all posts

1 Birthday, 1 Anniversary, 4 Teams, 5 Songs...

Sparks Of Insanity By Vinny "Bond" Marini Friday, April 02, 2010 15 Of Your Sparks



HAPPY 23rd Birthday Matt.

Yup...23 years ago tomorrow my whole world changed forever.
And I would not change that fact for anything!
He is doing the 6-year college merry-go-round
First a teacher, then a psychologist and finally law enforcement
But he has gotten his act together acing all his classes this semester.
If you never read my 20th Birthday tribute to my son, find it HERE




CONGRATULATIONS to
Brother Rich & SIL Cindy
on their 27 Anniversary on this day!



OOPSIE..the Frozen Four begins NEXT Thursday! 5:30pm R.I.T.(28-11-1) v. Wisconsin (27-10-4) then at 8:30pm #1 seed Miami (Ohio) (29-7-7) v. #3 seed Boston College (27-10-3).

They only give seeding for the top 4 teams and R.I.T. beat the #2 seed Denver in round 1 of the tournament. Bracket details are found

GO TIGERS!




I said yesterday I was going to concentrate more on MUSIC here on The Couch...and that means joining in on my friend TRAVIS' meme called FIVE ON FRIDAY.

Now here are the guidelines (Travis does not do rules) for Five On Friday:

1. Grab the banner, make your post title Five on Friday, and be sure to link back here.
2. Go to Playlist.com to make your play list of five songs. Choose a particular theme to share with us. You can simply post the play list, or you can add a little summary about what you are sharing.
3. I don't know how to make a specific linky, so be sure to leave me a comment to let me know that you participated.
4. No tags, but feel free to invite your friends to play along if they need a post topic on a Friday.

Now, I do not use playlist.com, but I am putting 5 songs here.

These five are all artists I am have booked or am looking to book on my BlogTalk Radio Show "Music On The Couch" over the next few months.

This is a really cool way to share your music with your readers and I highly encourage you to join in on Friday's, after all...Friday means the doorway to the weekend and going back to my college days when I ran the Fraternity's sound system (shocked you are, I know), that meant Friday afternoon speakers on the balcony giving the quad MUSIC!


Joshua Stedman is booked on the show on April 19th.
This is "A Simple Love"


Nick Daugherty is still not confirmed, but we are working it out.
This is "A Thousand Times"


Kat Danser is scheduled to appear in June.
This is her song "Yesterday's Blues"


Mississippi Heat's leader Pierre Lacocque will appear on April 26.
This is their song "Hattiesburg Blues"


And finally today,
the band is Zydecosis from New Orleans. I have not booked them yet.
They take rock and roll and play it in Zydeco - very cool.
This is their take on"Fat Bottomed Girls"


HAVE A GRAND WEEKEND ALL!

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He's Bacccccck...

Sparks Of Insanity By Vinny "Bond" Marini Thursday, April 01, 2010 10 Of Your Sparks

Needed a few days to clear my head...even thought about taking the week, but then things cleared and I had some information to share on a few fronts...

First off, my alma mater, which shut down the football program in 1977, the year after Tom Coughlin (he now of the Giants) left has always been a small school when it comes to sports.

The Hockey team is one exception. They have always fielded a strong team over the years and for a short time, I was even the play-by-play announced for the team on WITR Radio one year.

Well...HECK-A-DOODLE...The RIT men's hockey team is one step closer to a national championship! The RIT Tigers are heading to Detroit to play in the NCAA Frozen Four on April 8 and 10.

The Tigers, Atlantic Hockey Association champions, advance to the Frozen Four after defeating the University of Denver and University of New Hampshire at the NCAA East Regional in Albany.

Now RIT will join college hockey's elite programs at Ford Field in Detroit. The first game of the Frozen Four is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, April 8 and will feature RIT vs. Wisconsin.

All the games will be on ESPN2...so I say loud and proud GO TIGERS!



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Have to tell you that Josh Charles' new album is getting a ton of play on my iTouch.

The entire CD is tuneage worthy. His fingers tickle the ivories like a born N'awlins-er (and yes I made that up!)

