Monthly Archives: July 2009

What Love Has Joined Together: A Playlist in Honor of Jim’s Wedding

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By Chris Moore:

As a special treat for all you Fusco-Moore music blog faithfuls, this post is in honor of Laptop Sessions founder Jim Fusco’s wedding to Becky Daly over the weekend.  That’s right; as of July 25th, 2009, Jim is no longer a single man.

Sorry, ladies…

As part of my wedding gift to them, I sifted through the 10,000 plus songs on my iTunes and created a playlist to commemorate their marriage.  As you skim through the bands and titles below, you’ll find that the theme is pretty obvious — two people getting together in a relationship (1, 2), getting married (5, 7, 11), and the new life that follows (8, 10, 12, 14).  Of course, there’s some mention of Saturday night (4) and the bonus tracks are all about the honeymoon — can you guess where that’s going to be taking place?

I hope you enjoy the playlist rundown, and I encourage you to leave comments for the newlyweds here on this post!

TRACK LISTING:

1 )  “Got to Get You Into My Life” – The Beatles
2 )  “Better Together” – Jack Johnson
3 )  “Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do” – Huey Lewis & The News
4 )  “Almost Saturday Night” – Gene Clark & Carla Olson
5 )  “Chapel of Love” – The Beach Boys
6 )  “I’ll Always Love You (Day After Day)” – Dean Martin
7 )  “Wear My Ring Around Your Neck” – Elvis Presley
8 )  “What Love Has Joined Together” – The Temptations
9 )  “Really Love You” – Paul McCartney
10) “Ideal Woman” – William Shatner
11) “Wedding Song” – Bob Dylan
12) “A New Life For Us” – The Now People
13) “Satisfied” – Ringo Starr
14) “Believe In Life” – Eric Clapton
15) “This is Love” – George Harrison
16) “One True Vine” – Wilco

BONUS TRACKS:

17) “The Honeymoon Song” – The Beatles
18) “The Hula Hula Boys” – Warren Zevon
19) “Rocking Chair in Hawaii” – George Harrison
20) “Rock-A-Hula Baby” – Elvis Presley
21) “Hawaii” – The Beach Boys

Jim’s Most Interesting Week Ever

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Yes, this is proving to be one of the most interesting weeks of my life. In fact, I think it will be THE most interesting week by far! In lieu of doing a video tonight, I thought I would comment (ala Jeff) about my goings-on. Hopefully I’ll be able to record a video tonight and then I’m planning on having some very special audio-only sessions for the two weeks I’m away.

Why am I away? Well, we can’t get there just yet. Let’s start here:

My fiancée and I recently purchased a new home. And by new, I mean just a piece of land! We went through the mortgage process (which is very tedious) and have finally come out okay on the other end. After all the deposits and fees, we’re ready to go.

So, this week, we met with the builder to pick out everything in the house- the siding, the shutters, the options, the cabinets, etc. It was difficult to make all those decisions (especially when we didn’t exactly agree on a lot of the stuff), but it was pretty fun to customize the house like that. This place is going to rock!!

Now, we have to meet with the builder and all the real estate agents on Wednesday for a pre-construction meeting. This should finalize and solidify everything. They’ll be able to break ground this week! By the time I get back, the foundation should be up and they’ll be ready to start framing the house! What a thing to come home to.

Also this week, I’m holding very private “sessions” that will be the fruit of my secret audio-only Sessions for the next two weeks. Sorry, but I have to be cryptic about this one.

Now, I’m still working, mind you. I work 40 hours a week and I’m working right up to Friday afternoon. Every night this week, I’m also working hard to edit a wedding video and hopefully get some other freelance work done.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: I’M GETTING MARRIED THIS WEEKEND!

So, we have our rehearsal on Friday and the wedding is on Saturday morning. Of course, my fiancée is going nuts running around and getting everything ready. Thankfully, she isn’t working this week, but even still, it’s a lot to do. I’ve been handling the house stuff and she’s been doing all the wedding stuff. I think I got the better end of the deal.

There’s so many more things to it than what I mentioning. Things that you don’t think about until it’s all too much to handle. I mean, we had to pick up the tuxedo, print programs for the church, etc. And, early next week is my father’s birthday- thankfully, I remembered to buy a present last week!

Then, on Tuesday, we leave for sunny Hawaii and I won’t be back until August 9th. Obviously, we’re extremely excited about it and it should be a great, relaxing time. I just can’t wait to lay on that beach and soak up the sun. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to go and Becky really deserves this trip.

So, again, a recap of events this week (keep in mind that I’m working 8:30 to 5:30 each day, as well!):

Monday: Met with builder to pick out stuff for the house
Tuesday: Tuxedo and secret “sessions”
Wednesday: Meet with builder for pre-construction meeting
Thursday: More secret “sessions” and secret “preparations”, plus our weekly dose of TNA iMPACT!
Friday: Rehearsal at 5:00 (working till 3:00) and rehearsal dinner at 6:30
Saturday: Ceremony at 11:30 and reception until 6:30, then off to Presidential Suite at hotel in Hamden for a couple of nights
Tuesday: Leave at 7 am for Hawaii!!

With that said, including the fact that I need to finish editing this wedding tonight and do web work, I’ll still try to get that video done. Talk to you then!

“It’s Too Late” (Carole King Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Could it be Jim Fusco covering a woman’s song…in the original key??  Then you KNOW it’s the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog- the BEST music video blog ever created!

