Tag Archives: Mike McCann

Airlift Productions RADIO work, New Orleans VoiceOvers, The Radio Days/Daze

Airlift Mike And My Time With “The Saints”

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While I daily walk with ‘the saints’ – ya know,  guys like Paul/Saul of Tarsus, Francis (of Assisi), Sister Thecla, et al – this post is all about my years and stories of time spent with our New Orleans Saints.

It all began way-y back in 1983.

As the young (er) DJ/Q-93 Radio air personality Mike McCann, doors were opened to me that, quite frankly, not everyone gets to walk through.

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Times-Picayune Ad for that Mike McCann dude back in the mid-’80s

Together with Walton & Johnson (new to NOLA and also new to WQUE-FM radio), we emceed talent shows, cheerleader competitions… I even hosted Ladies’ Nights at the Airport Sheraton’s nightclubs known as Nightlite and Valentine’s.

My ‘job’ on those nights was to entertain – walk the club with a wireless mic, run crazy contests, give away concert tickets, albums (yes, vinyl), tell jokes, and keep the party going.

The club was packed every night and the dance floors were jammin’ to the likes of Rick James, Prince, Michael Jackson, Chaka Khan, Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder….

Morten Andersen, as he looked in those studly Valentines/Airport Sheraton days

The regular crowd on those poker-hot wild nights included Morten Andersen, Brian Hansen, Dave Waymer, Saints new & old, even members of the then-fledgling U.S.F.L.’s New Orleans Breakers.

In the ’80s, the Saints’ go-to kicking team was Morten Andersen & Brian Hansen, and one night I showed up for Ladies Nights only to find Morten & Brian, dates in hand, waiting in line to get in!

Of course, I helped them ‘cut’ the line. Wouldn’t you?

Saints’ Defensive Back Dave Waymer (1958-1993)

Legendary Saint free safety, the late Dave Waymer (ole #44) was a regular, sitting at the end of the bar through many a night. I have fond memories of Dave,  the laughs we shared, as well as the the way-too-many Canadian Moosehead beers he would send my way.

Sadly, upon exiting NOLA for brief stints with the 49ers & Raiders, Dave died suddenly on his North Carolina farm at the age of only 34.

In the early ’80s, now-Pro Football Hall of Famer Morten Andersen, the Great Dane, was new to the states & New Orleans, while I was freshly-minted as the new afternoon drive guy on Q-93.

Upon meeting in ’83, we bonded, talked on-air together, laughed and swapped stories, hung-out at the clubs together, even chased a woman or two together. Great guy, great times, greater stories. 

And not many fit for a blog post.

Ole reliable #8, Archie Manning, in a classic shot from his Saints days

Fast-forward to the ’90s, and in the early days of Airlift Productions, in the Iberville Street years, my audio production skills, voice and writing came to the attention of Archie Manning.

Archie, together with Mississippi bodybuilder Steve Smith, created Archie Manning’s Golds Gym at Cleary and Veterans Blvd. in Metairie, and I began a two-year run working alongside Archie to promote the gym.

This involved regular meetings with Archie, my writing of all the spots, audio production, and regular studio visits to record with Archie.

Like this gem we produced for Christmas one year…

** Archie Manning’s Golds Gym – Christmas 1992 radio :60 **

While I’ve never met his boyz Peyton & Eli, I’ve sure shared some amazing times with ole #8, the dude that started it all!

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Deuce McAllister records PSA TV VoiceOvers with Airlift Productions, NOLA

I first met and recorded living legend & ‘ground pounder’, the Saints’ Dulymus “Deuce” McAllister in 2016, after being sought out to record his voiceover tracks for the Mississippi State Child Protective Services Department.

Together, we phone-patched to their offices and captured his voice for use in a PSA campaign that ran all over MS. radio & TV for a cause that Deuce & I hold close to our hearts – keeping our kids out of harm’s way.

‘Nuff said. But what a great, humble, and soft-spoken guy this is.

The one Saint that stuck?

The one I still run with and call a good friend?

Brad’s trading card… gee, smells sorta like bubble gum

Brad Edelman.

St. Louis-bred Brad Edelman, ole #63, was drafted by the Saints in 1982, got to NOLA just a bit before me, and went on to become the first offensive lineman in the history of the Saints selected to the NFL Pro Bowl.

He exited the NFL in 1991, began a thriving photography business, took up drumming, the harmonica, acting – and took to hanging out with yours truly.

