Tag Archives: acoustic song

“Feel For Love” (An Acoustic Rock Song by Indie Music Songwriter Chris Moore)

Posted on by
Reply

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another all-new installment of the Laptop Sessions! Being that it’s Hump Day, I’m excited — for those of you who may be new to the blog, I’m excited because every Wednesday here is “Original Wednesday.” For just a moment, we songwriters who contribute to this acoustic rock cover song music blog just take a moment to put aside the covers and record a song that we have written. It comes but once every three weeks for us…

Tonight, I’ve recorded “Feel For Love,” a song from my most recent solo release, the EP entitled Love Out of Fashion. To be honest, I’ll never know why I didn’t just finish recording one more song during the recording sessions (and I actually did have one demo with basic tracks that never made the final cut).  If I had, then I would have accumulated nine songs and I could have called the EP a full album.  But, I guess nine is kind of a cop out after most of my earlier solo albums have an average of 12 songs or so.  Either way, I was satisfied that an 8-song EP was not a cop out, so…

I don’t know that I’ve ever told anyone, but “Feel For Love” was the first song recorded for the project.  I actually began recording with the idea of making a set of demos to present to Jim Fusco in order to convince him to produce an album for me the following summer.  Once I got into the process, I just devoted too much time and energy to let the songs sit as demos — I would lay down one acoustic, then add electric to give it the right sound.  After all, I wanted the songs to be presentable to him.  Then I would add background vocals.  And then some more background vocals.  I practiced again and again and again to perfect the solos I wanted for the songs, both harmonica and electric / acoustic guitar.

By the time I had finished eight songs, it was clear that I couldn’t simply burn the songs onto a blank disc for Jim to listen to; I had an EP on my hands.

To this day, I still haven’t recorded an album with Jim as producer, but to be honest, I probably won’t record another project until I’ve fully polished a set of songs and convinced him to let me hire him or at least bribe him with fast food and TNA cards to produce the next Chris Moore solo album.  The simple fact is — especially after hearing the new Masters of the Universe album — I can’t go back to self-producing without drums and without mastering.  Instead, I’m starting to save my pennies and save my dimes…

As a final note, the tracks for Love Out of Fashion became an obsession for me.  I listened to those songs in every way possible — on the computer speakers, on different pairs of headphones, on my stereo, and I even burned multiple copies at different phases to listen to in the car.  One early morning around one a.m. or so, I pulled over in the shopping plaza near my house to be able to listen to the tracks clearly and loudly.  I leaned over the console of my car to get myself as close to the middle as possible, closing my eyes and listening to every nuance of the mix to decide what needed to change and what aspects were finished.  Someone actually pulled into the lot next to me to ask if I was okay and was my car working?  I, of course, said I was fine.  What I should have said was that I was, for the first time, really becoming a confident producer of my own music.

Of course, the conspicuous absence of time-keeping drums will forever label Love Out of Fashion a second-class album, which I suppose I’ve come to terms with.  But I’m still proud of it!

Okay, that’s more than enough from me.  I hope you enjoy this and will take the time to comment on it here.  Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for an all-new track from our very own Jeff Copperthite…

See you next session!



“If You Could Read My Mind” (Gordon Lightfoot Cover)

Posted on by
Reply

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another all-new edition of everyone’s favorite acoustic cover song music blog! Today, I’m bringing you a song taken from Jim’s list of songs to record. He’s noticed that I’ve been having a hard time recently finding songs from new artists to cover — most of the songs I want (and I have quite the list) are either from artists I’ve recently covered or have difficult singing parts that I need more practice with. So, he suggested I do Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” I have always loved this song, and my passion for it was renewed when I picked up a copy of Gene Clark’s album Firebyrd. The album includes a cover song version of this song that I love every bit as much as the original. So, in a way, this is the perfect track to choose for a Laptop Session — a song by a new artist that was once covered by an artist whose material we have often covered on this video blog. If that made sense to you, then you deserve extra points!…

Regular fans of the Sessions may notice that I’m standing up tonight instead of sitting, as I have been for many of my recent video blog entries. Well, the reason is simple — even though this is not an upbeat song, I felt that I just wasn’t doing well with it while sitting. I’m kind of like Robert Redford’s character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in that way. In the film, Sundance (played by Redford) is asked to shoot a target in order to prove how good a shot he is. The man insists that he not draw from his holster; rather, he should simply take aim and shoot. He does so and misses. The man grins disappointedly and starts to walk away. Then, Sundance puts the gun back in his holster, draws, and rapidly shoots the rather small target repeatedly.

When the man looks at him, awe-struck, Sundance’s response is something like, “I’m better when I’m moving.”

While recording acoustic cover songs is obviously not anything like firing a weapon, I do often think about this comparison when I’m playing. When I’m on my feet, I tend to take what I’m playing more seriously and I truly feel more comfortable than if I were to sit and play.

