No, it’s not some weird censorship.
The power at our house has gone out. I don’t have an Iphone either.
So I’m typing this very brief post on my cell phone to explain tonight’s blackout.
I think i’ll call it “Flippin’ blackout Friday”, but do note that some words have been changed to preserve the PG rating of the site.
For Wilco/Woody Guthrie chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!
By Chris Moore:
This is quite the story for a session. It seems that, in order to outdo my previous “new release” Laptop Sessions, I needed to call in some outside help…
In the form of one Jim Fusco on his brand-new metallic blue lap steel guitar!
Oh, and if you’re a Wilco fan, then I hope you can appreciate how exciting it was for me to host the first Lap-(steel)-top Session. Throughout their catalog, they have incorporated country tinges with instruments such as this. Most recently, even as they continue to play around with more experimental forms, Nels Cline plays beautifully on the lap steel in several of their concert set list mainstays, from the older deep track “It’s Just That Simple” to more recent material off of Sky Blue Sky, their 2007 album.
This track, “The Jolly Banker,” was written by Woody Guthrie and originally recorded on March 22, 1940 (as reported in the Library of Congress records for these sessions with folk music expert Alan Lomax). Nearly seventy years later, Wilco has recorded their own version of this song — which is eerily relevant as of its release on April 30th, 2009 — and released it as a free download online. Technically, they suggest/request that you donate at least $2 to the Woody Guthrie Foundation — this is quite funny, as one of the three options for downloading states “I am/was a banker/hedge fund manager/credit default swap trader. I know times are tough, but I’m just fine thank you. (Suggested minimum donation $100.00).”
Tonight, I jokingly challenged Jim to not only play this song as his debut performance on his new guitar, but to actually record a Laptop Session on the spot. He must have taken me seriously or at least had the urge to give the Rogue brand lap steel an official test run, because he didn’t skip a beat when we set up downstairs. As you’ll hear — and I hope you’ll agree — this is a great, loyal rendition of Wilco’s cover version, right down to the tapping opening count and the aforementioned lap steel. I was initially thinking that this would be just another session with me recording just another version of a simple song. Instead, I am proud to say that this is one of my favorite sessions I’ve recorded in a long time.
Unfortunately, although the actual playing of the song with Jim was very fun and relaxed, the events around the recording were frustrating. As I’m sure Jim will explain in “tomorrow’s” post (don’t forget that I forgot to remember to record on “Memorial” day… there’s some irony for you), he just got his new HD video camera in the mail. We tried to record the session with the camera — and the video quality was amazing — but the audio quality was terrible. Jim finally gave up for the night, but I’m sure he’ll come up with some plan to augment and/or jury rig the setup before next week’s Jim Fusco Tuesday.
Maybe then I’ll bug him to record a saxophone solo for a Bruce Springsteen cover… (Kidding!) 🙂
On a side note, today started off sadly, as I awoke to find the news of former Wilco multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett’s death on my iPhone AP News app. While I haven’t followed his work outside of Wilco, I was sad to hear this, especially as I read a quote from Bennett from a couple weeks ago about how excited he was for his new album and the future in general. It all came in a burst for me, as I also just learned yesterday of the lawsuit Bennett had filed against Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy calling for $50,001.00 in back royalties he felt he was owed, citing the YHF documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart as a film for which he did not sign a proper release form.
Some say Bennett was being unreasonable. Others say he was instrumental (no pun intended… okay, maybe a little) in Wilco’s mainstream breakthrough and that he deserved additional money. (Apparently he couldn’t even afford a hip replacement that he badly needed.)
Regardless of which side you take, the bottom line is that he has passed away, and at least for the moment, no one is exactly sure what happened.
I also learned today that our oldies/rock acquaintance, Tony Persia, also passed away recently. I was saddened to learn about this loss, as he has really set the tone at the annual Carbutti Christmas parties that both Jim and I attend. For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, he was probably best known as the piano player for the classic Danny & the Juniors single “At the Hop.” He was an incredibly kind, charming man who met many great music stars in his life and played lots and lots of music — I know I speak for Jim, Mike, and I when I say he will be sorely missed, particularly this December…
On a happy note, I just downloaded the Wilco iPhone app, and it’s great fun. You can access all the latest band news, photos, and listen in full(!) to every song from their official catalog, including both Mermaid Avenue releases and their live Kicking Television concert album. If only my other favorite bands would jump on the iPhone application train… (cough, nudge – “Dylan, Beach Boys, Barenaked Ladies, Moody Blues, Pearl Jam” – cough, nudge)
Without further ado, I will leave you to watch this collaborative session. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recording it…
See you next session!
One of the things that anybody who knows me well is that I am into a very special type of music.
No, it isn’t anything mainstream. In fact, I can think of only 3 other people who enjoy this type of music as much as I do.
Quite simply, it is soundtracks from video games. Especially Role Playing Games.
I have what I feel is a very impressive collection of OST (Original Soundtrack) from a variety of games. One reason I think I enjoy the music so much is because I did grow up listening to the music from these games almost entirely. When it comes to my favorite activity both now and then, it certainly is video games.