Brad Edelman & Airlift Mike, having a laugh at Airlift Productions NOLA, 2017

Brad has come to my Endymion parties on Iberville Street, got to know my family, bought me lunches… and has spent a lot of time around my Airlift Productions recording, laughing, and, well, just being brotherly.

Give a listen to Brad’s wailing harmonica as he backs up Richie Lenz (former WDSU-TV Anchor/Sports dude) on this post-Katrina ditty we entitled, “I Ain’t Livin’ in The Bowl No More”, here….

** Post-Katrina Therapy with Rich & Brad ~ Oh my! **

Through my now-36-year run here in New Orleans running the Airlift Productions Studios – from Iberville to Pomona – I’ve certainly got more than my share of colorful stories.

But my days/daze with our New Orleans Saints, young & old, still with us and those departed, are among my favorites.

And today, with so much of my work centered around the AudioBook field, I was joking just the other day with son Ben about Drew Brees.

Come on, I told him, if I’ve already recorded James Carville, Mary Matalin, Congressman Steve Scalise,  & Necar Zadegan for the top AudioBook producers in NYC… even personally read “The Chef” for James Patterson’s gang….

Drew Brees entertains a captive Sunday Superdome crowd

Upon hanging up the cleats and retiring, walking away from the game,  it’s safe to say that ole #9 Drew’s got a book or two in him, right?

Stranger things than this have already happened – one day he’ll need a great space, a finely-tuned recording studio, together with an experienced and reliable producer, to lay it down…

“Drew Brees, take #1…”

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​”Airlift Productions in New Orleans – Perfect sound in the booth, amazing engineering, and Mike is a man of all trades who can do voice work as well. (Probably the most golden-toned voice I have ever heard and we’ve all heard some lovely voices)… I cannot say enough nice things about the experience of working with him.” ~ LISA CAHN, Veteran Producer, Hachette Audio Book Group, NYC

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Airlift Productions – we’ll leave the mics hot… and the light on for you.

Airlift Productions ~ Audio Alchemy & Digital Magic from New Orleans… since 1984

New Orleans VoiceOvers, The Radio Days/Daze

Mike McCann/John Saint John… Goes Country?

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The now-vacant 45-story Plaza Tower, towering over the New Orleans skyline

With Ken Burns’ epic PBS mini-series documentary on Country Music now being splashed across flat screens all across America, someone cue the “flash-back” harp music….

One of my more obscure contributions to the media DNA of New Orleans was performing as morning drive air personality on the ill-fated  rockin’ country WQXY, Y-96 FM.

While continuing to operate the Airlift Productions studios, then on Iberville Street just off Carrollton and Canal Street, early mornings in late 1989 and early 1990 found me on top of the Plaza Tower building near the Superdome waking UP the Big Easy.

And, WHEW! What a view.

Today in 2019 the same frequency is under Entercom rule and plays classic rock under the Bayou 95.7 banner. 

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“Mike McCann” (seated) in the Airlift Productions Iberville studios, along with ‘the Gator’, circa 1989

But 29 years ago it was a different game in a different town.

Y-96 FM was an ill-fated attempt to unseat NOLA Country mainstay WNOE … from, ironically, an ill-fated building, that since Katrina in 2005 has remained vacant, and a subject of asbestos-tainted controversy.

But that’s another story all together.

Here’s mine.

As the radio fates would have it, a former on-air buddy from the old Nashville days at WLAC, Smokey Rivers (Fred Flanzer), had stepped-in as consultant to Ric Frances (WQXY GM), and I was offered the morning drive position.

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Airlift Productions – as it looked in 1990 on Iberville Street … Reel-to-reel analog decks, outboard gear & mixer, the way recording used to be done. Oh, if only you’d lived then, kids.

So, while continuing to operate Airlift Productions with all my freelance jobs – WGNO-TV, Ronnie Lamarque, The Esplanade Mall, WNOL-TV, The United Way – I also covered mornings for the Y-96 FM Waking Krewe!

Sample just a taste of “your morning M & M on the FM”, sandwiched in-between Dolly Parton, George Strait, Ricky Van Shelton, and Roseanne Cash, here …

** “Mike McCann” WQXY, Y-96 FM, January 1990 **

Ironically, John Volpe (mentioned here as a fellow air personality) today in 2019 is still a super salesman for the Entercom krewe, which today operates this frequency 95.7/Bayou; and Terrell Robinson (featured here) just recently hung-up his “spurs” & headphones after decades of plying his trade as traffic reporter in New Orleans.

Funny, isn’t it, how some things change, and others remain the same.

Here in 2019, country music sure has changed, the radio stations and owners (like an adult game of musical chairs) sure have changed, but the one now-decades-long constant in the whole NOLA media mix?

