Tag Archives: laptop sessions

“Barely Breathing” (Duncan Sheik Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

There’s only one day left after today for our latest edition of “New Bands Week.”  It’s always sad to see it go…  Now, in the past, we have unofficially extended our New Band Weeks by quite a few days, fishing deep into our reserves to find songs from new and different artists.  I wonder if Jim and Jeff plan to surprise us with acoustic covers of new bands even after Sunday…

Unfortunately, I’ll be breaking that trend by Monday, when I post my 100th Laptop Session!  I wanted to make it a special one, so I have chosen — and no one can convince me otherwise — to perform barenaked.  Oops, that was a typo.  I meant to write “Barenaked” with a capital “B.”  My bad.  My 100th session will be “Break Your Heart” by the Barenaked Ladies.  This is one of my all-time favorite songs, ever since Jim played it for me a few years ago.  I love everything about it — the lyrics, the concept, the emotion expressed, and most of all, Steven Page’s vocal performance.  Now, I’ll admit that this song is a bit out of my comfort zone.  And I spent about an hour tonight practicing and perfecting my performance and running my voice ragged and to the edge.  Will this be my best acoustic cover music video ever?  Probably not.  But, will it set the bar higher for my next 100 session?  Absolutely!

But, that’s enough about my next session.  I should probably write at least a little bit about my cover tonight…

Before New Bands Week started, we each signed up for bands we planned to cover.  I had signed up for Jimi Hendrix, Billy Bragg & Wilco, and John Denver.  Then, I jumped the gun and released a Jimi Hendrix cover a few weeks ago.  That left me with two.  I recorded “Walt Whitman’s Niece” by Billy Bragg & Wilco for my Tuesday session, so that left John Denver.  And I truly planned on recording a Denver song.

But it was not meant to be.  Instead, I’m bringing you a Billboard Hot 100 top twenty song.  This is Duncan Sheik’s “Barely Breathing,” a song that I’ve been practicing and wanting to record for a couple months.  Tonight, finally, I pulled it out, dusted it off, and I hope you enjoy it.  It really is one of those songs that received a ridiculous amount of radio airplay when I used to listen to it, but it absolutely deserved it.  It was easy to learn, had some interesting chord patterns, and this was probably one of the most fun recording sessions I’ve had in some time!  It was actually an odd experience — I haven’t heard the song for years, but I remembered almost all the words the first time around, and the whole experience was very natural.  For me, that was exciting!

Well, that’s it for me for now — Jeff Copperthite’s closing New Bands Week video is in the archive.

See you next session!

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

More Laptop Sessions covers

“Burnin’ Up” – How to Play

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Introduction:  G-Em7-CaddD-G

Verse: G – Em – C – G

Chorus: C – D – G – Em

“Burnin’ Up Inside…” – F-Em-D

Bridge: Em (x3) Bm (end on C)

Verse 1:

Said you’re burnin’ up inside

No one seems to tell

You’re living from a personalized

Manual from hell

Chorus:

Life seems pretty easy when it’s from my easy chair

And you’re burnin’ up inside and no one cares

Verse 2:

Said you’d have enough this time

This town don’t treat you well

You always find coincidence

Well I do parallel

Chorus 2:

Life seems pretty easy when it’s from my easy chair

And you’re burnin’ up inside (x3)

And you hurt me..

Bridge/Guitar Solo

Verse 3:

Come and take my hand tonight

I’ll show you where to start

’cause every word that left your lips

Like a needle through my heart

Chorus 2

Outro

(’cause you’re burnin’ up inside) Hurt my eyes (x4)

End on G

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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“Glide” (Stone Temple Pilots Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Yes!  It’s me again two nights in a row!  I have the privilege of bringing you another previously covered band (yeah I know, it seems like it’s new to cover a band we’ve already covered, but hey).  And not only that, another cover of a song you may not have heard before (just like yesterday).  I hope you enjoyed “Mourning Train”, because it’s just another impressive hit that I am happy to bring to you.

Well today here’s another song I have always liked from another favorite band Stone Temple Pilots.  Despite their rocky past and continually shaky future, they remain a favorite band of mine.  I enjoy their catalog from the beginning to end.  However, their later material has always shone much more to me.  This is because they geared more towards a “bluesy” and guitar-driven sound, rather than the reliance on power chords of the typical 90’s alternative bands.  This made them stand out much more to me.

Tonight’s song is “Glide” from their album “No. 4”. Glide is a very unique song in that the chords are all based on the same root for all the verses.  Despite the countless inversions and add 9s in the guitar part.  Like a song I have covered earlier in the year (“Spies” by Coldplay), it’s a unique guitar part but I am happy I pulled it off (mostly) on video.

I really tried my best to relax and belt this song out.  Combine the guitar part commentary mentioned above with a huge jump in notes and the use of falsetto, and you see I picked a doozy to cover.  I decided to be a bit more forgiving of myself in the mistake department, so you may spot a couple of misfingerings here and there.  To me it does not detract from the flow or the overall feel of the song in any way.

I recorded this song in the same session as the previous cover, and I had also attempted to record another song for a future session, but after this song I was just plum out of energy.  That was ok – that cover still showed up on Tuesday!

The next posts brought our regularly scheduled Jim Fusco acoustic cover, and then Chris Moore made Monday a bit less manic.  For me, i’m just gonna “glide” on upstairs to beat my wife in a game of Gin Rummy!

Until then…

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!

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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 origianal 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!

More Laptop Sessions covers

The BEST VOCAL PERFORMANCES of 2011 (The Year-End Awards)

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By Chris Moore:

This is a tough category.  All of the songs on the my upcoming top fifty songs list have excellent vocals, many of which are standout performances.  However, there are also songs that go unrecognized on the top fifty list that are notable for their outstanding vocals.  Thus, as a rule, songs included in the top fifty list are not considered here.

I suppose you could consider this my way of sneaking in an extra ten songs that I didn’t find room for on my best songs list, but I hope you’ll consider it an additional category.  These ten songs are great in their own rights, but especially by virtue of the excellence of their vocals.  Some are smooth, some are rough; some are passionately outraged, some are tenderly heartfelt.  Taken together, they’re the standout vocal performances of 2011:

1) “Something to Believe In” – Parachute (The Way It Was)

2) “Estate Sale Sign” – The Mountain Goats (All Eternals Deck)

3) “Blue Spotted Tail” – Fleet Foxes (Helplessness Blues)

4) “Shakin’ All Over” – Wanda Jackson (The Party Ain’t Over)

5) “2012” – The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger (La Carotte Bleue)

6) “When You Wish Upon A Star” – Brian Wilson (In the Key of Disney)

7) “Talking At The Same Time” – Tom Waits (Bad As Me)

8 ) “Sunloathe” – Wilco (The Whole Love)

9) “Bridge Burning” – Foo Fighters (Wasting Light)

10) “Amy, I” – Jack’s Mannequin (People And Things)

 

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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