Another Wednesday means another new original song acoustic music video here on the Laptop Sessions music video blog! The site is more popular than ever and I’m very happy to have my new original music featured in front of so many eyes and ears.
In the midst of working an eight hour day and another almost full-time night job, I got a minute to record this video. I’ve been working on my new album, “Halfway There” for almost two years now and it’s been a whole four years since my last effort. Well, we did have a band in the middle there, so that’s where all of my creativity went for a couple years.
This song actually branches off of that sentiment. The band was a great idea in theory. We were even great on stage. But, when everyone in the band is close to each other friend-wise, then it makes it really difficult to mix work with it. If I had met the other band members at a job somewhere, it probably would’ve worked out better. Tonight’s original song is one that tells the story of the night that signaled the end of the band as we knew it.
I’m not angry. I’m a bit more ashamed, as I say in the song. I really wanted the band to work, but realized it wasn’t working and really couldn’t work with the personell we had. I felt ashamed because I always finish what I start and never got that satisfaction with the band. We even released an album that was credited to the band last year, but in actuality, it was a compilation of what each member was doing at the time. When I think of what might have been…
On my new album, this song is probably the most rockin’ out of the 11 tracks. It’s short, but there’s a pretty cool guitar solo in there that always makes people’s eyes light up whenever I play it for them. I guess they never pegged me as the Guitar Hero type. Well, it’s off to work for the rest of the night- I hope you enjoy tonight’s video. I still want to remix and remaster four songs because I want this one to be as near-perfect as I can get it. See you then!
Hello and welcome to my first Original Wednesday since Christmas Eve! This is an exciting week for me, as I’m off from work. There have been plenty of things to keep me busy — really, too many to list — but I woke up this morning and, despite the work I should be doing, I decided to work out this song and record it for tonight’s session.
The song is called “Transitions” and this is a Laptop Sessions world premiere. It may make it to my next album, it may not… Only time will tell! I hope you like it. This is the first fully recorded version of it, so it’s a demo of sorts. It’s not perfectly arranged yet, to be sure, but I’m pretty happy with the overall structure of it. Some of the words may change, some of the rough edges will be smoothed out, but this is your sneak peak at the first complete version of it. I messed around with the harmonica even after I finished recording this video, and I have to say that this song has (and/or will have) one of my favorite harmonica parts that I’ve written in a very long time. It’s a very deliberate aspect, but not so note-for-note that it sounds scripted.
Outside of writing and recording this song, I’ve been busy during my February break with some grading for my classes, jury duty yesterday (I was released after “a day’s service”), preparing logs for my BEST portfolio, reading three things (Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pro Wrestling, and the 40-page booklet to the Sam Jones film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart), and listening to several albums, including MoU’s Homestead’s Revenge (I think “Worlds Apart” is my favorite song we’ve ever done!), Pearl Jam’s Binaural, and Dan Auerbach’s Keep It Hid. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention my favorite playlist that I referred to in Monday’s post — the “Albums of 2008” iTunes playlist. Good stuff all around…
We’ve gotten a decent number of views to the blog for the chords and cover video of Dan Auerbach’s “My Last Mistake.” That’s exciting because I wasn’t sure what to expect with this fairly obscure song choice. It’s all the more incentive for me to keep on top of new rock music, bringing whatever I can to the blog as my contribution to this, the best acoustic cover song blog in the universe! No kidding!
Okay, that’s it for me for this week. But, even as I write that, I’ll be back to choose and post a Guest Session for Friday. We’re accepting submissions every day, so don’t wait — record a video on YouTube and send the link to us today with an interesting description.
Welcome to my first Original Wednesday original acoustic song music video for the year 2009! It’s Jim Fusco here with a great song that we chose to kick-off our (and by “our”, I mean the band Masters of the Universe, or MoU) second album, “Homestead’s Revenge”. The song is “Only A Dream” and it’s a chorus I wrote the tune to, but never did anything else with.
I remember the day very vividly. It was one of our band songwriting sessions and I remember finally fleshing-out the chorus with the help of Chris, Mike, Becky, and Cliff. Then, I ran over to the piano and started to work out chord progressions for the verses. I came up with the very interesting Em7 to Bm chord progression and I really love the tune that goes along with it. I remember sitting there working and hearing Becky and Chris deciding on words to go into the chorus of the song.
