Halfway There: A Look Back at Ten (Officially Released) Jim Fusco Rarities – PART ONE

By Chris Moore:

It will be difficult for 2009 to compete with last year’s music output, both here and abroad (so to speak).  Not only did 2008 see the release of incredible albums from bigtime artists (REM, Counting Crows, Coldplay…), but also saw the release of FMP artist Jeff Copperthite’s solo debut.  There were so many new albums released last year that I could hardly keep the release dates straight, and it really was a great year for new music.  Not all of it was amazing, but much of it was extremely enjoyable.

So, here comes 2009…

Thus far, there have been only a few notable releases in the new rock music world.  Bruce Springsteen started the year off strong with Working On A Dream.  Dan Auerbach’s debut solo release Keep It Hid was solid.  Recently, U2’s No Line On The Horizon drew a five-star rating from Rolling Stone (and questions marks from me…).  On the horizon, we now have Bob Dylan’s Together Through Life to look forward to, leaving the question: what do we new music fans have to do in the meantime?

That’s simple: look forward to the April 7th release of Jim Fusco‘s Halfway There!

The press release promises, “Halfway There may just be the best piece of music you purchase this year,” citing Fusco’s “attention to detail,” “organic effects,” and “warm sound.”  As there haven’t yet been any tracks leaked onto the web — either on Fusco’s offical site or by, um, other means 😉 — there is only one thing to do in the next two weeks as we wait for the official release…

Listen back to his previous albums!  [EDITOR’S NOTE: The new songs are now streaming online – click here.]

He has been quite a prolific artist, self-producing and self-releasing all of his previous albums.  There have been enough to merit a “best of” release in 2004.  Still, there are a lot of great tracks that have been overlooked by The Best of Jim Fusco, Vol. 1.  Thus, I’d like to share my top ten favorite (officially released) Jim Fusco rarities.

In no particular order, here goes…

Ten (Officially Released) Jim Fusco Rarities

1)  “It Makes Life Interesting” – A great song with a slow start, just drums and lead vocals.  The heartbeat of the rolling bass line makes it an instantly likeable song.  In private interviews, Fusco has made mention of a mentality that shaped his early high school through college years — namely, his response to the things he chose to do or situations he found himself in was “it makes life interesting.”  In a way, this song is a personal statement, carved out in a catchy, vocal-drenched three-minute song, ending appropriately as he sings, “And that is all that I’m going to say about that.”  Enough said, I suppose.

2)  “Mold Me” – I never understood why this track didn’t make it to the “best of.”  Privately, Jim admitted a degree of embarrassment with this track, but I immediately fell in love with it.  Fast-paced, distortion guitars, simple two-part vocals — it’s the perfect little rock package!  The song starts out at a breakneck pace, sounding like it may fly apart at any moment, and ends perfectly with a sudden stop and a fade into distortion.  It gets me going every time…

3)  “This Side Up” – Another album starter that became an instant favorite of mine, yet failed to make it to the “best of.”  For a long time, the lyrics to this song were posted on my door, next to my mirror.  I would see them in the morning as I combed my hair, and there was always something about the words that I found simple and optimistic, but very real.  And, as if the lyrics were not enough, this song features one of my favorite Fusco electric guitar solos.  Whatever he had experimented with while working on My Other Half had become fully realized by the recording of That’s All Jim — that much is apparent on this song.

4)  “I’m Gonna Find Out (About You)” – It’s built on a steady, driving beat, decorated nicely with keyboards and lush vocals.  What really stands out about this track is its combination of early Jim Fusco sound and an extended drum solo.  It’s not all that often that you find a Fusco track laced with an extended instrumental solo of any kind, and I’ve always been a fan of this one.  The structure of the song works well with the lyrics, as the instrumental portion of the song is almost 1/3 of the total running time of the song, which is perfect for a song about what happens “when I’m not around you.”

