Jim Fusco Hits 130,000 YouTube Video Views, Plus New Domain Launched

Big news here at Fusco-Moore Productions, as we’ve acquired the domain name cover-songs.com!  That’s right: now your source for cover songs has a great name to go along with it!  Over the next few days, we’ll be working hard to get photos of ALL the bands we’ve covered here on the Laptop Sessions and organizing them on the frontpage of the site.  The site really is just a section (or portal) to the familiar Laptop Sessions site.  I may decide to come up with a new design for it.  The goal of this site is to get people to find our cover songs, then to have them make the connection to the blog community over here at the Laptop Sessions.

Ideas are (as always) frantically running through my head, but I feel awfully tired, so they’ll have to wait a bit more to come to fruition.

Also, probably last night, I hit 130,000 views on YouTube!  I’m still holding out hope that I can get to 150,000 by the end of 2008, which I think would be a nice accomplishment.  Hopefully there will come a time where I can only announce in 50,000 view counts, but for now, it’s still a nice event at each 10,000.  This time it took me 21 days, which is right on schedule, as of late.  Of course, I’d like that number to decrease as time goes on, so we’ll have to see if the new domain name helps us at all.

Just another step towards greatness here at Fusco-Moore Productions!

Jim Fusco Reaches 400 YouTube Subscribers!

Gotta love a milestone day.  I just predicted it would happen yesterday, as I had 397 subscribers.  Even as I write this now, I’m already up to 404!  Talk about progress- that’s 404 people that took the time to watch one of my videos and decided they needed to be updated every time I post one!  It’s so exciting to think about that, because I’m sure I don’t know anywhere close to 404 people…let alone 404 that ever gave our music the time of day here in CT.  So, I’m very proud of our worldwide success.

I’m looking forward to more milestones in the near future, as these things seem to happen exponentially.  So, we’ll look forward to the next great milestone very soon!

“What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” (REM Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening to you!  I just had a wonderful run of Dynamis, then realized “Oh yeah, I am fresh out of videos for today!”  Thankfully, I had one ready to play and record, and you are in the right place to listen to it!

The song I have selected for today is by one of my favorite bands from my entire life, REM.  This song “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” was a single from their album “Monster”, which is home to some of my favorite REM songs.  The album itself has a wide range of sound, but a common element is the “fuzz” guitar sound that seems constant in nearly every track.  This song is not an exception to that trend, but naturally here at guitarbucketlist.com, we give you acoustic guitar and an in-tune voice to go along with it!

There’s been some debate to the last line of the song.  Most places i’ve read lyrics to the song say the last line is “I’ve never understood, don’t f*** with me, uh-huh”.  However, the radio play version I have heard countless times does not alter this last line that is in the CD version.  It leads me to believe the last line does not include the f word.  However, I still can’t figure out what it is.  So you will notice a change in the last line which does not change the meaning of the line at all.

This is also unique because the song has no acoustic guitar track, so hearing this played back is quite unique to me as well.

I hope you enjoy this latest installment, and I know you’ll be back tomorrow for our favorite day of the week, as Jim dips into his library of original goodies for a great session installment.  I’ll be here to watch it, and I know you will be as well!

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!

“American Girls” (Counting Crows Cover)

By Chris Moore:

Happy Labor Day to one and all!  I’ve always thought that it was interesting that there is very little “labor” accomplished on Labor day, but I suppose it’s more an appreciation and celebration of all the labor that is done on the other 364 days of the year.  Regardless, I’m not complaining that I don’t have to work on this beautiful, sunny day — what a magnificent first day of September it is, at least here in good ole Connecticut, USA!

And September 1st is not only Labor Day, but it’s also the birthday of my girlfriend, Nicole.  So, to help her celebrate it, I figured there’s no better way than choosing and recording a song for my music video today that she would love.  This is actually a song that I just played her for the first time a couple of days ago, and she immediately loved it.  “American Girls” is the second track on the Counting Crows’ Hard Candy album.  It’s notable for being one of two songs from this album to make the greatest hits.  Although it was a very mild hit, I think it’s a great song.  And I can’t believe that it took me years to figure out that Sheryl Crow contributes the background vocals!  I picked up this album used from FYE a couple weeks ago and figured that out as I read the liner notes.  It was definitely a “Duh” moment…

The album is one of those that starts extremely strong — the first four tracks are simply amazing.  “Hard Candy” starts off the album and the first couple lines are among my favorite that Duritz has ever written.  Then comes “American Girls.”  The third track, “Good Time,” is not anything special, I suppose, but I really like it.  And I love “Richard Manuel is Dead.”  Those first four tracks are a tour de force.  Then, the next few tracks slow it down, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it never really picks back up to the quality of those first four tracks.  So, while I like the album, I can’t really fall in love with it.  It’s one of those albums that, by track eight, you’re fighting the temptation to skip back to track one.

But, if you buy this album, don’t flip back to the first track without hearing the last track, “Holiday in Spain”!  It’s one of my favorite songs from the Counting Crows.  It starts off with just piano and Duritz’s vocals, and gradually builds up to a triumphant final verse and chorus.  For those of you who don’t know me, I just love it when a song begins with no drums or minimal drums, then really kicks into high gear!  For instance, that’s probably why “Pretty (Ugly Before)” is my favorite Elliott Smith song on From a Basement on the Hill.

Well, that’s enough music commentary for one day.  I’m off to have some lunch, celebrate Nicole’s birthday, celebrate Jim’s groundbreaking new purchase (I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it in his next post!), and try to get some work done amidst all the excitement…

See you next session!