Author Archives: Chris Moore

“Your Life is Now” (John Mellencamp Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time once again to take a trip back to nineties pop radio…

Three days ago, Jim and I brought you the Sugar Ray single “Someday,” which was a favorite of mine back when I used to wake up early before school to listen to the morning show on Kiss 95.7.  Ross, Courtney, and Scott were the three voices I looked forward to hearing every morning — for a couple years, I was even lucky enough to have a bus driver that played that radio station on the way to school — and they were the ones who played the first songs that I really fell in love with.  Over time, some have faded from my memory and some have remained among my favorites when I listen to my iPod.  The song I’m bringing you tonight is one that had actually faded for quite a while.

Up until last weekend when I recorded this music video, it had literally been years since I had listened to John Mellencamp’s “Your Life is Now.”  It is on his 1998 self-titled album (he’s one of the few artists who have been able to release two different self-titled albums; I’m of course referring to the 1979 album when his name was John Cougar…) and although this is not my favorite track on the album, it is the single.  Thus, considering my penchant for deep tracks, I figured I’d stick to a relatively mainstream song for the first John Mellencamp cover on the Laptop Sessions website.  Unlike the aforementioned Sugar Ray tune (which hit #7 on the Billboard Hot 100), this song never charted.  However, it did reach #15 on the US Rock Charts, which is probably why I heard it played on the radio so much that year.

And, I have to admit, I had a lot of fun these past couple sessions learning the songs that remind me of years ago, when music was all-new, unknown, and simply exciting for me.  I definitely plan to revisit my pop radio roots for future sessions.  (Tune in next time, though, as I’ll be dusting off a Jim Croce single for the first time on this, the best acoustic cover song blog on the Internet!)

Finally, before I go back to reading for school tomorrow — I’m reading a great mystery by Tana French called In the Woods for those of you mystery fans among us — I have to comment on tonight’s episode of TNA Impact!  It was, without a doubt, one of the best episodes probably in months.  It pretty much had everyone and everything you could want in a two-hour wrestling program, with the exception of Christian Cage, one of my all-time favorite wrestlers who was not on tonight’s show.  (As Jim mentioned, though, Samoa Joe wasn’t there, which was a nice trade-off…  Sorry, is that mean?  Well, he’s not the “champ” anymore, so…)  But, seriously, aside from being incredibly disappointed in the way that the Kurt Angle vs. Matt Morgan ended (I wanted Morgan to win, even though I knew he wasn’t going to!!), it was a great show.

Probably the most shocking segment was when Kevin Nash — after demolishing Consequences Creed, or as Nash referred to him, “Unconscious Creed” — completely amped up his ego, proclaiming himself to be the smartest, largest wrestler and a man that women lust for and that men wish they could be.  He actually mocked the men in the audience who brough wives and girlfriends, warning them that their women were thinking only of what it would be like to spend the night with him.

Now, while I in no way, shape, or form would endorse this kind of pompous behavior and I generally dislike anyone whose personality remotely leans in that direction, I have to share this funny moment I had tonight:

Jim:  Chris, now are you such a big fan of Kevin Nash?

Chris:  Well, to be honest, I sometimes do wish I could be seven feet tall, incredibly muscular, and have the nickname “Big Sexy!”

I realize that this all has little to do with acoustic covers, but I really just had to share…

Thanks for reading, watching, and/or listening — I look forward to possibly seeing you back here in three days for yet another all-new acoustic cover music video and a review of the America concert I’m going to see at the Mohegan Sun on Saturday!

See you next session!

“Sunday Morning” (Maroon 5 Cover)

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By Dave Patten:

Acoustic cover of “Sunday Morning” played outside on a porch filmed in HD.  Follow Dave’s musical career (he’s hit #1 on MTV.com): http://www.davepatten.typepad.com/

** EDITOR’S NOTE: **

For the second Guest Session in a row, we’re happy to introduce a new performer to the blog: Dave Patten.

His song today is a cover of “Sunday Morning” from Maroon 5’s 2002 debut release Songs About Jane.  This is a band that has yet to be seen on the blog, so it’s always good to include new selections like this.

Dave’s video may be a bit more meticulously filmed than our average session, but it is a live acoustic performance, and so it meets the core Laptop Sessions format requirements. We hope that this production only serves to add to your enjoyment of his take on this hit song.

Hurry back in two weeks for another all-new Guest Session!

“City of New Orleans” (Steve Goodman Cover)

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By Jeremy Hammond:

My cover of “City of New Orleans” by Steve Goodman is influenced by Willie Nelson’s version of the song. The rhythm fittingly drives on like the wheels on a locomotive, and it has a fun chord progression.

** EDITOR’S NOTE **

This is one of those songs I feel like I’ve known forever.  The more likely time frame is since I was about ten or twelve, listening to my father’s seventies music cassette tapes.  Of course, I know the 1972 Arlo Guthrie version from his album, Hobo’s Lullaby.  It turns out Steve Goodman played it for Guthrie at a bar called the Quiet Knight in Chicago, after which Guthrie recorded his cover.

