Steven Page leaves the Barenaked Ladies!

By Chris Moore:

In a post Wednesday on the official Barenaked Ladies website (titled simply as “A Message from Barenaked Ladies”), it was announced that Steven Page has officially left the band after two decades of writing, recording, and performing together with his bandmates.  The first paragraph of the message is as follows:

“By mutual agreement, Steven Page will be parting company with the remaining members of Barenaked Ladies. Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart will continue recording and touring together as Barenaked Ladies. Steven Page will pursue solo projects including theatrical opportunities while the band enters the studio in April 2009, and hits the road in the fall.”

For a band that is world-renowned for their candor and lightheartedness, this is quite the sanitized message!  It feels very formal, politic, and purposeful — for instance, the remaining band members are arranged alphabetically.  It seems that the natural response has been to wonder how much of this departure was precipitated by Page’s arrest for drug-related charges in July.  According to the Toronto branch of the AP, Ed Robertson has admitted that it was a “huge event” in their lives, but that Page’s departure “isn’t about that.”

While it isn’t entirely clear what it is about, his split from the band comes at a sad time, just as they were about to go back into the studio to release their first album since BnL turned twenty.  Fortunately for Barenaked Ladies fans, the AP also reported that the remaining members of the band — Ed, Kevin, Jim, and Tyler — will indeed be back in the studio in April to work on a new record. As for Steven Page?  “Solo projects including theatrical opportunities.”

It stands to be noted that the Barenaked Ladies are one of — if not the most — universally loved band around here at the Laptop Sessions, as if this wasn’t already made obvious by the fact that Jim, Chris, Mike, Becky, and Cliff have all participated in BnL cover song music videos over the past couple years — more than any other covered artist! (This record may be tied with the Beach Boys, but I’ll have to check…)

I was struck this morning by just how many of my favorite bands have been split by solo projects recently.  All my favorite nineties bands, to be certain — Rob Thomas first went the way of the solo artist, promising that Matchbox Twenty had not officially broken up and will return to the studio (although Thomas worked in 2008 on his second solo album, there are rumors of a 2009 Matchbox Twenty release!).

Rivers Cuomo released his home recordings under his name, but has continued to write, record, and perform with Weezer.

One by one, personnel change after departure, Jakob Dylan (although there still is officially a Wallflowers band) struck out on his own last year with his debut album Seeing Things.  Apparently Rami Jaffee (the only other original original member aside from Dylan) has still interacted with the band, as evidenced by the recent Rusty Truck performance on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, which featured both Jaffee and longtime Wallflowers bassist Greg Richling.  Jimmy Kimmel mentioned that Dylan had appeared on the Rusty Truck studio recording.  So, they’re still playing together, just not in the Wallflowers…

Over the past few years, other bands have been interrupted by solo projects.  Those projects include this year’s Dan Auerbach album (he’s one half of the blues rock group the Black Keys), as well as last year’s second Raconteurs CD (staffed by, among others, Jack White of the White Stripes).  While these projects have not broken up their main bands, the formation of Jack’s Mannequin in 2004 by Andrew McMahon led to his other band (Something Corporate) to officially go “on hiatus.”

So, interstingly enough, at a time when many people are clinging to their current jobs during a time of economic distress, popular musicians continue to branch out and make music on their own, either separating permanently or temporarily from their bands to work independently.

As Ed Robertson stated in the official message on the BnL website, “It’s the start of a new chapter for all of us. Here’s to the future!”

“Maybe Katie” (Barenaked Ladies Cover)

Welcome to your Terrific Tuesday edition of the Laptop Sessions!  Tonight, I’m the first person to post using our brand new WordPress 2.6.1 version of the blog.  Of course, on your end, you shouldn’t see any difference, but on our end, the difference is vast…and great.  For one thing, our visual editor won’t mess with our code anymore, so we’ll be able to post chords to our cover songs more often than before.

