Tag Archives: chris moore

“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” (Darlene Love Christmas Song Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Okay, this one was for fun, and I implore you- just for fun!  I was planning on doing this one all day.  I needed one more Christmas song before the big day and I’ve always enjoyed singing this one.  For the most part, I can sing the whole song without going into falsetto.  Of course, I usually have to project (a nicer word for scream) when I sing this song, so it was nicer to be in a quiet environment.

This was a LANDMARK day for the Laptop Sessions- we reached our highest view total yet for one day- 263 visitors!  Thank you to all who came to the site today and we sincerely hope you’ll continue to come back.  There are no plans of stopping here on the best music video blog in the universe.  Every time I say that, I think of those TV political news shows.  They always claim they have the “Best political team…” and then add: on television, in America, in the world, in the solar system, in the universe, of all time…

“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is the perfect album closer to probably the best Christmas album of all time- “A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector”.  That album was so innovative and actually featured GOOD original songs in a holiday mood.  Everyone whose been reading this blog for a while knows that I’m a fan of great album closers.  I hate when a band just shoves some plain old solo acoustic number at the end of the album.  It’s always such a downer and makes you long for Track 1 all over again.  Tonight’s song is one of those album closers that gets you goin’ again!  Plus, it’s the best song on the album, which is a rarity being right at the end.  I do need to point out that after this song, there is a special “Silent Night” track wiht a Christmas message from a very wimpy sounding Phil Spector, so that’s technically the closing track.   But not until I got the album on CD (we just always listened to a compilation of a hundred great Christmas songs my father put together) did I even know that track existed.  And, I shouldn’t have doubted my father’s choice to leave it off of his compilation- that track stinks.

Darlene Love’s vocals are just great on this track.  I hope I didn’t miss her singing this song on David Letterman this year.  She always sings it and she still sounds great.  Although, the pitch of the song has dropped down considerably over time.

I guess this song tonight just proves that I will go to great lengths to sing songs in the original key.  You may have noted that I sang the high parts in my last Christmas music video (Happy Xmas, War is Over) in a lower octave, albeit in the same key.  But, as always, I had a reason for that rare exception to my hard-and-fast rule.  Singing that part in the high register just sounded WAY too much like Yoko Ono, so I decided to salvage the song by taking Yoko out of the equation completely! 🙂

Enjoy tonight’s cover song music video.  I’m very excited, of course, for Christmas.  I know Chris and Jeff will make you proud with their holiday offerings over the next two days.  I can’t wait to see what I got, but more importantly, to see the reactions on the faces of people I got gifts for.  This is shaping up to be a nice Christmas.  I won’t talk to you until after the holiday, so I wish everyone the very best and I thank you all for such a great and exciting year!

“Run Rudolph Run” (Chuck Berry Christmas Song Cover)

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Welcome to your Thumpin Thursday©™ edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

Tonight, Chris and I bring you another acoustic-electric tune in Chuck Berry’s classic Christmas hit, “Run Rudolph Run”.  And NO, that’s not “Run Run Rudolph” as many people (including me up to a couple years ago) think.  I’m not sure why Berry titled it the way he did, but if that’s the way it is, you know the Laptop Sessions will stay true to the original.

I like this performance a lot because it gave me a chance to do a guitar solo, which I rarely get to do on these music videos.  And this is a pretty rockin’ solo, too.  It’s always so much fun to play it.  But, to be honest, I’m actually not that huge of a fan of Chuck Berry’s version.  I mean, I love the song, but his version is just so subdued.  It sounds like a song that he just farted out in like two takes, then said, “It’s good.  It’s like playing rock’n’roll into my eighties good,” and then left the studio.

I love his guitar playing style, though.  It always sounds so effortless.  I even have a Chuck Berry influenced guitar, but a string was broken and I was too lazy to play it.  You can search for Masters of the Universe’s live version of this song to see me playing my Chuck Berry guitar!

