Author Archives: Chris Moore

“All The Days” (Original Music by Indie Songwriter Chris Moore)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to my favorite day, a day that comes only once every three weeks for we songwriters of the Fusco-Moore Productions music blog…  Original Wednesday!  Today, I took a trip down memory lane to my last solo release before joining the band MoU (Masters of the Universe with Jim Fusco, Mike Fusco, Becky Daly, and Cliff Huizenga).  Today, I recorded “All the Days,” the penultimate track off my EP Love Out of Fashion.  (Using “penultimate” in my post is my answer to Jim using — honest to God — the word “leviathan” properly and casually in a conversation the other day.  I didn’t even know how to pronounce the word… :-))

This was the first time I really experimented with such recording techniques as lead vocal doubletracking and sound effects such as my ZOOM guitar pedal.  I have a lot of fond memories of rushing home after school or work during the summer to record this album in the basement of my parents’ home.  I finally felt like I had mastered the computer program I used to record at the time, and I can’t count the number of mix CDs I made.  Each time I would finish the recording of tracks for a song, I would burn a CD and listen to it in my car wherever I went — to work, to school, to the store.  I’ve written on the blog here before about pulling over late at night to listen to the songs as loud as the volume would go, making mental notes of changes I would make to the final mix the next chance I got.  Lots of fond memories.

My only regret, particularly on a track like “All the Days” that I felt had a lot of promise, is that I didn’t have a way to record drums.  It’s a well-known fact that a drumbeat never hurts, especially when it comes to my playing…  It was as a result of this regret that I’ve made the resolution to never record another album unless a drummer is available and raring to go.

So, I hope you enjoy this little trip down memory lane for me; I probably haven’t played this track since I recorded it.  Well, that’s not true — I think I’ve played it once or twice, but over several years…

Oh, and I hope you’ll take a listen to the recorded version so you’ll understand why this music video starts differently from any other cover song session I’ve recorded.

Okay, that’s all for me.  Don’t forget to hurry back tomorrow for another all-new acoustic rock cover song session from Jeff.  And now, I should check on the Mets who were winning by a lot earlier, then tied, and just pulled ahead…  (Come on, Mets!!)

See you next session!

The TOP TWENTY ALBUMS of 2011 (The Year-End Awards)

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By Chris Moore:

It is the best and truest mark of artistry in the music industry, and sales are no indication of significance.  Sequencing and thematic continuity, sonic experimentation within a basic set of familiar parameters, a healthy range of types and topics: these are the standards by which to judge an album.

The album.

It ascended into an art form in the mid-sixties under the careful work of artists like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys.  It was taken to new heights with the experimentation of later bands, from the concept albums of the Moody Blues to the spin-off success of artists like Bruce Springsteen.  The album – and rock in general – saw a rebirth in the nineties, with the work of those like Weezer, the Wallflowers, the Barenaked Ladies, and a slew of others who led a surge of excellent rock music.

These days, the album has faced a crossroads.  Specifically, with the advent and surge of digital sales, the physical formats of music are on the chopping block.  Still, with the rise of vinyl sales even as CD sales continue to decline, there is hope yet.  And, contrary to an army of naysayers, there are still excellent albums being made.  This year, as with the past several years that I have been tuned into a vast array of albums, I would say there are about five albums that will undoubtedly stand the test of time and compete for top spots when I eventually get around to my Best Albums of All Time list.  Which, at this point, might have to wait until I hit retirement.

But, for the moment, you have my Best Albums of 2011 list, and if you’re interested in reading more about any of these albums, you can access my Weekend Review report (including star rating, production info, and a full review) by simply searching the album title and band name in the search bar above.  And, of course, if you see reason for disagreement or any gaps in my list, it’s up to you to leave comments below.

1)  The Whole Love (Wilco)

2)  The King is Dead (The Decemberists)

3)  Last Night on Earth (Noah & the Whale)

4)  Wasting Light (Foo Fighters)

5)  Bad As Me (Tom Waits)

6)  Unfortunate Casino (Gerry Beckley)

7)  The King of Limbs (Radiohead)

8)  Yuck (Yuck)

9)  Lasers (Lupe Fiasco)

10) W H O K I L L (The Tune-Yards)

11) The Graduation Ceremony (Joseph Arthur)

12) Vol. 2: High and Inside (The Baseball Project)

13) Collapse Into Now (R.E.M.)

14) Move Like This (The Cars)

15) The Valley (Eisley)

16) Cloud Maintenance (Kevin Hearn)

17) I’m With You (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

18) Alpocalypse (Weird Al Yankovic)

19) No Color (The Dodos)

20) Nighty Night (8in8)

 

Honorable Mention:

The Way It Was (Parachute)

The Dreamer, The Believer (Common)

Bob Dylan Discography: 1961 – 1969

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By Chris Moore:

A couple years ago, a friend at work asked me for some information about Bob Dylan and his work in the 1960s. Little did she know I would not only give her son as much verbal information as he required, but I would also type up a brief discography of his albums. I just came across it today, and I figured I would share it with you all!

Bob Dylan Discography

– The Sixties –

1961 – January: Moves to New York

1962 – March: Bob Dylan

-Very folky album, mostly comprised of covers. His early original “Song to Woody” (for his hero, Woody Guthrie) is notable.

