The Laptop Sessions Cover Songs & Original Music Video Blog

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your Tuesday edition of The Laptop Sessions.  I bring you a familiar band for me tonight, and this also goes out by request from one of my best Youtube commenters - he knows who he is :).

Billy Joel is an individual that I have covered in the past, and tonight I bring a song from his album “Turnstiles” in 1976.  The song is “Say Goodbye To Hollywood”, which is known for its cool violin solo and light percussion.  I also notice that Billy Joel sounds a lot different in his first albums than in his later ones.  His voice tends to lower in pitch as you progress through his discography.   No matter - I was on key tonight and glad I could nail this one.  I think you’ll like this video a lot.

Sorry to be a little terse tonight, but I have a lot of things to get to.  I’ll keep it short so you can get back to watching the election results roll in, and enjoy tonight’s video.

Come back tomorrow for Jim’s next original song - I can’t wait to hear and see it!

By Chris Moore:

Never in my life have I felt that this song was more relevant than it is tonight and–especially–tomorrow.  This is Bob Dylan’s classic protest song, “The Times They Are A-Changin.’”  I’ve always appreciated the song, but I don’t think I’ve ever related to it as much as I did tonight as I was recording this music video.  Personally, I have always been more interested in the other songs on Dylan’s album of the same name, such as “Only a Pawn in Their Game” and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”  Yet, on the eve of the 2008 Presidential election, I could think of no song more fitting to record than this one.

And, God save me, I will be recording “With God On Their Side” for my Thursday video if McCain wins!  (Just search the lyrics to this song if you’ve missed the reference…).

I’ve tended to stay away from Dylan’s protest songs.  I have a great deal of respect for them, but as Dylan himself, I hate to see him labeled simply as “the voice of a generation.”  I am most interested in his more recent material — for instance, I’m still blown away by the new Bootleg Series release.

But tonight is a special occasion.  As I began practicing this song, I found that (although I haven’t heard or played this song for months and months) all the words came to me easily.  Line after line, verse after verse, this song rings so exceptionally true to me.  It doesn’t take a literary critic to connect lines like the following ones to contemporary society:

“Admit that the water around you has grown…”

“Don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin…”

“Come senators, congressmen; please heed the call…”

“Don’t criticize what you can’t understand; your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.  Your old road is rapidly aging…”

“Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand!”

There is indeed a reason why Dylan’s lyrics have been lauded for decades, and this song is one of the many that have stood the test of time.  I hope that you’ll listen to the words and consider their meaning, and then think about “the state of this great nation of ours” (to quote the great Ben Folds) — it’s interesting and not so much of a coincidence that Obama’s campaign calls not only for change, but for “Change we can believe in.”  I haven’t been this hopeful for real change for a good long time!

In fact, I was just flipping through a book I bought before the 2004 elections, as I decided who to vote for.  I did a lot of research, reading that book and deciding between Bush and Kerry.  Looking back, I can’t believe I even hesitated on that particular choice.

This year, I saved the ten bucks I would have spent on a new campaign book, as I didn’t need to do any further research beyond the Presidential debates and subsequent news reports and fact checks, not to mention the SNL skits.

Well, I’m just rambling now, as I’m tired and currently in bed, listening to acoustic Dylan and dreaming of… well, dreaming!  Sleep is good.  Change is also good.  As my super-cool sister reminded me today, how could Obama not win with a catch-phrase like “BA-ROCK the vote!”

Okay; that’s it for me for a few days, but please hurry back to read Jeff’s election night blog post and Jim’s post-election Original Wednesday (I’m anxious to see what appropriate song he’ll choose).  Then, I’ll be back on Thursday.

See you next session!

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Sunday, Sunday, Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions here with me, Jim Fusco!

I’m a little sour on the whole goal and status of the Laptop Sessions right now, as views seem to have stalled on a plateau and the “excitement” factor has DEFINITELY waned over these past few months.  I’m still happy we’re doing the Sessions, but I long for next year when my Laptop Sessions day becomes more of an event rather than just an inevitability.