You would never know he is La Jolla, Calif.-born, Kansas City-raised, and New York City-based (except for those two days he lived in New Orleans and then had to get out of town before Katrina hit.

He is getting a ton of ink and will be HUGE real soon. He even got a small article on the web site of Brother Rich's newspaper.

The CD is 10 songs of solid jazz/dixie/rock/blues/soul including a great rendition of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come".

He is backed by Dr. John's Band, who mentored Josh early on. The horn section is as tight as they come and the rhythm section lays down a great bed for Josh's piano playing to walk on.

His voice is really on target with the music he performs and he has a stellar backing chorus who compliment his tone perfectly.

Also on the album, Josh included his song "Healing Time", which he wrote about the rebuilding of New Orleans. If you are inclined, you can go to iTunes and grab the single and ALL money is donated to the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans to assist in the rebuilding of that city.

Continuing his love for the city, Josh is donating a portion of his proceeds to the same cause.

I will stop now, as I am very hopeful that josh will be joining me on Music On The Couch real soon and I want to leave something for you to learn.

I am also hopeful to help bring Josh to Memphis in the near future, working with his agent.

I would share a taste, but the CD is coded to not allow for sharing. But go to Josh's web site HERE and get your taste. I promise you will NOT be disappointed!


I am going to be reviewing a lot of artists coming up here. There will still be other subjects discussed, but I am needing to really focus on all the music I am receiving.

Tomorrow, I will introduce you to a woman who I was turned on to by my Fraternity Brother Greg...her name is Kelley Hunt.

See y'all then....



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A Birthday...A Sky & A Rocking Memory...

Sparks Of Insanity By Vinny "Bond" Marini Friday, July 17, 2009 11 Of Your Sparks

My birthday reminder was late for this one.
Please go over and wish DANA from "Amid Life's Crises"
A big old

HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

She celebrates tomorrow!



Sitting here staring at the screen and just not coming up with a usually brilliant idea to post.

I don't have any interesting sky shots - though I probably could walk outside right now and get one. The sky is breaking up into a rich blue at 5:32pm CDT on Thursday, after we were greeted with torrential downpours and lightening and thunder overnight though about 1:00pm today.

In fact, the electricity went out sometime overnight and the skiy was pitch black this morning so I was a tad late to work. The alarm never went off and the light from outside was non-existent.

Be right back...

OK, I am back and it is only 15 minutes later...


Check out "Looking At The Sky Friday" participants by clicking on the banner above and heading over to Crazy Working Mom's site.

This is what the sky looks like facing South-East, the sun back behind me about 45 degrees, which is why there is a tiny lens flare on the right side.


Did a Tuneage Tutelage on this band back on August 1, 2007. And that post was actually the first with the designation of TUNEAGE TUTELAGE.

One of my fondest memories are back in college - Friday afternoon in the fraternity house (we occupied the fourth and fifth floors of a 5 story dorm...opening the glass double doors - that led to a 1 foot wide balcony, guarded by a four foot high rail - today they would be top to bottom -

"Don't let little Johnny jump off when he gets his first B and
mommy and daddy can't get the big mean professor change it!"

Sorry, got off on a rant there, didn't I? Anywhoodle, where was I..

OH yeah, open the glass doors that look out on the quad below with students beginning to mingle around planning the weekend...and the speakers would be turned outward, and I would walk into my room (where the stereo was located - of course), and crank this mother up!

The opening guitar riffs would burn out of the speakers and those down below would begin a cheer...For the next few hours we supplied the soundtrack for chatting, Frisbee, hackie sack (ugh), drinking and other personality altering substances.

This song became the call for weekend in the Sol Heumann Quad at R.I.T.






Guess I came up with something after all...whether you enjoyed...is up to you

HAVE A GRAND WEEKEND!!!!!



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The Story Continues...

Sparks Of Insanity By Vinny "Bond" Marini Thursday, May 22, 2008 27 Of Your Sparks

As we have discussed in the past, I worked as a DJ for a number of years. Beginning with the second day I was on the R.I.T. campus I did at least one radio show a week for all four years. Most of the time i did two a week.

