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“It’s Up To You” (Moody Blues Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Hello everyone- tonight’s session is a Moody Blues song that’s always been a favorite of mine. I’ll be the first to admit that most of the Moodies songs aren’t exactly “rockers”, but when they do come out with one, it’s AWESOME. “Story In Your Eyes”, “Ride My Seesaw”, and “I’m Just A Singer in a Rock’n’Roll Band” come to mind as great songs with a rock sound and some amazing lead guitar playing by Justin Hayward.  I honestly believe that Justin Hayward is one of the most underrated rock guitarists out there.  The man can absolutely shred on the guitar and he plays it perfectly every time- even in concert.  Have you heard the beginning to “Question” on 12-string acoustic guitar?  Even playing that half-speed on acoustic guitar is difficult.  Hayward is the man, and that’s all there is to it.

The Moody Blues song I’ve chosen for tonight’s cover song music video, “It’s Up To You”, has a great guitar riff, classic Justin Hayward introspective lyrics, and just a great melody.  “It’s Up To You” my favorite song off of the “Question of Balance” album.  That album, to me, is a bit faster paced than any of the other “first seven” albums they did.  But, I think the songs aren’t nearly as good (as a whole) as the songs on albums like “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” and “To Our Children’s Children’s Children”.

One thing about Justin Hayward’s lead guitar playing I love is his double or even triple-tracking of the lead guitar.  It’s so unique.  George Harrison used to do it with his famous slide guitar solos.  But, Justin Hayward is a fan of more distortion on his guitar solos and riffs.  So, it’s a different sound.  Hayward triple-tracks the lead guitar for two reasons, in my opinion.  First, he wants to make the part sound more powerful.  You have to imagine that little thin high E string on a guitar.  Now, strum it with a piece of plastic.  It’s going to need a lot of power to cut through drums, bass, and a synthesizer.  So, triple-tracking the lead guitar (that’s recording it three times) is a great way to make it stand out from the rest of the sounds in the band.  Another reason why Hayward did it is the reason why I think it’s so cool: harmony!  He would take the lead guitar part and then play it three times.  Except, each time he’d play a different note of a chord.  Played all together, you get a great sound that’s full and unique.  I did that on some of my songs, too.  For instance, on “Give and Take” from my album “What About Today?”, I did a three-part lead solo.  Listen to that song online on my website at http://jimfusco.com.

I hoe you enjoy tonight’s Moody Blues cover song! Keep browsing the archive for more music videos- there are plenty of cover songs to go around!

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Video Blog 2008: The future of Fusco-Moore Productions’ songwriters!

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By Chris Moore:

Hi all. I became lax in my posting during December, so I wanted to start 2008 off right! Now, I don’t have a Laptop Session to post today, but I do have a rant, two hot-off-the-press updates, and some thoughts on the new year. So, here goes…

First, I need to thank all those who came to the second annual MoU Christmas Party this weekend. I really appreciate those of you who said they would be there and actually came. Unfortunately, we had a great deal of people — almost a third of our “confirmed” guest list — who didn’t show and who gave little to no warning. This year, it was especially important to have an accurate count so that Jim would know how much food to make. Instead, we ended up with two thirds of the ziti back in our fridge… Let’s just say I can predict what Jim will be cooking for dinner for the next two and a half weeks! Seriously though, especially since I was the one who took on the task of inviting people, setting up the facebook page, etc., it felt like a big failure. Everyone seemed to have a good time, but the band fund lost $80 in the process rather than making money for our second album, Homestead’s Revenge. It was pretty depressing looking out into the sea of… 24 faces. But, to those 24 who did attend, I want to thank you once again!

Okay, the two updates, as promised:

1) The MoU album – I’m still running this by the other band members, but at this time Homestead’s Revenge was planned for release as a digital download on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008. It’s about freakin’ time!

2) My essay collection – I’ll be releasing a collection of my essays (academic and otherwise) from 2003-2008 on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008. The collection (which, as a warning, is really only for die-hard essay / Chris Moore fans!) will include essays on relationships, society in general, poetry, and music. It will be released as an e-book and is tentatively titled “Essays” and Other Essays.

