“Laughing” (Goo Goo Dolls Cover)

By Chris Moore:

So, in the middle of the second biggest, busiest weekend of my semester, I decided to record a Laptop Session.  A couple years ago, this would have been no surprise, but it’s been a long time since the “session-a-day” workaholic’s regime ruled this blog.

July 26th.

That’s the date I posted my last acoustic cover song music video.  I’ve recorded performances of original songs since then, but it’s been since before the premiere of Steven Page’s “Indecision” that I posted a true Laptop Session.

Back in July, I had based my cover on an acoustic performance by Page that a fan had posted on YouTube.  That pretty much sums up my working philosophy concerning covers: I’m not on a schedule so much as I’m waiting for the interest to strike.  Of course, I keep plenty busy in between writing music reviews and publishing playlists, as well as facilitating the Guest Sessions division of the blog, and I’m happier about my work here than I’ve been in a long time.

Still, there was an appeal to those days when cover songs were the sole focus of our efforts, and we were excited about expanding our repertoires at a breakneck pace.

That being said, I’ve learned fairly recently that the past is a nice place to think about and even visit, but I wouldn’t want to stay.

Today’s session is born out of how pleasantly surprised I was to find how much I like the Goo Goo Dolls’ early nineties work.  I’ve been a fan of the band since I first heard “Iris” on the KISS 95.7 morning radio show in early 1998.  I remember saving up my allowance so I could pick up the song the next time my parents took us out to the mall.  This being before I understood and appreciated albums, I picked up the first CD I could find with “Iris”: the City of Angels soundtrack.  (If I remember correctly, Dizzy Up the Girl hadn’t been released yet.)  This wasn’t a complete loss, as this is the disc that introduced me to other great songs like Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House,” Eric Clapton’s “Further On Up the Road,” and one of the few U2 songs I truly love, “If God Will Send His Angels.”

Needless to say, I fell even more in love with “Slide” when that was released as the follow-up single.  Looking back, I took this time period entirely for granted: excellent rock bands like the Goo Goo Dolls were on the radio all the time and their music videos were being played — sometimes at full length (gasp!) — on MTV.  To this day, I can’t listen to “Iris” without imagining clips from the video, like in the tower or under the over pass.

At the end of the day, though, I’ve always felt Dizzy Up the Girl to be an okay album and not much more.  There are some outstanding songs — “Broadway” became and remains my favorite song from the album and “Acoustic #3” is utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful — but there are also a handful of “okay’s” and throwaways.  Compared to other albums I was listening to at the time — BnL’s Stunt and Matchbox20’s Yourself or Someone Like YouDizzy Up the Girl took a back burner, and I never bought a follow-up album.  By the time I was old enough to know about and be interested in back catalogs, I had left the Goo Goo Dolls behind.

Fast forward to 2010.  Something For the Rest of Us is released, and interestingly, my review of Dizzy Up the Girl could be duplicated here, with only the specific song titles needing to be changed.  (For the record, “Still Your Song” is in the running for my favorite GGD song and there are others, like “Sweetest Lie,” that I love.)  My friend Mike kept singing the praises of this new album, so I gave it another chance (thus falling in love with the aforementioned songs that I hadn’t paid more than one listen), but the result still falls flat in comparison with his enthusiasm.

Then, Mike, my girlfriend Nicole, and I saw the Goo Goo Dolls in concert.

Several songs into the setlist, something clicked.  I finally “get” the Goo Goo Dolls.  Unlike Third Eye Blind (another late nineties favorite of mine that promptly faded from my radar when I “got” them and consequently got bored), the Goo Goo Dolls have such depth and energy that I had partially forgotten and partially missed.  So, I set out to find albums from their back catalog.  The first two I’ve been able to find are 1995’s A Boy Named Goo (discussion of which I will reserve for a future post) and 1990’s Hold Me Up.  The latter is such a boneheaded album filled with boneheaded little rock songs like “Laughing,” but I loved it instantly.  Almost immediately, I began singing a quieter version of “Laughing” to myself, eventually figured out the chords, and have played it now and then over the past week.  Finally, I got the urge to record it today and voila!

It should be noted that I’m rusty and the consequences are as follows: I didn’t comb my hair, I didn’t think to hook up my new USB microphone that I’ve been using to mic sessions for my new album, and I absentmindedly dragged over the nearest item that would hold my cheat sheet at the proper level.  The results?  I look disheveled, it’s harder to hear me than it should be, and I smelled the vague whiff of cat poop throughout my two takes (turns out the aforementioned item is the cat’s poop bin, moved into the spare room while the bathroom is being worked on).

So, without further ado — and there’s been much ado, many parentheticals, and a slew of sidebars — I bring you my first authentic Laptop Session in over four months.  My acoustic arrangement is certain to drum up a compliment or two and a much greater number of grammatically nonsensical rants about my talent (or lack thereof) and sexual orientation, but that’s the only way to know I’m back on the blog!

See you next session!

“Chinese Sleep Chant” (Coldplay Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Assistant Editor’s note (that’s Jeff): I am in the process of re-embedding some Laptop Sessions videos that I still have.  This post was originally from 2009, but for history’s sake I have not edited the post.

And continuing from last week’s post is the song that is followed by the one I covered last week.

Now, I know that i’ve covered a bunch of Coldplay songs, and quite a few from Viva La Vida, but there’s a good reason.  Everybody loves this band.  They write catchy songs, and enjoy performing and love their fans.  How can I not want to cover this band?

This song is more of an instrumental than a lyrical song, but the lyrics are present and sung.  I initially wanted to perform this with my electric guitar hooked up to my bass amp.  However, I hit a few snags.  1) My electric strings are kind of old.  2) The bridge of the guitar sticks out of the base of the guitar a bit, making the strings a bit further from the fretboard, and therefore more difficult to play.  3) The amp is meant for bass, and I could not find a good combination of settings that made my guitar sound like a guitar.

