Sugarmegs Audio Setlist

Cheap Trick
Imus In The Morning
September 25, 2006 [2006-09-25]

performed:
MSNBC Studios
Secaucus NJ
U.S.A.
(simultaneous broadcast)

originating station:
WFAN-AM, New York NY
national syndicating radio network:
Westwood One (USA)
television simulcasting link network:
MSNBC(USA)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

PERSONNEL
Robin Zander: lead vocals, guitar
Rick Nielsen: guitar, backing vocals
Tom Petersson: 12 string bass guitar, backing vocals
Bun E. Carlos: drums

plus:
Tod Howarth: keyboards, backing vocals
[not introduced, but seen briefly in YouTube clips (see below)]

HOST/INTERVIEWER
Don Imus
SIDEKICK
Charles McCord

TRACKLISTING
01 - Don't Be Cruel
02 - conversation w. Rick Nielsen
03 - I Want You To Want Me
04 - If It Takes A Lifetime
05 - Voices
06 - Dream Police
wrap-up

total duration: 27m:43s

PERFORMANCE NOTES
Maybe the guys were jazzed up on a few extra cups of coffee in order to be fully awake for such an early morning gig, but it seems that they take a couple of the songs (I Want You To Want Me & Dream Police) a lot faster than I remember the original recordings' being (or is it my imagination?).

After a commercial break and before band launches into the next song, Imus initiates a conversation with Rick Nielsen. It's not really an interview, more like chitchat. RN's microphone is not on, but you can still hear what he's saying.

Rick Nielsen dedicates a song (I Want You To Want Me [!!]) to 'Amy' - - - presumably MSNBC newsbabe Amy Robach.

Imus sidekick Rob Bartlett guests for the narration bit in the middle of Dream Police, essaying a Bill Clinton impression. Evidently he's a regular castmember of the show, imitating various personalities. I'm not familiar with his work, but I hope his other impressions are better than this one.

SOURCE
analogue FM

RECORDING NOTES
FM > CD-R
equipment: Onkyo TX-8410 receiver > Sony RCD-W500C standalone CD burner
recording format: 44.1 kHz / 16 bit

AUDIO NOTES
imaging: mono

When I recently vetted these Imus captures for upload (listening to them for prob. the first time since I recorded them), I could not for the life of me understand why they were mono, since they had been recorded off stereo FM. I thought maybe it was a technical goof on my part. But Uploader larryrulz was perspicacious enough to point out that originating New York station WFAN was an AM (& therefore mono) broadcaster, not FM as I had lethargically assumed. Evidently at this point in the game, there was no perceived need to mix stuff into stereo for syndication over FM outlets.

sound quality: excellent
(mp3 samples in comments)

TECHNICAL NOTES
generation: transfer from 1st generation off-air recording

transfer lineage:
analogue FM recorded via Sony RCD-W500C >
Exact Audio Copy v. 1.0 [secure mode] (audio extracted from off-air music CD-R) >
HDD >
DeGlitch Frontend (glitch detection & removal) >
Sony Sound Forge v. 11.0 (stitch segments together, pan stronger channel to middle to create true mono mix) >
Audacity v. 2.0.6 (track splits) >
Traders Little Helper v. 2.7.0 (check SBEs, create level 8 FLAC files) >
bitTorrent >
DIME

format: 44.1 kHz / 16 bit [CD compliant]

file size: 113 MB

MIXING/EDITING NOTES
Capturing Imus In The Morning guest appearances all-inclusively was tricky. The bands didn't perform in one continuous segment: they would do a song, come back in a subsequent section (maybe an hour later) do another song or an interview, &c. Their various poppings-up were not meticulously billboarded: it would just sorta abruptly be 'Okay, and here they are again . . .' My recording strategy was to capture every relevant piece: certainly all music and conversation, but also any mentions of the band that might be interspersed with the news and Imus 'comedy' bits. This required a fairly close listen to the entire four and a half (!!) hours of the show, in case something relevant would suddenly start happening. You had to be (in the immortal words of Shane) "Fast... fast on the draw." To make sure nothing got missed, I had to start listening at 5:30 AM - - - not easy on occasions when I had been out rocking (i.e., mercilessly exploiting some OTHER band) the nite before, and didn't get in 'til 2:00 AM. (Plus I was supposed to be at work by 9:00!).

