Tag Archives: jeff

“With or Without You” (U2 Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to what feels like “just another manic monday” (damnit, I just had to quote the Bangles – shoot me now).  One of the busiest days of my…entire…existence.  And I still found the time to bring a session to you today.  Session-a-day must roll forth.  Getting right there to the end of 2008 will see the release of 365 videos between four performers.  Simply amazing that we are nearing the end of the year.

Ok, away from that, today’s session.  I have to admit, this is a song i’ve known how to play for a long time, and i’ve kept it in store for a day like today where practice time was small at best.  A hit by U2 from their album “The Joshua Tree” is the song “With or Without You”.  This song, similar to a previous session by Tom Petty “Learning to Fly”, features a repeated four-chord pattern that plays through the entire song.  Again, however, the original song is not based on an acoustic guitar so again, making it a Laptop Session is really interesting.

I did a decent job singing this one, but did mistime one word, and one chord slightly.  Since I imagine many youtube viewers don’t read the entire description, i’m sure i’ll have to filter out some comments in the near future about those very small mistakes.

Anyway, enjoy today’s session, and make sure you’re here tomorrow for 100KJim’s newest session!

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 original 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!

WCJM Free Internet Radio Station: “The Best Song EVER! Show” – 2000

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By WCJM Free Internet Radio:

Jim Fusco’s constant quest for perfection reached its final destiny.  He had obtained perfection due to hours of careful planning and tedious work to make The Best Song EVER! Show a free Internet radio masterpiece.  First, Jim asked everyone in the cast, which now included Dave Perrelli as a permanent member, to pick the top three songs of all time (in their opinion).  He also threw in a suggestion for everyone to pick the worst song of all time, just to add a little comedy to the show.  After all the times were given to Jim, he wrote up an elaborate, down to the second, 3 page, typed outline of the proceedings of The Best Song EVER! Show.  But the show was going to be a little different from all the others.  There was too much music to put the whole show on one 90 minute tape.  Therefore, he was forced to choose two 60 minute tapes, making it an interesting double album.  Each of the 30-minute sides had a total time allowed for the essentials: 29 minutes 30 seconds for side one, 26 minutes 30 seconds for side two, 27 minutes 30 seconds for side three, and 22 minutes 35 seconds for side four.  Although Jim knew he was very liberal on the allotted time for each side, Mike made complaints that Jim’s down-to-the-second planning would be too strict, just as it was during the Millennium “Mayhem” Celebration tape.  But he was proven wrong, because there was plenty of time for all that was needed, even giving leeway for free time and debate.

The tape went off without a hitch, the first side having traffic, news, weather, sports, and technology coupled with the third picks of all time.  Side two then continued with the second picks of all time and another information report.  The beginning of tape number two, or side three overall, followed the same pattern of the first two sides: an information report, and the first picks of all time.  Side four, however, started with a three minute heated debate.  The side then moved on to the elimination of the first ten songs, would whittle the list down to number 5.  The songs were eliminated from worst to best going around the table using the “seniority rule”.  A person could pick one song to eliminate at a time, or could pass their turn.  After getting down to No. 5, the group kept the audience waiting by then playing thirty seconds each of the worst songs ever (or as long as they could take it).  After that came an information report, then finally eliminating all the songs down to No. 1.  As it turned out, Alberto had the final choice between numbers one and two, finally selecting the number one song of all time.  The number one song was played over again, and then a promo for the “Party!” tape was played, and finishing off the tape with a debate.

There were some problems, though, that the cast faced during the recording of this tape.  Jim stereo does not stop recording once the side of the tape has ended, so when the cast lost track of time on the second side, the tape flipped over and started recording over the first side!  So, the first five minutes of the beginning had to be recorded over again, but the cast learned their lesson, and checked periodically for the end of every side.

