Tag Archives: laptop

“Peacemaker” (Green Day Cover)

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For Green Day chords, tabs, and lyrics, click HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to your all-new Monday edition of the Laptop Sessions.  It’s been a while since I’ve featured a recently released song, so I’m going to put an end to that right now.

Tonight, I present to you “Peacemaker,” a track from Green Day’s 2009 album 21st Century Breakdown.  This is perhaps my quickest turnaround time from the release of a song to the recorded Laptop Session, as this album just hit the record store racks on Saturday.  I don’t know why Green Day opted for a “special Saturday release,” but it was kind of cool to have something brand new (and on sale!) on the shelves when I was browsing Newbury Comics this weekend.

What is my take on the album, you might ask?  Well, it DID knock Bob Dylan’s Together Through Life out of the number one spot in the UK, but I suppose I can overlook that…

Seriously, I don’t really know why I keep buying Green Day records.  One of my favorite lines from the movie Fracture is when a doctor asks the Ryan Gosling character, “Do you always keep asking the same question until you get a different answer?”  He responds, “I’m a lawyer.  That’s what I do.”  In this case, I’ve never been a fan of the band.  I liked early hits like “When I Come Around,” but I couldn’t get into their acclaimed album Dookie.  I’ve never really given it a fair shake, so it has ended up back in my “To Be Listened To” pile (currently housed in my Best Buy-exclusive Together Through Life crate — thank you, Mike!).

I finally picked up their 2004 album American Idiot after recommendations from several friends and critical acclaim from multiple music magazines, but I have yet to get into that album, as well.  I have consistently found it somehow too blunt.  Even the songs that I like — yes, mostly the overplayed radio hits — strike me as too formulated, too stamped out for the enjoyment of the average mainstream listener.  Who knows; perhaps someday I’ll be able to break the code of this concept album.

That is indeed why I picked up this latest installment in the Green Day catalog: it’s a concept album based loosely around the story of two characters named Christian and Gloria.  As with American Idiot, I much prefer to pay attention to the thematic threads.  Now, whereas in the 2004 album I have never been able to appreciate the lyrics, I have found several tracks on this new album that I like for several reasons — the lyrics, the overall instrumental sound, and Billie Joe Armstrong’s vocals.  Not to sound even more critical or anything, but Armstrong’s vocals on American Idiot have a tendency to get on my nerves.  That being said, he plays with his range and style in several different ways on this album.  Some songs are stripped down to basic piano or acoustic, and some songs are layered from top to bottom with spot-on vocal harmonies and distortion guitar blasts.  From start to finish, the album generally knows when to slow it down and when to kick it up a notch.

I have only heard the album three times in full, so I should reserve any final opinions for the future.  What I do know is that I like this concept album much more than American Idiot, from the sound all the way down to the album art.  Like their previous album, the cover artwork and liner notes are beautiful, carefully designed pages that feature the handwritten lyrics and various background designs.  If nothing else, this is a band that tries really hard to create an album that works as a whole.  And, after five years since their last album — more time between releases than ever before — they’ve certainly had enough time to perfect this one!

Without further ado, I’ll let you move on to my cover song music video of “Peacemaker.”  This is sure to be one of Jim’s favorite sessions of the year, so it may be difficult to outdo myself next week.  And yet, I suppose I’ll just have to try… 🙂

See you next session!

“Bob Dylan’s Dream” (Bob Dylan Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Thanks for coming to the best acoustic cover song music blog on the Internet!  Today, our featured cover is “Bob Dylan’s Dream.”  Bob Dylan, believe it or not, is the original songwriter.  Who would have guessed?  Well, I guess anyone could have…

This song was originally released on Dylan’s early folk album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and it is what you would call a deep track, as it was never a hit, no one that I know of ever covered it for an album, and it never appeared on any live compilations.  At least, not official ones.  But, regardless of how little attention it has received, I think that it is a perfect candidate for the Laptop Sessions treatment.  First, it’s originally acoustic, recorded once as a “live-in-the-studio” recording, which makes it easily translatable to an acoustic cover song.  Second, it has a really nostalgic feel to it.  By nostalgic, I don’t mean that it sounds like an oldtime song or anything like that.  Rather, I mean that it really makes you think about your own “first friends” — those people that you spent your youth with, engaged in simple activities that brought indescribable happiness.

