Big doin’s at the Laptop Sessions!

The Weekend Review returns, the Guest Sessions are revived, and more!

By Chris Moore:

Back in January, I had planned to take the month of February off to work on my upcoming album, the not-so-timely-titled 2010 Project.  I had the foresight to vaguely suggest that my hiatus might extend into March, but apparently not enough foresight to see all the way into mid-May.

Regardless, I’m back and re-energized for my several Laptop Sessions-related endeavors in 2011.  Before I kick it all off with my first review of the year, I figured I would give a real quick run-down of what you can expect.

THE WEEKEND REVIEW will be in a new monthly format, one which condenses the best of both worlds between the full reviews I wrote in 2010 and the Yes, No, or Maybe So? format.  I’ll be supplementing my new monthly reports with full reviews — rest assured I can’t resist going on at length about a single album! — but that won’t be until after I catch up on my January through May 2011 reports.

THE GUEST SESSIONS have accrued quite a back log of submissions over the past six months or more since the last Guest Sesh was posted, so I’ve begun sorting through those, and you can look forward to a new Guest Session video every week that a Laptop Sessions regular has not posted.  This will mean we’ll need new Guest Session submissions very soon, so click over to that page (via the link above) and submit!

THE 2010 PROJECT, last but not least, is reaching 90% completion.  To light a fire under myself to get it out soon (like six months ago soon), I’ll be regularly posting Original Wednesday sessions in the order of my final track listing.  I began this months and months ago, but I only got to like track three, so look for that to be picked up again.

And, with that, I thank you all for reading, and I hope you’ll look forward to more quality content on the site in the coming months!

More from the Laptop Sessions

“The One For Me” (Chris Moore original) – Original Wednesday

By Chris Moore:

Welcome to September, a truly promising month for new music from the likes of Steven Page, Ben Folds, and Weezer!

Today, I’m taking a break from our regularly scheduled Original Wednesday program of previews from The 2010 Project to bring you a song I just wrote last week.

Specifically, a song I wrote on Monday of last week.

You may be wondering, why Monday?  Well, August 23rd — aside from being my friend and sometimes-collaborator Alberto Distefano’s birthday — marked the fifth anniversary of my first date with my girlfriend Nicole.  Because we broke up for three months in late 2008, we’ve decided to officially celebrate our anniversary on the day we got back together for the first time, January 2nd.  (I’m personally a fan of this date for all its implications of the new year, fresh beginnings, resolutions to be made, and all the promise this invokes.  And, although it’s only a week after Christmas, the original date was only a week before her birthday, so proximity to other occasions is not a factor.)

Thus, August 23rd has become the anniversary that we’ve promised to honor, but without monetary expense in the name of gifts.

We never said anything about not spending time to make something like, say, a song!

I spent the better part of my morning last Monday writing, playing, and perfecting “The One For Me.”  It is one of the — if not the — best love songs I’ve written, in my opinion.  And, for those that don’t know, my opinion is that my love songs are generally sub-par.  The version which you will hear in the video below is the first full performance I committed to tape last week.  I’ve been playing it numerous times each day since and it has progressed considerably from the form it is in on this session.

Why post an out-of-date version?

For one, I like the idea of showing off a fresh song, without having practiced it or worked on it.  What is Original Wednesday, after all, if it is not a place to celebrate the writing process?  In addition, I’m trying to imagine a spot for this song on The 2010 Project, so it may show up there.  If it does, you will hopefully be able to tell how much it has progressed since this video.  (And, it will have turned out that today is indeed another installment of the preview series.)

So, without further ado, I give you “The One For Me.”  I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll tune back in for more exciting new material here at the Laptop Sessions as we move into the fall season.

See you next session!

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“Socrates’ Gulps” (Chris Moore original)

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to the third installment of the 2010 Project preview series.  If you’ve been around the blog recently, you’ve seen the unveiling of both the opener “No Lights, No Sound” and the second track “I Would Prefer Not To.”

Now, on to track three…

“Socrates’ Gulps” is a fairly recent song, one that knocked the older “No More” down to the fourth slot.  It features one of my more ambitious vocals in the chorus, which guaranteed its place in the third slot.  I won’t say much about it, other than to note that it is the song I plan on recording tomorrow and/or Saturday.  For once, I’ll have the song speak for itself.

Outside of tonight’s video, I’d like to emphasize that I haven’t forgotten about the Weekend Review.  In fact, I have the next six reviews lined up and ready to be written.  Finding time is the issue.  I did finish my class, which has freed up a lot of time, but I have been spending a lot of time hanging out with friends, reading books that I want to finish before the summer is out, and kicking off recording sessions for my first album in four years, The 2010 Project.

In other words, I’ve been enjoying the latter half of my summer break!

But stay tuned here, as I’ve pledged to post 52 of my 2010 music reviews here at the Laptop Sessions, and I am confident that I will be able to do so.  (As for my Bob Dylan review-writing goal, I’ve shifted that to included his sixties releases only…)

As a final note, be sure to glance behind me in the video tonight and check out the Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin lithograph that has covered up my previous Dead Weather Sea of Cowards poster.  I mention this, first, to give Wilson’s new album a shout-out (it just may end up being the seventh review on my list), and second, to re-iterate how much I love Newbury Comics, whose coupon brought the album price down to a reasonable $9.99 and included the poster for free.

At that, I’ll leave you to this Original Wednesday video and turn my attention back to the increasingly depressing Mets game, currently in the bottom of the twelfth inning.  With any “luck,” Ollie Perez is getting warmed up.  I mean, his role is as the twelfth inning specialist, isn’t it?

See you next session!

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