Author Archives: Chris Moore

“All At Once” (Jack Johnson Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to your weekend retreat from the real world…the best cover song music blog in the universe…a great place to post comments… the Laptop Sessions! I, for one, am really excited for what’s on the horizon here for the music video blog, as the coming week (starting with Jeff tomorrow) is another “New Bands Week.” Basically this is a week when every session — except for Original Wednesday, of course — features a song by a band that we’ve never covered in the history of the blog. I think it’ll be interesting to see what great new music comes to the blog! I actually have one band I plan to do that surprises even me; I’m honestly not sure why I chose this artist, but I’ll figure it out and let you know when I post my video.

Okay, now down to business. Today, I chose “All At Once,” Jack Johnson’s first track on his 2008 album Sleep Through the Static. This is an album that came out early in the year, and it was one of the first that I was really anticipating with excitement. Well, you know what they say about expectations. I don’t know what I expected, but I really wasn’t bowled over by this new release. It was billed as “Jack Johnson goes electric,” but if anything, he got slower and more mellow with the addition of the electricity. The joke circulated, at least among friends, that this more subdued sound wasn’t helped by the fact he recorded the album with natural power. Mike was similarly disappointed in the record, and as a result of our reviews, I believe Jim never even put the disc in his CD player. When he does get to it, I’d be curious to know what he thinks.

So, you may be wondering why I chose to play a song from this album. Well, my favorite playlist on my iTunes is my “New Music from 2008” playlist, so Johnson’s songs have been coming up for months and months, and this one in particular grew on me. I hope you understand — it’s not that the music is bad; far from it, in fact. I love this song. But as an album opener? The other tracks on the album never really get more upbeat and rocking than this one, which is disappointing. After an amazing album like In Between Dreams, I couldn’t help but become one of those fans that expects something. Slowly but surely these songs are growing on me, and I sincerely hope that you enjoy this one (and that I’ve done it justice!).

Well, that’s enough for me for one post. But, before I go, I need to pass on a really interesting tidbit of BnL trivia. Mike just called me today when he couldn’t get in touch with Jim to spread the news… He just learned in class that 9.8 meters per second squared is the rate of gravitational acceleration. It’s a mouthful, right? Well, this finally explains Ed Robertson’s line in the Barenaked Ladies’ song “When I Fall.” He’s talking about being up high and contemplating jumping, and he sings, “It’s 9.8 straight down…” Wow. I can’t believe I never knew what it meant!

Jeff, Jim, and I all posted New Bands Week covers — they’re in the archive.

See you next session!

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“For What It’s Worth” (Buffalo Springfield Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another all-new cover of an all-new band to the blog!  Straight from the treasure trove of genre-crossing singles and album tracks that is Dana Camp’s iTunes library, this is Buffalo Springfield’s early hit “For What It’s Worth.”  This is one of those songs with a title that is not used at any point during the lyrics, so my initial response to the title was, “How does that one go?”

Of course, from the first strum of the first verse, I instantly recognized this hit sixties protest song.

I’ve always loved this song, and I loved it all the more this afternoon as I realized it was right in my vocal comfort zone!  Still, as fun as it was to learn and play it, I do wish there had been some way to include that awesome reverberating lead guitar and solo.  I guess you’ll just have to imagine it as you listen…

About a week ago in one of my posts, I started out by saying it would be a short one.  Then, I proceeded to write one of my lengthier posts.  This time, however, I’m going to cut my writing short, as I’m fading fast and need my sleep on this final night of the weekend.  I spent the last forty-five minutes or so helping Jim with the new cover songs branch of the Laptop Sessions music blog series.  He put me in charge of finding good photos for each band/songwriter to use for the new site.  Probably the most fun so far has been searching for the best Britney Spears photo — and, yes, we DO have a Britney Spears category!  Meanwhile, Jim was doing the hard work (i.e. making the site run, run properly, and look good while doing it!).

And, on a final note, this is my final in a series of political songs.  I like these unnofficial themes I’ve been doing, first with three female lead songs in a row, now with three political songs in a row.  I’d probably find another one to record, but my next session will land on a by-now-infamous Original Wednesday!

With that, I’m closing my laptop and closing my eyes to the sounds of R.E.M.  What better band to encourage a healthy sleep cycle?…  Get it?…  Okay, that was bad, and I apologize.  At least you’ll be safe for at least a couple days, as I’d challenge Jeff and Jim to make a pun worse than the aforementioned REM cycle one…

See you next session!

