Tag Archives: music videos

Ranking every Beach Boys album and song: “Surfin’ USA” LP (by Songwriter Jim Fusco)

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By Jim Fusco:

ALBUM – SURFIN’ USA

Farmer’s Daughter – 6 (early promising song)
Surfin’ USA – 6 (catchy, but also a stolen melody, so it loses some points)
Lana – 5
Lonely Sea – 7
Shut Down – 7 (this is a great bluesy song)
Finders Keepers – 6 (endearing)
Let’s Go Trippin’ – 4 (filler)
Stoked – 3 (see last song)
Misirlou – 2 (because at this point in the album, I am sick of instrumentals!)
Noble Surfer – 6
Honky Tonk – 1 (why all the instrumentals!!)
*The Baker Man – 1 (probably the most ridiculous song they did next to Ding Dang)
Surf Jam – 1 (we get the idea)

** Here’s another album I like, but I think it’s a step back from their first. I know they were trying to make music people could dance to at parties, but the instrumentals don’t stand up now. They come across as a lack of effort. They have so much vocal talent- it’s a shame there’s not more songs with vocals! **

“Love Stinks” (J. Geils Band Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

I get to kick off a specialty week here on guitarbucketlist.com.  If Jim & Chris haven’t hyped it up enough, it’s New Bands Week version 2.0 starting tonight!

Our first new band is, to be honest, a band I don’t know all that much about.  Matter of fact, I didn’t even know this song was by this band until it was played on The Complaining Show on WCJM way back when.  It was also featured prominently in the movie “The Wedding Singer” before Adam Sandler had his lights punched out.

I think I don’t match the voice of John (not Jerome) Geils that well, but the acoustic cover is an interesting one for sure.

Hey, it was either this or “Freeze Frame”.

This is probably among the more interesting songs I have covered.  Hopefully the rest of the year my song selection will start to make sense much more often.

Tomorrow Jim will be here to bring another new band to the table.  I can’t wait to see who it is!

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!

“Little Sadie” (Bob Dylan Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Okay, it’s time to separate the Dylan fans from the fanatics… If you’re familiar with this song, you’re probably in the latter category. For your pleasure (I hope), I decided to record “Little Sadie,” a very simple but fun song from Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait album. This is, of course, not to be confused with “In Search of Little Sadie,” the song two tracks earlier on the album with essentially the same lyrics but a different arrangement. Now, Dylan is known for never performing a song the same way twice, but he doesn’t usually record two different versions on the same album…

I know that Self Portrait is considered perhaps his weakest and most disappointing album (aside from Dylan, which wasn’t even released on CD!), but I’ve always loved the simple and soothing feel of the recordings. True, some are throw-aways, but I actually recorded my very first Laptop Session last year with “Living the Blues.” He does a couple great covers — Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Mornin’ Rain,” for instance. His cover of Paul Simon’s “The Boxer” is just about the only recording I’ve ever heard where he double-tracks his voice. If you listen carefully, it sounds like one voice is the gruff Dylan and one voice is the “Lay Lady Lay” Dylan. Interesting…

Without further ado, I really hope you enjoy this song and please rate and/or comment on it!

Check back tomorrow at https://guitarbucketlist.com for another great all-new session from Jeff!

“Mother” (Pink Floyd Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening and welcome to your Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions. Today, as promised, I bring you another installment, and one from Pink Floyd. This comes by request from Dave – thanks Dave, now my vocal cords hurt.

Not because the vocals are high, which is usually what could cause some strain to a voice. This song has quite a low register through most of the song. It is something i’m not used to dealing with. The song is “Mother” from their album “The Wall” – same album as last Monday, but different disc.

This song has some solid lyrics and at the time of songwriting for “Expressions”, the song “Independence” was influenced by this song somewhat. The guitar part is easy-going and not that difficult to play. The band also threw in some subtle time signature changes in the song – see how many you can spot.

As mentioned, ow, my voice. It took me approximately 15 takes to make it through the song. Near the end I came in late on an “ooo”, but since I was so close to the end, I decided I had expended my voice enough, and to keep chugging.

On Wednesday, I will be bringing Original Wednesday your way, and I will be tapping into Jim Fusco’s library again. I had a song in mind from my own library (a new one), but I want to clean it up before I do it for Original Wednesday. So in 3 weeks 3 days, you’ll hopefully see that one.

Come back tomorrow for a new Jim Fusco acoustic cover song!

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!