Needless to say, there were a lot of false starts (when it seemed that the band was just about to come back, but didn't); you could expunge separate unwanted sections from a music CD-R on the fly before it was finalized (but not after). And sometimes things got missed as I sat, half-asleep, trying to keep track of what was going on and filter out all the unwanted bits without missing anything germane. As a result of all this fogginess, and the inability to focus on one and only one segment of the programme, some of my Imus captures are incomplete (the very beginning of a song or interview M.I.A. f'rinstance); but I don't think there's anything missing from this session.

So what you have here is a bunch of separate segments stretched out over a few hours' time, but here stitched together to make one concise document.

As mentioned above, the Imus shows were mono, even tho' retransmitted on a local stereo FM carrier. However, due to vagaries of electronic distribution and transmission, there were slight level fluctuations between the L and R channels on my recordings - - - which could possibly be misconstrued as evidence for at least some slight stereo separation. To restore the recording to its original pristine mono state for upload, I took the stronger (better signal-to-noise ratio) channel and pasted it into the other, so that L & R channels now = identical. (DIME protocol does not allow for the upload of true [one channel] mono soundfiles.)

After the band was finished, Imus & co. can be heard yakking about other topics. The sound of CT's equipment being torn down is audible in the background. Much of this segment was recorded just by happenstance: I merely let recording continue 'til I was sure there was no more music-related content. When preparing a different Imus In The Morning broadcast for upload, I noticed that some of the voices heard way in the background during the teardown belonged to bandmembers, so I included that portion in my final edit (for the sake of ultra-completeness). I don't think I recognize any bandmember voices in this fragment, but I likewise left in whatever I happened to have, just in case.

YOUTUBE CLIPS
Alongside the radio version, Imus In The Morning was at this point also simulcast on MSNBC-CATV:

----------------------------
https://youtu.be/1ug4hUN-_ik

The most complete of all the YouTube clips. At 26' long, it has most of the music and the Rick Nielsen interview. It's only missing the first song.
640x480

https://youtu.be/GUeDfZJK3t4

Don't Be Cruel, the first song performed (missing from above, but from the same source).
640x480

Between these 2 clips you have pretty much the whole thing. They have better overall picture quality than the ones listed below; however, there is bad wow at the beginning of Voices, followed by a (presumably VHS) tracking error, causing the audio to be momentarily replaced with inferior SAP source (some of you older people might remember).
----------------------------
https://youtu.be/Kw6OrF5hSoY

2 songs: I Want You To Want Me and If It Takes A Lifetime.
320x240

https://youtu.be/cvO3OGPygHE

2 more songs: Voices and Dream Police.
320x240

Again all the songs less Don't Be Cruel. Different source (or at least different playback) from above clips. Lesser picture quality, but no audio breakup during Voices.
----------------------------
https://youtu.be/AKG6X6Wuzc4

2 songs: I Want You To Want Me and If It Takes A Lifetime. Clone & re-up of above?
320x240
----------------------------
https://youtu.be/rS0akG6RaxA

Dream Police. Good quality.
352x264
----------------------------
https://youtu.be/08q_1nJK0D4

Dream Police. Awful quality, artefact-ridden.
320x240
----------------------------

MSNBC simulcast = replete with news scroll across the bottom. All the (then-latest) on the Saddam Hussein trial. [For those who don't follow current events: he lost.]

Interestingly, judging by his appearance on these MSNBC clips, Bun E. Carlos was by this point liberated from his dissipated South American police captain persona. (However Rick Nielsen was sticking to his Satch from the Bowery Boys look, and Robin Zander was still rocking the hair extensions.)

It's possible that I somewhere have my own videorecording of the Cheap Trick appearance. I do remember concurrently audiotaping the FM and videotaping the TV of a number of Imus In The Mornings --- just can't specifically remember if this = one of them (it probably was).

Such simulcasting made recording things byzantine. The FM and the CATV versions were pretty far out of whack --- not just by seconds, but sometimes by minutes --- as the MSNBC telecast inserted news updates in completely different places. Parts of the appearances that were on the radio were not on TV and vice versa (at least not where I lived). Sometimes the bumpers (showing or talking to the band after a song was done) were much longer on TV: the FM would throw it back to the local host station, but TV would keep going from Secaucus. Thus you couldn't just tape one or the other (FM or TV) and come away feeling you had everything. You had to snag both versions. If I do have the video version of this buried somewhere, maybe it (like these FMs) will eventually pop up out of the detritus.

IF YOU WANT MY LOVE DEPT.
Please don't upload this elsewhere. I'll do it myself, if & when... Thanks.

- Isotope Feeney
- May 2017