Welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions!!
Anyway, this song, “Never Comes the Day”, is a Moody Blues tune from “On the Threshold of a Dream” that I absolutely love. Plus, it works great with two people. Justin Hayward (who wrote this song) has a great way of writing a nice, slow song…then busting out to a faster section of the song. Despite the fact that “Threshold” is one of my favorite Moodies albums, this tune always stood out to me because of the way Hayward sings the line, “If only you knew what’s inside of me now…”
I hope you enjoy my first duet here on the Laptop Sessions! Stay tuned for more and keep those requests coming!
Okay, request time here at The Laptop Sessions! This one’s going out to Peter (aka thebeachboys on YouTube).
This is one of my favorites and I thought no one else really ever paid any attention to it. “Somewhere Near Japan”, written by Mike Love and Terry Melcher, is one of the only saving graces on the 1988 EP/album “Still Cruisin”. Actually, I like the album a lot, but it’s not really a full album. There are a few old Beach Boys songs tacked onto the end of the album because they were “featured” in movies out at the time. And, you can pretty much throw away the Fat Boys’ version of “Wipeout” which featured Brian Wilson singing the backing vocals. It’s nice to hear Brian in there, but honestly, why did that song end up on a Beach Boys album anyway? You’ve also got “Kokomo”. Love it or hate it, it’s one of the biggest songs they ever did. So, the album had some notoriety behind it. Songs like “Still Cruisin'” are just fun songs to me, and the Beach Boys even played that song during their 2012 tour! Personally, I really like the songs “Make It Big” and “Island Girl”, especially because they feature Carl Wilson and Al Jardine, respectively.
Carl Wilson, Al Jardine, Mike Love, and Bruce Johnston are all featured on lead at some point on “Somewhere Near Japan” (ala “Add Some Music” from the Beach Boys’ 1970 classic album, Sunflower) and I think that always added to my enjoyment of the song. I’ll admit it- when Terry Melcher and Mike Love wanted to write a good song, they really hit it on the nose. Think of the classic song “Gethca Back” from the Beach Boys 1985 album. Even a couple years after the Still Cruisin’ album on 1992’s “Summer In Paradise”, Melcher and Love wrote a few great songs. Now THAT is an album that doesn’t get any respect. I think songs like “Island Fever”, “Lahaina Aloha”, and “Strange Things Happen” are really great songs.
Tonight’s acoustic cover song music video is one of those “let’s hear how it sounds stripped-down” versions. The late-80s production might have turned some people off to this Beach Boys song, but I think the song stands up great on it own! So, these 80s/90s Beach Boys songs may have cheesy lyrics now and again (and that 1992 drum machine is pretty bad). But, that’s one of the reasons why I record cover song videos here on the music blog. I’d like to think that I’m pretty good at spotting a good song, even if it’s hidden underneath terrible production and synth instruments. And, with that ability, I strip all of that stuff away to give you an acoustic-guitar-driven version. I hope these videos open people to songs they otherwise wouldn’t listen to.
I hope you enjoy tonight’s cover video, and keep those requests coming! I’m doing a new music video every two days this year. If you request something, please be patient, but we’re always here to please at The Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!
This edition of the Laptop Sessions is the first installment of what we like to call “Original Wednesday”, where we pick an original tune from someone in the Fusco-Moore Productions galaxy and play it for our Laptop Sessions video podcast series!
This Wednesday edition, I’m playing a Jeff Copperthite song called “Home”, which is for his EP “Greenlight”.
I love this song and so does my mother. It’s a very sincere song and I just can’t get that ending tag out of my head. Even as I write this, I’m trying not to think of it so I won’t get it stuck in there again. I’m desperately holding on to Jeff’s Laptop Session of the Wallflower’s “God Says Nothing Back”.
Anyway, this is a cool song, and just as any musician feels when he hears a cool new song, I wondered how it would sound if I gave it the Jim Fusco treatment! So, I hope you enjoy and I hope the video does Jeff proud. Go check out Jeff’s version of my song, “Harmony”, too!! It’s sure to please.
Tonight’s Laptop Session is a song from Brian Wilson’s 1988 solo album, aptly titled, “Brian Wilson”! I saw a YouTube video of him playing this on Letterman in 1988, and hearing the overproduced “80s” sound made me want to give it the Laptop Sessions treatment, as I did with Brian’s song “I’m So Lonely” (from the Beach Boys 1985 album).
No, this isn’t one of Brian’s greatest songs, but I think a lot of people write it off because its production, and not necessarily because of the quality of the song. But again, that’s one of the big reasons why I’m doing the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs series. I don’t think songs should be ignored because of the time-period of which they were produced. Giving a song a fresh sound, done in a solo liver performance on acoustic guitar will allow people to hear the song and not just the recording.
“Night Time” is one of those songs from Brian Wilson’s first solo album that his therapist (who called himself “producer” at the time) Eugene Landy said he had a hand in writing. I’m not sure about that, but from everything I can gather, Brian was still in a pretty fragile mental state. It was only a year earlier that he was passed-over (or declined, depending on who you ask) to work on the Beach Boys #1 hit single, “Kokomo”. I can only imagine “Kokomo” with Brian’s voice in there. It would’ve been great. Of course, I’m glad they ended up giving Carl Wilson a chance to shine on the “That’s where we wanna go…” line. So, I guess it wasn’t all bad that Brian wasn’t a part of “Kokomo”.
Brian Wilson’s first solo album was critically acclaimed. It really has some great songs on it. All of them have an incredibly polished late-80s sound to it. Though, it does sound like a Brian Wilson production. It almost sounds like an updated “Love You” album with better synthesizers. Fans of “Love You” will remember that it was a fairly revolutionary album at the time because of the synthesized keyboards Brian Wilson used throughout. I, for one, could do without them- it would make the album sound less dated today. But then again, it also gives me the opportunity to record a bunch of Beach Boys and Brian Wilson cover songs for you! Therefore, the synthesizer, and all 80s music, seems to be my friend.
I think it’ll be a treat for hardcore Brian Wilson fans out there, too, who probably already like “Night Time” and the entire “Brian Wilson” album. If you haven’t heard “Night Time” before, I really hope you’re in for a treat. Enjoy tonight’s Laptop Sessions Brian Wilson cover song!
