Tag Archives: becky

Jim’s Most Interesting Week Ever

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Yes, this is proving to be one of the most interesting weeks of my life. In fact, I think it will be THE most interesting week by far! In lieu of doing a video tonight, I thought I would comment (ala Jeff) about my goings-on. Hopefully I’ll be able to record a video tonight and then I’m planning on having some very special audio-only sessions for the two weeks I’m away.

Why am I away? Well, we can’t get there just yet. Let’s start here:

My fiancée and I recently purchased a new home. And by new, I mean just a piece of land! We went through the mortgage process (which is very tedious) and have finally come out okay on the other end. After all the deposits and fees, we’re ready to go.

So, this week, we met with the builder to pick out everything in the house- the siding, the shutters, the options, the cabinets, etc. It was difficult to make all those decisions (especially when we didn’t exactly agree on a lot of the stuff), but it was pretty fun to customize the house like that. This place is going to rock!!

Now, we have to meet with the builder and all the real estate agents on Wednesday for a pre-construction meeting. This should finalize and solidify everything. They’ll be able to break ground this week! By the time I get back, the foundation should be up and they’ll be ready to start framing the house! What a thing to come home to.

Also this week, I’m holding very private “sessions” that will be the fruit of my secret audio-only Sessions for the next two weeks. Sorry, but I have to be cryptic about this one.

Now, I’m still working, mind you. I work 40 hours a week and I’m working right up to Friday afternoon. Every night this week, I’m also working hard to edit a wedding video and hopefully get some other freelance work done.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: I’M GETTING MARRIED THIS WEEKEND!

So, we have our rehearsal on Friday and the wedding is on Saturday morning. Of course, my fiancée is going nuts running around and getting everything ready. Thankfully, she isn’t working this week, but even still, it’s a lot to do. I’ve been handling the house stuff and she’s been doing all the wedding stuff. I think I got the better end of the deal.

There’s so many more things to it than what I mentioning. Things that you don’t think about until it’s all too much to handle. I mean, we had to pick up the tuxedo, print programs for the church, etc. And, early next week is my father’s birthday- thankfully, I remembered to buy a present last week!

Then, on Tuesday, we leave for sunny Hawaii and I won’t be back until August 9th. Obviously, we’re extremely excited about it and it should be a great, relaxing time. I just can’t wait to lay on that beach and soak up the sun. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to go and Becky really deserves this trip.

So, again, a recap of events this week (keep in mind that I’m working 8:30 to 5:30 each day, as well!):

Monday: Met with builder to pick out stuff for the house
Tuesday: Tuxedo and secret “sessions”
Wednesday: Meet with builder for pre-construction meeting
Thursday: More secret “sessions” and secret “preparations”, plus our weekly dose of TNA iMPACT!
Friday: Rehearsal at 5:00 (working till 3:00) and rehearsal dinner at 6:30
Saturday: Ceremony at 11:30 and reception until 6:30, then off to Presidential Suite at hotel in Hamden for a couple of nights
Tuesday: Leave at 7 am for Hawaii!!

With that said, including the fact that I need to finish editing this wedding tonight and do web work, I’ll still try to get that video done. Talk to you then!

“Maybe Katie” (Barenaked Ladies Cover)

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Welcome to your Terrific Tuesday edition of the Laptop Sessions!  Tonight, I’m the first person to post using our brand new WordPress 2.6.1 version of the blog.  Of course, on your end, you shouldn’t see any difference, but on our end, the difference is vast…and great.  For one thing, our visual editor won’t mess with our code anymore, so we’ll be able to post chords to our cover songs more often than before.

Okay, on to tonight’s video.  Tonight is a classic one in terms of my live performances.  The “band” of Chris, Jim, and Becky (see Chris’ post a few days ago) was formed in 2004 and we loved to sing this Barenaked Ladies song, “Maybe Katie” in concert.  Then, we didn’t realize we were singing it in the wrong key- a half step below the original key.  Rest assured that for this video, we fixed the error, as all the Laptop Sessions songs are always in the original key- the ONLY way it should be!  Listen up, cover song musicians on YouTube and elsewhere: YOU REALLY STINK IF YOU DO IT IN THE WRONG KEY!!!  There’s no exception to this- if it’s out of your range and you change the key, then you don’t deserve to do the song.  I sang “Baby Please Come Home” by Darlene Love at our Christmas party in the original key and that song is ridiculously high.  You didn’t see me take the easy way out.  And this is why our motto is “Putting an end to bad YouTube covers FOREVER!”  Wow, the tangents tonight…

Moving on, this song is off of one of my favorite albums, “Everything To Everyone”.  I do believe that it’s probably their fourth best album behind “Gordon”, “Barenaked Ladies Are Men” (the almost 30-track version), and “Maroon”.  This album has some input from the other band members, which if you’ve read some of my past rants, means a lot to me in a band.

We do “Maybe Katie” a bit differently than the album’s version in the sense that the BNL version has some heavy electric guitars on the chorus and middle sections.  Our version is completely acoustic and has more of a “folk” feel to it.  That’s what happens when you don’t have a drummer handy…that isn’t already reserved to play the solo like I am.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s Laptop Session.  Thanks again and see you tomorrow!

“The Lonely Sea” (Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Well, I’m finally back up and (sorta) running again after almost a week without my laptop! The hard drive just crashed out of nowhere with no chance to recover my files. So, I got a new (bigger) hard drive and I hope everything will run smoothly from now on.  I tell you, though- I bought Apple products for their reliability, but the hardware hasn’t always been kind to me.  I just thought that quality hardware was the reason for the high prices.  I guess you don’t always get what you pay for.  In my opinion, it’s still better than Windows because a Windows machine will still die on you, but it’ll be even more difficult to work with when it’s still alive.

This song goes out as a request. “The Lonely Sea” by the Beach Boys is a great early tune that doesn’t get much credit because it wasn’t a single. But, Beach Boys fans know (and love) this song. I think it’s a good one to do solo because even though the Boys had background “oohs”, this was a Brian Wilson song through and through. A great chord progression goes along with this song- simple, but powerful.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Brian Wilson always had a knack at coming up with a great chord progression.  This song is surprisingly dark sounding for a song written by a guy in his early twenties.

Of course, “The Lonely Sea” is one of those songs that really sounds like a period piece.  What I mean by that is, you can tell this song was done before the Beatles became popular in America.  Songs from the early 60s and late 50s had breaks in the middle where the lead singer would just speak a few lines.  Most notably, you can hear that in the Elvis Presley song “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”.  It’s a great song, but you can tell the era in which it was recorded/popular.  “The Lonely Sea” probably wouldn’t have sounded the same even two years later, once the Beatles changed the sound of popular music forever.  The Beatles had a way of setting trends.  I will always admit to that.  Brian Wilson, though, had a way of pushing the envelope, musically.  He didn’t necessarily change his style all the time, but he was working on perfecting his songwriting style the whole time.  He would add different instruments and experiment with different chord progressions and harmony parts.  It was happening from the start- songs like “The Lonely Sea” can be written off as a teenage love-sick song, but it’s got a sound that you just didn’t hear on the rest of the “teenage” music in the early 60s.  And, you especially didn’t hear it from surf music groups, like the Beach Boys music was labeled.

I hope everyone’s been enjoying the Laptop Sessions and will continue to tune in every day for more acoustic cover songs here on the best music blog on the Internet!  There will be plenty more Beach Boys cover songs to come.