Hello and welcome to my first true Laptop Session in quite a while — since December, to be specific, when I covered the Goo Goo Dolls song “Laughing.” Well, I’m back today with an original song from my new album, The 2010 Project, which was released just a couple weeks ago. In fact, the day after my album hit the web for download, Mike Fusco (who mixed and produced it) and I went to see the Goo Goo Dolls. This was our second time seeing them — and I won’t repeat what I wrote about them back in December — but suffice it to say that it was exciting going to see a band with so many anthemic songs, a group that can create such energy and drive the audience so masterfully. And look like they’re having the time of their lives on stage.
We left the concert revved up: proud of the project we had just completed the day before and excited for new music to come.
So, now that a couple weeks have passed and I’ve had the opportunity to play The 2010 Project songs live again, thinking of them as whole songs to perform rather than in pieces (as I did during the recording sessions), I had the itch to return to the Laptop Sessions and debut those songs that haven’t been seen and heard here yet.
This is the second track on the album, “Threshold,” and one which stands out from the rest for the fast delivery during the verses and the statement of purpose in the chorus that could very well be the thesis statement for the entire album. For this video, I (for obvious reasons) couldn’t include the guitar solo performed on the studio version, so I broke out my “E” harmonica and worked out a simple solo and added some flares to the beginning and end of the performance. It clocks in at under three minutes, and is a good example of the type of music I’m making these days.
And, for those who have heard the demo version, this is a significantly improved arrangement!
I also recorded “You Will Thank Me” as well as the single from the album “It All Comes Around” — those videos are in the archive.
Good evening to you on this Friday. Jeff Copperthite here today with your latest edition of The Laptop Sessions. Today I am bringing you another song from a previously covered band.
From their album “New Miserable Experience” I bring you my acoustic cover video of Gin Blossoms’ hit song “Hey Jealousy”. Again from Colchester, VT (for the last time this year) as you can tell by the background. Acoustics are interesting in the room to say the least. Also, the lighting isn’t the greatest, but I view that as a plus – you don’t have to look at my ugly mug in as much detail!
The song came out fine, although I did time some for the vocals a bit differently than the recording. I also used a capo when I could’ve gotten away with doing it in standard position. However, the song is much much easier to play on 2nd fret capo. I hope you enjoy it.
I would’ve posted earlier but my wife & I attended a casino night in the hotel and came out only down $20 after 3 hours – a win in my book. However, I did miss the thrilling Michael Phelps’ 7th gold medal by .01 seconds on TV.
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!
Chris, Jim, and I are part of an internet radio station called WCJM.com Free Internet Radio, and one of the shows that we did (but currently can’t find) was called the “Get Well Mike” show, because at the time Jim’s brother Mike was sick and we wanted to lift his spirits (this is before the “Ronco automatic face lifter” came into existence) (Note: the preceding joke would only be fully understood by 6 people on this planet – 2 of them write on this blog as well).
Well, the first song on the show was this one, and thus my introduction to this song.
It is a personal favorite of mine, and has helped make the Wallflowers one of my favorite bands. I figured because of this that this song would be the perfect introduction for me into FMP’s “Laptop Sessions” as well.
I think I do the song justice. I had the lyrics on the laptop just in case, but I didn’t need ’em.
This also marks my introduction into video making and on to youtube as well, so if you like it (or hate it), let me know!
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: 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!
For Bob Dylan / Dead Weather chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!
By Chris Moore:
Hello and welcome to yet another delay for the “double header” I promised last week or (technically) two weeks ago. But I have a good reason for holding off! Tonight, I’ve recorded “New Pony,” one of my least favorite Bob Dylan songs, because a brand new cover version was released on last week’s Dead Weather debut album.
First, I’ll give a little background on the original version of the song. “New Pony” was first released on Bob Dylan’s 1978 album Street Legal. To give you a little context here, Dylan had recently released Blood on the Tracks and Desire, arguably two of his best albums. The year 1975 found him fully engaged in the Rolling Thunder Revue along with such artists as Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, poet Allen Ginsberg, and others. Although he temporarily revived a different incarnation of the Revue in 1976, this phase of Dylan’s musical career was pretty much over by 1977.
This is not to say that life wasn’t busy for him. This was right around the time that his marriage to Sara Dylan was breaking down and the divorce proceedings began. A lot — perhaps too much — has been written about these personal aspects.
Street Legal was the product of a few weeks of sessions involving a select group of musicians that Dylan had recently worked with. Although his past two albums had met with critical success and his subsequent album, 1979’s Slow Train Coming, would earn him his first Grammy award, Street Legal has generally been lost in the valley between these two peaks.
Personally, I have always liked this album. Sure, the female background singers come across as a bit cheesy at times (have you heard “Baby, Stop Crying”?) and the instrumentation can be a bit much at times, but there are some great songs. “Changing of the Guards” is one of my favorite album openers and boasts a rare fade-in. “Is Your Love in Vain?” and “True Love Tends to Forget” are fantastic Dylan deep cuts. And “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” is a narrative wrapped in the best, darkest mood you’ve ever felt. (Jerry Garcia recorded a great version of the latter.)
As for “New Pony”? Well, it generally ranks as one of my least favorite Dylan recordings of all time, and certainly on this record. In fact, it’s the very rare track that I may occasionally skip when listening to the album. Why it was placed in the number 2 slot, I’ll never know.
That being said, let’s flash forward to 2009. Last week, the Dead Weather released their debut album, Horehound. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this group, this is a side project band composed of the White Stripes’ Jack White (drums, some vocals, acoustic guitar on one track), the Kills’ Alison Mosshart (lead vocals), Queens of the Stone Age’s Dead Fertita (guitar, etc.), and Jack Lawrence (bass, etc.). I really liked last year’s Raconteurs album (Jack White and Jack Lawrence’s other side project band), so I figured I would give this one a shot as well.
Long review short, I was not as impressed as I had hoped to be. (My one-sentence review is coming shortly!) That being said, the album certainly has its moments, and for me, one of the best moments is track seven when they cover Dylan’s “New Pony.”
This is an excellent example of a band you wouldn’t necessarily think of as being heavily influenced by Bob Dylan turning around and pulling off a stand-up interpretation of one of his songs. After hearing it, I thought that this song fit better on this album than it did on Street Legal. In that sense, I was happy to assign “New Pony” to a better place in my estimation of Dylan’s catalog of songs.
So, without further ado, I submit to you my acoustic rendition of the song as a send-up to the 1978 Dylan version and a tip of the hat to the brand-new 2009 version by the Dead Weather. I found that I was psyched to learn this ridiculously easy (at least chord-wise) song. Anyone who visits the Laptop Sessions on any regular basis knows that I’m no stranger to a Bob Dylan cover song, but I never thought I’d be recording this one.
Well, at least not until I ran out of all the other ones in 2045 or so…
I hope you enjoy this! (I’ve got so much to say about other music and non-music related topics, but I think this is quite enough for one post!)
