Tag Archives: solo

“My Last Mistake” (Dan Auerbach Cover)

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For Dan Auerbach chords/lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to another installment of “Chris Moore Monday.”  It is my priviledge and responsibility to start off each week right, usually with a selection that is in “new music” news.  I figure this is appropriate, since tomorrow is “New Music Tuesday” – what better role is there than to turn you on to great new music?

Okay, so tonight’s song is technically a week old…

Dan Auerbach is better known as one half of the blues rock music group the Black Keys.  The band formed in Ohio in 2001, and in less than a decade, they have accumulated an impressive resume — including opening for Beck and Radiohead, playing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Late Show with David Letterman, and receiving accolades from Rolling Stone such as one of the “10 best acts of 2003.”  Although the band has not broken up, this year has found Dan Auerbach making a name for himself by releasing his very first solo album titled Keep It Hid.  I almost transcribed and played this, the title track, but I couldn’t resist “My Last Mistake,” the subsequent track.  Auerbach might agree with this choice of songs to record and play, as he performed “My Last Mistake” on the Friday, February 13th episode of Conan O’Brien.

So, you may be wondering how I heard of this release.  Well, aside from receiving a coupon for the first-week purchase in my favorite email each week — the Newbury Comics e-newsletter!! — I was tipped off to the release by someone who has his finger on the pulse of all things modern and alternative rock.  (So, thank you again, Geoff!)  He’s the same person who strongly suggested I check out the 2008 albums of Beck and Cold War Kids, both of which I would never have purchased on my own.

And I would have missed out!

Now, they’re not my favorite records of the year, by any means, but there are some killer songs that would have passed me by entirely.  So, hopefully I’ll continue to receive new rock music insight from Newbury Comics, Geoff, and who knows who else!

Speaking of new music, I constructed a fairly impressive “Albums of 2008” iTunes playlist.  It contains 341 songs, ranging from the Barenaked Ladies children’s album to Ben Folds’ album (which was certainly NOT kid-friendly!).  I hadn’t really listened to the playlist since the New Year, but I just turned it on yesterday and fell in love with it again.  I’m listening to it now, and even now, Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” just faded into Brian Wilson’s “Oxygen to the Brain.”  Where else can you find that sort of variety?!  I cling to my playlists and albums these days, as the popular media has only embraced an extremely small and profoundly unrepresentative sample of what modern rock music has to offer.  Take the aforementioned Coldplay, an overrated and — until recently, in this writer’s opinion — mediocre band.  Chris Martin and his band have received more Grammys than all of my favorite bands combined.  No kidding!  Meanwhile, Brian Wilson got a Rolling Stone article for his amazing 2008 album That Lucky Old Sun, and that was all.  I understand that he is older and there perhaps isn’t a market for his music, but I find it sad that more people couldn’t have been exposed to the bright, brilliant, and uplifting rock tunes that pour forth from that album.

Enough ranting for one day’s post…

As a final note, I finally picked up and watched the Sam Jones documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.  I had planned on watching it with Dana last night, but he hadn’t returned home, so I got ready to watch it alone.  Then, Mike texted and sounded interested.  So, before I knew it, Mike had arrived with apple juice and saltines (food for sick people — my personal choice is G2 and wheat toast!) and we cranked up the volume on the big screen.  What a great documentary — not only is the filmography reminiscent of Don’t Look Back, but Jeff Tweedy is looking very Dylan-esque.  Scruffy, bearing harmonica rack, singing poetic lyrics — what more could I ask for?  Also, he seems like he would be a difficult guy to live and/or work with.  But that being said, I like Jeff Tweedy a great deal, and it was really interesting to see him candidly in the studio.  And thanks to Dana and Mike for making last night an event in and of itself — when Jim returns from vacation, I just may have to join them for their late night sessions that I miss so much since I’ve become an “old man” with a wakeup time of 5 or 5:30am…

And now to tie this ALL together…

Wilco switched to Nonesuch records after the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot fiasco (the situation filmed and described in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart), and Dan Auerbach is also on the Nonesuch label.  So, as you see, it all comes full circle…

Don’t miss an all-new Jim Fusco Tuesday tomorrow.  Until then…

See you next session!

“Something Good This Way Comes” (Jakob Dylan Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

And now, I am proud to bring you another great addition to The Laptop Sessions library. While he is technically not a new artist, his solo work is.

Today, Jakob Dylan released his first solo album “Seeing Things”, and to celebrate this release, I have dedicated today’s Laptop Session to this album. I have been very excited about it and can’t wait until amazon ships it to me.

Meanwhile, about 2 days ago I finally figured out how to play today’s song “Something Good This Way Comes”. It is track 8 and has been one of the songs on his website for quite some time. The album is very heavy on the acoustic guitar, and also finger picking. While I’m not new to it, I don’t do it often. Obviously, a single acoustic guitar (where Jakob Dylan is using 4+ in some songs) will not sound as much like the album, but I think this effort is quite good.

Also, you’ll notice the first verse I seem a bit loud. I sorta forgot “gee i’m fingerpicking I better sing a little softer”. The rest of it sounds fine, however.

