Monthly Archives: September 2013

“Opportunities” (Original song by Jim Fusco) – The Open Mic Sessions

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome everyone to another installment of the Open Mic Sessions with Jim Fusco!  Today, I bring you another session from my gig at Sam Ash Music Store in New Haven, CT back on April 3rd, 2013.  I went with my brother Mike while he was visiting home for his birthday.  I remember wanting to go to another venue, but chose Sam Ash because they gave me a $10 gift card just for playing!  Yeah, I go where the “money” is…

Anyway, it gave me an opportunity to play another original song from my 2012 album, “Those Around Us”.  This is one of the faster tracks on the album, “Opportunities”, which features a great drum track from my brother Mike.  As we know, tracks like that are great for pairing-down into the famous “Laptop Sessions” style of performing- just me and an acoustic guitar!

So, I hope you enjoy my original song, “Opportunities”.  Stay tuned as I bring you more of the “Open Mic Sessions” here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs and original music video blog!



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“Choose Your Words (Carefully)” (Original song by Jim Fusco) – The Open Mic Sessions

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, everyone, to the first installment of the Open Mic Sessions, where I’ll bring you my performances of my original songs from various open mic nights.  The video will be a bit choppy, the sound won’t be perfect, and there usually aren’t too many people in the crowd, but it’s been a lot of fun for me to do these, so I wanted to share my original song performances with the world!

Today’s video is of my song, “Choose Your Words (Carefully)” from my 2012 album, “Those Around Us”.  I think I’ve received a great response to this song every time I play it live.  People either relate to the words…or just find the chorus catchy. 🙂  Either way, it’s been one of my favorites to play and is always the standby song for when someone says, “Play one more!”

This video was taken by my brother Mike at Sam Ash music store in New Haven, CT on April 3rd, 2013.  As you can probably tell, there wasn’t much of a crowd…but the staff sure seemed to like it!  Sometimes, even if there isn’t a big audience, it’s still cool to hear your original song amplified like that.  There’s something empowering about that.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s video and stay tuned each week for more videos from the Open Mic Sessions!


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“Promises” (Eric Clapton Cover)

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By Jeremy Hammond:

My cover of “Promises” by Eric Clapton. A bit of my own interpretation, I end it with an improvised solo. The video consists of two tracks. For the first track, I recorded the rhythm and vocals in a single take. Then I laid down a second track over the first for the solo.

** EDITOR’S NOTE: **

Eric Clapton is arguably one of the greatest electric guitar players of all time.  Over the first ten years or so of his career, he played in a number of influential rock bands, not the least of which was Cream.  Once he formed Derek and the Dominoes, he went on to release perhaps his most famous song, “Layla.”  As he proved with his famous acoustic rendition of “Layla” during an MTV Unplugged performance, he also has a knack for acoustic performances.

“Promises,” a track from the 1978 Eric Clapton album Backless, is an excellent choice for an acoustic cover.  As you’ll hear, Jeremy has brought another great addition to the Laptop Sessions storehouse of cover song music videos, adding to the woefully meager portion of Clapton that we currently offer.  Admittedly, the solo at the end strays from the Laptop Sessions format, but for those of you purists out there, simply hit stop at the three minute mark.  Otherwise, sit back and enjoy a great improv at the end to top off this excellent performance!

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“The Man Who Sold The World” (David Bowie Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen.  It’s that time…that’s right…Thumpin’ Thursday!  Who doesn’t enjoy a great dose of their Laptop Sessions on the second best day of the week – and it’s right after the best day of the week!

This next song is sort of by request – Jim mentioned it in recent correspondence that this song was covered by Nirvana, and we have not done either Nirvana, or the guy who wrote the song David Bowie.

What better day than Thumpin’ Thursday to fix both of those things in one session?

Therefore, here comes Jeff Copperthite with the “cover of a cover” version of David Bowie’s classic “The Man Who Sold The World” from his album of the same name.  The cover version was featured on the widely played Nirvana edition of the show “MTV Unplugged”.  I thoroughly enjoyed that series when it was on the air, and some of my favorite bands were lucky enough to be featured on that show while it lasted.

I recorded this in the same session as my previous U2 video, and again, I look tired.  I feel a lot better today than how I look in this video.  I couldn’t get a solid take where I played the riff cleanly, and eventually cut out some parts with the riff.  I also came in just a bit too early on one part.  Nobody has pointed it out in my recent video (what I did wrong), but I am very pleased on the positive feedback I have gotten from that video.

But now, you get to enjoy this version on a great Thursday.  I hope you enjoy it — and explore the archives for more Laptop Sessions covers!

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!

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