I’ll be writing my “State of the Laptop Sessions” address soon, but I don’t know when (or how long it’s going to be).  I think we’re kind of in the same situation Barack Obamba sees himself in- we’re doing well, but the consistency of doing equally well as the day before causes complacency.  Not good.

Anyway, onto tonight’s video.  Tonight, I bring you yet ANOTHER “new” band to the Laptop Sessions.  I know this song mostly because of the Beach Boys’ superb version on their popular album, “15 Big Ones”.  That album isn’t great and I really hate those synthesizers in this song, but the vocal power of Carl Wilson (along with the wonderfully strained sound of Brian’s voice on the bridge) make this a standout track.  Plus, it’s a great ending song to the album.  I LOVE the harmonies on the middle 8, too.  It seems like they channelled vocals from the early 60s on that section of the song- something you really don’t get on the rest of the album.  By that time, the Beach Boys’ voices had “manned-up” quite a bit.  But in that section of the song, you’d think they were all 20 again.

It’s funny that the Righteous Brothers aren’t even brothers.  But how many people really do have the last name “Righteous”?

You might notice that this video both looks and sounds a bit different than my others.  The audio sync is off and the quality isn’t great.  Just do me a favor: DO NOT upgrade to iMovie 2008.  It cripples the program and truly ruined this video for me.  It took me an hour just to figure out the technical aspect.  But, the sound is great and the audio is nice and loud.  That’s the one thing the new version of the program did right.  So, I hope you can suffer through the video quality and just LISTEN for this video, as I think it’s one of my better performances.

Enjoy and I’ll see you on Original Wednesday for the first post-election song here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!

By Jeff Copperthite:

You know me - i’m not one to decline a challenge.  When I read Jim’s Thursday post that he was covering a female artist, and echoed by Chris, who followed up Jim’s post with an extremely….scary cover (how appropriate - I don’t think i’ve been put on a holiday yet).

Well, here you go.  Jeff’s covering a band with a female lead singer.

And yes, I admit i’m not as attractive as Shirley Manson.

But nonetheless, I present a song from her band Garbage.  The song is “Only Happy When It Rains”, which was a popular song from their debut self-titled album.  I always did enjoy the songs from this band, and I also enjoyed the fact that Butch Vig was their drummer (and the producer of the quintessential alternative rock album Nevermind by Nirvana).  They had catchy riffs, good vocals, and Shirley is quite impressive in the singing department.

I didn’t have to raise my normal voice pitch all that much, given Shirley’s tendency to sing in the low range.  Because of this, I didn’t need to use falsetto.  I think I did a good job of this.  I threw a capo on the guitar to make playing it a lot easier, since the singing part was going to be somewhat challenging.

This goes to show - we aren’t afraid of the female-lead bands!  Perhaps I’ll throw in a Fleetwood Mac song in the near future…

Tomorrow Jim will entertain us with his Super Sunday edition.  I’ll be back to check it out, and i’m sure you will be too!

By Chris Moore:

Mwa-ha-ha… And a good EVE to all joining me on this FRIGHTENING 31st of October, 2008.  This is All Hollow’s…

EVE!

And I think that, tonight, the title pretty much says it all.  What could be scarier, as Jim asked last night, than Chris Moore covering a Britney Spears song?  Well, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.  In my defense, I’m not exactly doing a Britney Spears cover.  Technically, this is a cover of the Fountains of Wayne arrangement of Britney’s hit single, first released on their “Out-of-State Plates” album, a collection of non-album tracks and previously unreleased material.  Now, these collections are usually hit-and-miss, but this is actually a really good one.  There’s a couple of new tracks (one of which, “The Girl I Can’t Forget,” is one of my favorites from them), some great live stuff (including a rare better-than-the-studio-album version of “She’s Got A Problem”), and crazy tracks like this, their arrangement of the classic “Hit me baby one more time!”

