By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to your Saturday session of the best acoustic rock cover song blog on the web today!  This is actually a combination of my favorite type of post (a brand-new song) and Jim’s favorite type of post (a new artist to the music blog)…  The Pretenders’ “The Last Ride.”  This is a brand-new song from their 2008 album Break Up The Concrete.

I’m not really a big Pretenders fan, but I’m on this big new albums kick for 2008, so I figured I would try out their new album this year.  It’s called Break Up The Concrete and it’s actually pretty good — I especially liked the “First Edition” packaging, which included a piece of paper with the title of the album and name of the band on it.  But it wasn’t just a piece of paper to highlight the specifics; it has instructions on it to dampen it with water, plant it in the ground, and wait for it to grow a plant.  I like this as a piece of the theme of the album — to break up the concrete could include planting new and natural things that, when they grow, break through the man-made pavement. In fact, the back of the album is a picture of a flower.  Most artists include bonus tracks or music videos, but a seed patch… that’s original!

I’ve only heard this song about three or four times, but I decided that this was the one for me to record from this new Pretenders album.  To be honest, I don’t really know any Pretenders songs, but I’ve definitely heard of them.  I think I have a song of theirs on one of my “80s greatest hits” albums.  Let me go check…

And I’m back — I knew I’d heard of them.  The Pretenders had a hit with “Back on the Chain Gang” in the early 1980s.  I first heard this song when I was a senior in high school, trying to learn all the big periods of American pop music.  There was always something about Chrissie Hynde’s voice that I really liked.

Now, is Break Up The Concrete the best album of the year?  No.  But I’ve found it really interesting adding them to my collection this year.  They’ve got an upbeat sound and, if that wasn’t enough, they’ve got my favorite drummer of all time… also known as the fifth Traveling Wilbury… Jim Keltner!  I’m on my way now to do some research on the Pretenders, but their drummer on the new album is indeed Keltner, a drummer who’s not only played with the Wilburys, but has also been a session drummer for such rock acts as Bob Dylan.

As you’re watching the video, you might notice that there’s a blue flash every so often.  That’s the menu of “Mission Impossible III,” which I rented tonight, thanks to the Jimmy Fund promotion at Burger King.  I donated money to the fund and got a scratch off ticket that ended up being a free rental at Blockbuster video.  So a special thanks goes out to Blockbuster — whose ever-increasing rental fees have discouraged me from renting recently — for participating in this worthy cause.  I absolutely loved the first “Mission Impossible” and found the second to be pedestrian at best.  Now, I’m half way through the third installment and loving it.  I had to stop it at 1:03:51, as it’s good enough to be very distracting to me as I type this most recent post on the best acoustic cover song music blog in the universe… the Laptop Sessions!  It was a really cool feeling, coming home tonight and knowing I had to record a session.  I translated and posted the chords to “The Last Ride” earlier this afternoon, and I was really excited to be one of the first people in the world to record a cover of a song from the new album.

What a cool project this session-a-day is…  I realize it’s really annoying and tedious at times.  But, at the end of 2008, Jim, Jeff, and I will have posted 366 (leap year!) videos this year.  What other musicians are as ambitious?  If you haven’t already, you need to check out Jeff’s album at the Fusco-Moore Store (one of the best of the year — and, trust me, I can judge this, as I’ve bought something like 20 new albums this year) and stay tuned for Jim’s best album yet, to be released some time soon; probably early 2009…

Well, that’s it for now.  The last thing I want to mention is how much I’ve been into Wilco and the Counting Crows recently.  They’re both great 90s bands, and I’ll certainly be posting acoustic cover songs from them soon.  But, for now, the focus is on new additions to the blog — I hope you enjoy the first Pretenders song on this music blog — come back tomorrow and the next day for Jeff and Jim.  I’ll see you again on Tuesday…

See you next session!