This is a great song, isn’t it?  It’s off of Carole (not to be confused with “Carol”) King’s classic hit album, “Tapestry”.  I’ll admit that I don’t have the album and just know the single from hearing it many times on the radio.  But, after hearing what a great tune it is (you know, actually just sitting and listening to it), I think I may give the album a try.  It’s a fairly simple song and reminds me (especially the ending, which ends on the same chord and with the same pattern) of a song my brother Mike and I wrote a long time ago called “Stuck In A Dream”.  You can listen to that song, which is off of the “Meaningless: Echoes of Dreams” sessions, by clicking HERE!  We wrote that song about six or seven years ago, so you know that this song, even though it uses some great Major 7th chords, is still pretty simple.  On the piano, it’s much easier than it is on the guitar.

But, it’s got some great guitar parts in the original recording- a very cool solo.  Plus, it’s got that nifty little piano riff thrown in there, which again, for some reason, strikes me as something only a rudimentary songwriter would put in.  You know, someone that’s just tinkering around with the piano and came up with it.

So, I finally do a song from a female artist and here I am picking it apart, calling it amateurish.  No, I don’t mean that at all.  That’s one of the reasons why I want to hear the rest of the “Tapestry” album- if some of the other songs strike me as “professional”, I’ll know she came up with this song on purpose, and I do believe that’s the case.

This is a pretty powerful song, especially the part about “not trying”.  Too many relationships fail not because the people weren’t compatible, but because they just stopped trying.  Effort is truly the number one factor in a relationship, in my opinion.  I mean, this song isn’t saying what I’m really thinking right now- I’m getting married in less than two weeks and, contrary to what everyone insists on telling me, I’m full of hope and happiness for this.  I’ve promised time and time again that I will always put as much effort as possible into my relationship, as it’s the single most important thing to me.  Not music, not anything else- my relationship with my family (which will include my new wife) and my closest friends.

The way this song relates to me right now is that I kind of feel I’m not getting the same effort back from some of the people I consider close.  And some, like the song says, are irreparable.  That’s not to say that myself and the other person won’t be happy again- we certainly will.  It just won’t be as a result of one another.  The only thing I can hang my hat on at the moment that makes me feel any better is the “fact” (at least from my point of view) that the decisions that got it to this point were not mine at all- if it were up to me, everything would’ve stayed the same.  But, alas, just as Carole King sings, it’s just too late, baby.

I hope you enjoy my acoustic rendition of this classic song tonight.  I had a b***** of a time getting it right, as I must’ve done about twenty takes and even after I got the perfect one, I realized it had all kinds of inexplicable pops and clicks in the audio, which I’m trying to fix now.  I hope you can listen past the imperfections and hear one of my better performances underneath.  Have a great week and stay tuned for Chris’ post from the Dylan concert tomorrow and Jeff and Chris later on!

“Dancing in the Moonlight” (King’s Harvest Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Well, well, he’s back, folks!

Sorry about last week, everyone- I had an incredibly painful medical experience that put me on the shelf for a couple of days.  Thankfully, it’s “passed” now (ha, ha) and I can get on with my life.

Tonight is a weird night for me.  It’s the first night of about only ten or so nights of my life that I plan on spending alone.  Obviously, there’s always the unexpected, but tonight really is a rare night in my life.  You see, I share my condo with no one right now and it’s still a couple weeks before I get married to the person I’ve wanted to marry for about a third of my young life now.  Things just kind of worked out this way, I guess (the whole living situation), as the original idea was to have my roommates move out early so Becky could move in her stuff at a slower pace.

However, turns out that we bought a new house (that’s just a piece of land at this point) and didn’t end up needing that extra time.  So, I find myself alone on this Tuesday night.  Actually, I couldn’t be happier- my brother Mike came over for a nice shrimp fra diavolo dinner and I’ve been doing odds and ends on the computer all night.  I’m going to cherish this time alone- no need to worry about how loud the TV is at night, when I go to bed, or whether or not I have to alert anyone that I won’t be home for dinner.  It’s a freedom that only comes when you don’t live with your significant other before getting married.

It also makes me realize how much I love my condo and how big it is!  I’m not moving out of the condo because anything’s wrong with it- quite the contrary.  I love this place and in two short years, I’ve really made it my own.  But, it’s that feeling I have that I want a place that’s truly mine, and a condo just doesn’t fit that bill for me right now.  It’ll be a sad day when I leave this place, but it’ll close a chapter that truly needed to be closed, as I clearly had some bad vibes with my prior arrangement and I’m glad that’s over with.  Time to be movin’ on.

Speaking of moving on, let’s get to tonight’s post!

Tonight, I bring you another one hit wonder band in King’s Harvest, the group that performed “Dancing in the Moonlight”, a song everybody knows, but no one knows who did it.  Actually, listening to the studio version, I noticed how good the vocal harmony parts were on the chorus.  It was then slightly less of a surprise to me that this group consisted of Beach Boys touring band mainstays Ron Altbach and Billy Hinsche.  Turns out that the Beach Boys actually got King’s Harvest signed to a record deal.  They made one record that didn’t go anywhere and broke up after that.  Members of this group even played with Dennis Wilson on the “Pacific Ocean Blue” album and were part of Mike Love’s short-lived band, Celebration.

This is one of those tunes I heard on the radio in the store one time and thought, “Yes, another Laptop Session awaits!”  It’s pretty easy to play- first fret capo and play Em, A, D, and Bm.  That’s it.  The whole song.  Verse.  Chorus.  Everything.

Of course, tonight, I’d be pretty stupid to dance in the moonlight, as it’s pouring outside.  We’re in the middle of yet another thunderstorm.  And after the heat I’ve suffered through at work the past couple of days, I’ll be glad for a break in the weather.

Have a great night tonight, wherever you are.  Hopefully there’s some moonlight for you!  I’ll be back tomorrow with an Original Wednesday song to make up for my lack of post last week.  See you very soon!