Airlift Mike and Airlift Productions.

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“My experience with Airlift Productions was top notch from the start. My company is based in Los Angeles and I had a client that needed to do a last minute VO session in New Orleans. Micheal was incredibly knowledgable and accommodating, not to mention a blast to work with! Our session turned out beautifully. ” — Lizz Rantze, Executive Producer, Rantze + Raves Productions, Los Angeles, CA

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The Radio Days/Daze

McCann, Walton & Johnson On-Air At Q93-WQUE, 1984

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Times-Picayune Pic  featuring WQUE Radio’s new hires – Walton & Johnson … oh, and that Mike McCann dude (Airlift proprietor Micheal Ziants ) during the radio days/daze)

The world sure was a different place in 1984.

Ronald Reagan sat in the White House, America was watching ‘Cosby’ & ‘Family Ties’ on cathode ray tubes, Wendy’s was asking “Where’s the Beef?” …

Videotape & VCRs were state of the art,  ‘Romancing the Stone’ was huge at the box office, Los Angeles hosted the Olympic Games, the NFL had competition with the USFL – and Cut Off, LA native Bobby Hebert was QB for it’s Michigan Panthers …

Closer to home, ‘Dutch’ Morial reigned as Mayor of New Orleans, K&B Drugstores were on every corner, Maison Blanche still sat on Canal Street … and the Crescent City opened it’s doors and welcomed the world with the 1984 World’s Fair!

And the day it opened – May 12th, 1984 – yours truly, as Mike McCann, was wrapping up my first year on Q-93 as afternoon air personality.

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My weekend gig was doing mid-days on-air every Saturday and, as fate would have it, the day the World’s Fair was unveiled, I was doing the duty – with Walton & Johnson as co-stars.  

Really.

John & Steve had a remote broadcast on this Saturday from the remodeled Maison Blanche department store on Canal Street – and dropped in from time to time on the broadcast.  Oh boy! 

Hard to believe that this aircheck is now thirty-three years old! Although the station positioning statement  “30 minutes of non-stop music IN STEREO!” is for sure a giveaway.

And the music?  Cindy Lauper, Van Halen,  Rod Stewart, Culture Club, Madonna …and Prince Rogers Nelson danced in the ‘Purple Rain’.

Give a listen to New Orleans radio in 1984 – in this newly unearthed, never-before-heard gem.  It’s WQUE-FM broadcasting from the top of the Tidewater Place building in the 1400 block of Canal Street on May 12th, 1984 – LIVE with Mike McCann —-

Man, it was so hard to find good part-time help in those days. 🙂

 

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a full-page ad in Sunday’s Times-Picayune promoting WQUE’s Mike McCann

 

Interestingly – and not so coincidentally – 1984 was also the year that I decided to prepare my exit from the radio days and create Airlift Productions!  As to Walton & Johnson?  Well, John & Steve are still today in 2017 plying their trade in syndication on some of America’s finest radio stations…mgz

 

 

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MikeChurchKingDudeSiriusRadio“When I need BIG ‘I-know-that-guy’s-voice!’ sound for any production I am working on, the first call I make is to Airlift Mike.  Micheal’s penetrating vocals and second-to-none production quality give my movie & audio feature projects the instant respectability they need.   If you want to sound like a pro, meaning no one gives a second thought to your audio because it is so well executed, you want to call Airlift!”

— MIKE CHURCH, World-Famous Sirius/XM Talk Show Host, Founding Father Film Maker, Writer & Producer of ‘The Spirit of ’76’ and ‘The Road to Independence’ & Creator of the Veritas Network/Crusade Channel

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Airlift Productions ~ Audio Alchemy & Digital Magic from NOLA since 1984!

The Radio Days/Daze

One Angel Down … Airlift Productions Still Blue

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Micheal Ziants aka Mike McCann, Q-93, ready to board this Blue Angel SkyHawk jet, Belle Chasse, LA – 1984

It’s all over the news this April 2017 week in New Orleans. The Navy’s Blue Angels return, after a six year hiatus, to Belle Chasse for another air show. Along with all the attendant stories of G-force, incredible speeds, and death-defying stunts.

And watching the news coverage I couldn’t help but flashback to my radio days, (cue the harp music interlude) ~ it was the spring of 1984, Belle Chasse Naval Air Base.  As Q-93 Radio afternoon air personality Mike McCann, I was invited to take part in promoting the upcoming airshow at the base.

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Uh-oh, no turning back now …. Airlift Mike preparing to be Air-borne!