However, practicing the song on the electric proved helpful, as it made it a lot easier to play on the acoustic.  Funny how that works sometimes.

This video came out great.  I’m very proud of this cover.

I have reached my first milestone post 100K views and hit 110K views.  I’m nearing 500 views per day on my videos, and I can’t wait to tell you when I am averaging 1K views per day.  It could happen before the year is out!

“I Am Mine” (Pearl Jam Cover)

For Pearl Jam chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to a very special edition of the Laptop Sessions.  This is Chris Moore writing for the first Monday — the first day, for that matter — of June.  And June 1st is a special day for entertainment, as this is the date of the very first Tonight Show hosted by Conan O’Brien on NBC.  As I type this, I’m watching the beginning of the episode and loving every moment.  For me, Conan is the ultimate late show host, and I truly hope that he will establish himself as a primary late show host in the minds and hearts of viewers throughout the nation.  I wasn’t sure what to expect tonight, as I haven’t watched an episode of Late Night for years.

I haven’t been disappointed.

As I’m watching the first segment with Conan’s “run to California,” his opening monologue, and his “tram tour” video, I’m remembering why his late night show was one of my favorite reasons to stay up past midnight in college.  Well, that and late night Burger King chicken fries and burgers, of course.

My song choice tonight is directly inspired by Conan’s first night on the Tonight Show.  His first musical guest — a band which he said he was delighted “to the bone marrow” about — is Pearl Jam.  Thus, although I was planning to record and post the first Relient K Laptop Session, I decided instead to record a Pearl Jam song.

As a special treat (I hope), I’ve recorded a Relient K song to tide you over until I can get back to the one I wanted to record.  In fact, this is probably for the best, as I started to work out the chords for “At Least We Made It This Far” and found that all online sources for Relient K chords were terribly inaccurate.  So, I’ll keep working on that one and get back to it soon.

Tonight’s session is my cover song version of Pearl Jam’s “I Am Mine” from their 2002 album Riot Act.  The first single off the record, “I Am Mine” is a great track that tackles existential issues.  My favorite line is “I know I was born and I know that I’ll die; the in between is mine.”  What a great line.  When I’m stressed out, I sing this line in my head to remind myself that I’m in control of my life, at least to a certain degree.

Although I like the music and vocals on this song, to be fair, it is not perfect.  Case in point: I’m not so crazy about the line “The oceans are full because everyone’s crying.”  There’s something about that line that cheapens the overall impact for me, kind of like the line “It sucks to grow up” turned Jim off to the Ben Folds song “Still Fighting It.”

Regardless, this is a great song, and I worked very hard to do my absolute best to record an enjoyable cover session for you.

I can’t believe that I actually stayed up late enough to watch the entire Tonight Show, but here I am.  This leaves two truths:

1)  I will be setting at least a couple extra alarms for tomorrow morning.

2) I got to see not only the Will Ferrell interview, but I’m about to watch the Pearl Jam performance, which is supposed to feature material from their new album.  Can’t wait!

So, that’s it for me tonight.  I wish you a great week, and hope you’ll come back to enjoy new videos all throughout the week.

See you next session!

“Three Ways” (Wallflowers Cover)

For chords & lyrics, click HERE!

By Chris Moore:

For those wondering how long it’s been since I last recorded a bona fide “Laptop Session,” please refer to my YouTube page, and check the length of my hair.

(This has long been one of my favorite aspects of the LS blog, as I can skim through the stills of my cover song music videos posted over the span of months and years and watch my hair grow out, out, out, then get cut, and continue to grow…  Well, you get the idea.)

That being said, I decided several months ago that I would only post a cover song again when the time felt right.  I’ve been keeping quite active reviewing albums for the Weekend Review and “Yes, No, or Maybe So” segments that are regularly published here at the site.  However, I haven’t recorded an official cover song session since April 11th.

It’s now July 6th.

I spent the morning and afternoon this past Saturday driving around the state with a dear friend, windows down with selections from our favorite albums blasting at full volume.  All the time, we were singing along and pointing out our favorite sections and solos, etc. in the various songs.  Of course, the first album we chose was one with the following line:  “I feel fine with the sun in my eyes, the wind in my hair…”

I’m referring to my pick for number one album of the decade and my personal favorite: the Wallflowers’ Red Letter Days.

This is one of those records that incessantly hits you with great songs, track after track.  After the rock/pop/alternative rock attack of the first four tracks, the fifth track slows down a notch, but is equally as catchy as the songs that have come before.  I’m referring to “Three Ways,” a beautiful little song that I’m featuring here this morning on the blog.

When I heard it again in my friend Mike’s car, I spent part of the duration thinking how much I would like to learn it on acoustic guitar.  And that feeling didn’t dissipate days later.  Thus, I took a break from reading Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass yesterday to figure out the chords to “Three Ways.”  I found chords online, but not surprisingly, they were significantly flawed.  This cemented my desire to complete a full session, posting chords and lyrics for others to access that are accurate to the song. For the chords, I spent quite a while playing to the song and experimenting with different options until I pieced together the core components of the song.  As for the lyrics, I went to the CD booklet — one of the reasons I love having physical copies of my music — and copied them from there.  (In fact, if you enjoy this song at all, I would strongly encourage you to check out this album, either as a download from iTunes or some other service, but PREFERABLY as a physical CD.  I’m telling you: this is not only one of the best albums of all time, but it has excellent packaging as well!)

After a few takes, I recorded one that I was happy with, which is the one you’ll see tonight.  So, without further ado, I’ll leave you to the actual recording.  Enjoy…

See you next session!