The Laptop Sessions Cover Songs & Original Music Video Blog

By Chris Moore:

Greetings from Pennsylvania, Laptop Sessions fans! On the heels of some sad Thumpin’ Thursday news, I’m here to say a quick hello from my hotel room on the eve of the 2009 Wheel Horse Tractor Show. If I can figure out how to upload the photos I’ve taken on my iPhone, then I’ll be posting again soon.

Today has essentially been a day of travel, as we made our way from CT to PA, hitting stop and go traffic for both construction and rubber necking, as well as taking a wrong turn, which landed us in Harrisburg in the middle of rush hour traffic.

Aside from the humidity, the weather has been great, and we are hopeful for tomorrow.

Check back soon for more from PA, including selections from my 5 hour playlist for this road trip and - hopefully - pictures!

See you next mobile post!

No, it’s not some weird censorship.

The power at our house has gone out. I don’t have an Iphone either.

So I’m typing this very brief post on my cell phone to inform you that you will have to wait until tomorrow to hear from a new band for the site.

I think i’ll call it “Flippin’ blackout Friday”, but do note that some words have been changed to preserve the PG rating of the site.

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, everyone to yet another Laptop Session with me, Jim Fusco.

I”m back with a real video tonight (not a swerve like my genius move last week!) in a classic song: “Walk Away Renee”.  Plus, I bring you not one, but TWO new artists in one video, in one night!!!  Tell me, has that ever been done before?

You know this tune: “Just walk away, Renee, you won’t see me follow you back home.”

Now, think of who sings it.  I thought about it myself and remembered that the version I have is from the Four Tops.  And it sounds right- I know I’ve heard it on the radio before.

Except there’s something wrong.  Two things, in fact.

The version I remember had strings in the background (violins, etc.) and the chorus was sung differently.  In the Four Tops version, the background singers sing the “you won’t see me follow you back home” in a very “on the beat” manner.

The version I remember sang it the way I do in this video- with a little more relaxed style.  You’ll hear what I mean.

So, I began searching- what version did I know?  I found a couple of promising ones, but none that were exactly what I remembered.

Finally, a search in the iTunes store brought me to a group called The Left Banke.  They were a one (or possibly two) hit wonder back in the late 60s.  Their hit?  “Walk Away Renee”- the version I’ve always known!!

But, over the years, I seem to have merged the Left Banke version and the Four Tops version in my head.  The Left Banke version doesn’t have drums or that classic Motown backing band, but has the strings.  And I hear the Left Banke singer’s lead vocal on the verses in my head, but the Four Tops lead singer on the choruses…but he’s singing in the STYLE of the Left Banke guy!

AHH!

Anyway, tonight’s video turned out great- probably one of my most solid overall performances.  It’s a great song I’ve always known by just hearing it on the radio, but it only took me one take on video tonight.  When that happens, you know you “got it.”

It’s been some busy times lately, but Dana and I are getting more and more determined each night.  We’re trying to lose a little weight, eat better, exercise, and get a lot of work done.  It’s nice to have someone here that helps me achieve these goals, because Lord knows I couldn’t motivate myself all the time.

So, until next week, enjoy my video tonight and Jeff’s video on Thursday.  I hope Chris will take a more prominent role in the Laptop Sessions promotions work now that he’s out of school for the summer.  Also, he’s going to be away and then he’s moving out (and on) after that.  Hopefully he’ll channel some of his new found “not around Jim” time towards promoting the cover songs music video blog that we affectionately call The Laptop Sessions.  Until next Tuesday!!

By Chris Moore:

I hope you enjoy what has become my set of three posts tonight.  Obviously (I hope), the first post was intended as a joke to buy me time as I wrote my real post.

And I promise that I plan to return next week — AFTER the high school graduation and this year’s Wheel Horse tractor show in Arendtsville, Pennsylvania — with an actual music video session!

That being said, I thought I should also inform you that I’ve been voted most likely to be called a D-bag on YouTube.  Oh, wait…  I already have!  And I’m not censoring myself for this site; I really did receive a comment that began by addressing me as “D-bag, …”

That was funny to me, and I hope you appreciate it, too.  The funniest part is that I didn’t delete the comment and decided to reply in my typically polite manner with an undertone of sarcasm.

Anyway, enjoy my post about playlists!!

By Chris Moore:

For those who don’t know me, it can safely be said I’m a music dork for the ages.  And so, with that distinction clearly in place, it is with great honor that I present to you an article for the Laptop Sessions new music blog dedicated to what is perhaps my favorite digital innovation:

The playlist.

