“I Can’t Stand It” (Eric Clapton Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Well, I had a day today.  That’s why I had to post so late- a combination of tiredness, emotions, victory, and forgetfulness…mostly forgetfulness.

Tonight, I bring you a song by Eric Clapton that I know little about, but just heard it in the car a couple times and decided that it was a good song to do for the Sessions.  It’s a new one I learned recently, so I hope that you’ll become a fan, too, if you haven’t heard it yet.

I do know that it’s from the early 1980s, but I’m willing to receive a full history lesson if anyone wishes to provide one for me.  I enjoy the tune of this song and the kind of laid-back way Clapton sings it.  I find that kind of funny considering how he’s proclaiming that he’s through putting-up with his significant other “runnin’ around” and “foolin’ around”.  You think he’d be a bit angrier…

On a separate note, as this is meant to be a blog and not just a place to post videos, I’d like to extend a heartfelt condolence to anyone who has recently lost someone in their lives.  The people who care about you won’t let you feel alone.  I personally have felt that I wasn’t able to be there for people during some important times, but I feel good knowing that I can be there for them now and won’t let them down.  I’m always available for hanging out, late-night Taco Bell, PS2 baseball, the movies, TV shows, baseball live on TV, or just general hanging-out at any time.  And I don’t mean that as a sympathy thing, either.  I mean it as that’s the way I’ve always wanted it to be, but haven’t had for a long time.  So, I hope that it’s the way it’ll become from now on and into the future, no matter who ends up coming into or leaving our lives.

Good night everyone and stay tuned for another great tune from Chris Moore kicking off this week on the video blog.  You know that a Sunday, Sunday, Sunday video means that person gets an Original Wednesday pick, so we’re all excited to see what he’ll come out with next!

“Space Between” (Dave Matthews Band Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Ok, the day has finally come…it’s a day that Chris and Jim have dreaded ever since they found out that Jeff “Is not impartial to listening to the Dave Matthews Band”…

…it’s here.

Jeff has finally garnered the courage to do a Dave Matthews Band acoustic cover video.

I tried my best to spray the highest quality can of “troll-b-gone” on this video.  Dave Matthews fans are going to come out of the woodwork telling me how much I don’t sound like him, or how far away from his guitar skills I am.

But, as you all know, we are dedicated to bringing you acoustic cover videos from all kinds of bands.  And let’s face it – DMB is one of the premier jam band acts of all time, and their fanbase is huge.  We want to show you what we can do.

The song I have chosen (and there are plenty to choose from) is a song from their 2001 album “Everyday” called “The Space Between”.  This song is easily picked out by it’s electric guitar riff that plays through most of the song (use a standard D fingering on the 9th fret and you’ll have that riff).  However, a solo acoustic cover playing just that riff is extremely difficult to play, let alone sing over.  I find this version good because it allows you to hear the chords that play under that riff.

Dave has a highly unstructured singing style, so remembering how to time each line was difficult.  Repeat takes were often due to the vocals – the guitar part got easier after the 24th take, which was just before I had to recharge the battery on my camera.  2 takes later, I got this version.

I hope you enjoy this video – we are nearing the end of September, which means we will be 75% done with session-a-day in 2008.  You’ll see me next on Monday, but i’m sure you will be coming back every day just like hundreds of fans to check out what we are bringing you for the new day.  Jim will be back to his library of covers tomorrow, and Chris is gonna dish out another great cover on Sunday.  Have a great weekend, and thank you again for being a regular visitor!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“Wednesday Morning” (America Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Thursday night edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

To quote Jeff, “The only thing the same about the site is the background’s still gray.”  That describes the work I’ve been doing over the past couple of days.  You’ll notice the new navigation on the top of the homepage, the smaller text in the upper left hand corner, and the left sidebar rearranged.  The best part of all this is the release of the The Laptop Sessions free mp3 download series.  We tried doing it once before, but it was a LOT of work.  Okay, so it’s not as fancy now, but you still get 20 great cover songs in mp3 format as a completely and absolutely FREE download!  You have nothing to lose and a whole lot of music to gain.  I sound like an Oreck XL commercial…

We have 7, yes 7, Volumes released already.  We’re going to do them by Sessions member.  Meaning that a whole volume will be dedicated to 20 of my cover songs in order and the same with Chris, Jeff, and Mike.  Original Wednesday Volumes will be released, as well, and we’ll also come out with a holiday songs version at the end of the year- my favorite kind of music!

