Good evening and welcome to Sunday’s edition of The Laptop Sessions. Tonight is my first cover from this band, but 5th for the site.
The Travelling Wilburys were advertised to me as an “all star band” by Jim, and boy they sure are. There aren’t many songs by them (two albums worth) but the ones that I have heard are just awesome. This one included, and I had no idea this song was by them until I heard it again.
The song is “End of the Line” from their first album. Every member except Bob Dylan is featured on lead vocals at some point in the song.
You’ll notice some voice inflection at the seperate parts where each singer is singing the original song.
I hope you stay tuned for even more from guitarbucketlist.com! Come back tomorrow for Jim’s next cover.
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 origianal 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!
Hello and welcome to your Tuesday edition of the Laptop Sessions. After my quite lengthy post last time, I’m going to keep this one fairly brief — not because I want to be lazy and write less, but because I still have a lot of work to finish before tomorrow morning.
Tonight, I’m pleased to present my second video in a three-part series where I present a song from not only a new band to the Laptop Sessions, but also originally done by a female lead singer. Now, if you’ve come to the music blog before, then you know that my vocal range does not exactly lend itself to great heights… But, even though I had to drop an octave for this song tonight, I’ve been true to the Laptop Sessions promise to always record in the original key! Indeed, that’s one of the reasons that Jim started the Laptop Sessions — to create an alternative to carelessly and ineffectively recorded cover songs on YouTube.
While I don’t expect anyone to be wowed by my Johnny Cash-like adaptation tonight (I’m exaggerating with this description, of course!), it was interesting to record for a couple reasons. The biggest one is the rhythm of the first verse. It was difficult at first to keep the rhythm of the guitar, while at the same time being true to the tune and timing of the verse. As with any acoustic cover I’ve recorded, though, I took the time to practice this opening over and over, beginning a few months ago and then coming back to it tonight. In the end, it’s exciting to see the playback and know that, if only in baby steps, my abilities and stylistic experimentations are expanding because of this session-a-day project.
I first saw Tegan and Sara when they warmed up for Ben Folds in concert. There was something about the duo that I liked, and even though they are twins, I’ve always liked the quiet, calming presence of Sara. Which is odd, since I’m usually most interested in the lead singer or songwriter of a band. Anyway, I bought their 2004 album So Jealous, and although I found a lot of the songs to be repetitive within themselves (i.e. a lack of new lyrical material past the halfway point of any given song), I also found the album really catchy. I liked the upbeat sound and their vocal harmonies are really great. They’re not exactly the Beach Boys by any stretch of the imagination, but they’ve found their own niche. One of my favorite memories of this album is when I first bought it and played it for my sister, who liked it very much. I just remember sitting in the basement rocking out to it with her. We don’t exactly have the same tastes in music, so it’s exciting when we find some legitimate crossover!
Anyway, this song — “You Wouldn’t Like Me” — is the first track from the album. When I did my usual Wikipedia/google run tonight, I didn’t learn all that much new about the band. However, one thing I didn’t know was that the White Stripes recorded another track, “Walking With A Ghost,” from this 2004 album.
Okay, without further ado, here’s my version of their song. Keep coming back to the best acoustic cover song music blog on the web, as you don’t want to miss Jeff’s original song tomorrow or Jim’s “Thumpin’ Thursday,” as Jeff would say. And, of course, I’ll be back on Friday — this time, with a song that I can guarantee you know (but probably not the version that you’re familiar with)…
Welcome to Original Wednesday! It’s Jeff today giving you an original song for our Wednesday edition. It’s our favorite day of the week here.
Today I bring you yet another video from my 2008 album “Greenlight”. The song is the last track of the album and is called “Easy”. Jim was so kind to enlighten me that on Greenlight, I have two songs that are also Barenaked Ladies songs. I think i’ll have to see if they are coverable songs and do them for kicks.
Of the songs I wrote for Greenlight, this was the first one I wrote in 2007, which was 2 years after another song on the album (“$500). It set off a nice set of songwriting for me – probably the best of my life. This song got written in two parts – 1st verse while I was in the old apartment, 2nd verse while in our new condo. It was also the song that convinced Jim that I should consider recording a new album (which happened thankfully – that was a lot of fun).
I only have a few more Original Wednesdays left in the year, and I will be providing you with three all new songs – I PROMISE! And yes, if I can get some more solid songs together, another album in the future is certainly a possibility.
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 origianal 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!
Well, I can hardly pass up an opportunity to extend “New Bands Week” just one more day…
The song I bring you tonight is “Bell Bottom Blues” by Derek and the Dominoes, the 1970’s band fronted by Eric Clapton and better known for “Layla.” Supposedly, Clapton purposely named this band to avoid the media and fan attention that he was getting at the time, such as when a fan scrawled on a billboard “Clapton is God.” I also read in an interview that Clapton suggested the purpose of the band name was to give himself an excuse to write about Pattie Boyd (former wife of George Harrison) under the guise of Derek singing about “Layla.” I’m not sure how well the ruse worked at the time, but with songs like these, it must have been hard to keep things under wraps.
Without further ado, I give you my version of “Bell Bottom Blues,” a song that I’ve loved since I heard it years ago and that received the heaviest attention from me during high school when I was drawn to the emotion of the song. I hope you like it as well!
Don’t forget to check out Jeff’s new album Greenlight. I downloaded my copy yesterday and have already listened to it twice. (“And,” to quote Maxwell Smart, “lovin’ it!”)
