Tag Archives: cover song

“Dancing in the Moonlight” (King’s Harvest Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Well, well, he’s back, folks!

Sorry about last week, everyone- I had an incredibly painful medical experience that put me on the shelf for a couple of days.  Thankfully, it’s “passed” now (ha, ha) and I can get on with my life.

Tonight is a weird night for me.  It’s the first night of about only ten or so nights of my life that I plan on spending alone.  Obviously, there’s always the unexpected, but tonight really is a rare night in my life.  You see, I share my condo with no one right now and it’s still a couple weeks before I get married to the person I’ve wanted to marry for about a third of my young life now.  Things just kind of worked out this way, I guess (the whole living situation), as the original idea was to have my roommates move out early so Becky could move in her stuff at a slower pace.

However, turns out that we bought a new house (that’s just a piece of land at this point) and didn’t end up needing that extra time.  So, I find myself alone on this Tuesday night.  Actually, I couldn’t be happier- my brother Mike came over for a nice shrimp fra diavolo dinner and I’ve been doing odds and ends on the computer all night.  I’m going to cherish this time alone- no need to worry about how loud the TV is at night, when I go to bed, or whether or not I have to alert anyone that I won’t be home for dinner.  It’s a freedom that only comes when you don’t live with your significant other before getting married.

It also makes me realize how much I love my condo and how big it is!  I’m not moving out of the condo because anything’s wrong with it- quite the contrary.  I love this place and in two short years, I’ve really made it my own.  But, it’s that feeling I have that I want a place that’s truly mine, and a condo just doesn’t fit that bill for me right now.  It’ll be a sad day when I leave this place, but it’ll close a chapter that truly needed to be closed, as I clearly had some bad vibes with my prior arrangement and I’m glad that’s over with.  Time to be movin’ on.

Speaking of moving on, let’s get to tonight’s post!

Tonight, I bring you another one hit wonder band in King’s Harvest, the group that performed “Dancing in the Moonlight”, a song everybody knows, but no one knows who did it.  Actually, listening to the studio version, I noticed how good the vocal harmony parts were on the chorus.  It was then slightly less of a surprise to me that this group consisted of Beach Boys touring band mainstays Ron Altbach and Billy Hinsche.  Turns out that the Beach Boys actually got King’s Harvest signed to a record deal.  They made one record that didn’t go anywhere and broke up after that.  Members of this group even played with Dennis Wilson on the “Pacific Ocean Blue” album and were part of Mike Love’s short-lived band, Celebration.

This is one of those tunes I heard on the radio in the store one time and thought, “Yes, another Laptop Session awaits!”  It’s pretty easy to play- first fret capo and play Em, A, D, and Bm.  That’s it.  The whole song.  Verse.  Chorus.  Everything.

Of course, tonight, I’d be pretty stupid to dance in the moonlight, as it’s pouring outside.  We’re in the middle of yet another thunderstorm.  And after the heat I’ve suffered through at work the past couple of days, I’ll be glad for a break in the weather.

Have a great night tonight, wherever you are.  Hopefully there’s some moonlight for you!  I’ll be back tomorrow with an Original Wednesday song to make up for my lack of post last week.  See you very soon!

“Forgetful Heart” (Bob Dylan Cover)

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You know, usually, I just throw in that “rock” word in my post titles because it’s a good keyword for search engines.  But, tonight, I’m proud to say that it rings true.  And, on a new Bob Dylan song no-less!

Tonight, I bring you a cool tune from Bob Dylan’s new album, “Together Through Life”.  Tonight’s post will be partially about this song and partially my review of the album.

“Forgetful Heart” is the first real “rock” song I’ve heard Dylan do for a long, long time.  Not since “Love and Theft” have we heard Dylan rock out.  Yes, he’s had some “rompin’ type” of tunes, but most of them are blues and are very, very long.  This song is on the shorter side and doesn’t really have that “old standard” sound that we’re so used to hearing from Dylan lately.  This is a pure rock song and for this tune at least, his gritty voice serves us well.  The electric guitar, although subdued, is a great addition.  I hope we get to hear a live version of this song someday with a little more kick and a lot more speed.  I play my version about double the speed of Dylan’s original.