5)  “Ode to K” – The two disc album My Other Half was all about experimenting with sound and structure, as well as the overall artistry of the album — this much is apparent in the wide range of effects and vocal arrangements, as well as the cover art and booklet design.  “Ode to K” is a gem, one of only two times (both on this album) that Fusco used spoken word as the centerpiece of a song.  In this song (as opposed to “Here I Go Again,” the spoken-word album opener), he incorporates spoken word over traditional singing and a great musical arrangement.  It’s pure, very sincere, and I love it.

To Be Continued…

Click here for an exclusive sneak-peak at the album, now streaming online!

“Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” (Bob Dylan Cover)

For Bob Dylan chords and lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

It was definitely one of those “clouds parting” kind of Chris Moore Mondays for me.

First of all, I should clarify that “Chris Moore Mondays” is the title we use around here to remind you all that it’s my job to post a great cover song music video for you each and every Monday evening.  Next, I should explain the “clouds parting” aspect.  Well, I woke up around 5:30 this morning and was having serious difficulty getting myself out of bed.  Then, I noticed I had an email from bobdylan.com.

Long story short, I had woken up to find the link to a free download of the new, unreleased Bob Dylan track “Beyond Here Lies Nothin.'”  It will be track one on his upcoming album, Together Through Life, to be released on Tuesday, April 28th.  Sorry, Jim — this means that your birthday the following day is going to be something of an anti-climax.  😉

In all seriousness, this is an exciting bit of New Music Tuesday news.  After all, there were five years of separation between 2001’s Love and Theft and 2006’s Modern Times.  Now, it’s been less than three years and there’s a new release.  Based on the first track alone, I couldn’t be more excited.  It’s a pretty simple song — only three chords and a basic verse, chorus, repeat structure with a few instrumental breaks thrown in and a classic Dylan chorus style in which the lines in each chorus are slightly different.  I wasn’t sure what to think of the lyrics at first, but they’ve really grown on me today as I’ve listened to the song repeatedly and learned to play it.  I’m still not sure what to think of lines like “The whole world is my throne” or “And every window’s made of glass.”

The conclusion I’ve come to is that this is a deceptively simple song.  In the beginning of the song, Dylan sings of a lover in terms that express fairly standard love-song mentalities.  Still, by the end of the track, he compares himself to a ship in harbor with the sails up.  This implies that the ship is about to leave harbor, or perhaps that he is ready to move on to something — or someone — new.  And yet he goes on to tell his lover that she should lay her hand upon his head.  In typical Dylan fashion, even a love song has darker overtones, as played out in the chorus lines.  The choral sections really are my favorite lines.  “Beyond here lies nothin,'” he sings, “But the mountains of the past” or “Nothin’ done and nothin’ said.”  There is simply nowhere else he would rather be than where he is, as he acknowledges that there is nothing “beyond here.”  The questions, of course, are 1) where is “here”? and 2) does he really want to be “here” or are there simply no better options?

As I mentioned, it’s a fairly simple song.  Even I was able to figure it out in short order.  It’s three chords — Am, Dm, and E — easily within my register with an uptempo beat.  It’s actually caused a bit of a debate among Dylan fans who have disagreed over the use of accordion in the song and the state of Dylan’s vocal abilities.  As far as I’m concerned, the instrumentation is excellent, raw and loose but very intentional and fitting, accordion or no accordion.  As for Dylan’s voice, I read one user’s take on the fansite expectingrain.com.  He essentially said that Dylan’s vocals have deteriorated even more than they had on Modern Times.  My reaction is simple:

Really?

I mean, if you’ve followed Dylan over the past decade and enjoyed Time Out of Mind or the aforementioned two albums, then you know that his gritty vocals are fitting.  He may not stand a chance on American Idol, but I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing!  Another post that I read made a great deal of sense.  This user basically argued that Dylan’s vocals on studio recordings and during live performances should be weighed separately.  I agree with this — while his vocals may be a bit difficult to understand and follow in concerts at times, his studio recordings haven’t failed to impress me — including vocals, instruments, etc.

Needless to say, I hope you enjoy my take on this brand new Dylan song.  If you’re a guitarist, you should check out my chords and lyrics (see the link above) and have fun playing it yourself.  And, without further ado, I wish you a good night and a great week…

See you next session!

