Welcome to your late edition of Thumpin’ Thursday! A day that is so awesome that it can only come once per week, otherwise the unexplained will occur.
No, I don’t understand it either, but I forget what I was going for there…
I must have Amnesia.
Wait! I do! It’s the song from Toad the Wet Sprocket’s final album “Coil” called “Amnesia!”
Excuse me while I walk to the door that you’ve inevitably sent me too…
Ok i’m back. The song and band were one of my favorite “I seem to be the only one who has heard of this album” records from my childhood. I’m glad that with my higher understanding of guitar and music, that I can finally play some of the songs from this album because they are among my favorites.
This song is well suited for guitar and really comes out nicely on the sessions format. This is another take 1 as well, which is always a good thing.
I’m so excited that in about 36 hours, I will be at Jim’s wedding, which I know him and Becky are very excited and nervous about (well, at least I think so on the latter). It should be a blast and I look forward to it. I also can’t wait to hear what brother Mike will divulge about the Notorious J.I.M.
Ok that’s it for this evening.
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!
I would like to wish all of you a Happy Mother’s Day out there, and I would like to thank you for taking time out of your day to visit www.guitarbucketlist.com. I am proud to introduce another specialty week, and it is “Album Starter Week”. All this week (except Wednesday of course) we will be playing songs that are album openers. A good album knows how to draw a listener in, so you know bands always want the first song to be a real good one.
We will kick off album starter week with another song by U2. One of their most famous albums is “The Joshua Tree” and the song “Where the Streets Have No Name” is the perfect opener. It has a long fade-in with a nifty lead guitar by Edge. It does exactly what it is supposed to do.
I really enjoyed playing this session and I really feel this is a great solid cover. Again, I comment about Bono’s vocal range and how I have to strain my voice a bit to hit some of the notes Bono can hit regularly. Still, it is a “live” cover and I think with all things considered, I sing my heart out on this one.
I chose to close the song with the chords rather than the lead guitar because I thought that it sounded “empty” without the bass backing that the album version has. It works quite well though so I have no complaints.
I also did this song in one take, and it is the 4th Laptop Session in a row that I have completed in a single take.
Well anyway, Happy Mother’s Day to everyone out there. Make sure you check back EVERY DAY to see the songs we have selected for Album Starter Week.
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 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… 🙂
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?
