“Happy Together” (The Turtles Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, welcome to another edition of “You Bet Your Life”…oh wait, that’s Groucho Marx.  This here is another edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

I don’t care what anyone says- I’m actually a big fan of my newest song, “Winning You Over”.  I know the subject matter is up for debate, but if you just listen to it as a song: the tune and the way the lyrics are written, even the chord progression- I think you’ll find that it’s pretty awesome.  Not to toot my own horn- I just can’t get the stinkin’ song out of my head!

I’d love to hear Jeff’s thoughts on the song- both in subject matter and how he likes the real tune.  This is a great chance to make sure Jeff is still paying attention to these posts! 🙂

Anyway, tonight I bring you a great and classic song by The Turtles, whom we haven’t covered yet here on the Laptop Sessions.  That’s the way it goes: another night, another “new” band to the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog from me, Jim Fusco!

Of course, I put “new” in quotations because the band was popular back in the sixties, so even though we haven’t done a cover song from them before, it’s still technically not a “new” band by any stretch of the imagination!

I couldn’t believe how well the opening guitar part came out- doesn’t it sound exactly like the original?

Well, I actually have a little game for you.  On my solo radio show (So-low that you can’t hear me?  That’s for Stuffy D. Bear) Jammin’ with Jim on WCJM Free Internet Radio, I’m “famous” for my twin-spins, which are two songs played by the same artist.  I even did an entire show of twin-spins…twice!

Well, Tuesday, I’ll be doing a second song from the Turtles.  To tell you the truth, I didn’t even realize that I was doing two songs by them until after I recorded the music videos!  I recorded both songs and went, “Huh- they’re both from the Turtles!”  So, I have a nice twin-spin setup for you.  Can you guess which song it’ll be?  BIG points to the winner of this competition.  Again, this will be a good litmus test to tell if Jeff is still reading these posts!

Okay- it’s been a long day and I can’t wait to kick back and relax to yet another Chris Moore acoustic cover song music video tomorrow.  I’m sure he’ll do Sunday proud.

Jim Fusco Hits 130,000 YouTube Video Views, Plus New Domain Launched

Big news here at Fusco-Moore Productions, as we’ve acquired the domain name cover-songs.com!  That’s right: now your source for cover songs has a great name to go along with it!  Over the next few days, we’ll be working hard to get photos of ALL the bands we’ve covered here on the Laptop Sessions and organizing them on the frontpage of the site.  The site really is just a section (or portal) to the familiar Laptop Sessions site.  I may decide to come up with a new design for it.  The goal of this site is to get people to find our cover songs, then to have them make the connection to the blog community over here at the Laptop Sessions.

Ideas are (as always) frantically running through my head, but I feel awfully tired, so they’ll have to wait a bit more to come to fruition.

Also, probably last night, I hit 130,000 views on YouTube!  I’m still holding out hope that I can get to 150,000 by the end of 2008, which I think would be a nice accomplishment.  Hopefully there will come a time where I can only announce in 50,000 view counts, but for now, it’s still a nice event at each 10,000.  This time it took me 21 days, which is right on schedule, as of late.  Of course, I’d like that number to decrease as time goes on, so we’ll have to see if the new domain name helps us at all.

Just another step towards greatness here at Fusco-Moore Productions!

“Winning You Over” (Original Post-Election Jim Fusco Acoustic Song)

By Jim Fusco:

What a happy day it is here at the Fusco-Moore Experience (home of FMP Studios).  We were both (along with all of my friends and family) pulling for Barack Obama to win the Presidential election.  We watched every minute of it and I didn’t stop watching until about 2 am.

It was a great night for the country because it was actually a decisive victory- a true electoral landslide.  Yes, the popular vote was closer, but as the Republicans proved in 2000, the country-wide popular vote means nothing in a presidential election.

So, tonight, my Laptop Sessions Original Wednesday video had to be something extra-special.  I actually sat down and wrote a new song just for the occasion- talk about a turnaround!  I had the tune to the verse of this song for a few weeks now, but never did anything with it.  I’m not going to explain the words of the song or what it’s about.  You’ll have to deduce that answer on your own.  Oh, and one tidbit- this actually ISN’T going to be a track off of my upcoming album, “Halfway There” that’s already been mixed and mastered.  So, you get an extra-special bonus with this song tonight!

I will say that I’m pretty proud of this video.  It took me many takes to get right, mostly because I didn’t know all the words yet!  But, the song’s structure is cool- the “chorus” is actually more of a “tag” to the song, making the bridge more of the chorus, if that makes sense.  I wanted to write a topical song that wasn’t overtly so.  I think, given the day on which it’s being posted, that the song fits into the political landscape well.  But, I hope that people can listen to it at different times of the year (without knowing what day I wrote it) and still understand the sentiments I’m trying to get across.

I’ll say this: one of my big hopes for America is UNITY.  It’s about time after so many years of being truly divided.  Say what you will about political views, etc, but Barack Obama is the first president in over 20 years to get elected by a true MAJORITY of American voters (over 50%).  That says something very powerful to me, and I hope he can bring this country together and help to heal the divides of politics, racism, and religion.  Good night, America- I hope you’ll join me in rejoicing as we usher in a new era for the United States.

“Just Once In My Life” (Righteous Brothers & Beach Boys Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Sunday, Sunday, Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions here with me, Jim Fusco!

Onto tonight’s video.  Tonight, I bring you yet ANOTHER “new” band to the Laptop Sessions.  I know this song mostly because of the Beach Boys’ superb version on their popular album, “15 Big Ones”.  That album isn’t great and I really hate those synthesizers in this song, but the vocal power of Carl Wilson (along with the wonderfully strained sound of Brian’s voice on the bridge) make this a standout track.  Plus, it’s a great ending song to the album.  I LOVE the harmonies on the middle 8, too.  It seems like they channelled vocals from the early 60s on that section of the song- something you really don’t get on the rest of the album.  By that time, the Beach Boys’ voices had “manned-up” quite a bit.  But in that section of the song, you’d think they were all 20 again.

It’s funny that the Righteous Brothers aren’t even brothers.  But how many people really do have the last name “Righteous”?

You might notice that this video both looks and sounds a bit different than my others.  The audio sync is off and the quality isn’t great.  Just do me a favor: DO NOT upgrade to iMovie 2008.  It cripples the program and truly ruined this video for me.  It took me an hour just to figure out the technical aspect.  But, the sound is great and the audio is nice and loud.  That’s the one thing the new version of the program did right.  So, I hope you can suffer through the video quality and just LISTEN for this video, as I think it’s one of my better performances.

Enjoy and I’ll see you on Original Wednesday for the first post-election song here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!