I took my ideas over to the rest of the band and we worked out the words. We came up with this image of a man in a jail cell. The conversation went something like this: “How about a man locked in a jail cell that’s dreaming about getting out?” “Oh yeah- like he’s locked in there!” “Okay, let’s see- ‘Locked in solitary confinement…’” “No, that doesn’t work with the tune…” “Locked in solidarity…” “That doesn’t make sense, though.” “Oh, but it does! The guy is locked up AND he’s all alone!” “Perfect!”
And that’s how the writing session went- we scrutinized everything but were able to paint a very realistic image of the idea we were getting across. Why don’t you just listen and find out what that message is?
I also remember Mike returning from the back room, playing his middle-8. I love that part of the song and it leads right back into the chorus very well. He did that on “These Streets” from the same album. The lyrics are great on the middle-8 to “These Streets”- we were thinking about that kind of great fast-paced life you think you have in high school and threw in, “Live like it’s 1999,” because I was a freshman/sophomore in 1999.
Also, I was very excited when we all did the vocals. On the original (which you can hear by going to MoU’s Official Website), you’ll hear double-tracked vocals from each of the five members of the band on the choruses and backgrounds, PLUS the lead vocals.
Some fun facts: Chris, Cliff, Mike, and I recorded our vocals together and we dubbed Becky’s much softer voice later on two other tracks so I could handle it better in the mix. It isn’t easy blending a female voice into four other male voices. But, my voice must not be too far off from a female’s voice, which made it easier to mix. Why do I say that? Well, on the middle-8, you’ll hear the backing vocals come in. I love that part. Well, on that section, Becky doesn’t sing- it’s just Mike’s lead, then Mike, Chris, Cliff, and I on backing vocals. I sang the high part (doing my best Becky impression) because we seamlessly wove the backing vocals around Mike’s lead, allowing us to use only four other backing vocal harmony parts. I remember doing those backing vocals that night with the boys and we were all so incredibly excited. After we finished each good take, we’d get so stoked about it. The greatest backing vocals I think I’ve ever heard are during the second half of the second verse. The way that some of the vocals move around and some stay the same…it’s really a stroke of genius on my part! 🙂 Want to hear just the vocals-only section? Click HERE and you’ll go to the Albums page on the MoU website. The clip of only the vocals from that section will play in the background. Click around to the other pages on the site and you’ll hear more rare vocals-only clips from the album!
Well, I hope you enjoy this great original song. It was truly a collaborative effort- a great, catchy song- that was the perfect album-starter. Until next Tuesday, I hope you have a great week. Make sure to come back tomorrow for your Jeff Copperthite Thumpin’ Thursday acoustic cover song music video!
Welcome to Original Wednesday here at the Laptop Sessions! It only comes but once every three weeks for me, so you know I’m going to make it a good one.
Tonight, I bring you an original song I wrote with the help of my fellow MoU (at http://jimfusco.com/albums.html ) bandmates for our latest album, “Homestead’s Revenge”. The album is GREAT, and you can listen to the whole thing for free on our website.
This song is track two off the album and follows a very interesting pattern. You might notice that the verse never comes back after the first round. It just has the chorus and middle instrumental parts play again and again. You almost don’t even notice it only has that one full verse until you stop and think about it.
I recorded this video last night. That is, I recorded this video BEFORE I made my huge discoveries pertaining to my original and cover songs videos.
First, I found a great program called iGlasses that allows me to manually control the iSight camera in my Macbook. It’s about time- I can’t stand when the camera just decides, “You know what, why don’t I just make it a lot darker for no reason?” Now, I’ll be able to control the exposure and brightness (plus white balance and color controls) BEFORE I record the video. This will save me time and, as we video professionals know, will make the end-result a lot nicer looking. It’s much more difficult to fix something in post-production than it is to do it right the first time around.
Second, I finally got my ZOOM H2 to record at the same time my iSight camera does!! You see, iMovie HD doesn’t give you the option to record using a different audio source. It just says “Record with iSight”.
Well, I went out to the main Apple preferences, switched the input in there, and presto- crystal clear sound without that incessantly loud fan noise that comes from the laptop.
But again, this was all learned AFTER I recorded the videos you’ll see from me for about the next month. BUT, at least we know great looking AND sounding video for me is on the horizon.
And the best part? I don’t have to do any extra work! 🙂
Thanks for watching and keep spreading the word about our great acoustic cover songs and original music!