Ranking every Beach Boys song/album: The Beach Boys Today! (by Songwriter Jim Fusco)

By Jim Fusco:

THE BEACH BOYS TODAY!

Dance, Dance, Dance – 8
Kiss Me, Baby – 9.5
Please Let Me Wonder – 9 (I actually like the arrangement on the “Live at the Roxy” CD better- which really doesn’t fit with my stance on live versions…)
She Knows Me Too Well – 8 (What an ending! Probably one of the best endings ever)
When I Grow Up – 7 (This song is great, don’t get me wrong, but when I first learned it, I always found it to be a bit boring. But, the subject matter is amazing.)
Help Me, Ronda – 6 (I love this song, but sadly, not this version.)
Do You Wanna Dance? – 7 (Great Denny vocal here and I consider this the “standard” version of the song)
Good to My Baby – 7.5 (I love the style of this song, the great guitar riff, and the a capella vocals in the beginning)
*Dance, Dance, Dance (alternate) – 6 (Why do the unreleased alternate takes always sound so tinny?)
Don’t Hurt My Little Sister – 5 (Funny story about this song- my friends and I talk in the tune of this song! I know it sounds weird, and that’s because it is. We’ll say any line with seven syllables to the tune of this song, for instance, “Did you go buy the hot dogs?” Sing it- it fits!)
I’m So Young – 6 (This has some interesting sounds to it. Even though I like Dennis’ part at the end, it’s a bit out of his range)
*Graduation Day – 5 (Great harmonies, just not exactly “engaging”)
In the Back of My Mind – 6.5 (This is a great song with a personal message from Brian Wilson shroud in the vocals of Dennis Wilson. He really nails this and the tune is so unique that I have to give it a good rating)
*I’m So Young (alternate) – 5
Bull Session with the “Big Daddy” – 1

** This is clearly one of the Boys’ best albums of all-time. The production quality, although mixed in mono (which I’m not a fan of, growing up in the surround-sound age), is great. I do miss the Boys playing their own instruments, as they did on the Christmas album’s first side, but the song quality is so good here, that I can look far past it.

I think, without using composite song scores, but ranking albums as “albums”, that this would probably end up in the Top 5 for me. With it would be “Holland”, “Sunflower”, “Pet Sounds”, and the fifth spot is up for grabs. Of course, everyone knows by now my affinity for the ’85 album, but I do value my life, here! 🙂

As a bit of genealogy to my Beach Boys past, we actually started with Pet Sounds (after the Greatest Hits, of course), which we got in 1992. I was 8. Talk about starting with some heavy stuff! But, we hear it over and over and over and over again. My father couldn’t get enough. We listened to “God Only Knows” about three times a day for a year- I’m not exaggerating. It was like Brian Wilson listening to “Be My Baby”. We then moved on (because many of the Beach Boys albums weren’t so easy to find) to the Box Set that just came out in 1992. Now, you have an 8 year old kid listening to Smile!! But, I do think that listening to, and really getting into, such deep and complex music at the age of 8 helped me to grow into a musician and songwriter at an early age. And, thus, is the reason why Brian Wilson will always be my musical idol.

Well, enough about me- this album’s great, and it’s only gonna get better for me, as I’m such a fan of the other band members’ compositions that I can’t wait for the “Sunflower” days! **

Foo Fighters’ “The Colour and the Shape” (1997) – The Weekend Review

By Chris Moore:

RATING: 5 / 5 stars

Once in a band’s career — if they are that lucky — songwriting and performance coalesce on an album in such a way as to inspire both thought and emotion. When that bolt of metaphorical lightning strikes, the result is a collection of songs that breathe like living entities, some tracks crying, some tracks screaming, some tracks shining beautifully. Somehow, through a mixture of careful, intentional strategy and fortunate, indescribable chance, those songs come across as sincere, relatable, and entertaining. Sometimes, they even connect in such a way as to create an interesting statement as a whole.