So, I know you can’t wait to listen, and I certainly want to rush back to the big Fusco-Moore Experience All Hallow’s Eve bash, with special guest (and Richard Simmons impersonator) Mike Fusco!  He really went all out — I’m talking head-to-toes, red tank top labeled “PUMPkin’ and SWEATin,’” leggings to disguise leg hair, and amazingly 80’s-esque velcro sneakers.  Thankfully, Jim and Becky have changed out of their terrifying, horrifying costumes… as Jim said, they wanted to be the scariest people he could think of… namely, John McCain and Sarah Palin.  Meanwhile, I’ve had a sudden urge to manage a beet farm and shun my co-workers (if you’re not an Office fan, I was Dwight Schrute tonight).  And, yes — it’s true: as part of his tip, I left our On the Border waiter a Schrute Buck.  He earned it for actually ensuring that the chips and salsa were bottomless.  With five hungry people at the table, this was no easy task!

In related news, we’re all too tired to record the Halloween WCJM show we had planned on doing, but I have the song list that I would have recommended to the boys (in reverse order):

6)  “Long Black Veil” - the Band’s version; not a halloween song per say, but a creepy one;

5)  “Heroes and Villains” - Brian Wilson’s SMiLE track; good for Halloween costumes;

4)  “Reflective Smile” - a Moody Blues poem set to music that begins “Your painted smile hides you…”;

3)  “Ninjas” - the Barenaked Ladies song from their new album that ends “If you take off their masks, they’ll be smiling”;

2)  “Brilliant Disguise” - classic Bruce Springsteen; again, not a Halloween song, but speaks for itself;

and…

1)  “Werewolves of London” - the quintessential Warren Zevon Halloween-worthy tune!!

For some reason, I’m filled with things I want to keep writing about, but we’re about to kick back and watch a flick — possibly North by Northwest.  Not exactly a scary movie, but a classic nonetheless.

I’ll leave you with a challenge to Jeff that Jim initiated last night — come on, Jeff, joing us in lady land.  And I’m not making a Jimi Hendrix reference.  No, I’m referring to the fact that this is my third cover song in a row that was originally sung by a female singer, and Jim shared an incredible Diana Ross interpretation.  Jump on the bandwagon!

Regardless of the gender of tomorrow’s session, I hope you’ll come back for some amaze-za-zing videos by Jeff and Jim.

See you next session!

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your “Thumpin’ Thursday ™®©” video with me, the “special character using” Jim Fusco!

Tonight, I continue Chris’ trend of female vocalists with a song from yet another “new” artist to the series: Diana Ross and the Sumpremes!  I hope Jeff will follow with another woman-sung song this weekend.  Will he come through?  Hey, I’m sure he never thought I’d actually use the special symbols for Thumpin’ Thursday!

Diana Ross and the Sumpremes had so many hits- and listening back to them, there were quite a few that I really loved growing up.  She had such a great voice in the 60s.  I usually find something I don’t like about women’s voices (ie, the INCREDIBLY annoying voices of Tegan and Sarah), but Diana Ross actually sits in the very exclusive category of women singers I like, which also incudes Brian Wilson’s daughters, Carnie and Wendy.

And, yes, I’m keeping the streak alive: not only have I done every single Laptop Sessions video in the original key, I’ve also done each video in the original OCTAVE, too!  For this reason, I think this video came out especially great- one take, and a chance to really falsetto-it-up.  I think it’s a really natural performance, too, which helps.  That makes two videos in a row that I’m especially proud of.

I never thought I would do a song from Diana Ross, but I’ve always found that the best videos (and the ones that get us the most YouTube hits) are the ones where we take a song and really make it our own.  No one would ever expect me to bust out a Motown hit from a 60s female singer.  But, I did it and I’m proud of it!

Now, as a final note- I’ll be posting on Sunday for the start of the week, but my Original Wednesday song will be the first one after the big presidential election Tuesday night.  I’m so anxious/nervous/hopeful and I’m looking forward to posting a video knowing who our next President will be.  So, we’ll see what happens.  I hope you have a good night and a great Halloween.  Maybe Chris will sing a Cher song or something truly scary to match his equally scary choice of a Tegan and Sarah song two days ago!