WOLV Works

Here lie the collected works that D.I. Prime hath wrought for WOLV-TV, the student-operated cable station at the University of Michigan. By and large, WOLV programming is only carried in university buildings although select "family-friendly" shows are simulcast on Ann Arbor's community access channel (22) on Comcast cable from 10-11pm each night. Although you probably can't see the shows that inspired these songs where you live (indeed, few can) you can hear the music right here.

"Basketball 2002"

Hollywood constantly churns out crappy sequels to crummy movies and continues to accrue money hand over fist. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before D.I. Prime tried to horn in on this concept. After writing "Break To The Lakes" for the show of the same name about the 2000-2001 season of Michigan's men's basketball team, Prime was asked to come up with something for the show about the 2001-2002 season. The result is "Basketball 2002". Unfortunately, the producer never recruited on-air talent for the show. Ergo, no show. Ergo, the song was never used.

Recriminations aside, it was a stupid plan from the outset. Although their products are of dubious quality, Hollywood only makes sequels to successful films. "Break To The Lakes" was never a successful song so its sequel was doomed from the first note. "Basketball 2002" never aired on WOLV but you can hear the cacophony here at droolingidiots.com.

Tubley has a guest vocal spot toward the end. Everything else was done by Prime.

Download the "Basketball 2002" mp3 (.92 MB).

Read the "Basketball 2002" lyrics.

"Basketball 2003"

Lazy.

WOLV needed a song for their 2003 Michigan Basketball show, "Michigan Basketball 2003", and D.I. Prime couldn't be bothered to write something new. Instead, he dusted off the 2002 song, changed a couple names and handed it off. Admittedly, since the old one never aired, most folks who watch the show won't recognize the recycling. But we do. DI.com regulars know what's what. Prime is one lazy son-of-a-bitch.

If you've heard "Basketball 2002" there's not much new here. Prime redid the lead vocals and added a few background vocals. Tubley still has his guest spot at the end.

Download the "Basketball 2003" mp3 (.92 MB).

Read the "Basketball 2003" lyrics.

"Break To The Lakes"

"Break To The Lakes" was the show that covered the Michigan men's basketball team during the 2000-2001 season. It was hosted by Nick Berger and Mike Kuiken. Tubley was the assistant director.

Tubley asked Prime to write a theme song for the show. This presented a a problem as Prime knew little about basketball and knew even less about Michigan's team. He didn't even get a tape of the show until he was almost finished with the song. Still, a job's a job and the Prime isn't one to pass up a challenge - especially when the pay off is having his music heard by both of the show's viewers.

The vocal version available here is the extended version used for the final show of the year. The song typically aired in an edited form without the second verse and chorus. Also available for your listening pleasure is the so-called instrumental version of the song that was used for the show's faux commercial breaks. Don't be fooled though, the two versions have almost nothing in common and sound completely different.

The guitar on the instrumental was played by the incomparable Michael Spaly. Also, thanks go out to Lucien St. Gerard, producer and director, for providing a scouting report on the team and for approving the song. Speaking of approval, thanks also go to the WOLV censors for not pulling the plug after getting squemish about the phrases "fake-ass" and "damn it".

Download the "Break To The Lakes" (extended) mp3 (2.2 MB).

Download the "Break To The Lakes" (instrumental) mp3 (3.6 MB).

Read the "Break To The Lakes" lyrics.

"The Big Schtick"

Owing to the vagaries of alphabetizing it's not intuitively obvious that this is the eighth song D.I. Prime has recorded for WOLV. It's nestled between two of its antecedents, "Break To The Lakes" and "Turn Me On", yet eighth it is and eighth it is destined to remain.

One fine February day whilst loitering at WOLV, D.I. Prime ran into Dani Steinberger, co-host of "The Big Shtick". If you've been a DI fan for a while, you're probably already familiar with Dani's name as the host of "Wolverine Spotlight". (Those of you who are new and reading this page alphabetically could take this as foreshadowing of a "Wolverine Spotlight" song.)

Dani reported that a fan had come up to him at a party and sang him the "Wolverine Spotlight" theme song. (Note: I never said that Prime wrote it, just that a fan of the show sang it. If you're working the foreshadowing angle, you're still good.) Dani asked Prime if he'd write a theme song for "The Big Shtick." Needless to say, Prime was so flattered by the request that all he could say was "Uh... maybe. Let me watch a tape of the show and I'll see if I can come up with something."

So, D.I. Prime took the tape back to D.I. Labs, watched it, recorded this song, and the rest is history. Actually, that part is history too. What's not history is that Prime & Dani still disagree on the spelling of schtick. Happily, they put their differences aside for the greater glory of WOLV programming.

This is a D.I. Prime solo effort - he wrote it, rapped it, arranged the samples and played, yes played, the synth parts.

Download the "The Big Schtick" mp3 (.8 MB).

Read the "The Big Schtick" lyrics.

"Turn Me On"

Quick! Guess! For which station did Prime write this little ditty?

Before patting yourself on the back for answering WOLV, please acknowledge that the question did not end in a preposition. While my first inclination was to write "Which station did Prime write this little ditty for", cooler heads prevailed and proper grammar won the day.

One of the many fine shows broadcast on WOLV is "Turned On", a live call-in show about sex. As soon as Prime heard about the show he knew that he had to write a theme song for it. A year or so later, he actually got around to doing it. (Huh huh. What a loser. It took him a year to "do it." Huh huh.)

"Turn Me On" was submitted to producer and co-host John Scott on Tuesday, February 4th, 2003. On Monday, February 10th, 2003, at 11:30pm it made its broadcast debut. While you won't see him on camera, Prime was also in the studio audience for the evening's taping and you may be able to hear him clapping from the studio audience.

This song was conceived by D.I. Prime who sequenced the drums and wrote/rapped the lyrics. The guitar and bass parts were written and played by Swann. Al K'Trazz provided valuable mixing advice.

By the way, if you didn't guess WOLV to the question that started off this section, you need to pay better attention.

Download the "Turn Me On" mp3 (.85 MB).

Read the "Turn Me On" lyrics.

"Wolverine Spotlight"

This song was written for the opening credits of "Wolverine Spotlight", WOLV's sports interview show hosted by Dani Steinberger. No one asked for it. Prime just wrote it and handed it in. Luckily, they liked it and they've been using it for two seasons.

This song marks somewhat of a departure for D.I. Prime. It's the first non-rap song posted on this site. The lead vocals were sung by Ms. Dani Gatewood and the guitar was played by Dave Lempert. So, yes, D.I. Prime can be versatile as long as there are others around to do the heavy lifting.

Download the "Wolverine Spotlight" mp3 (.79 MB).

Read the "Wolverine Spotlight" lyrics.

"We absolutely love it!"
--Bess Bowers,
Producer of "Wolverine Spotlight"

© Copyright 2000-2007 D.I. Prime, unless otherwise noted.