I began doing the midnight to 3:00 am shift Friday/Saturday and Saturday/Sunday. I L-O-V-E-D these shifts. I was alone at the station...you could smoke inside in those days and I took advantage of it in many ways (wink wink)...I could experiment with my music and play anything that caught my eye.

WITR had a music collection that rivaled most of the major FM stations of the day. There were over 15,000 albums in our collection and it spanned from big band to rock to blues to jazz to funky stuff (in those days that meant Captain Beefheart, the GTOs and the like, music that would never make mainstream radio because of its lyrics - YES, even then).

It was all vinyl and it was incredible to walk into the music room and just start picking. In all honesty, I tended to stick with the same type of music I love now...rock, southern rock, the San Francisco sound. BUT...I also began to advance my knowledge with "tutelage games". I would walk into the room and just grab things off the shelf, no matter what it was.

Then I would find ways to slip them into my show. When I first began I would get phone calls from listeners asking what the hell I was doing playing Dean Martin right after the Grateful Dead. Well, if I could make the songs 'flow' I did it.

There were some mixes I probably liked too much and used too often, but hey...

Rochester also got a lot of concerts then (and I would bet still today), because of the number of colleges within an hour and a half.

That meant we got the opportunity to get some of those touring on the air. As a junior I also began working for the local concert promoter, normally working security (Yeah me too Angell!) and that got me even more access to meeting some of the acts.

Unfortunately, unlike my friend Bud, I did not think ahead and keep copies of many of those tapes. I do have a few reel to reels somewhere and one is the interview with Rick Wakeman that I described here on The Couch.

But I loved doing the radio and even did a morning shift my sophomore year in full-tilt top 40 "stacks of wax on my wheels of steel, I am woman, Helen's Ready, Eli's Coming, Three Dog Night" kind of stuff and playing the top 40 of 1973 which included such memorable hits as:

  • Angie
  • Basketball Jones
  • D'yer Mak'er
  • Delta Dawn
  • Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
  • Half-Breed
  • Killing Me Softly..
  • My Maria
OK, we can stop now...

That same year I took on the 9:00pm - Midnight shift on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. A more "civil" hour to do radio, but with more restrictions because there were still people milling about in the station and in the college union building where we were located, so the shows began to get a tad more normal. Also that year we increased our power and were broadcasting to most of the city and surrounding areas of Rochester.

But I always loved mixing it up...not sure how this got to where it ended up, let me know if you like it.

Oh and if you did not know all of yesterday it was Eric Clapton "Running On Faith"; Grateful Dead "Big River" (live RFK Stadium 06/10/1973); and Sting "Heavy Cloud, No Rain".






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Tuesday Music Memories...

Sparks Of Insanity By Vinny "Bond" Marini Tuesday, March 25, 2008 22 Of Your Sparks

Do not forget to head on over to Travis' and get his take on last nights "Dancing With The Stars", or as we like to call it "Hot Legs And Shoes"...

Finally beginning to feel better after almost 3 weeks of feeling like a glob of goo...just in time to get prepared for the trip to Tampa, the first weekend of April. It looks like there will be about 30 TKEs and guests swooping in from around the country. We will be missing a few select Brothers, but life does invade on what we would like to do sometimes...

The other day we talked about our meeting Rick Wakeman from YES. It took place at WITR Radio, the station on the campus of R.I.T. When we arrived on campus, we knew we wanted to be on the radio, so on day two, we headed over to the academic side of campus and walked into the station.

Mike L., the station manager, greeted us and we spoke for a while. He asked about musical tastes and think he was impressed with the spectrum of my tastes. He gave me a tour of the station and we knew we belonged there.

1972...albums...WITR had thousands and thousand of albums. Floor to ceiling, every wall in two rooms and three more rows in each room. HEAVEN! The trumpets were playing in our head.