Even though that incident left the first couple of minutes of the tape a little choppy, listening to the tape again, the sound quality is great, everyone’s microphone levels are perfect, there is no feedback, the content is perfect, and everything seems to blend together.  Jim had finally received what he had worked so hard to do.

This is merely the first step on the road to free Internet radio (and funny radio!) perfection…

“What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” (REM Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening to you!  I just had a wonderful run of Dynamis, then realized “Oh yeah, I am fresh out of videos for today!”  Thankfully, I had one ready to play and record, and you are in the right place to listen to it!

The song I have selected for today is by one of my favorite bands from my entire life, REM.  This song “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” was a single from their album “Monster”, which is home to some of my favorite REM songs.  The album itself has a wide range of sound, but a common element is the “fuzz” guitar sound that seems constant in nearly every track.  This song is not an exception to that trend, but naturally here at guitarbucketlist.com, we give you acoustic guitar and an in-tune voice to go along with it!

There’s been some debate to the last line of the song.  Most places i’ve read lyrics to the song say the last line is “I’ve never understood, don’t f*** with me, uh-huh”.  However, the radio play version I have heard countless times does not alter this last line that is in the CD version.  It leads me to believe the last line does not include the f word.  However, I still can’t figure out what it is.  So you will notice a change in the last line which does not change the meaning of the line at all.

This is also unique because the song has no acoustic guitar track, so hearing this played back is quite unique to me as well.

I hope you enjoy this latest installment, and I know you’ll be back tomorrow for our favorite day of the week, as Jim dips into his library of original goodies for a great session installment.  I’ll be here to watch it, and I know you will be as well!

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 original 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!

A/V corner: A review of the LG 32LH30 LCD TV

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By Jeff:

Welcome to a title I just made up.  The world is always a good place when you show your versatility!  It’s quite obvious that Jim, Chris, and myself have a world of interests.

I would like to point out that I didn’t have a very good day today.  However, it isn’t because something bad happened to me.  But rather, someone’s senselessness caused my friend to have a bad day.  Seriously, if you need money, get a frickin job – leave people’s property alone.  Also, can the email at my school work consistently?  I’m tired of telling my students “email me if you have questions” only to find that the night before they have a test I can’t access my email.

But I digress.

Tonight I am reviewing the TV I just bought.  This follows the death of my previous TV.  I had a Samsung tube HDTV that I bought in 2004.  I mean, it looked fine and had two component inputs and allowed me to play my gamecube/wii, ps2, and TV all in the best possible resolution.

Then one morning I was watching Sportscenter and right in the middle of Stuart Scott’s next highlight, I looked up and saw nothing.  I still heard his voice coming through the stereo speakers.  I then smelled an electrical appliance burning, which means “unplug that tv”.  The fried TV made it to the recycling center a few days later, and my living room was without a TV.

The funniest thing is about two weeks before the old TV blew up (as I say it), I had said to my wife “I think it’s time we bought a new TV”.

Granted, the other TV’s in this house are at least 10 years old, and they work just fine.  So it’s a bit sad that this one lasted a mere 5 years.

So of course, I ordered a new TV on amazon.com.  I love ordering things from that site due to the credit card rewards that give me gift cards for money spent.  So this TV was almost an entire $25 gift card.  Plus, I also received free shipping.

Well anyway, I got the TV on a Saturday morning via Fedex and had it set up in an hour.  I went shopping for a few cables (namely an HDMI cable) and fired it up.

The LG 32LH30 LCD TV is a 32 inch wide screen HDMI ready viewing machine.  Soon as I fired it up I loved it.  The screen is so so much brighter than a CRT TV.  The fact that I can now actually see the HD channels I get in their native widescreen is tremendous.

The setup on the TV is tailored to HDMI.  The back of the set includes 3 HDMI inputs (one on the side, two on the back), 1 component input, 2 composite inputs, optical in/out, and a standard cable input.  I would rather it have came with a 2nd component input simply because there’s a lot of devices that do not have HDMI out that people still use.  Yes many people still have only component outputs (and still others only composite/s-video), so the sole input makes hooking up all your devices simultaneously a bit trickier.  Most people will have to buy a video switcher.