More so than any of my other hobbies. It even surpasses the playing and writing of music.
So I have an ingrained affinity to the music. I always had a great auditory memory as well. I can still hum music from old Nintendo games I haven’t played in over 15 years. If you say “Flash Man from Mega Man 2”, I will hum it in tune and on key. You may even get some of that terrible synth drum channel that NES was notorious for.
But the ones I latched onto immediately are the Final Fantasy series’ OSTs. I have them all. And not just some remixed versions or user-generated remixes. Just like I was playing the original version of the game.
Why do I enjoy listening to the music so much? Plain and simple – it is something for me to listen too, and I can do almost any regular task while I listen. Simply put, many papers got written while I listened to “Dancing Mad”, the final boss music from Final Fantasy 6, and other songs from those series.
As I discovered the fact that some more uncommon OSTs existed, I found as many of them as I could and got them. I have the OSTs for such obscure games as Emperor: Battle for Dune (a favorite actually), Dune 2000, StarFox, Perfect Dark, Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana (and all of it’s prequels and sequels), Ogre Battle (and it’s derivatives), and the F-Zero series. Simply put, there’s a soundtrack for all kinds of moods.
Actually, now that I mention the “Emperor” soundtrack, it reminds me of a story.
About a year ago, I did something that I was always a bit afraid of, but knew I had to do – I donated blood. I’ve always been a bit squeamish about things like this, but I knew it was the right thing to do. To get me through it, however, I popped up the Emperor Soundtrack because the music had such a driving beat to it, and the tunes are so engrossing overall (I even asked the Phlebotomist to cover the donation bags so I couldn’t watch my blood being drawn). I looked up at the ceiling of Sacred Heart’s Field House for a while and enjoyed it. Hey, it got me through it. I may even do it again in the future.
Well anyway, point is I have always enjoyed VG music. I downloaded MIDI tracks as well. But then I found a game that had a great soundtrack, but very few MIDI files for its music.
And so, I began the Final Fantasy Tactics Battle Music Project, which at the time was a regularly updated website with the files that I created using various implements, most notably a program called Noteworthy Composer. My methods were this easy. I used an audio recorder to tape the particular song of interest off of the TV while the game was playing. Then I systematically tried to pick out the different instruments and parts, then try to transcribe them on the keyboard. Once I had figured out one or two instruments, usually the rest were easy to pick out as well. This method certainly wasn’t the best, but at the time I was very mad that these files didn’t exist, and I wanted to change that.
I ended up transcribing quite a few of the songs from the game, and within the next two years, I noticed lots of fan sites posting my MIDI files. I also got lots of great comments, emails, and requests. I did the majority of the work for files in this game within those two years, but I would go back periodically until I was done in college to update some of the songs that I knew better.
I also at one point in college (~2000 I think) did a similar site for Final Fantasy 9 called (how original) the FF9 MIDI Project. Similar to FFT, I transcribed select songs due to not many being transcribed at the time. I still find both of the MIDI files from these games around the internet.
It wasn’t long after this that I began composing music similar in style. There will be more on that in the next edition of this series. Stay tuned for that next month!
For Sheryl Crow Chords and Lyrics, CLICK HERE!
By Jeff Copperthite:
Assistant Editor/site curator note: This post was originally from February 19, 2009. The post doesn’t mention too many “historically inaccurate” information, but still always good to see where things were. Enjoy this latest blast from the past!
Welcome to Thumpin’ Thursday for the first time in a couple of weeks. Here’s a couple of updates for you. My health is much better now after a shaky four days from Wednesday to Sunday last week. The vacation is helping tremendously. Also, i’ve hit 90K views, and I should hit the 6 digit mark in the near near future!
Tonight I have a brand new cover song for you. It’s a song that I have yet to see anybody cover, or post the chords too. The song is by Sheryl Crow, and it’s a single off her album “Detours”. The song “Out of Our Heads” shares the title of a Rolling Stones’ album. However, the song is drastically different. It’s also very catchy, and unfortunately it’s hard to capture the catchiness in an acoustic cover.
The hardest part for me is the fact I had to figure this song out on my own. I’ve never been very good at transcribing guitar chords by ear. I used to make MIDI files for a couple of Final Fantasy games in my teenage years, and I got good at picking out individual instruments and tracking those for the MIDI. I also could figure out bass riffs, but i’d use those bass riffs to figure out guitar parts, which worked for a fair amount of the time.
So what you’re watching is my transcription of the song. I figured out it was a capo’d song from the music video that Sheryl Crow made. However, the sound I picked up was from a first fretted capo, not a sixth like in the video. Sure, it worked on sixth when I was messing around with it, but it sounded more accurate on 1st.
Here are the chords I transcribed, relative to 1st fret capo.
Verse: Am, F, C, G
Chorus: Am, C, F, C, G
If you have suggestions or changes, please let me know about them. I hope, regardless, you enjoy tonight’s video!