Welcome, everyone, to the first installment of the Open Mic Sessions, where I’ll bring you my performances of my original songs from various open mic nights. The video will be a bit choppy, the sound won’t be perfect, and there usually aren’t too many people in the crowd, but it’s been a lot of fun for me to do these, so I wanted to share my original song performances with the world!
Today’s video is of my song, “Choose Your Words (Carefully)” from my 2012 album, “Those Around Us”. I think I’ve received a great response to this song every time I play it live. People either relate to the words…or just find the chorus catchy. 🙂 Either way, it’s been one of my favorites to play and is always the standby song for when someone says, “Play one more!”
This video was taken by my brother Mike at Sam Ash music store in New Haven, CT on April 3rd, 2013. As you can probably tell, there wasn’t much of a crowd…but the staff sure seemed to like it! Sometimes, even if there isn’t a big audience, it’s still cool to hear your original song amplified like that. There’s something empowering about that.
I hope you enjoy tonight’s video and stay tuned each week for more videos from the Open Mic Sessions!
Hello everyone- It’s been quite a while since I’ve gotten to sit down and record more Laptop Sessions cover song music videos for you. I have a bunch of great ideas saved-up, but my focus lately has been more on my original music. I have a newfound passion for guitar tone, so I’ve learned to rewire my collection of electric guitars and put new pickups in almost all of them. I want to get as many great sounds as possible for the recording of my next batch of songs.
I also realized that I have more than 250 videos on YouTube- mostly cover songs from bands like the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Moody Blues, the Monkees, and many, many more. Instead of increasing that number even more, I’ll be promoting all of my older videos to give them new life!
While I’m doing that, I’ll be driving around Connecticut playing at various Open Mic Nights. I have my great Seagull acoustic-electric Entourage Rustic guitar, and I’ll even bring my electric guitars (and future small tube-amps) around with me. My goal is to record videos of a different original song each time I go out. I’ve already done a few.
Sure, the quality is so-so (iPhone video), the crowds are small and/or non-existent, and some of the videos are only part of the song (for instance, when my phone ran out of storage space on “Halfway There” a couple weeks ago). But, I think these videos will be a valuable addition to the work I’ve done here for the Laptop Sessions music blog. After all, we recorded all of these cover song videos in an attempt to make people curious about our original music, too. So, now it’s finally time to implement phase two!
The Open Mic Sessions debuted new videos as I recorded them. I put them on the music blog on Wednesdays, like our old “Original Wednesday” posts from back in the cover-song-heyday. I hoe you enjoy the videos and will share them with your friends!
Hello everyone to another special edition of the Laptop Sessions music video blog! I’m happy to officially announce that my new album, “Those Around Us” is now available on iTunes and on CD! If you’d like the album on CD, you can purchase it on my website at http://jimfusco.com/albums/those-around-us.html. If you’d prefer to download the album on iTunes, you can get that by clicking here!
“Those Around Us” features twelve new original songs. I hope you’ll go and check out my website for the full write-up on the new album. I honestly believe it’s my best effort to date and I’m proud to bring this new album to you.
As you see from the album cover above (which looks AMAZING, by the way), I was able to secure Ben Quesnel (at http://bqartstudio.com) to paint the cover for me. As you may know, Ben painted the “Halfway There” cover. I couldn’t be happier with the results of both album covers!
On January 13th, 2012, I had a big CD Release Party with my closest friends, family, and co-workers. Words cannot describe how honored and humbled I was by the great turnout. The crowd loved the seven new songs I played acoustically for them and everyone had a great time. I even got to play a special encore cover song of “Two of Us” by the Beatles with my fellow Traveling Acai Berries member, Steve.
I recorded the entire show in multi-track audio and mixed and mastered it for all to hear. You can listen to the entire CD Release Party concert for free on my website! That’s right, just go to http://jimfusco.com/albums/those-around-us.html and click on the music player in the middle of the screen. I’m really happy I had the opportunity to record it with my multi-track recorder because I was able to mix and tweak it after the fact. I tried to record the show on video, as well. But, something went wrong with the tape and I was only able to salvage the last song I played, “Good Enough”. But, I made the most of that short video and put it on YouTube to show (even for just a few minutes) what a good time we all had at the CD Release Party. I’m presenting that video for you here on the Laptop Sessions music blog, too.
I sincerely hope you’ll go and at least listen to “Those Around Us” on my website and on iTunes. I know you’ll love the album, especially if you’re a fan of the cover songs I play here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs blog. I think you’ll notice the influence of the bands I love and the music that inspires me. As always, I’d love to hear what you think! Write a comment here on the blog, tweet me @jimfuscomusic, or visit my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/jimfuscomusic!
Welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco! Tonight, I bring you an original song that first appeared on my 2009 album, “Halfway There”. Let’s get the promo stuff out of the way first: You can buy the album “Halfway There” with 12 original songs on my website at http://jimfusco.com/albums/halfway-there.html. I play all of the instruments on the album and sing all the vocal parts, though there are a couple of guest appearances throughout. The album, which you can buy on iTunes as well as on CD, features a beautiful album cover painting from Ben Quesnel. I made him a website for his original artwork at http://bqartstudio.com. The album cover ties the whole album together- the feeling of being only “halfway there” in life.
“Tuning In”, tonight’s original song music video, is about two people that are having a tough time finding time for each other. As we all grow up and start to work for a living (after graduating school, hopefully), we find it hard to fit in all of the things we were accustomed to doing. I know I found it difficult. All of a sudden, your days are completely filled. Plus, when you get home, there are chores to do around the house, plus cleaning, cooking, and the laundry. No time is left over for anything fun anymore! My future wife and I were in that situation for a while. We eventually made everything work, but for a time, we would barely ever see each other.
I can recall the exact moment when I came up with the idea for this song, “Tuning In’. Every week, we would get together and watch the TV show “Boston Legal”. But, during this time period, we were both very busy, as I mentioned earlier. I recall seeing a pattern: the ONLY time we’d see each other was to watch this one-hour long TV show! Thus the line, “I’m tuning you in an hour a week…” Of course, looking back on it all, I’m sure I was exaggerating a bit. But, like I said, it was tough getting used to being so busy all of the time. We went from spending every waking moment together to only seeing each other when all the chores, homework, and day jobs were done…hardly ever.
I chose to do “Tuning In” tonight for a few reasons:
First, I like the song! Of course I do- I wrote it, right? But, this one always gets me because I love the style. I came up with that interesting strumming pattern (kind of start-stop thing I do with the guitar) and it’s got some cool chords thrown in there. Plus, I think it’s one of my best choruses up to that point in my musical career. It’s got a good hook and in the recording, I was able to use a neat vocal effect, too. I got three vocal background parts and recorded each of them twice. The result was a nice full effect that I borrowed from Bareknaked Ladies- they used the technique on their “Barenaked Ladies Are Me” album (specifically the song, “Bank Job”).
The second reason I chose “Tuning In” as my original song of the night was because I’m not quite ready to debut a new song from my upcoming album, “Those Around Us”. Yes, all of the songs are recorded, mixed, and mastered. But, I’m waiting for the album cover (again painted by Ben Quesnel- and it’s AMAZING) so I can produce the discs. I’m so excited, but I want to debut Laptop Sessions acoustic music videos of the new songs once I have a release date set for the new album. I’ll keep you posted- it’s going to be soon!
I hope you enjoy my original song, “Tuning In”, another step forward (in my opinion) as a songwriter and producer. And I hope you’ll check out the album “Halfway There”, as well- it would mean the world to me if you listened (and bought, of course) the album. Let me know what you think of “Tuning In” in the comments section!