Of course, my bad luck continues tonight.  You can see the microphone very clearly in the shot.  I even recorded an original song for tomorrow.  I made sure to get the microphone even closer to my mouth so I could sing these lower-register songs over the acoustic guitar.  Turns out, I forgot to select the external microphone input and it recorded off of the built-in mic.  Ugh.

Now, onto the album.  Let me start off by saying that I’ve heard the album about 20 times so far.  I’m really enjoying it.  But, it certainly isn’t as good as “Modern Times”.   That album is simply great.  And, I’ve discovered the reasons why “Together Through Life” doesn’t match up.

The first time I heard “Together Through Life”, I felt like I knew the words and could even sorta sing along to the tunes.  The tunes are very predictable and always follow the patterns you think they’re going to follow- especially Dylan’s middle-eights.  But, then again, this ablum does have things like choruses (except for a couple songs) and middle-eights, which are pretty much non-existant on “Modern Times”.  In fact, the song structure on “Together…” is very similar to “Nashville Skyline” in that the songs sound, well, normal.

But, that’s one of the problems!  On “Modern Times”, I still can’t remember all the words and I must’ve heard it forty times.  Chris knows I’m a whiz when it comes to lyrics.  Dylan has such a way with words- in fact, it really is very poetic.  But, you just can’t predict what he’s going to say next.  He always switches it up and comes up with great ways of expressing simple sentiments, “When you’re near, I’m a thousand times happier than I could ever say.”  What a great way to say, “I love you.”

But, on this album, and it may be because of his writing partner for the project, the lyrics are much simpler and there are only a few hints of Dylan word-greatness.

Dylan’s voice on the album has continued to deteriorate from previous efforts.  Honestly- he almost sounds GOOD on “Modern Times”!  But, I figured this one out, too- check the songs he sings softly.  Those, he sounds fine.  It’s the songs he sings louder (even if just in volume and not angrier or screaming) in that he sounds terrible.   I don’t care if a gruff voice would contribute to some angry songs.  That’s the argument I always hear.  You want that?  Get frickin’ John Stamos.  There comes a point when it’s too much.  “This Dream of You” is a classic song.  It can become a standard of American songwriting.  But, this song is just ruined by his faling voice.  Listen to the way his voice just dies on the word “moment” and you’ll hear what I hear.  That song would sound amazing coming from a 30 year old Dylan.

Anyway, again, I really like the album, but I did find myself going back and listening to great tracks on “Modern Times” like “Spirit on the Water”, “Workingman’s Blues”, and “Someday Baby”.

I can still do without all those blues songs, though.  Talk about a cop-out!

Hopefully, someday, we’ll hear a real rock album from Bob Dylan again.  But, until then, I’ll hold onto “Forgetful Heart” and dream of days past.

“Bye Bye Love” (The Everly Brothers) Cover Music Video

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By Jim Fusco:

Hey hey- it’s another Jim Fusco Tuesday here on the music video blog.  Hopefully over the next few weeks, we’ll be putting some more time into the site and getting our views back and rockin’ once more.  Tonight, I’m a little depressed because I have this great new HD video camera and can’t even use it for the Laptop Sessions yet.  Why?  Because I can’t get my microphone to work with it and it doesn’t work as a webcam.  So, I’m really stuck.  Turns out that the unit has a stereo microphone built-in, but the microphone input is only in mono.  What’s the deal with that?

The video quality is very nice, however.  It’s such a shame- I thought I had it all figured out.  So, it’s back to the drawing board for me.