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WCJM Free Internet Radio Station: “The World Series Show” – 2000

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By WCJM Free Internet Radio:

The Subway Series.  Every New York baseball fan’s worst nightmare.  Everyone was getting on the World Series bandwagon, so WCJM free Internet radio decided to also.  This show came on the night of game 1 of the series, and had the regular cast back of Chris, Jim, Mike, Alberto, and Dave after the 3/5 cast of the Comedy Show.

This is the first Moore Hits in the Morning program to be recorded digitally on an MD, and the sound quality is impeccable.  All the songs have a theme that intertwines with the World Series.  For instance, the Mets’ motto is “You gotta believe”, and the song “I’m a believer” by the Monkees was played.

Probably the most significant part of this show was a tribute done by Dave for the victims of the USS Cole, playing a song in their honor.

But the newest addition to the WCJM family made his first appearance on the show.  A little, cute, stuffed bear named Stuffy the Bear.  Well, he made a four and a half minute clip and instantly made the whole cast uproar in laughter.  Making fun of everyone on the show, it was a non-stop laugh riot that would appear on all future shows.  Stuffy has entered the building!

This ground-breaking episode is one of many available at no charge through the WCJM free Internet radio website!

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“Letters From the Wasteland” (Wallflowers Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another all-new acoustic rock cover song from the best cover music video blog on the Internet!  Although last week was fun for me — I played covers from the Counting Crows and Jimi Hendrix, which were both a lot of fun to learn and play — but this week promises to be even better.  Not only is it my turn for an Original Wednesday (when we songwriters here at the music blog break out one of our original songs), but I’m starting out the week with a song from one of my all-time favorite bands, the Wallflowers.

Which brings me to today’s video.  This is “Letters From the Wasteland” from the Wallflowers’ Breach album, which was released in 2000.  I was actually listening to my iPod on random earlier today when this song came up.  I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t already done a session of it, and I figured that Jeff might take it if I didn’t jump on it soon.  In fact, Jeff is another reason I chose to record the song.  He just recently recorded “Some Flowers Bloom Dead,” another great song from Breach.  I love that song, too, but I’ve always been taken by “Letters.”  There’s something really dark and powerful about it, and I absolutely love the drum beat and the guitar sounds.

Interestingly enough, at least for an English teacher like myself, is that the title of this song is reminiscent of T.S. Eliot’s famous poem, “The Waste Land.”  I always wondered if Jakob Dylan intended any sort of reference, but there is a key clue that makes me believe he didn’t.  Namely, the Eliot poem spells it as two words — Waste Land — whereas the Wallflowers song spells it as one — Wasteland.  This may seem like a minor detail, but you’d think that Dylan, being as careful about his wording and his songwriting as he says he is, would have picked up on such a detail.  It would honestly be one of the questions I would ask him if I ever met him…

That being said about the background information regarding the actual song, I have to say a bit about my night surrounding this music video.  What a night!  First, I’ve been hit with allergies pretty bad the past couple days, and even though I started taking allergy medication again, it hasn’t quite kicked in.  Thus, my voice wasn’t exactly angelic to begin with tonight.  Then, I kept recording takes of the song that I wasn’t really thrilled with, so by my tenth take or so (including brief false starts) I was dragging.  My throat was pretty sore.  After taking a break to watch the Mets a bit, I went back downstairs and ten or so minutes later, I had a take that I was pretty happy with.  So, I went upstairs from the studio to render my video and post it…

…only to find that the last ten seconds of the recording were all audio static!!

This was devastating to me at the time and some words and phrases slipped out that I shouldn’t repeat on a family-friendly blog.  (Well, as a quick tangent, a family friendly blog directory actually removed us from their listing a few months ago, so maybe we’ve crossed the line already…)  But, anyway, Jim swooped in and, being the computer deity that he is, spliced and salvaged my take by using footage from previous takes.  Amazing.  Even though I now owe him lunch or dinner or a drink or really any sort of food/beverage outing that he chooses, it was well worth it!  I didn’t mentally or physically have it in me to either record yet another take or to settle for a previous one.

And this brings us to the actual video.  I hope you enjoy “Letters From the Wasteland” — more Wallflowers covers from our resident expert Jeff Copperthite are in the archive.

See you next session!

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