Well, now that you have more information about my style of playing acoustic guitar music than you could ever have hoped for or desired to know, I’ll leave you with the actual session. I kind of wore myself down on this one, playing so many takes that, although it is technically solid, I feel that it lost some of the urgency of the earlier takes. Of course, it didn’t help that my computer lost battery power and shut down in the middle of my most perfect take. If only it had held out for two more minutes, I would have been done a half hour earlier than I was!

Okay, without further ado, here’s my version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” Don’t forget to hurry back tomorrow for an all-new and excellent session from Jeff!

See you next session!



“Good Night Now” (Original Music from Indie Music Songwriter Chris Moore)

Posted on by
Reply

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of “Original Wednesday,” our absolute favorite day of the week here at the music blog that brings you a new music video EACH and EVERY day! Original Wednesday is our favorite day because it gives us an opportunity to show off our own songwriting. The whole reason why we do these acoustic cover songs in the first place is to hopefully interest people who like to listen to new music to come and listen to our original music. Jim, Jeff, and I have been producing music for Fusco-Moore Productions for almost a decade now, and we couldn’t be more thrilled when Wednesday rolls around and we can record our own original music!

That being said, I dug into my catalog this week for an original song that I haven’t recorded yet. Over the past several months, I have recorded every original song that I have contributed to my band’s past two releases (the self-titled Masters of the Universe in 2006 and Homestead’s Revenge in 2008). I figured that these are the songs of mine that have seen the most circulation. Well, now that I have finished those, I am beginning to look back at my solo releases. Some of the MoU songs were previously recorded on solo releases, so those are out. However, my 2006 EP, Love Out of Fashion, is a work unto itself — none of the tracks on that album have been recorded or released in any other form.

For tonight’s session, I chose “Good Night Now,” the second track on the album. I hope you’ll take the time to listen to the studio version as well (CLICK HERE to listen!) because it has some of the most experimental guitar effects I had used up to that point. I wrote this song about two female co-workers who I felt very strongly about; these were relationships I established in high school and which lasted up until they left the Staples (where I worked at the time) several years later. I think that the realization that people you think you know in one environment (work, for instance) are really quite different elsewhere is a common one, and it hit me hard when I finally realized. Thus, this song…

So, without further ado, I bring you the free music video for tonight. Don’t miss a brand-new music blog entry from Jeff tomorrow — same Laptop-time, same Laptop-channel…

See you next session!



“Astronomy” (Blue Oyster Cult Cover)

Posted on by
Reply

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening to you, and welcome to your newest addition to The Laptop Sessions library!  It’s Jeff here bringing you a somewhat surprising song.  One can make the argument that we have not covered a band like this on this site.  But I hope that, if you never have heard of Blue Oyster Cult before (BOC), that you will enjoy this cover video.

BOC is the topic today (another new band!  I guess we had like New Bands 3.0 this week or something) and I have a great song by them from 1974.  Now if you don’t know who this band is, I will tell you a song that will instantly make you say “oh that’s who you’re talking about” – that song is “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”.  Yeah, they wrote that song.  It was also the same song that was being portrayed as recorded in an SNL sketch, where the now famous line was uttered by Christopher Walken – “needs more cowbell”.

Well, tonight I am not covering that song – but I am learning how to play it and I will be recording it before the year is out (may save it for a Thumpin’ Thursday – it is an awesome song).

Today I have a song from their 1974 album “Secret Treaties” titled “Astronomy”.  This song has a nice soft feel to it, and a completely kickass solo from their lead guitarist Buck Dharma.  Eric Bloom is their lead singer, and I discovered I can emulate his voice quite well.  Therefore, you’ll notice that my voice is a little different in this session.

I was introduced to this song because I heard a version of this song by Metallica from their 1998 covers album “Garage, Inc.”.  I decided I wanted to stay true to the original BOC version, so if you’re comparing this cover to the Metallica cover, you will notice quite a few differences between them.

For the performance, I tend to be a bit more “forgiving” of myself when the song is long.  This song’s recorded version clocks in at nearly 7 minutes.  I cut out a lot of the last “solo” time so that I would not have to play near-perfect guitar for 7 minutes.  The arpeggiated parts that I play in the song are not as clean as i’d like them to be.  But if I ever wanted to finish recording this video and upload it on time, I had to allow a minor glitch here and there.  I actually think this is one of my better singing performances, however.  I hope you feel the same way.

I am glad I was able to bring a new band your way this evening, and on Monday, i’ve got another new band – heck, let’s make it 4 new bands in a row by me by making next week’s Thumpin’ Thursday a new band as well!

Tomorrow Jim will return to his library of cover songs and lay another on us.  Come back for that – you know I will!

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!