Mike gave me a lesson on one of the soundboards. Back then it was all dials and large. Two turntables to your left. Looking into the 'news booth' where the people who did news would sit. Or if we did interviews, we used the same room. On the other side of it was another studio. It was more advanced and was only used by the seasoned DJs and for production work.

Well, the next day, we were on the air at about 3 in the afternoon. The non-freshmen were arriving on campus and we were broadcasting through speakers around campus.

This was a live on-air test for us and then we would take over our first two shifts which were Friday/Saturday midnight to 3am and then Saturday/Sunday midnight to 3am.

Everything was going great...we had only made a couple of technical errors - not starting the turntable on time and once we had not cued the record properly and it started before the turnable was up to speed "a-wahhhhhhhhhh"...

Now when the microphone is on the "ON AIR" light outside the door goes on. First rule of radio or TV or movies, when the "ON AIR" light is on, you do not walk in talking about the station and how far our reach is and how the DJs get to program...

SO we are doing a PSA and this occurs and without thinking we turn and say...outloud...."WHAT THE F**K, CAN'T YOU SEE I AM ON THE AIR"....ummmm oooopsey!

Jaws drop and Mike comes in and looks and shakes his head, and we start a song and close the mic and we discuss the F word... LOL

SO, everything is fine again and we select our last song of the night...Janis Joplin and Big Brother Live "Ball & Chain"...

The version of the song we put on was live and near the end, Janis rips off the F-word about 3 times.... and we just cringed....

We began our normal shift that week and spend 4 years on air there. It led us to some jobs in local clubs and also some shifts on the local commercial radio station WCMF. This is not the version we used on the radio show, but comes from the Monterey Jazz Festival

ENJOY...





Coming up this week on DR. BLOGSTEIN’S RADIO HAPPY HOUR:(Live on Tuesday March 26th at 9PM ET and forever archived at BlogTalkRadio.)
john-melendez1.jpg “Stuttering John” Melendez, announcer for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and former member of the Howard Stern Show will lead things off this week on the Radio Happy Hour.

We’ll find out how a man with a stutter ended up with an announcing career, what he does all day, and whether he thinks Howard or Jay is funnier. We’ll also learn about his upcoming feature film that he wrote, directed and starred in: National Lampoon’s One, Two, Many.francia.jpg
Then, actress Francia Raisa stops by. She’s starred opposite NBC’s “Heroes’” Hayden Panettiere in “Bring it On: All or Nothing” and can now be seen in ABC Family’s “Cutting Edge 3: Chasing The Dream.”

Also, Singer Sherri Eldin will perform live on the air, Dangerous Lee co-hosts, Vinny Bond drags his Big Leather Couch into the Radio Happy Hour Lounge to chat live with the listeners and Justin the Weatherman stops in to tell us how he almost drowned in Costa Rica.

All that, and we’ll take your calls at 646-652-4804

Join us live every Tuesday night at 9PM ET. The Radio Happy Hour Lounge-a live chat room during show time-is a whole new reason to make sure you listen live! It’s the show within the show!









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Wednesday Shorty...but a good laugh (at least for me)

Sparks Of Insanity By Vinny "Bond" Marini Wednesday, January 23, 2008 12 Of Your Sparks



TIME TO DONATE SOME RICE TODAY!
<-----------------------------------------------
Build your vocabulary, feed the hungry...
15,295,699,110 grains donated at this point...15 BILLION TOPPED!



SO, we made it home...long day..delays at the airport - the gate agents said the air traffic controllers were slowing everything down and we did not have internet access...have to change that moving forward...

Will have to catch up on blogs later today...

In the meantime we received an email from an old family friend, Scott, with a link to this on youtube and we are sitting here laughing hysterically...HAVE to share it...all y'all might not laugh as much as we did...but as we have all said at some point, in some fashion... "It is our blog...deal!"
bwahahahhahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa


Well he is wrong about one thing...there are schools... especially Rochester Institute Of Technology, the leader in the field...The School of Printing which we graduated from with a BS degree in Print Management is now part of the School For Imaging Arts & Sciences...with degrees in Print Media...the times they do change....

See all y'all tomorrow...

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Music On The Couch