Well, those “first friends” very rarely make it into your future.  And while it’s always nice to look back and remember them, it can be very sad to think about the exits they took from your life.  Like Bob Dylan, I would pay a good deal of money to go sit “simply in that room again.”  But you can never go back…

…you can only write and sing songs like this one that describe the feeling!  Another thing I love about the song is that it starts off with the line, “While riding on a train going west…”  It gives the feeling of someone nodding off as a train barrels on down the tracks, and as that person just drifts off, these memories of his life come rushing back to him.  I think that’s a great way to start the song.

While this is certainly not my first Bob Dylan cover song — it’s one of many Bob Dylan songs I’ve learned and performed — it is one of the few that I haven’t known for years.  Many times, when I record a Dylan music video, I just dig back to a song that I used to play all the time and re-learn it.  This song was new to my acoustic cover song repetoire, so it was really fun to learn it.  And, of course, a little harmonica on a Dylan song goes a long way…

I hope that you’ve been noticing and enjoying all of the changes and additions to the blog these past few days.  The home page has been rearranged a bit to make it easier for newcomers and longstanding fans alike to find the band categories and search for their favorite material.  In addition, the first seven volumes of the new and improved Laptop Sessions FREE MP3 albums are avaiable in the left column.  Finally, last week saw the addition of a truckload of new live music from the Fusco-Moore team.  All you need to do now is go to the Fusco-Moore Store and choose which concert you want to listen to — some music is FREE and some is avaiable for a low, low price.  I really hope you’ll go over and check it out.  We really worked hard to make some quality sets, and it’s interesting to be able to look back now.  Well, listen back — there’s no video, but it’s really the sound that matters, right?

That’s it for me for now, but don’t forget to hurry back tomorrow for another all-new acoustic cover song music video from our very own Jeff Copperthite.

See you next session!



“The Last Ride” (The Pretenders Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to your Saturday session of the best acoustic rock cover song blog on the web today!  This is actually a combination of my favorite type of post (a brand-new song) and Jim’s favorite type of post (a new artist to the music blog)…  The Pretenders’ “The Last Ride.”  This is a brand-new song from their 2008 album Break Up The Concrete.

I’m not really a big Pretenders fan, but I’m on this big new albums kick for 2008, so I figured I would try out their new album this year.  It’s called Break Up The Concrete and it’s actually pretty good — I especially liked the “First Edition” packaging, which included a piece of paper with the title of the album and name of the band on it.  But it wasn’t just a piece of paper to highlight the specifics; it has instructions on it to dampen it with water, plant it in the ground, and wait for it to grow a plant.  I like this as a piece of the theme of the album — to break up the concrete could include planting new and natural things that, when they grow, break through the man-made pavement. In fact, the back of the album is a picture of a flower.  Most artists include bonus tracks or music videos, but a seed patch… that’s original!

I’ve only heard this song about three or four times, but I decided that this was the one for me to record from this new Pretenders album.  To be honest, I don’t really know any Pretenders songs, but I’ve definitely heard of them.  I think I have a song of theirs on one of my “80s greatest hits” albums.  Let me go check…

And I’m back — I knew I’d heard of them.  The Pretenders had a hit with “Back on the Chain Gang” in the early 1980s.  I first heard this song when I was a senior in high school, trying to learn all the big periods of American pop music.  There was always something about Chrissie Hynde’s voice that I really liked.

Now, is Break Up The Concrete the best album of the year?  No.  But I’ve found it really interesting adding them to my collection this year.  They’ve got an upbeat sound and, if that wasn’t enough, they’ve got my favorite drummer of all time… also known as the fifth Traveling Wilbury… Jim Keltner!  I’m on my way now to do some research on the Pretenders, but their drummer on the new album is indeed Keltner, a drummer who’s not only played with the Wilburys, but has also been a session drummer for such rock acts as Bob Dylan.

As you’re watching the video, you might notice that there’s a blue flash every so often.  That’s the menu of “Mission Impossible III,” which I rented tonight, thanks to the Jimmy Fund promotion at Burger King.  I donated money to the fund and got a scratch off ticket that ended up being a free rental at Blockbuster video.  So a special thanks goes out to Blockbuster — whose ever-increasing rental fees have discouraged me from renting recently — for participating in this worthy cause.  I absolutely loved the first “Mission Impossible” and found the second to be pedestrian at best.  Now, I’m half way through the third installment and loving it.  I had to stop it at 1:03:51, as it’s good enough to be very distracting to me as I type this most recent post on the best acoustic cover song music blog in the universe… the Laptop Sessions!  It was a really cool feeling, coming home tonight and knowing I had to record a session.  I translated and posted the chords to “The Last Ride” earlier this afternoon, and I was really excited to be one of the first people in the world to record a cover of a song from the new album.

