“Something Good This Way Comes” (Jakob Dylan Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

And now, I am proud to bring you another great addition to The Laptop Sessions library. While he is technically not a new artist, his solo work is.

Today, Jakob Dylan released his first solo album “Seeing Things”, and to celebrate this release, I have dedicated today’s Laptop Session to this album. I have been very excited about it and can’t wait until amazon ships it to me.

Meanwhile, about 2 days ago I finally figured out how to play today’s song “Something Good This Way Comes”. It is track 8 and has been one of the songs on his website for quite some time. The album is very heavy on the acoustic guitar, and also finger picking. While I’m not new to it, I don’t do it often. Obviously, a single acoustic guitar (where Jakob Dylan is using 4+ in some songs) will not sound as much like the album, but I think this effort is quite good.

Also, you’ll notice the first verse I seem a bit loud. I sorta forgot “gee i’m fingerpicking I better sing a little softer”. The rest of it sounds fine, however.

If you wanna know the chords (relative to 2nd fret Capo), the verse is:

D G D D G D Em D A Em D A

Chorus is: G A D
Bridge is: F#m, Bm, A, D, E, A7

I hope you enjoy today’s session, and I hope you have picked up (or will pick up) “Seeing Things”. I can’t wait to hear the entire album! Come on amazon…

Meanwhile, enjoy today’s session, and come back tomorrow for another Original Song by Jim Fusco! I can’t wait to see what he chooses.

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 original 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!

Insight on acoustic video covers for the Laptop Sessions

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By Jeff Copperthite:

When the idea came across to do The Laptop Sessions as a free video series, Jim started it all off by watching a video of Let It Be that was covered highly incorrectly, and Jim recorded himself playing it correctly. He wanted to put a good name to music covers on Youtube – especially covers of one of his favorite bands The Beatles. Also, in spirit of “The Bathroom Sessions”, which was a free music video series by two members of Barenaked Ladies, I helped coin the term “Laptop Sessions”, since Jim was using the camera on his laptop to record the video.

After the positive response to sessions that Jim put out, Chris and I decided to help Jim with the “Session a day” project starting in 2008. Initially, Jim enlisted Chris to put up one video between each of them, so that the site had a new music video each day. I had tried ten sessions in late 2007, but I had stopped doing them due to the low quality web camera I owned. In general, I was still new to the realm of video as well.

After nearly 60 new video sessions recorded for The Laptop Sessions this year, I have recording videos down to a science. Here is a typical rundown of what it takes for me to make each session.

1) Practice the song

This is the obvious one. As a songwriter, I know the more comfortable I am with the song, the better the video will come out. I grew up hearing a lot of music in the 90’s, so I tend to be most comfortable when I decide to do a song by bands such as Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, and Radiohead. However we do try to diversify our recordings across the years, and I know I cannot limit myself to alternative music bands. Therefore, some songs require up to a week of practice. Others I can learn and play comfortably in an hour or two. I will usually begin practicing the song regularly up to two-three days before I record it.

2) Set up the video recording station

Lately I have four common locations for my videos. The biggest problem I have is that I do not have a tripod for my camera (yet – I do plan to buy one). Therefore, I have to rest my camera on a makeshift stand. I also have to make sure there is enough light. Even during the day, I have to have at least one lamp on so the video doesn’t come out dark. After that, I position the camera, set the zoom, tune the guitar, and do a practice run of the song on the acoustic. Music tends to be easy for me – it’s singing and remembering lyrics that is the most difficult. For this reason, I have to put a small sheet of “notes” that remind me what verse or line to sing next. Sometimes, I have to include the entire lyric sheet, but that is rare. “Round Here” comes to mind as a song I just needed that entire lyric sheet by the camera for.

3) Record the video

When I am satisfied that I can record the song, I psych up for the performance. Lately, I have been able to record the song in about three or four takes. I don’t worry about what happens before or after the performance, since I can edit that out in the next step. As you have seen on our site, recording acoustic guitar video covers is real easy some days, other days you want to throw your guitar against the wall because something minor keeps messing takes up. “Jane” comes to mind with this (despite it being a piano cover). I had played it on the first take and was very happy to have satisfactorily made it through the song. That is, until I discovered the battery had died in the middle of the recording. I charged the battery, and then it took me another 20 or so takes to get it again. Other times, the performance comes so naturally you wonder why you practiced the song so much beforehand.

4) Edit the Video

This is probably the easiest step, despite it taking up to 30 minutes. I transfer the video to my laptop (as you can tell, I don’t own a laptop with a built-in camera, so technically I should be doing “The Powershot Sessions”). Once the video is transferred, I split the clip to the parts I want (usually this involves trimming out the beginning and end of the clip), then add on two title screens and a credit roll. Then, depending on the length of the performance, I render the video, which can take up to 12 minutes for long songs.

5) Write the description, and upload the video.

While the video renders, I write the Youtube description and tags. Usually I will comment on the song I chose, why I chose it, the album it is from, and any comments on the performance itself. I will also usually throw in some current news and other tidbits of info. My descriptions tend to be at least 100 words long. I can usually get both descriptions on the blog and Youtube before the video finishes rendering. Then I upload the video, copy the embedding information onto the blog, and publish!

What keeps me fresh for the sessions is when I try to listen to new music that I may like to cover. I found on Chris and Jim to introduce me to bands and songs I’d otherwise not know, but some people I know also help me out in that department. It is also fun to use this as a springboard to get people to hear our independent music. That is why we do “Original Wednesday”, and slowly we are building up some excitement from our subscribers when that day rolls around. At least we know everyone watching will be listening to something they’ve never heard before.