For anyone that owns an mp3 player and certainly anyone that uses iTunes, playlists offer new and unique ways to group your songs.  Whether you’re making one for yourself, a friend, or significant other, there are countless formats you can use.  Here are the major categories:

1.)  The Artist Compilation

This is the ultimate test of your knowledge and love for a given artist:  Can you create a compilation of a band or artist’s best songs?  Here’s the added twist:  In my personal opinion, I think compilations should adhere either to the length of a CD (about 74 minutes) maximum, or 20 songs at most.  Giving yourself a boundary to work within forces you to nix some songs that just shouldn’t make the cut, even if they do remind you of the first time you kissed your significant other, or whatever.

The trick here is to compile a set of tracks that are both comprehensive and satisfying in one grouping, taking care to order them in an interesting manner that gives the compilation a life of its own.  Sometimes, chronological is okay.  But if you’re just going to choose tracks and throw them randomly into a playlist, then please don’t even try.

These are valuable playlists to have, particularly for more under-the-radar bands like Ben Folds and (until last week’s “Best of” release) the Wallflowers, as well as artists whose greatest hits come in multiple and/or unsatisfying formats, like R.E.M. and (until recently) Bob Dylan.  Even when you love albums like I do, you may just want to hear a mix from time to time.

2.) The Artist Catalog Playlist

Similar to the artist compilation, the artist catalog playlist focuses on one band or artist.  However, this is for true fans only.  The playlist comprises a chronological collection of any and all tracks you can get your hands on.  Oh yeah, I’m talking about all those demos, live tracks, and soundtrack cuts you’ve accumulated over your long career as a fan.

Personally, I drop all the studio albums into the playlist first, ordering them by release date, and then I add all other tracks around those mainstays.  Even when a track has technically come out previous to a studio album during the same year, I put the tracks after the album.  My reasoning?  Hey, the albums are — hopefully — the first, best source for great tracks and provide some great structure to what could be an exhaustive (and exhausting) playlist.

This works very well for bands with popular, lengthy careers — like Pearl Jam — or more under-the-radar artists, such as Wilco (I spent more time than I should have compiling my “Wilco, etc.” playlist, which includes a ton of Jeff Tweedy solo work, Golden Smog, Loose Fur, and more) and Jim Fusco (don’t even ask — of course I included such great rareties as “Parody Writer” and all the bonus tracks on releases like My Other Half and the enhanced CD section of Formula).

3.)  The Themed Playlist

Perhaps the most popular of all playlists, I think anyone who considers him/herself a fan of music or of life in general should have to make at least one themed playlist for someone special, or at least for personal use.  Just last night, my friend Dana Camp was describing the track listing of a “Date Playlist” that he has.

Recently, I’ve made playlists for the drive to the beach, rush hour traffic, the unfortunate bank overdraft/identity theft crisis of a friend, and you better believe that I had a downright melancholy compilation prepared and put to good use while I was broken up from my girlfriend last year.  These sorts of playlists are the most versatile, and the degree to which you take the song choice and track order into consideration say at least as much about you as the tracks say about the artist/band.

4.)  Long Format Playlists

Last but not least we come to the long format playlist.  Similar to the artist catalog playlist (which can be played straight through in chronological order if you prefer), this list is most often played while your iPod or other mp3 device is in shuffle mode.

My favorite examples of this type are the “Albums by Year” compilations I put together recently.  On my iPod, I have playlists titled “Albums - 1990,” “Albums - 1991,” and so on up to the still-expanding “Albums - 2009.”  Because I’ve been spending a lot of time working recently, each day I choose a year and just let it play.  This is fun and fascinating because you can laugh and say, “Wow, I haven’t heard that song in FOREVER!,” as well as begin to appreciate in retrospect the songs and albums that came out during the same years.  For instance, I didn’t really fall in love with albums and music in general until the turn of the millennium.  Now that I’m listening to the 1991 playlist, I’m coming to appreciate the juxtapositon of Tom Petty’s more straightforward Into the Great Wide Open with the more alternative Ten (Pearl Jam) or Temple of the Dog (by the one-off band of the same name), as well as the atypical acoustic format and vocal clarity of R.E.M.’s Out of Time.  What will it be today?  Maybe I’ll go back to the hey day of my early musical roots, circa 1997 or 1998…

…and then remember why I came to love the Sixties music of bands like Bob Dylan and the Beatles!

Seriously, though, I hope you have enjoyed my breakdown of playlist formats.  If you have any of your own, please comment — I would LOVE to be able to think of more ways to effectively utilize the playlist functions of my iPod.

By Chris Moore:

This is PART ONE of the series titled “A brief history of the blog.”

In this segment, I will discuss the origins of the title.  The term “Laptop Sessions” actually came from the term James Fusco gave to recording a song (or “session”) on a laptop computer.  A laptop computer is a portable computer that is compact enough to rest on your lap.

Of course, this is somewhat of a misnomer, as there has never been a Laptop Session to my knowledge in which the computer was actually resting on the performer’s lap during the recording….

The More You Know