Just to give you an idea of what I have in my setup – I have a Wii, HDMI cable box, PS2, DVD player, Sony receiver, and a 200 CD changer (that’s on its last legs).  Of course, the Wii and PS2 are component able, so I lucked out that I can hook them into my receiver, and use it as a video switcher, and hook a third set of cables into the TV.

The bad news is that, when I change video sources, I have to change them both on my TV and on my receiver.  So again, if you can deal like me, then that isn’t a big deal.

The picture set up mode is something i’m still tweaking with.  A beginner to picture setup can easily set up their TV to an acceptable picture by using the Tv’s “Picture Wizard”.  What it does is basically take the user through a series of images that look different depending on the TV’s settings, which includes an “optimal” image that you should try to obtain.  With each setting change, the TV’s settings change without the user needing to bother with “What the hell does the contrast do?”  I tried it the first try, but again since i’m aware of what these are, I didn’t find it necessary to use.  However, I did note that the interface is sort of idiot proof.

For those that don’t need a safety net, the LG 32LH30 offers a tremendous array of picture tweaks.  There are presets for “Cinema”, “Sports”, and “Game”.  For my video games, I find the “Sports” setting to be quite nice – especially for the Wii games.  But if presets still aren’t enough tweaking, there are 6 zoom functions, and a up to 20 level scalable “cinema zoom”, which takes letterboxed DVD’s and stretches them vertically as much or as little as you want.  There’s also a setup option that allows you to use the TV as an audio pass through instead of a monitor – that is, you can turn off the video, but keep the audio.  This is perfect if you want to put on the music channels most cable companies provide, but don’t need to see the facts on the screen about the music.  You can also disable the onboard TV speakers (recommended if you have a receiver like most techies).

The coolest thing i’ve found so far is the extra HDMI inputs allow me to hook my laptop up to the TV.  It’s perfect for me because my DVD player can play DVDs in a very high resolution on my laptop, and I can now send that to the TV!  The computer screen on the TV is a bit too “fine” for my needs, but it is perfect if you’re watching a bunch of Youtube videos or, as mentioned, a DVD.  I can also play SOME of my computer games on it, and they look really really good.

There aren’t too many drawbacks other than the ones already mentioned.  The thing I don’t like is that the provided TV stand is very basic.  It allows you to tilt the TV horizontally +/- 20 degrees, but there is no vertical tilt.  There also is no vertical height adjustment (sorry Dr. K) allowed, so I had to get a few very thick phone books that were of the same height (harder than it looks!) and drape a black towel over them just to raise the TV to a height I want.  In my setup, I was able to put the center speaker on top of the old CRT, but that’s not possible with an LCD.  The only options are to put it right below the TV or on a shelf above the TV for optimal sound quality.  The speaker I own would block the bottom portion if I didn’t raise the height of it.

Also, the buttons for the TV are located on the side of the TV which is fine, but the one I use the most is the power button.  At the very least, a power button should’ve been included on the front of the screen.  If you’re like most people, your TV is already in a tight fitting area, and it is a minor inconvenience to reach back behind the TV to turn it off if I don’t want to use the remote.

But for the money I spent for it, this TV is all that I could want and more.  If I get another video source, I have space to hook it up to the HDMI connection.  The digital out to my amplifier ensures that if there is a Dolby Digital soundtrack or better that my receiver will make it sound the best it can.  And while it is certainly geared to today’s HDMI devices, again make sure you buy a video switcher if you have multiple component video sources like I do (or be lucky with your receiver being a good switcher on its own).

And if you are in the market to buy a flat screen, LCD TV’s prices are much much better and more affordable now.  I can safely recommend this one to you.  If you can splurge a little bit (i.e. more than $300), then this TV is worth it.