Actually, I kind of have this “thing” against Chuck Berry for no good reason.  One time, a long time ago, my mother went to Chuck Berry concert.  They waited for HOURS for him to arrive, as he was late for one reason or another.  Well, he came out, played like two songs, and left.  She never forgave him.

I can’t believe it’s another Original Wednesday week for me starting on Sunday, which is when you’ll see me next.  After I’m done with some other freelance work I’ve been doing, I’ll be able to devote a bit more time to promoting the Laptop Sessions and our new site, Cover-Songs.com, in hopes of increasing our site views by 50% by February.  You know what would help the most?  WORD OF MOUTH!  So, tell your friends, blog about us, put a link on MySpace- DO ANYTHING and help us get the word out!  The more excited we are, the more we’ll do for the site.  And the more views we get, the more excited we are.  So, I hope everyone will chip in and tell a friend about the Laptop Sessions.

Have a great night and we’ll all be looking forward to the weekend…not to mention great videos from Chris and Jeff.  It’ll be “like having two weekend nights off before your next cover song music video” good!

Last episode of Boston Legal? A few words…

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By Chris Moore:

How sad is it that there are no more new Boston Legal episodes to look forward to?  No more soulful grunts in the opening music?  No more balcony scenes with Denny and Alan?  No more high profile, current events-based court drama?  No more paintball gun violence by Denny?  No more pops and clicks by Jerry?  No more attempts by Alan and Denny to win Shirley’s love?

And no more Katie Lloyd??

I really don’t have much to say on the topic, other than the fact that Jim and I have been avid fans of Boston Legal since day one.  As recently as this year, we celebrated the season premiere by buying pretzel sticks that resembled cigars and eating/”smoking” them along with Alan and Denny in the closing balcony scene of the episode.  Now, I suppose I can see this as an opportunity to get more work done or go to bed an hour earlier on Mondays, but it’s just not worth it.  Boston Legal has truly been a great way to jumpstart the week for me.  It may sound silly, but I look foward to being able to sit down with Jim (and sometimes Becky) and enjoy this show — one of our mutual favorites on television.

So, I couldn’t just let it pass without some sort of a blog post.

And, as if this wasn’t obvious, I have more than a little hatred — rational, or otherwise — burning in my soul for the ABC network right now.  What better way to release it?

Thank you, Boston Legal — it’s been a great run.  What I will miss most is the characters (I even grew to like Carl Sack!) and the ridiculous situations they got themselves into.  Truly, there is not a show on television with Boston Legal‘s combination of serious issues and humor, and I’ll greatly miss it.

Yay for TV on DVD!

Chris Moore’s 200th Subscriber

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By Chris Moore:

Well, it’s happened…  I’ve finally reached a milestone on YouTube: my 200th subscriber!

I passed the 200 mark on my YouTube.com channel a few days ago, but it’s been a crazy week.  When I wasn’t at school planning, teaching, grading, and filling out paperwork, I was at home helping Jim pick out the perfect Christmas tree (if you’re a fan of symmetry, you’d agree!), recording Laptop Sessions, and watching TNA Impact! with the hope of possibly seeing Christian Cage’s triumphant return to the program.  That’s the question on my mind now: Is Christian staying with TNA?  Is he going back to WWE?  I’ve spent a considerable amount of time and energy searching this online, and there are some decent arguments (with somewhat shady and vague sources, mostly) for each side.  I’ll just have to wait and hope.  Truly, he’s one of the reasons I watch every week.  Even Sting, although he’s been there every week, has been in a transition period of sorts, having made friends of the bad guys.

Oh, well.  What was this post about again?  Oh, yeah…

I have 200 subscribers!  Thanks so much to all who have clicked that little “Subscribe” button above my YouTube channel icon.  I hope my videos continue to interest and entertain you!

Coming up next on the blog:  A WCJM announcement from yours truly, and then my Laptop Session of the day…