I hope you enjoyed getting some insight on the process on my end. As always, if you have questions please email admin@fusco-moore.com, and direct your questions to me, Jeff Copperthite. Have a great evening!

“Break Your Heart” (Barenaked Ladies Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to what is a momentous occasion for me…  my 100th Laptop Session!  That’s — count ’em — one hundred acoustic rock cover songs, recorded after almost nine months of posting every third day.  Thus far, Jim is the only one of us to reach the 100 mark and Jeff can’t be too far behind me, so this is definitely an exciting time for us here at the music blog.

I wanted to make today’s session a great one, so I decided to go barenaked.  Barenaked Ladies, that is!  As I explained in my previous post, I love the Steven Page-sung track from Born on a Pirate Ship called “Break Your Heart.”  It’s quite the emotional tune and is certainly characterized (and highlighted!) by a classic Steven Page lead vocal.  I almost felt silly even attempting this song, considering that it is not exactly in my range, but I wanted to set the bar high for my next hundred videos.  By this time next year, I would love to have 100 more songs recorded, and have many of them be more ambitious, more perfected, and overall more exciting than even the first hundred.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; it’s been a crazy ride thus far.  But still, I’m excited to improve and increase the popularity of the blog.  It would be nice to know that people were actually reading these blog posts; it would certainly make me want to write longer, more interesting and informative entries.

Before I leave you to the video, I need to share one last tidbit from my day.  I hadn’t downloaded all the free music at Fusco-Moore.com/Store, so I took a little trip on over and “purchased” all that free material.  If you’re a Laptop Sessions fan in the least, then this is a must-have — we have eight volumes worth of acoustic rock covers, not to mention live shows.

Well, that’s it for me tonight — Aside from the fact that I’m nodding off as we speak and wondering when Jim will notice that I’ve completely slumped over on my laptop, I’m going to let my video speak for itself.  Stay tuned for another cover from Jeff tomorrow and another from Jim the following day.  And, guess what?  I’ll be back on the third day for yet another acoustic cover song on the best cover music blog in the universe!

See you next session!

“Goin’ Up The Country” (Canned Heat Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Well, tonight I’m bringing you yet another piece of archival evidence to prove that I have no shame.  I am apparently not interested in impressing anyone, or if I am, then it’s impressing them with how willing I am to make a fool of myself… 🙂

But, seriously, I bring you this video tonight — another all-new cover by an all-new band to the sessions — in the hope that you’ll enjoy listening to it and remembering it as much as I have enjoyed learning to play it.

I actually heard it this weekend, as my friends and I watched the film Into the Wild.  This song came on during one of the scenes.  Instantly, I was reminded of my father’s tape collection again, as I had been for “Dead Skunk” and other cover songs that I’ve done.  One of his old tapes has this Canned Heat single, “Goin’ Up the Country,” on it.

Of course,  the first aspect that you’ll most likely notice is my falsetto delivery.  You may even think it sounds goofy.  Well, even though I wouldn’t classify the original vocal as goofy, it is certainly in a distinct voice.  If you don’t know the song, then you should most likely search YouTube or iTunes for it as a companion to my Laptop Session.  Or, just take my word that there is a good reason for the otherwise ridiculous vocals I have recorded here…

“Goin’ Up The Country” is how my night ends.  Allow me to share the rest of the evening, which was interesting and indeed, I hope, a kickstart to a relaxing, fun, and productive Thanksgiving week.  First of al, I stayed at school until six, entering grades and reading college essays.  By the time I got home and changed, Becky was napping, and Jim and Dana were in the kitchen getting ready for the first Fusco-Moore Pre-Turkey Day Celebration!  The best part of this story is that, as I went into the kitchen this morning to get my lunch, I found that Jim had stayed up late to prepare as much as he could.  Dishes were portioned out, sealed with cellophane, post-it noted with directions, and the counter was covered with an array of foods and utensils.  Now, the oven was working overtime, and the smells were tantalizing.

Before long, we ate dinner — which was amazing, by the way, and a definite home run for Jim.  We broke open the bottle of wine that Jim and Becky had bought for me a couple weeks ago in the Berkshires.  We watched the episode of The Office that we had DVR’ed from last week.

How much better could it get?

After dinner, we still had Two and a Half Men, Worst Week (which I regretfully missed in order to record my video), and Boston Legal (which was a wild and predictaby crazy Thanksgiving episode!).  Boston Legal was actually sobering for a number of reasons, such as the fact that it is drawing ever nearer to the final episode (don’t even get me started on how disappointing that is, being that it is my absolute favorite show on TV next to, perhaps, The Office), Denny was showing signs of progressing Alzheimers’, and Katie and Jerry were having a spat.  Jerry announced to her that he loved her… it’s about time!  He added that she need not feel awkward; he would find her friendship to be more than an adequate consolation prize.  I thought, particularly for a man with a social disorder, that Jerry handled the talk extraordinarily well.  Katie didn’t respond in any certain terms, but did mention that they are a couple, if not in a romantic way, and may be in need of couples therapy.

I have a bit of a crush on the Katie character, so I’m rooting for Jerry here so I can live vicariously through him, if only until the show ends in December!  🙂

And with that, the night was over.  A big thanks should be extended to Jim for cooking and to Dana and Becky for filling the house with great company.  Now, I’m off to sleep and school and then a night of hanging out, talking about music, and watching an Office mini-marathon with my sister, Jaime.  I can’t wait!

And I’m sure you can’t wait until the next acoustic rock cover song is posted here on the blog — but, have no fear, Jeff will be here tomorrow for Tuesday’s edition, and then Jim will bring you a fresh new Original Wednesday…

See you next session!