If you wanna know the chords (relative to 2nd fret Capo), the verse is:

D G D D G D Em D A Em D A

Chorus is: G A D
Bridge is: F#m, Bm, A, D, E, A7

I hope you enjoy today’s session, and I hope you have picked up (or will pick up) “Seeing Things”. I can’t wait to hear the entire album! Come on amazon…

Meanwhile, enjoy today’s session, and come back tomorrow for another Original Song by Jim Fusco! I can’t wait to see what he chooses.

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!

“Opportunities” (Original song by Jim Fusco) – The Open Mic Sessions

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome everyone to another installment of the Open Mic Sessions with Jim Fusco!  Today, I bring you another session from my gig at Sam Ash Music Store in New Haven, CT back on April 3rd, 2013.  I went with my brother Mike while he was visiting home for his birthday.  I remember wanting to go to another venue, but chose Sam Ash because they gave me a $10 gift card just for playing!  Yeah, I go where the “money” is…

Anyway, it gave me an opportunity to play another original song from my 2012 album, “Those Around Us”.  This is one of the faster tracks on the album, “Opportunities”, which features a great drum track from my brother Mike.  As we know, tracks like that are great for pairing-down into the famous “Laptop Sessions” style of performing- just me and an acoustic guitar!

So, I hope you enjoy my original song, “Opportunities”.  Stay tuned as I bring you more of the “Open Mic Sessions” here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs and original music video blog!



“Will It Grow” (Jakob Dylan Cover)

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For Jakob Dylan chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

I hope you enjoy seeing me with hair tonight, because as of Wednesday evening, it’s gone!  That’s right — I’ve decided to shave it all off.  Well, maybe “decided” is a strong word.  One of my colleagues, one who offered a great deal of useful advice during my first year teaching, asked me if I would join an English department team for this year’s “St. Baldrick’s” event.  I couldn’t turn down an opportunity to join in with my fellow English teachers, and as you may know, it isn’t all that often that someone asks me to join a team!  So, off goes the hair in the name of raising money to fight children’s cancer.  I’m currently at the bottom of the list of fundraisers on my team (listed online as $0, although I have raised about $65 from staff and students at school that will be added tomorrow).

If you’re interested in supporting this excellent cause, just CLICK HERE!

So, you may be wondering: what does this have to do with the Laptop Sessions?  Well, the answer should be clear if you read the title of my song choice tonight.  I thought “Will It Grow” would be a fitting question to ask on the eve of my head being shaved.  Of course, Jakob Dylan isn’t referring to hair, but I was able to add a bit more emotion to my interpretation of this track all the same.

“Will It Grow” was released in 2008 on Dylan’s solo album Seeing Things.  Since Jeff recorded “Something Good This Way Comes” prior to its release, I never felt the need to record a track from the album.  To be honest, I wasn’t as impressed with this album as I could have been.  Of all people, I should be able to appreciate a set of good acoustic performances.  That being said, it’s difficult to listen to an all-acoustic album from the front man for the Wallflowers — they’re such an incredible rock band!

Now, almost two years removed, I came back to Seeing Things by chance and thought it was a shame that I had never covered one of the tracks.  Not surprisingly, I found a set of chords online riddled with errors and transcribed for a capo.  I love capos as much as the next guy — and probably more! — but if it’s not necessary, I can’t see a good reason to use the capo.  Thus, I posted the chords here at the Laptop Sessions for those interested in a more straightforward, accurate description of how to play the song.  I can certainly understand how the errors may have been made, as I found it a bit difficult to pick up all the chord changes over the intricate fingerpicking.  Eventually though, I think I came to a fairly solid version of what Dylan originally intended.  I hope so — Jakob Dylan is one of my all-time favorite songwriters, so I took it very seriously.

In other Laptop Sessions news, I recently went through all the music reviews I posted previous to “The Weekend Review” series and added a rating out of five stars.  Why did I take the time to do this?  Well, initially I felt that ratings were arbitrary and that I really wasn’t qualified to make those sorts of judgments on music.  After all, I wouldn’t want someone assigning a low rating to the music I poured my heart into.  Still, the more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I realize how important the rating is to the review as a whole.  After all, half the fun of reading reviews is agreeing or disagreeing with the author’s rating.  Thus, how can I deny my readers (however few of them there are ;- ) the opportunity to think I’m right on, far off, or somewhere in between?  It was fun going back to these albums; most reviews I wrote before the Weekend Review were based on albums I loved, so that didn’t hurt.  And it reminded me of how much I enjoy holding to a weekly writing schedule.  It may be difficult at the time to carve out an hour or so on a Sunday to write, but it gives me a good reason to skim through my CD rack on Friday or Saturday to choose an album to listen to throughout the weekend.

Other than shaving my head, this week should be pretty normal.  I still have to get used to TNA Impact! being on Mondays.  It’s a great way to kick off the week, a relaxing night with friends and comfort food and wonderfully mindless television entertainment, but I do miss being able to look forward to Thursday nights.

Finally, I thought the new Locksley album was supposed to be out tomorrow, but it wasn’t listed on the Newbury Comics newsletter today.  Luckily, the White Stripes are releasing their first live CD this week — more and more, I’ve been growing fond of Jack White’s work, particularly with his side projects.  So, I’ll give it a shot and let you know…

See you next session!