In the Foo Fighters catalog, The Colour and the Shape is that album.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should make it very clear that I am not a big Foo Fighters fan. Aside from a brief phase of hurriedly listening to all their other albums, I have neither before nor since found their work extraordinary. I do have a great respect for Dave Grohl’s concepts, such as his half-electric, half-acoustic In Your Honor. Until 2007’s Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace, however, I was unable to find an album that came close to the heights achieved on their 1997 sophomore effort.

Perhaps the greatest strength of The Colour and the Shape is the balance between pure electric energy and calmer, more soothing tones. This is no middle-of-the-road album; in fact, it has some of the loudest screaming — as well as some of the lightest tones and harmonies — of any album I have ever heard. To be sure, it is one of the very few albums that I have found such extremes on and still found it enjoyable. Too much on the soft side can be boring, and too much on the hard side can be, well, too much.

That is certainly one of Dave Grohl’s fortes — he is shredding his vocal chords in one breath and crooning at the next. Because I tend toward liking the latter more than the former, I always find it a sweet relief to hear some simple double tracking or harmonies following an all-out electric track.

Foo Fighters'

Foo Fighters'

The first time I heard the album, the opening track made me shake my head and double check that I had put the correct CD in the drive. “Doll” is a light, bittersweet song with slightly muted vocals that set the tone for the album. This is a collection of songs about a relationship that is falling apart for a number of reasons — the narrator is willing to admit his own shortcomings (“Doll me up in my bad luck…”), but he isn’t shy about calling the other person on hers.

“Monkey Wrench” and “Hey, Johnny Park!” add up to one of the best one-two punches in rock album history. Each song introduces one killer guitar riff layered upon another, stacked with energetic vocals, and boneheaded metaphors not withstanding, the lyrics are fun. Even though it felt a bit out of my range, I ran my vocal chords ragged back in June 2008 to commit a cover song version of “Hey, Johnny Park!” to video for the Laptop Sessions (CLICK HERE to have a listen!).

These are followed by two more songs that vacillate between power chord-fueled electric rage and Grohl’s calmer, clearer tones. It doesn’t get any more blunt than these lyrics (“This is a blackout; don’t let it go to waste. This is a blackout; I wanna detonate…”), but they work on these tracks.

“Up in Arms” borders on tender (and sad), but certainly isn’t lacking in the backbone department. Then, “My Hero” unfolds a tribute to the “ordinary” hero — fans have speculated that it’s an ode to Grohl’s former Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain, but Grohl himself says it’s directed at the average workingman.

I suppose it’s up to you to decide what you believe…

Then comes one of my favorites on the album, a song so unlike the others and yet so wonderfully intertwined thematically. “See You” lends more straightforward acoustic rock sensibilities than you’ll find anywhere else on the album, although they are hinted at in several other tracks.

The rest passes in a blur, starting with the anger and brevity of “Enough Space.” I found this track tough to swallow at first, but my tastes in music have progressed over the years, and I like this song very much now, if for no other reason than it is not what the album as a whole sounds like — Grohl and company seemed to take care to balance such elements.

Although the final four songs are each over four minutes, they pass quickly. “February Stars” boasts a Goo Goo Dolls sound on the outro, and frankly, Grohl does a better job making that sound interesting than John Rzeznik himself. “Everlong” is, of course, a classic. If you listen carefully to the lyrics, it is an emotional, brutal song, and you can almost hear it in the performance — Grohl, Nate Mendel, and Pat Smear must realize what a gem they are recording.

The final two songs work well as a pair, “Walking After You” representing the phase in a breakup where one party clings desperately to the remnants of the relationship even as the other is walking away and “New Way Home” embodying that deep breath and next step for the lonely one left behind. If you’ve been in this situation before and been heartbroken by someone who has lost interest in you, then you’ll appreciate the closing tracks on this album.

In closing, The Colour and the Shape is a standout effort from the Foo Fighters. It is not only the first (and only) album I would recommend to others — with the possible exception of Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace — but it is also one of the great rock albums of all time, in my opinion, an effort that is stronger as a whole than the individual tracks could ever be.

On a more emotional level, it is an album I continually find myself returning to when I’m contemplating relationship problems, and I would highly recommend it as one of the Weekend Review’s picks for albums to keep on hand for those aforementioned sad and/or angry moments!