1963 – May: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

-His first big success and one of his true classics! This is the album that made bands like the Beatles stand up and take notice of him.

1964 – January: The Times They Are A-Changin’

-Deep in the heart of his “protest song” era, this topical album solidified his standing with the folk artists of the 1960’s.

August: Another Side of Bob Dylan

-In this album, Dylan’s desire to break away from topical songs and write more personal material—“My Back Pages,” etc.—becomes evident.

1965 – March: Bringing It All Back Home

-Dylan begins to “go electric” with this half acoustic, half electric album.

August: Highway 61 Revisited

-This is where Dylan pulled out all the stops and made a sound that was all his own. Best known for its lead-off song, “Like A Rolling Stone.”

1966 – May: Blonde on Blonde

-Dylan pushes his sound a step further with this album; widely considered to be among the (if not THE) best album of his career.

1967 – December: John Wesley Harding

-Following his motorcycle accident in 1966 and the cancellation of his upcoming tour dates, fans were somewhat thrown by his return to a more folky sound.

1968 –

Records in a basement with the Band; those widely bootlegged takes were later
released as The Basement Tapes

1969 – April: Nashville Skyline

-Making the transformation complete, he released this country rock album with a new version of “Girl of the North Country” (originally from Freewheelin’) as a duet with Johnny Cash.

“Wishlist” (Pearl Jam Cover)

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For Pearl Jam chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

You know what I wish?  I wish that I would wake up tomorrow and there would no longer be anyone on the entire planet who smoked cigarettes.  Never mind the health risk — which, by the way, there are few ingestible products that come with a “may cause cancer” label.  The concept of breathing tar into your lungs aside, let’s consider the ramifications to non-smokers on the road. For instance, I sat in a McDonald’s drive-through tonight for ten minutes and was delighted by not only the automobile emissions but two smokers puffing away.  The breeze was such that my car was filled with noxious fumes.

In a sense, this was great, because the fish filet and large fries actually seemed healthy by comparison!  🙂

Seriously, though, what really gets me is the disposal of the butts.  It’s happened so many times recently that I’ll be driving down the road and someone in the car ahead of me will flick a lit cigarette out of their window.  I don’t know if it’s due to me being older, a generally law-abiding dork, a teacher of transcendental texts like Emerson’s “Nature,” or a combination of the three, but this is enough to drive me crazy recently.  To paraphrase our friend Matt Griffiths from the WCJM morning show, it’s just enough to tweak my hypothalamus and send me into an uncontrollable rage!

I suppose I simply can’t imagine driving in my car, holding a lit piece of paper in my hand, and saying to myself, “I’m done with this.  Why not chuck it out the window?”  Since when did that become the acceptable form of cigarette disposal?! Think twice ye smokers, lest you piss off the drivers behind you (such as myself tonight when a highly tossed butt bounced off my car, lit ashes flying everywhere)…

For those of you wondering what this has to do with my post tonight, prepare to be dazzled.  Well, maybe not dazzled…

Just as I have ranted about something that has bothered me and later wondered if it was too negative, so did Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam decide that he should try writing something positive.  Out of a lengthier “stream-of-consciousness exercise,” we have the “better wishes” presented in this little gem of a song.  It was an instant favorite of mine upon first listening to Pearl Jam’s 1998 album Yield.  As with Binaural, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this album, as it sold less and seemed generally regarded as at least somewhat inferior to previous releases such as Ten and Vitalogy.  But I love this album, and I love this song.  For once, the song I love most is actually in my vocal range!

Okay, so that’s not entirely true.  My first pick for a song to learn and play would have been “Do The Evolution.”  For any of you familiar with that song, you should be sitting at your computer laughing at simply the notion of my attempting to sing a song like that!  I understand my own limitations!  🙂   That being said, you should take the time to search on YouTube for “Pearl Jam Evolution” and watch the official music video; it’s simply amazing — a very cool use of animation to visualize the lyrics to a song.

Along with my acoustic cover song music video tonight, I also send a shout out to my girlfriend Nicole who is a big fan of this song.  (I hope you like it!)  As she is currently in possession of my CD copy of the album and my iPod is tied up with my Bob Dylan playlist (518 out of 622 tracks!), I had to rely on my iPhone to listen to “Wishlist” tonight as I wrote out the lyrics and chords.  What a Mac nerd I am… but I love it.  Speaking of Macs, if I don’t end up writing a full review of U2’s No Line on the Horizon, please allow me to go on record saying that “Unknown Caller” has to be the worst track on the album for a number of reasons.  It’s only redeeming quality is that Bono makes lyrical references (“force quit and move to trash”) that bely his computer loyalties…

Although I have so much more I could say — about Pearl Jam’s re-release of Ten tomorrow, this song, other music, the fact that my dad and I just bought tickets to see Bruce Hornsby at the MGM Grand on Friday(!), life in general — I think this is enough for one night!  As a final note, please allow me to point out that this is officially the tenth post in the Pearl Jam category here at the Laptop Sessions, rounding us off to an even ten just in time for the re-release of Ten for tomorrow’s New Music Tuesday, March 24th, 2009!

For all you new music fans, don’t forget to stop by the blog tomorrow night for an all-new high-quality Jim Fusco Tuesday.  I have it on good authority that he’ll be taking it to a WHOLE…  NOTHA….  LEH-VAL….

See you next session!