Tag Archives: chris moore

“Holly Jolly Christmas” (Burl Ives Cover)

Posted on by
Reply

By Chris Moore:

Good evening, one and all.  This is my first solo Christmas song of the season, and I’m happy to contribute to the holiday spirit we’ve been building not only at the Laptop Sessions but also at the Fusco-Moore Experience.

(For those unaquainted with it, the “Experience” is what the condo has been dubbed.  Why it has, I’m not exactly sure, but if you’d like to find out then give us a call…)

Seriously, this song is a classic number originally performed by the one and only Burl Ives.  I still picture him as a talking snowman/host of children’s Christmas specials.  But, alas, I didn’t have my snowman costume with me tonight, so I just wore my festive green shirt.  I think it sufficed for the video.  🙂

The song itself has undergone the Chris Moore treatment, a combination of steady strumming and lower vocals.  The harmonica solo is just about as “me” as they get.  And this was actually a two-take song for me — a truly rare and pleasant surprise for me!  I actually recorded a second song tonight; it’s not a Christmas tune, so I may record a different one if I get a chance, but it’s always good to have at least one music video in reserve.  I wish I had recorded a surplus a year ago when I got sick mid-winter.  Being our first-ever (and ONLY, I’m sure!) “Session-a-Day” project, I hadn’t anticipated having to record songs with no voice.

As you may recall, I turned to Bob Dylan’s recent catalog for those times that my voice was gruff or worse…

I don’t think you can underestimate how much music plays a part in our lives here at the Laptop Sessions.  Take me, for example.  Just this morning, I kept hitting the snooze on my iPhone alarm just in time to hear only part of the chorus to Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.”  Being cut off where it was each time, it sounded like, “I was gambling in a van” (instead of “Havana”).  I don’t know why that struck me as being so funny — it’s a lot less funny now that I’m fully awake and thinking about it — but I ended up staying in bed longer than initially planned just so I could keep trying to hit the snooze at the right time.

I don’t know what that says about me.  Probably just that I didn’t want to get out of bed and would do anything to justify staying in it!

I hope you enjoy my rendition of this Christmas classic and take it for what it is — my sincere wish that you all have a “holly jolly Christmas.”  It’s just over a week around the corner; can you believe it?  I know I can’t.  For once, I’m actually ahead on shopping!

Now, if I could only be ahead on wrapping…

This is why I would be a terrible Santa.  I would be trying to wrap the presents in the sleigh, between houses.  The wind would be kicking up and blowing the paper around, blowing presents out of the vehicle.  It would be bad.

Okay, that’s it for me tonight.

See you next session!

More Laptop Sessions covers

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

Posted on by
Reply

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!

More Laptop Sessions covers

“Lives of Crime” (Fruit Bats Cover)

Posted on by
Reply

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to your first post by someone other than Jeff since Saturday.  There’s no need to fret, though…

For tonight, however, I’m bringing you yet another new band to the blog.  I’m fairly certain you’ve never heard of this band.  In fact, if I were a betting man, I’d be willing to put down serious money on it.  Why did I choose this song, you may be wondering?  Well — and this is no lie — this one actually came to me in a dream.  I had a dream a few nights ago that I woke up, walked over to my CD shelf, and began looking through the cases to find bands that hadn’t been covered yet.  Among the bands I thought of, my Fruit Bats CD came into my vision (in my dream) and thus popped into my head when I woke up.

If this doesn’t show just how pervasive the Laptop Sessions “session-a-day” project has been in our lives, then I don’t know what will.  I mean, how many people dream about things like this??

The Fruit Bats are an interesting band.  There is very little information available about them; even their Wikipedia page is fairly brief.  I found out a little more than I already knew — Eric Johnson is the lead guitarist and songwriter who formed the band in 1999.  He has been the only constant member.

I did learn that he used to be with a group called I Rowboat before the Fruit Bats.  What a name!  Currently, he’s working with the more popular indie/alternative group the Shins.  Also, I went to their official website for the first time.  It’s pretty plain — what they should do is hire one Jim Fusco of Fusco-Moore Studios’ Web Design Services to really make it stand out — but I learned that they have several tour dates planned for the west coast and that they have plans to record a new album.  Also, there’s a new “Blog” section on the site and the first post was made by “the Fruit Bats” last month.

See, blogs are where it’s at!…

So, I hope you enjoy this acoustic rock cover song.  If you get a chance to hear the real version, I think you should, as there’s some cool piano components to the studio recording that I, for obvious reasons, couldn’t and didn’t include.  I think it shows that I had a lot of fun recording this video.  And, truly, it reminded me about one of the best aspects of the Laptop Sessions project — we get to rediscover music that we have forgotten over the years and, through learning the songs, get to understand the music in a way that we previously had not.

Without further ado, here’s the song.  Don’t forget to rush back tomorrow for an all-new and excellent Original Wednesday with Jeff.  It’ll be good.  It’ll be “I fractured my skull by banging my head against a wall because Jeff wasn’t posting today but now he is so I’m still in pain but really happy to watch his new video” good!!…

See you next session!

More Laptop Sessions covers

Last episode of Boston Legal? A few words…

Posted on by
3

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!

Related posts