Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions with Jim Fusco! Today I go back to my ol’ stomping grounds to give you another Beach Boys cover song.
“California Calling” is from their self-titled album from 1985. It’s the only track on the whole album that features real drums…and as an added bonus, they’re played by Ringo Starr! Of course, Dennis Wilson, the band’s drummer since they began, passed away in 1983. I think Ringo is just about the only drummer fitting enough to be the first person to play drums on a Beach Boys song after Dennis’ passing. And the drumming on “California Calling” is very similar to what Dennis would’ve played. I like to think they did that as a tribute to Dennis. Supposedly, the sequenced drum track on the hit “Getcha Back” was done in the style of Dennis Wilson as a tribute. I hope that’s true because it would be a great tribute.
To be honest, this really wasn’t one of my favorite songs on the album for many years. I think I was just irked by the fact that it’s another Love/Jardine “Don’t F with the formula” song that didn’t fit in with the rest of the album. But I’ve changed my mind on that recently. I mean, when you’re looking for a Beach Boys song, you’re looking for a song just like “California Calling”! Plus, it’s a good tune and I’m a sucker for that classic Beach Boys sound.
Onto some personal business: “The Easy Ways”, my new album, came out on September 20th! It’s an album full of 16 original songs that are assembled into a true “album” instead of just a collection of songs. I’ve been practicing non-stop for my album release party, so I hope everyone in the Connecticut area will come check it out! It’s at 5:30 on Saturday, September 20th at Silver City Restaurant in Meriden, CT.
I hope everyone enjoys tonight’s Laptop Sessions cover song music video of The Beach Boys’ “California Calling”!
It’s no secret that I’ve been going through a Wilco phase recently. And, by phase, I mean that I wasn’t really familiar with the band until a couple months ago. I had read about the band a bit in music magazines, and I had read quotes by band frontman Jeff Tweedy, which I generally found interesting. So, I finally found a copy of their critically acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album and decided to give it a spin.
And instantly loved it.
Ever since, I’ve been listening to alot of other music, but I’ve gone back to Wilco every time. In the past two months, I’ve gone on an odyssey to discover as much about them as possible. This has involved reading Wikipedia posts, skimming music magazines, and browsing through numerous CD store racks and used album bins. In the process, I’ve found affordable copies of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot‘s predecessor, Summerteeth (which is the origin of the song I just added to the members-only section, which you should definitely check out soon!), and their first album, A.M.
Now, it’s not that Wilco is my new favorite band of all-time, by any means. But there is a certain excitement that accompanies fresh territory, striking out into a land that is unusual and can present unexpected ideas, sounds, etc. For instance, I learned all about Uncle Tupelo — a band I had heard OF but had never actually HEARD — because Uncle Tupelo, minus one member, became the first incarnation of Wilco.
But, I guess that’s a story for another time.
Suffice it to say that Uncle Tupelo is credited with founding the “alt-country” genre that I didn’t even know existed until recently. As Tweedy progressed, he became more and more experimental with his music, particularly after the first couple Wilco albums. He seems like an interesting musical figure to me, as he embodies that rock songwriter ideal; he has made some great music, and from many reports, he can be a bit of a jerk. For instance, members of Wilco have been essentially summarily dismissed to make way for new musicians with new sounds to bring to the process. While this may not make for pleasant interpersonal relationships, it has certainly made for some interesting musical variations and evolution in the band.
When I think of this song and this album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, in particular, I am reminded, to a degree, of some of the classic albums that have initially been criticized or even rejected by record company executives. In this case, the hype surrounding the making of the album seems to have only aided and increased its eventual popularity. Essentially, as Wilco recorded this album, but the powers-that-be needed to make some cuts at the label, so they released the band. There are several conflicting stories, but the end result is that Wilco got to keep the recordings and rights to the then-new material, going on to another division of Warner Bros. to officially produce and release the album. This caused a bit of a stir in the record industry at the time — particularly the public perception of the label’s treatment of this fairly longstanding act — and even though I wasn’t nearly as interested in music industry news as I am now, I remember something about this at the time.
The track I chose for tonight is the opening song, “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.” For better or worse, my version does not do justice to the studio version, which you should definitely listen to; for that matter, you should definitely listen to the album! But, when I discovered that Jeff Tweedy does an acoustic version of this song in his acoustic sets, I couldn’t resist. It’s a great song that sets the tone remarkably well for the album to follow.
I hope you enjoy my version — more from Jeff and Jim are in the archive.
Hello and welcome to your Columbus Day offering from the best acoustic cover song blog in the universe! For all you loyal Laptop Sessions surfers, I’m taking you back to the late nineties, a time of great musical awakening for me. As I’ve mentioned before, I went through an oftentimes embarrassing phase of musical exploration that took me from sixties rock to then-contemporary nineties alternative rock, and everything in between. Nearly a decade later, I’m still very interested in sixties rock and nineties rock band, but it’s the aforementioned “everything in between” that’s embarrassing. I’m talking disco, eighties dance tracks, and some really cheesy soundtracks.
Oh, I tried it all…
But that’s not what I’m bringing you tonight. Rather, I’m bringing you a new band to the music blog, a band that found mid-nineties success with their Billboard Hot 100 #1 “Fly” — Sugar Ray! I remember buying their third album, 14:59, for the songs “Every Morning” and “Someday.” And I never really understood the title of the album, but I just read the Wikipedia post about the band tonight and found out. And now I’ll share… isn’t that the beauty of these posts?
Apparently, critics suggested that Sugar Ray would be a one-hit wonder after “Fly,” and that they would never have success again. As a tongue-in-cheek response, Mark McGrath and the boys of Sugar Ray titled their album 14:59 to refer to the fact that their “fifteen minutes of fame” were not up quite yet. And right they were! “Every Morning” was a #3 hit and “Someday,” the song that I recorded for tonight’s Laptop Session, reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. This song really took me back, and it is actually one of the reasons that I chose another turn-of-the-millennium track for my next music video, namely John Mellencamp’s “Your Life is Now.”
So, can you believe it? I’m on track for three new bands in a row by Thursday. And it’s a good thing that I have my John Mellencamp video recorded and ready to go, since I don’t want to miss a moment of the post-Bound for Glory TNA Impact! They really “crossed the line” and “sacrificed” their safety and well-being to bring the fans a “respect”-able Pay-Per-View on Sunday… (If you watch TNA, then I hope you enjoyed those quoted keywords…)
Well, that’s all for me for now. I look forward to possibly seeing you again on Thursday, after you’ve browsed Jeff’s Tuesday session and the musical stylings of Jim Fusco on Wednesday (and NO I am NOT trying to suck up to Jim because he spent a half hour talking about my upcoming album tonight, which he will be producing and maybe even writing for!!).