So, we already have 140 free mp3s for you to download so you can bring the Laptop Sessions cover songs with you wherever you will go (to quote the Calling)!

Also, you might have noticed that you can leave comments MUCH easier now- you don’t need to register or login to leave a comment for us!  We’d LOVE to read your comments and reply- we’re trying to build a community of Laptop Sessions lovers here that come back on a daily basis to see what’s new.  We hope you’ll be part of that community!

Okay, on to tonight’s video:

“Wednesday Morning” is a great tune written by Gerry Beckley off of the America album, “Human Nature”.  This is one of my favorite albums from them (probably second to “Homecoming”, which is on my list of best albums of all time).  Their new album, “Here and Now”, is great, too, as is their Christmas LP, “Holiday Harmony”.  Noticing all of these albums start with the letter “H”?  Well, about 90% of their albums do!

I love the songwriting of Gerry Beckley.  I’ve gotten to meet him on MULTIPLE occasions after shows.  He even threw me his guitar pick once during a show!  It’s funny that I actually got into America after listening to “Becky, Lamm, and Wilson” for Carl Wilson’s songs.  I knew about Chicago (with Lamm), but didn’t know much about Beckley.  I bought their “Best of” CD and never looked back.  I have every album I could find from them on CD and many on records, too.

“Human Nature” has a TON of classic songs on it, but the catchiest to me was always “Wednesday Morning”.  This album came out shortly after Carl Wilson’s death, and after hearing the “Beckley, Lamm, and Wilson” stuff, I was hurting for new, non-Christmas, material for a long, long time, especially because “Human Nature” was so good.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s Session- my first in the great outdoors!  The next five are also outside, so I hope you get used to it!  It’s been beautiful weather here lately, and at this point, I’ll take ANY excuse to get away from Chris playing off-key renditions (on purpose to annoy me) of “Who Needs Sleep” and “The Hurricane” all night…



“Depending On You” (Tom Petty cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Oh yeah- welcome to the new and improved Laptop Sessions website!  What, you don’t notice a visual difference?  Well, great!

The only thing you should notice is how much faster the site is running and will continue to run.  Our sitemapt program is chugging away and our site will be running at tip-top shape so we won’t have to turn those short-attention-span visitors away.  You know on the Internet crowd only gives you like ten seconds before they get bored and leave.  This morning, while we were still on our other server, I waited 26 seconds for the front page to load.  Now, at least on my machine, it’s almost instant.  And if I want to speed it up even more, I can fully transfer the domain to the new HostGator servers.

On to today’s video!

Chris and I wanted to do this song for so long, but never got a chance until recently.  I love this tune, as I do with all the songs off of “Full Moon Fever”, and thought it would be great with that cool chorus riff and the harmonies on the bridge.  So, of course, this has quickly become one of my favorite Laptop Sessions acoustic rock cover songs and I hope it’s one of yours, too!

I expect to do most of the songs off of “Full Moon Fever” in the future (except for maybe “Zombie Zoo”) because whenever I hear it, it just sounds like “growing up”.  The album came out when I was very little, but we always listened to it in the car alongside the Traveling Wilburys.  No “Wheels on the Bus” for us!

And how about Jeff’s video yesterday?  Impressive, I must say.  His voice was so sweet and it was a really good song, too.  I think what I loved about the video the most was the easy-going flow of the song and Jeff’s performance.

You should really check it out!  Enjoy the newer, faster Laptop Sessions website, as we continue to bring you an acoustic cover song or original song every single day in 2008 in the quest to solidify our spot as the greatest music video blog of all time!