Finally, my thoughts on the new year. 2007 was okay, but I felt I was not very productive overall. I think Jim felt the same way — as he said to me the other day, he’s been without a solo album for over two years. I think he’s getting the itch again… That being said, my goal for Fusco-Moore Productions in the new year is to build on the audience of the Laptop Sessions, release some music (perhaps the long-awaited “Fusco and Moore-funkel” album!), and release the short story/poetry book that I’ve been working on for over a year. I really feel like this is a make it or break it year for F-M Prod, and I think both Jim and I are feeling the pressure to really make something of this while we can.

As always, thanks for reading — this is certainly the most I’ve ever written here at one time. Best of wishes from Fusco-Moore for 2008 — keep checking back for new laptop sessions and more all the time!

-Chris Moore

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“The Lonely Sea” (Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Well, I’m finally back up and (sorta) running again after almost a week without my laptop! The hard drive just crashed out of nowhere with no chance to recover my files. So, I got a new (bigger) hard drive and I hope everything will run smoothly from now on.  I tell you, though- I bought Apple products for their reliability, but the hardware hasn’t always been kind to me.  I just thought that quality hardware was the reason for the high prices.  I guess you don’t always get what you pay for.  In my opinion, it’s still better than Windows because a Windows machine will still die on you, but it’ll be even more difficult to work with when it’s still alive.

This song goes out as a request. “The Lonely Sea” by the Beach Boys is a great early tune that doesn’t get much credit because it wasn’t a single. But, Beach Boys fans know (and love) this song. I think it’s a good one to do solo because even though the Boys had background “oohs”, this was a Brian Wilson song through and through. A great chord progression goes along with this song- simple, but powerful.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Brian Wilson always had a knack at coming up with a great chord progression.  This song is surprisingly dark sounding for a song written by a guy in his early twenties.

Of course, “The Lonely Sea” is one of those songs that really sounds like a period piece.  What I mean by that is, you can tell this song was done before the Beatles became popular in America.  Songs from the early 60s and late 50s had breaks in the middle where the lead singer would just speak a few lines.  Most notably, you can hear that in the Elvis Presley song “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”.  It’s a great song, but you can tell the era in which it was recorded/popular.  “The Lonely Sea” probably wouldn’t have sounded the same even two years later, once the Beatles changed the sound of popular music forever.  The Beatles had a way of setting trends.  I will always admit to that.  Brian Wilson, though, had a way of pushing the envelope, musically.  He didn’t necessarily change his style all the time, but he was working on perfecting his songwriting style the whole time.  He would add different instruments and experiment with different chord progressions and harmony parts.  It was happening from the start- songs like “The Lonely Sea” can be written off as a teenage love-sick song, but it’s got a sound that you just didn’t hear on the rest of the “teenage” music in the early 60s.  And, you especially didn’t hear it from surf music groups, like the Beach Boys music was labeled.

I hope everyone’s been enjoying the Laptop Sessions and will continue to tune in every day for more acoustic cover songs here on the best music blog on the Internet!  There will be plenty more Beach Boys cover songs to come.

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“Marie” (Chris Moore original song cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Here’s my second entry for “Original Wednesday” here on the Laptop Sessions. By the way, did you notice we now have www.guitarbucketlist.com? Give it a look!

“Marie” has always been one of my favorite Chris Moore songs.

Every time we play this in concert (which has been MANY times), I always look forward to it. Of course, this version is without the dueling harmonica and guitar solos, but I think the song stands up on its own (the mantra of the Laptop Sessions).

Chris always thought of this song as an experiment for him because he had never really written a love song before quite like this. Truly, when he wrote it, he didn’t even have any real inspiration. But, Chris is a professional writer and this song shows that he didn’t need a real “Marie” to show he could feel this way.

In concert I’ve previously done a very slow version of this song. But for the Laptop Sessions version, I wanted to keep it true to the original- the one I heard in the background on Chris’ car CD player that really started it all. Once I heard this song, we started to think that a band might be possible. See http://jimfusco.com/albums.html for the rest of the story…

I hope you enjoy part 1 of my Original Wednesday installment.

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