It’s that time – Thumpin’ Thursday! And it’s the 2nd to last Thursday that I have before the prom that I have been helping to plan. Everything is starting to fall into place for it, and I will be the happiest person alive next Friday once I can wake up and say “well that was fun and worth it”.
Until then, I have a great song that is perfect for this week. Obviously not in reference to anybody in particular, but just the fact it has the word “crazy” in it makes it appropriate.
The song this week is from a new band to the Sessions called “She Drives Me Crazy”. I’m sure everyone will instantly recognize this tune. It was a #1 hit (among another song off of the same album) in the 80’s, and the original version of this song has one of the coolest music videos i’ve ever seen. The album by the way is called “The Raw & The Cooked”.
This song is an ok translation to acoustic guitar. Part of the allure of the song is the percussion and “beat” that is provided throughout the song. Don’t get me wrong – i’m glad that we can now say there is an acoustic cover of the song, but i’m not sure that the original version was meant for an acoustic guitar.
That being said, my Roland Gift impression is not that good :(. I always said to myself he looks like someone I know, but I can’t place who it was or who I thought it was.
This song is also quite easy to play. If you can play a D – G – Bm – A progression, and switch up the strum patterns for verse & chorus, then you can play this one.
Ok i’m going to head to bed so I can take care of some more prom planning, then I have a Dr.’s appt., then I get to umpire a Varsity game tomorrow that I got moved to today! That’ll make 3 Varsity games this week.
I hope you enjoy your weekend, and make sure you keep returning to guitarbucketlist.com!
Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up. We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session. We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future. But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!
Hello and welcome to another week and another all-new Monday edition of the Laptop Sessions. It’s been quite a weekend, and it’s going to be quite a week!
On Friday night, I stayed late at school for as long as I could, but I just couldn’t resist going to see the newly released Star Trek movie. For once, a movie lived up to the hype! I picked up Nicole for the trip to the theater, and although we’ve seen a lot of good movies together (not to mention a decent number of flops), this has to top them all. Although I’m more of a Trek geek than she is, I think it’s fair to say we were equally excited during and after the movie. If you love the classic series and films, then you’ll appreciate the respect paid to these characters. If you know nothing about the franchise, then this is the perfect film to watch first. I can’t wait to find an excuse to watch it again very soon…
Saturday was a crazy day for me, as my sister Jaime graduated from Nyack college at 2 pm in New York. I got up early (for a Saturday, at least!) and drove to New York for my least favorite of all activities: ceremonies like a graduation. That being said, it was worth it to see my sister graduate. We met as a family later on for dinner and that was great, too. It was great to have Nicole join us, too, and she made what could have been a long, boring drive with lots of downtime an enjoyable little day trip. Sunday was more of the same, as it was Mother’s Day, and my sister is only home for a week before returning to New York to work. We got to hang out, talk music, and watch an episode of The Twilight Zone that gave her nightmares as a young child. We didn’t get to play The Office board game, but there will always be time for another round in the future. (And I’ll be ready this time! 😉 )
Tonight finds me watching the Mets. After a seven game winning streak, it appears that they’re going to lose one. I’m loving this iPhone “MLB.com – At Bat 2009” application. It makes listening to games and staying in touch with the stats and standings soooo easy. It’s been a great week for watching Mets baseball, and I don’t want to complain. But I don’t quite get why they seem unable to score runs when Johan Santana is pitching. Maybe they get subconsciously complacent, since he’s such a great pitcher. Even tonight, although he got into a couple sticky situations, he worked his way out of each one — until they pulled him out 1/3 into the seventh inning. What truly amazes me is his ERA; as of tonight, it is .78! Games with Santana on the mound would have to get busted open wider than Abyss during a Pay-Per-View for weeks straight for him to reach the ERA’s of the other Mets starters…
But, enough of blogging for blogging’s sake — I should probably introduce the song I’ve recorded for tonight’s acoustic cover song music video. “Off He Goes” is a track from Pearl Jam’s 1996 album No Code. This album was the first to break from their previous sound a bit and some fans disapproved. I’ll admit that it’s not my favorite album in the Pearl Jam catalog by any stretch, but there are some great tracks on it. “Hail, Hail” is one of the most rocking and catchy songs in their catalog. “Present Tense” is one of my favorite Pearl Jam tracks, if only for the combination of lyrics and gradual instrumental buildup. “I’m Open” is a cool spoken-word track — yes, those do exist!
This track, “Off He Goes,” is perfect material for an acoustic cover song. Initially, after having this song come up on my iPod this weekend, I thought it would be an easy song to record. Ironically, I almost decided not to learn it and record it for fear of being criticized for recording too many simple songs.