Okay, on to tonight’s video.  Tonight is a classic one in terms of my live performances.  The “band” of Chris, Jim, and Becky (see Chris’ post a few days ago) was formed in 2004 and we loved to sing this Barenaked Ladies song, “Maybe Katie” in concert.  Then, we didn’t realize we were singing it in the wrong key- a half step below the original key.  Rest assured that for this video, we fixed the error, as all the Laptop Sessions songs are always in the original key- the ONLY way it should be!  Listen up, cover song musicians on YouTube and elsewhere: YOU REALLY STINK IF YOU DO IT IN THE WRONG KEY!!!  There’s no exception to this- if it’s out of your range and you change the key, then you don’t deserve to do the song.  I sang “Baby Please Come Home” by Darlene Love at our Christmas party in the original key and that song is ridiculously high.  You didn’t see me take the easy way out.  And this is why our motto is “Putting an end to bad YouTube covers FOREVER!”  Wow, the tangents tonight…

Moving on, this song is off of one of my favorite albums, “Everything To Everyone”.  I do believe that it’s probably their fourth best album behind “Gordon”, “Barenaked Ladies Are Men” (the almost 30-track version), and “Maroon”.  This album has some input from the other band members, which if you’ve read some of my past rants, means a lot to me in a band.

We do “Maybe Katie” a bit differently than the album’s version in the sense that the BNL version has some heavy electric guitars on the chorus and middle sections.  Our version is completely acoustic and has more of a “folk” feel to it.  That’s what happens when you don’t have a drummer handy…that isn’t already reserved to play the solo like I am.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s Laptop Session.  Thanks again and see you tomorrow!

“These Apples” (Barenaked Ladies Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to another edition of The Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

Of course, The Laptop Sessions started partially because I loved Ed Robertson’s “Bathroom Sessions” so much. He’s so great on the guitar, it makes me feel very inferior.

But, I still love his music and I love to play it! This song, “These Apples”, is infectious and I was so happy I finally got a chance to play it.

Next week, we’ll be doing “Title Track Week”, but this week is anything-goes! Make sure to come back tomorrow for another great Session from Chris and check out the Blog at https://guitarbucketlist.com for Jeff’s most recent video, as well!

“Brian Wilson” (Barenaked Ladies cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Friday edition of The Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog! After two strong Sessions from Chris and Jeff, I’m glad I can follow up with a song that I’ve been playing for a long time now, Barenaked Ladies’ “Brian Wilson”.

This song is very important to me, as it was the song that initially got me into BNL because a friend played it for me thinking I would like the Brian Wilson references. Of course, I did. But, I loved the song, too.

I now own all of BNL’s albums, have met them and got them to sign their latest (and greatest) album, and they are now my second favorite band of all time behind the Beach Boys at a permanent #1 spot.

I love the way Masters of the Universe did this song- I had the privilege of singing lead on their version. We did five part harmonies on the chorus. There’s a live version of it here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0rBfLk70vU

So, you have a song by my second favorite band ABOUT my favorite ever songwriter! Doesn’t get much better than that.

So, here’s my solo acoustic version- I could play this one with my eyes closed, so the performance is very smooth and comfortable, if I do say so myself! 😉

Let me tell you why I love Barenaked Ladies (the band, of course), the Beach Boys, the Moody Blues, the Byrds, and bands like that so much more than I like the Wallflowers, Ben Folds, and Dylan. I love all of their music, but I gravitate towards the first set of bands. You see, I love bands where every band member gets a chance to contribute.  Many bands only have one front man and the rest are just background guys.  Take “Matchbox Twenty” for example.  Rob Thomas is the lead.  Now, someone name another band member.  That’s right- Thomas IS the band!  Sure, there are other guys that play his music, but he’s the guy who writes the songs and sings them, too.  If you take a band like the Beach Boys, you might think the same thing: “Oh yeah, it’s just Brian Wilson and a bunch of other guys.”  Sure, that was kind of true before 1967.  But after that, Brian faded into the background and the other band members (his brothers, his cousin, and a friend) had to take over.  They all began writing songs.  The best example was the album “Sunflower”.  Every member had a hand in writing and singing on that album- it’s one of my favorites as a result.  That way, you get such a great variety.

Enjoy “Brian Wilson” by Barenaked Ladies.  It’s such a great song.  And even though I couldn’t get the Jim Creegan bass solo in there, I still think this live acoustic version does the song justice.  Stay tuned for more great acoustic cover songs from the Laptop Sessions music blog!