If the quality of a song can be judged by the caliber of people who have recorded it, then this is an outstanding tune.  It has been recorded by Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, John Denver, Judy Collins, and Jerry Reed, and has been performed most recently by Jimmy Buffett in 2005 and former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante in 2006.

And now I’m thrilled to add Jeremy Hammond’s name to that long and prestigious list of cover song artists.  Jeremy’s music video performance is an excellent, entertaining, faithful rendition that anyone who knows this song will enjoy.  If this is your first time hearing the song, perhaps you’ll go out to a CD store (or at least YouTube) and check out the other versions.  Jeremy continues to select songs that fit perfectly into the acoustic cover song format, so hurry back soon for another installment of the Guest Sessions at the Laptop Sessions music video blog!

The Weekend Review: June 2011 Report

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By Chris Moore:

June was a quiet month, and I didn’t initially appreciate some of the great work that is represented below.  This is one of the only benefits to posting these reviews so belatedly this year: that my criticism has had months to percolate and develop.  I think that is revealed below…

 

Suck It And See (Arctic Monkeys)

Producer: James Ford

Released: June 6, 2011

Rating: 3.5 / 5 stars

Top Two Tracks: “She’s Thunderstorms” & “Piledriver Waltz”

With so many individually excellent songs – the opening electric barrage of “She’s Thunderstorms” and the gorgeously  Suck It And See should be an instant classic.  There’s something lacking, though: predominantly, a sense of momentum.  Individual songs achieve momentum relative to themselves, but there just isn’t a sense of ever-mounting energy as the tracks continue.  Still, the retro-rock/punk groove of tracks like “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala” is undeniably catchy, and the Arctic Monkeys certainly haven’t lost their range, one which runs from the mean distortion of “Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair” to the placid ballad “Love is a Laserquest.”


Alpocalypse (“Weird Al” Yankovic)

Producer: “Weird Al” Yankovic

Released: June 21, 2011

Rating: 4 / 5 stars

Top Two Tracks: “CNR” & “Skipper Dan”

With Poodle Hat (2003) and Straight Outta Lynwood (2006), Weird Al raised the bar considerably, and it would seem to be a setup for failure to compare all future work by the watermark of discs like these.  Still, Alpocalypse rises to the occasion: there’s the dual-layered parody of “Born This Way” and Lady Gaga in the opener “Perform This Way,” style parodies of Weezer (“Skipper Dan”) and the White Stripes (“CNR”) that will stand up to his best work, and of course, a wittily titled polka medley (“Polka Face”).  Weird Al even manages to make the catchiness of that celebratory, patriotic Miley Cyrus tune accessible to the rest of us in “Party in the CIA.”  With Alpocalypse, Yankovic has also caught up on a few items that, in retrospect, I’m surprised haven’t fallen under his radar previously:  “Craigslist,” performed in perfect Doors/Jim Morrison fashion, and the appropriately faux-epic “Stop Forwarding that Crap to Me.”

 

Is For Karaoke EP (Relient K)

Released: June 28, 2011

Rating: 4 / 5 stars

Top Two Tracks: “Surf Wax America” (originally performed by Weezer) & “Baby” (originally performed by Justin Bieber)

While I usually cannot condone an album of covers, much less an EP, and especially from a band that has only recently put out some of the most mature and masterful original material of their career, Relient K’s Is For Karaoke EP is actually quite good.  In seven brief songs, they span the decades, from as recent as last year and stretching all the way back to April 1980 with an impressively spot-on take of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Here Comes My Girl,” not forgetting the nineties in between, particularly with their not to Weezer in “Surf Wax America,” an excellent choice of band as well as song.  Frontman Matt Thiessen shows off his vocal range on Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” and Relient K renders another annoying track listenable in their cover of Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” a resuscitation of a cover that can only be compared with Fountains of Wayne’s version of Britney Spear’s “Baby… One More Time.”  Overall, a masterful little EP, and not bad at all to tide us over until their follow-up to 2009’s outstanding Forget and Not Slow Down, my pick for number one album of that year.

 

Rave On Buddy Holly (Various Artists)

Producer: Randall Poster & Gelya Robb

Released: June 28, 2011

Rating: 3/5 stars

Top Two Tracks: “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” (Cee Lo Green) & “Changing All Those Changes” (Nick Lowe)

As with all tribute albums, the quality is uneven throughout.  And, buyer beware, there are some real clunkers here (Lou Reed’s distortion-drowned “Peggy Sue,” to name only one of several).  However, there are also some gems, and some hail from surprising corners.  Cee Lo Green’s take on “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” is easily the best track on the record, followed quickly by a plethora of pleasing yet unsurprising covers by an admittedly impressive array of artists, from Paul McCartney to Modest Mouse and Fiona Apple to the Black Keys.  There are too many strong tracks here to write Rave On Buddy Holly off, yet there are too many forgettable (at best) flunkers to offer up too much praise too easily.