This proved to be one of the more remarkable days of my entire life. Picture yourself, if you can, hurtling through the skies over the Gulf of Mexico at over 500 mph UPSIDE down in the cockpit of an A-4 Skyhawk jet!

My co-pilot? Lieutenant Commander Mike Gershon. Square-jawed, clear-eyed, Bond-like, heroic, courageous, fearless… and dead way before his time.  Little did either of us realize the day we flew together that the very next year at an airshow in Niagara Falls he would make history.

Mike Gershon became one of the few Blue Angels to ever perish in action. The crash was fiery, frightening and unforgettable.  And today, courtesy of the you tube crowd, you can bear witness to the tragedy – as well as meet Mike & his widow, Sherri, here …

 

Lieutenant Commander Gershon – together with his #7 jet pictured – now belong to the ages. But today, I’d just like to say…’ Mike, thanks ever so for this incredible memory, sir. For the laughs, jokes, stories, and this fantastically joyous ride-of-a-lifetime!’

 And for the 21st century reminder that not all heroes die in battle. 

 

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Airlift Productions’ Micheal Ziants with Lt. Cmdr. Mike Gershon ~ Belle Chasse Naval Base, LA – 1984

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“My experience with Airlift Productions was top notch from the start. My company is based in Los Angeles and I had a client that needed to do a last minute VO session in New Orleans. Micheal was incredibly knowledgeable and accommodating, not to mention a blast to work with! Our session turned out beautifully.” 

– Lizz Rantze,  Executive Producer, Rantze + Raves Productions, Los Angeles, CA

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Airlift Productions ~ where the warmth of analogue lives…and the lightning speed of digital delivers!

Audio Book Recording & Production, New Orleans VoiceOvers

50 Shades Of Grey … Matter, from Airlift Productions

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Airlift Productions Proprietor Micheal Ziants, in a photo shoot for Q-93/WQUE-FM back in the day, to promote that afternoon M&M Mike McCann Show for New Orleans

As Mardi Gras rumbles through the streets of NOLA yet again (bands, beads & boobs), and just ahead of the opening of “50 Shades of Grey” at a cineplex near you … a few thoughts from Airlift.

It’s kind of funny the way life works sometimes. The Chinese call it ‘wu wei’ …. living with the give and take, the flow of life,  but the biggest industrial VoiceOver job I got all last year centered around an unbelievable set of circumstances.

The CEO of this major Chicago-based supply house needed VoiceOver work recorded for a huge upcoming convention in Dallas. As fate would have it, the CEO was female, and her request to the video producer was, “Have Micheal read it like he did ‘The Highwayman’ on his website.”

Now, the read in question came from an audio book on CD that I had finished recording in the mid-1990s, “Soft Words, Warm Nights“, and was a far cry from anything I’d been cast to record at that point. Not even close.

Passionate. Dramatic. Cinematic. As you may recall from high school or collegiate English classes, this epic poem tells the tale of highway robbery, torrid passion, star-crossed lovers, suicide & murder!

Certainly not what one would call ‘commercial fare’.

Yet across the decades, this recording of ‘The Highwayman’ was the clincher.  This was the approach, the mic technique, the raw emotion that this woman – the corporate decision maker – based her final decision on.

All that being said, here comes another Airlift Mike stretch.

In her sizzling, poker-hot, best-seller “50 Shades of Grey”, E. L. James set fire to the smoldering libidos of women all across the planet.

And now, just ahead of it’s big box office release, Airlift Productions presents ’50 Shades of Grey ~ the Ziants way’ – no reverb, no special effects, no music. Naked. Raw. Real. Sensual. Oh, and fun!

Plug-in the headphones (no kids allowed) and give a LISTEN to Airlift’s audio book audition track here …

***** Micheal Ziants reads from ’50 Shades of Grey’ *****

To the uninitiated who’ve never heard an audio book, yes, the narrator/reader performs all the parts.  It’s all about treating the microphone not as a cold piece of metal … but as a warm, human ear. Making sterile technology & internet downloads all warm … and fuzzy.

It has been said that the most important sexual organ is between the ears, not the legs … the human brain, the gray matter.  So, let’s tickle it a bit.

Whether this read influences the next corporate narration VoiceOver job or not is purely an academic question at this point … but for now, let’s just consider this a bedtime story for the 21st century woman.

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Airlift Productions’ Micheal Ziants putting in another day at the office in 2015. “Ah, can I really say THAT on the microphone?”

Airlift Productions Recording Studio ~ Telling America’s Great Stories from New Orleans since 1984!