Moving on to tonight’s video:

Chris and I performed “Bye Bye Love”, the classic song sung by the Everly Brothers- yet ANOTHER band we haven’t done yet here on the best music video blog ever!  Man, this is a good tune.  We kind of look the Everly’s, too, don’t we?  I’ve wanted to do this one for a LONG time now, but Chris and I operate on two different schedules and I never got the chance to grab him for the session.  Things have calmed down a bit on his end, so we’ve gotten to do a couple of duets.  This was a fun one, but I wasn’t in the greatest of moods after the whole camera thing.

It was going to be very poetic, as well, as this is one of the older songs I’ve done and we would’ve been in crystal-clear, state of the art, 1080p digital video.  So much for that!

This song has an interesting structure.  It’s not unlike other songs of the time- a very familiar tune to the chorus.  But, the verses have this very interesting twist.  They go to an E chord towards the end of each verse and it makes the song sound very unique when you compare it to other songs of the period.  What a cool twist!

Make sure to check out the video I did with Chris, as well, (see below) as for the first time, I’m playing my brand-new lap steel guitar!  The video came out great and I actually sound like I know what I’m doing on that thing!  What a great sound- I’ve been looking for that sound for a long time and can’t wait to incorporate both that and my new 12-string electric into some original tunes.

Finally, to echo Chris’ sentiment, a friend and fellow musician, Tony Persia, died yesterday.  He was one of the original members of Danny and the Juniors and played that great piano on ‘At the Hop”- one of rock music’s all-time classic songs.  He was a good guy and always enjoyed talking to us.  We even got to sing with him!  I loved hearing his stories and he will be missed by many of us that loved to see him and hear him play year after year.  I know he’s rockin’ somewhere with Elvis and John Lennon.

Have a great night, everyone, and I’ll catch you very soon for another Laptop Session.  Will it be a duet?  Will it finally be in HD?  You’ll just have to wait and see- talk to you then!!

“Here Without You” (The Byrds acoustic and 12-string electric cover song)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, welcome to yet another Jim Fusco Tuesday here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog.  Actually, tonight, you get two for the price of one: I have Chris Moore with me to record this session!  And boy, did it come out great.  If your connection can handle it, click the “HQ” button and listen to the better audio feed of this one.  It’s in full stereo (I LOVE my microphone) and the levels are perfect!

And tonight debuts my brand new 12-string electric guitar!  And what a way to bring it in.  I knew I had to do a Byrds song.  No, it’s not a Rickenbacher.  Who can justify spending literally 8 times more for the same essential thing.  My version is from Dean and I love it.  It looks great and plays even better.  The sound is there, too- just like all my favorite 12-string songs.  Look for more in the future.  I can’t wait to bust out my new lap steel guitar, as well.  In a couple weeks, I’ll be getting an HD cam, so all my Laptop Sessions will be in high definition.  How cool is that?  At that point, I’ll be able to start my new mini-series entitled “Jim’s Guitars”- stay tuned.

Gene Clark wrote tonight’s song and it was off of the Byrds first album, “Mr. Tambourine Man.”  Now, this isn’t the greatest album, but it really could have been.  That is, if half the album weren’t Bob Dylan covers and other cover songs.  Not to knock cover songs, but the songwriting of Gene Clark (and in the future, the rest of the band) was so far ahead of its time and his songs are simply timeless.  This song takes me back to when I was at Wesleyan for 5 weeks in the summer of 2000.  I was at a program called “CCY”, the Center for Creative Youth.  Good fit, eh? 🙂

Anyway, those five weeks seemed like a whole lifetime at the time- everything that happened in one day seemed like a year.  So, even not seeing someone for two days made it seem like you were living “here without you”.  Needless to say, this song was all I listened to when I got back that summer.

I have to keep tonight’s post short because of my marathon video editing job last night.  I need to catch up and this is my only opportunity.  So, without further ado, I hope you enjoy the great effort put out by Chris and myself tonight on the Byrds’ classic song, “Here Without You”.  You won’t be here without us for too long, as Jeff will be back on Thursday for another great cover song music video.  Until next week!!