Tag Archives: new rock music

“That Was Then, This Is Now” (Monkees Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Saturday dose of The Laptop Sessions, brought to you by me, Jim Fusco!

Today, I’m doing a fairly-unknown song that’s technically only by Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork, but billed as the Monkees. This song was on their first greatest hits CD in the late eighties and actually continues to make appearances on “Best Of” albums. I love this song and I’ve known it for many years now. Actually, the Monkees were my favorite band before I found out about the Beach Boys. I LOVED that Monkees Greatest Hits CD when I was like 4, and I find that I still love all the songs today.

They didn’t write this song, but in a few weeks, I’ll be putting another Monkees song that they did write (by Michael Nesmith) on https://guitarbucketlist.com .

We also did a radio show on our free internet radio station, WCJM Internet Radio at http://wcjm.com , called the “That Was Then, This Is Now” Show. This show not only featured this song, but also featured songs (and comedy skits) that give a look at bands both then and now.

I think this Session may fall under the same category that my most famous, “I’m So Lonely”, video falls under: the over-produced and way-too-eighties-sounding songs that I took and made into an acoustic song. These versions always tend to come out the best because you can just LISTEN to the real song and cut through the production.

That’s why I’m always a big fan of people that use production to make the song the best it can sound, but not just “make” the song. That’s why Brian Wilson is so great: he wrote (and writes) great songs, then uses the production to make them shine even better. But, they’d still be great songs without all the instrumentation, which is what I try to prove with these cover songs on the Laptop Sessions.

On a slightly different note, I think it’s obvious by now that we’re doing all of these cover songs because we’re songwriters and the only way we can think of people showing interest in our original music is to play other people’s songs right along with it. I figure, if you like the same songs I like and I write similar songs to the songs I like (in general, of course), you’ll like my music by the transitive property!

With that said, I hope you’re checking out our weekly “Original Wednesday” songs and going to my original music website at jimfusco.com. We have some pretty great stuff- we’re not looking to make a fortune, although we are looking for people to pay….attention!!

Thanks for watching today’s Laptop Session and stay tuned for Chris’ new song tomorrow!

“Worlds Apart” (Original Wednesday Song by Co-Songwriter Jim Fusco)

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By Jim Fusco:

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!

“Take Your Mama” (Scissor Sisters Cover)

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Welcome, welcome to another Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

Yes, yet another new band to the series tonight: Scissor Sisters!

We’re very happy to add this band to the Sessions because I’m not into too many newer bands, and I finally get a chance to get a shot at a newer band.

This band is very interesting to me- some of their songs, like “Mary”, are so amazing. But then, you get other songs that are so crazy techno that I can’t get into them.

But this song single-handedly got me into the Scissor Sisters and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do a cover song from them.

Stay tuned- many new bands to come in the next few weeks and make sure to come back tomorrow y’all for another great acoustic cover song from Chris Moore and the Laptop Sessions!

“It’s Now or Never” (Elvis Presley Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions, which is gaining popularity in leaps and bounds!

We’ve had visitors in 12 countries and 18 states within the past 4 days alone!

Tonight, I finally give you an Elvis Presley song, “It’s Now Or Never”. This is a great, classic tune- originally an Italian song.

This was a fun one, especially because it’s out of the normal rock style we do here on the Laptop Sessions.

It’s great to add Elvis to the repertoire, and we’ll be doing many of his songs from now on. Enjoy and see you tomorrow!