By WCJM Free Internet Radio:

Jim Fusco’s constant quest for perfection reached its final destiny.  He had obtained perfection due to hours of careful planning and tedious work to make The Best Song EVER! Show a free Internet radio masterpiece.  First, Jim asked everyone in the cast, which now included Dave Perrelli as a permanent member, to pick the top three songs of all time (in their opinion).  He also threw in a suggestion for everyone to pick the worst song of all time, just to add a little comedy to the show.  After all the times were given to Jim, he wrote up an elaborate, down to the second, 3 page, typed outline of the proceedings of The Best Song EVER! Show.  But the show was going to be a little different from all the others.  There was too much music to put the whole show on one 90 minute tape.  Therefore, he was forced to choose two 60 minute tapes, making it an interesting double album.  Each of the 30-minute sides had a total time allowed for the essentials: 29 minutes 30 seconds for side one, 26 minutes 30 seconds for side two, 27 minutes 30 seconds for side three, and 22 minutes 35 seconds for side four.  Although Jim knew he was very liberal on the allotted time for each side, Mike made complaints that Jim’s down-to-the-second planning would be too strict, just as it was during the Millennium “Mayhem” Celebration tape.  But he was proven wrong, because there was plenty of time for all that was needed, even giving leeway for free time and debate.

The tape went off without a hitch, the first side having traffic, news, weather, sports, and technology coupled with the third picks of all time.  Side two then continued with the second picks of all time and another information report.  The beginning of tape number two, or side three overall, followed the same pattern of the first two sides: an information report, and the first picks of all time.  Side four, however, started with a three minute heated debate.  The side then moved on to the elimination of the first ten songs, would whittle the list down to number 5.  The songs were eliminated from worst to best going around the table using the “seniority rule”.  A person could pick one song to eliminate at a time, or could pass their turn.  After getting down to No. 5, the group kept the audience waiting by then playing thirty seconds each of the worst songs ever (or as long as they could take it).  After that came an information report, then finally eliminating all the songs down to No. 1.  As it turned out, Alberto had the final choice between numbers one and two, finally selecting the number one song of all time.  The number one song was played over again, and then a promo for the “Party!” tape was played, and finishing off the tape with a debate.

There were some problems, though, that the cast faced during the recording of this tape.  Jim stereo does not stop recording once the side of the tape has ended, so when the cast lost track of time on the second side, the tape flipped over and started recording over the first side!  So, the first five minutes of the beginning had to be recorded over again, but the cast learned their lesson, and checked periodically for the end of every side.

Even though that incident left the first couple of minutes of the tape a little choppy, listening to the tape again, the sound quality is great, everyone’s microphone levels are perfect, there is no feedback, the content is perfect, and everything seems to blend together.  Jim had finally received what he had worked so hard to do.

This is merely the first step on the road to free Internet radio (and funny radio!) perfection…

By WCJM Free Internet Radio:

On April 29, 1999, Jim Fusco received a sound mixer for his birthday. He was so excited about the possibilities this mixer could have, that he called up Chris Moore to do another radio show sometime after his birthday (probably in the summer), Chris, Jim, and Mike took the air once again. This time, Chris brought some of his CDs over, and the three each got to pick their own songs to play.

The content of the free Internet radio show was fine, with Chris’ rendition of “Moron Jeopardy”, (you have to admit you’re a moron to play), but something was very wrong. Jim was using the mixer for pretty much the first time, so his inexperience dragged the quality of the tape down. He had plugged in one microphone and two CD players into the three microphone slots because he did not have the correct wires to hook the CD players up to the “CD In” slots. But, because microphones are only a low level input, and the CD players are high level inputs, the power of the CD players made the levels fluctuate up and down throughout the show. The next problem was that Jim could only be heard! Mike and Chris got their own microphones, but they were hooked up to the karaoke they used. The karaoke’s volume was up all of the way, making Chris and Mike’s microphones seem too loud. So they turned down the levels of the microphones so low, that on the tape they cannot be heard when the music is playing (on very low levels)!

But this didn’t deter them from going onward, for it only was a stepping stone to perfection, which the next tape almost achieved.

This show and all the other great installments from the WCJM cast and crew are available online for your free Internet radio listening pleasure!