Well, that’s simply not the case…
As Jim can attest to, I spent over an hour and fifteen minutes and about 40-50 takes of this song to get it anywhere near where I wanted it to be. There are still a couple of discrepancies I hit while singing the tune, but I also nailed a few of my favorite subtleties in the song. What recording this song taught me was how truly difficult it is to make a slow, deceptively simple song like this really translate into a great performance. I have even more respect for Eddie Vedder than I did before, especially for the fact that he plays guitar and sings in concert on this one. The chords are so easy — really, just F, C, and Am — but the strumming pattern was difficult to hit in a few places. (**The best part about recording these sessions, undoubtedly, is spending all that time, posting on YouTube, and waking up to find that two people have viewed it, one of whom has one-starred it and left no comment. Thanks for that.**)
That’s enough for one Monday. I hope you enjoy the session (more than my first YouTube viewer did)
Assistant Editor/Historian’s note: This post was originally posted in May 2009. STP had reunited and has since been rebranded due to legal proceedings. A lot has happened since this post – reunion, firing of Scott Weiland, and the original band being named “Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington”.
That’s right, back to our usual normally scheduled Thumpin’ Thursday schedule! This time, I promise it’s a song that has not been covered.
I have been lining up more songs to cover since that debacle last week, but it’s not a huge deal, and Chris, Jim, and I all got quite a few laughs over it. Well, I can only assume.
So I am going to return to one of my favorite bands of all time (as it is known), and not The Wallflowers. It’s Stone Temple Pilots! I can add this song to the long library of STP songs that have been covered on this site.
The song is from the album “Shangri La Dee Da”, or “The album we made before we broke up” called “Hello It’s Late”. I have enjoyed this song because there’s a simple sublety to the guitar riff and the lyrics.
I don’t know about you, but I tend to figure out the meanings of songs easier when I play them. I must detach myself from the meaning of the lyrics as I listen to a song. But playing it forces me to follow the lyrics. That being said, I still don’t know what the true meaning of this song is. I suppose it could be googled, but i’m discouraged after trying to google what Peter Griffin was saying in the episode “PTV” when he was talking to his wife and getting airhorned every other word.
I had an absolutely wonderful day in school today. I definitely lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Some of you know what i’m talking about.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of the youtube users who have left me some really positive and encouraging comments over the past month. It’s really awesome when I tend to get more positive comments than dumb troll comments. The former seems to be on the upswing, and i’m very appreciative of that. I can only hope my subscribers do find their way over here to read things like this about them.
Also, 120k views! And this is my 139th session – 11 before the next landmark.
And…well, you know what my last line is. It’s the same one from the past few posts.
I hope not, but if you are, I hope this video brings you some comfort and company on this Spring evening. Tonight, I bring to you one of my favorite Elvis Presley songs in “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”. This tune is a slow one, but has so much feeling in both the lyrics and the way Elvis sings it. I love the major D chord to the minor D chord progression and the way the song builds up at times. This song is truly a sad one- it says everything that needs to be said and is so simple that you know Elvis was the first to bring this style of music to rock’n’roll.
I’ve been working on this one for many, many months now. I just had to learn that poem in the middle. You never would realize how difficult it is to play the guitar, keep in time, keep your place in the song, and say the correct lines at the correct times. So, seeing how difficult this would be, I pushed it aside for so many other songs over the past few months.
I’ve since run low on my “need to do NOW” list, so this one came back up. I decided tonight was the right time. Actually, I’ll be broadening my horizons with many exciting new songs in the near future, as tomorrow night, I’ll be getting my brand new car!! Well, it’s not exactly “new”, but it’s new to me. I’m inheriting my mother’s Chrysler Concorde and I’m so excited about it. I’ve always loved this car and even though it’s nine years old, you’d never know it. It was always kept in the garage and only has about 60k miles on it. The best part is that my brother Mike got me a brand-new stereo installed for my birthday! So now, I can hook up my iPod and listen whereever I go. Plus, since it’s a digital hookup, everything will finally sound right coming out of the speakers- everything always sounded so tinny in my last system.
It’s been a long couple of nights with working both night and day. All in the name of progress, I suppose. I’m looking forward to getting my newest baby- my Dean Boca 12-string electric guitar!!! I got an incredible deal on Musicians Friend and saved 20% off the price. I’ll finally get that 12-string electric sound I’ve loved for so many years. Look for some Byrds songs in the near future! I’ll post photos of me with my new guitar after I get it.
Okay, back to work for me, but at least I have two big things to look forward to this week! It’s going to be non-stop for the next, oh I’d say two-plus months, but you know I’ll be keeping up with the Laptop Sessions through it all. It’s the greatest way I can chronicle my life and keep the music dream alive.