What a cool project this session-a-day is…  I realize it’s really annoying and tedious at times.  But, at the end of 2008, Jim, Jeff, and I will have posted 366 (leap year!) videos this year.  What other musicians are as ambitious?  If you haven’t already, you need to check out Jeff’s album at the Fusco-Moore Store (one of the best of the year — and, trust me, I can judge this, as I’ve bought something like 20 new albums this year) and stay tuned for Jim’s best album yet, to be released some time soon; probably early 2009…

Well, that’s it for now.  The last thing I want to mention is how much I’ve been into Wilco and the Counting Crows recently.  They’re both great 90s bands, and I’ll certainly be posting acoustic cover songs from them soon.  But, for now, the focus is on new additions to the blog — I hope you enjoy the first Pretenders song on this music blog — come back tomorrow and the next day for Jeff and Jim.  I’ll see you again on Tuesday…

See you next session!

“I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” (Wilco Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

It’s no secret that I’ve been going through a Wilco phase recently.  And, by phase, I mean that I wasn’t really familiar with the band until a couple months ago.  I had read about the band a bit in music magazines, and I had read quotes by band frontman Jeff Tweedy, which I generally found interesting.  So, I finally found a copy of their critically acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album and decided to give it a spin.

And instantly loved it.

Ever since, I’ve been listening to alot of other music, but I’ve gone back to Wilco every time.  In the past two months, I’ve gone on an odyssey to discover as much about them as possible.  This has involved reading Wikipedia posts, skimming music magazines, and browsing through numerous CD store racks and used album bins.  In the process, I’ve found affordable copies of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot‘s predecessor, Summerteeth (which is the origin of the song I just added to the members-only section, which you should definitely check out soon!), and their first album, A.M.

Now, it’s not that Wilco is my new favorite band of all-time, by any means.  But there is a certain excitement that accompanies fresh territory, striking out into a land that is unusual and can present unexpected ideas, sounds, etc.  For instance, I learned all about Uncle Tupelo — a band I had heard OF but had never actually HEARD — because Uncle Tupelo, minus one member, became the first incarnation of Wilco.

But, I guess that’s a story for another time.

Suffice it to say that Uncle Tupelo is credited with founding the “alt-country” genre that I didn’t even know existed until recently.  As Tweedy progressed, he became more and more experimental with his music, particularly after the first couple Wilco albums.  He seems like an interesting musical figure to me, as he embodies that rock songwriter ideal; he has made some great music, and from many reports, he can be a bit of a jerk.  For instance, members of Wilco have been essentially summarily dismissed to make way for new musicians with new sounds to bring to the process.  While this may not make for pleasant interpersonal relationships, it has certainly made for some interesting musical variations and evolution in the band.

When I think of this song and this album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, in particular, I am reminded, to a degree, of some of the classic albums that have initially been criticized or even rejected by record company executives.  In this case, the hype surrounding the making of the album seems to have only aided and increased its eventual popularity.  Essentially, as Wilco recorded this album, but the powers-that-be needed to make some cuts at the label, so they released the band.  There are several conflicting stories, but the end result is that Wilco got to keep the recordings and rights to the then-new material, going on to another division of Warner Bros. to officially produce and release the album.  This caused a bit of a stir in the record industry at the time — particularly the public perception of the label’s treatment of this fairly longstanding act — and even though I wasn’t nearly as interested in music industry news as I am now, I remember something about this at the time.

The track I chose for tonight is the opening song, “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.”  For better or worse, my version does not do justice to the studio version, which you should definitely listen to; for that matter, you should definitely listen to the album!  But, when I discovered that Jeff Tweedy does an acoustic version of this song in his acoustic sets, I couldn’t resist.  It’s a great song that sets the tone remarkably well for the album to follow.

I hope you enjoy my version and that you hurry back in the next couple days for Jeff and Jim.

See you next session!