Hello and welcome to another edition of Original Wednesday here at the Laptop Sessions!

Tonight, I’m happy to present the second installment of my summer preview series of my forthcoming album The 2010 Project.  I began recording demos a few months ago, as I mentioned in a previous post, and now I’ve officially hacked out a track listing.  There will be thirteen tracks, all of which are fully composed now and have been recorded in demo form — a few of the demos are more fully produced, but minimally.

Now, I’m at the phase where I’m putting together the tools I need to record.  With the help of a friend, I’ve recently picked up a set of seriously great headphones, which will be a necessary component of the mixing process.  He also helped me pick out a USB microphone that I’ve been experimenting with this week.  There is a line in and external mic plug that I may use if I’d like to refine the sound quality as I begin to record the tracks in a couple weeks.  Finally, I had to replace my guitar pedal, which I had to throw away a few months ago when I pulled it out of storage and found the batteries had leaked.  I tried to clean it out, but it was too far gone.  So, I just got the latest Zoom pedal, which I can’t wait to try out!

Which brings me to the track I’m unveiling today.  Previously, this has only been played for two people: my girlfriend and one of my dearest friends of all time.  Both encouraged me that the new music I’ve been writing is among my best, so I’m hoping to make them proud by the time I’ve finished recording this new album.

And it’s about time — this marks four years since Love Out of Fashion!

“I Would Prefer Not To” will be the second track on the album, following “No Lights, No Sound.”  Those of you English majors out there will pick up on the allusion to the Herman Melville short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.”  The verses are as simple as they come, only two chords: D and A.  When I record the studio version, I hope to flesh out the riff I have in my mind and make that more catchy.  The chorus is more interesting and, as in my favorite songs by artists like Bob Dylan, Mike Fusco, and others, the lyrics change slightly each time around.  The song deals with the conflicts that arise from not wanting to disappoint others, but also needing to follow your impulses and passions.  It’s a very personal song, critical at times — though it’s meant to be more confident than scathing — and I think there is a universal quality to it, regardless of its personal nature.

Without further ado, I give you my acoustic performance of “I Would Prefer Not To.”  I hope you like it, and that you’ll continue to check back for more Original Wednesdays in the near future.

See you next session!

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This is completely off the cuff, and I’m loving it!

All you Mets fans out there will be well aware that Jeff Francoeur — the topic of not a few trade rumors since the return of Carlos Beltran and the outstanding performance of Angel Pagan this season — got a spot on the starting rotation last night due to Jason Bay being out with a concussion.  Well, he made the most of it…

…with a three run homer off the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright, arguably one of the best pitchers in the game right now!

Granted, it’s only one hit in the midst of a mighty slump, but it reminded me of this great song called “Joe DiMaggio Done It Again” off Wilco and Billy Bragg’s second album of Woody Guthrie-penned (lyrics, at least) songs, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II.  I slipped a “Jeff” here and a “Frenchy” there, and voila!

This is my 200th Laptop Session, and I could think of no better way to celebrate it than to make it a fun one. (And, yes, at the beginning of the music video, that IS me doing my best Jeff Francoeur impression…)  I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Oh, and go Mets!!!

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As is our way around here at the Laptop Sessions, I’ve decided to celebrate the release of a new track with an acoustic cover song music video.

Big surprise given the title of our blog, eh?

Well, tonight I bring you my performance of Steven Page’s forthcoming single “Indecision” off his first solo album proper: Page One (pun intended, I’m sure!), due out September 28th.  He just announced the title and track listing yesterday, and I was able to find a live performance on YouTube that sounded like classic Steven Page.  It was somewhat difficult to hear the intricacies of the vocals and guitars over the drum sound — due to the quality of the recording — but I have a feeling that the actual studio recording is going to be great.

And I only have to wait a day to find out!

That’s right; I hurried to record this version of the song as a means of honoring and advertising the new release.  I’m hoping you’ll like my take on the song enough to click over to iTunes tomorrow and download this track.  I’ll be there.  Probably at midnight just in case it’s up immediately…

One of the main reasons I took the time today to figure out the chords and lyrics is that I can think of no better way, as a musician and singer/songwriter myself, of enjoying a great new song than learning the words and chords to be able to play along with it.

So, without further ado, I give you my take on this new Steven Page track.  I hope this is incentive enough for you to check out the real deal tomorrow, and the full album in a couple months…

See you next session!

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening and I hope this past Tuesday has found you well.  Tonight I add another new band to the category page here on our awesome site.

“Live” is our focus this evening, and one of their hit songs “Lightning Crashes” is the video tonight.  I had attempted to record this video last Friday, but my voice was shot from the previous video I had recorded (which some person on Youtube rated 1 star – to my bewilderment).  Therefore, here’s what I was able to get out of me this evening.

The song is off the album “Throwing Copper”, which I happily own.  I do own albums 2 through 5 from this band, and the album tonight’s song is from was the first one I bought.  I remember burning a copy for my car, and writing on the blank CD the letters “Cu” with some trail marks behind it.

…I’ll give some of you a second or two on that one…

This isn’t my best, or worst performance.  I’ve had a tough month, so I apologize if it isn’t my best.  However, it works and it goes to show that I continue to have a penchant for recording 5 minute songs (tends to get frustrating doing retakes for long songs like this).

Tomorrow Jim will show us what he’s got in his library!  I can’t wait!

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By Jim Fusco:

Here on the Laptop Sessions, I give you my favorite song of all time: “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better” by the Byrds. Gene Clark, the writer of this song, wrote MANY great songs over his career, and you’ll be hearing a lot of them on the Laptop Sessions in the months to come. But, this song is just PERFECT to me, and here’s why:

It’s got everything I love in a song. It’s got a great guitar sound (courtesy of Roger (Jim) McGuinn), a cool riff, great words, chorus harmonies, and a killer jangly guitar solo. I love everything about this tune and hopefully I’ve done this song justice.

Of course, in order for me to give the song the respect it deserves, I recruited Chris Moore (http://youtube.com/chrismooremusic) to help me with harmonies and rhythm guitar.

So, I hope everyone enjoys this version. I’ll be playing one of my other favorite songs in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned!

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome — one and all — to an all-new acoustic rock cover song music video!  Yes, it’s a mouthful, but it’s the best way to describe this music blog that you’re viewing.  Whether you’re a regular visitor or this is your first time, I hope you’ll see how much work we’ve put into the design, the variety of bands represented, and the quality of content for each post.  We don’t just record a video; instead, we write substantive text posts to give you something interesting (we hope!) to read as you listen to the session of the day.  Whenever possible, we share information about the band or our individual processes for recording the videos — and we hope that you find the reading worthwhile.  We certainly have found these songs worthwhile and devote a lot of time to learning, practicing, recording, and writing about them.

Which brings me to my video for this Saturday session.  Today, I picked John Mayer’s “Not Myself,” a great track from his great album Room For Squares.  Yes, it may be an over-publicized album (having won many awards and much notoriety when it first came out) and it may be better known for such hits as “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” but it is so much more than these aspects would suggest.  I still think this is John Mayer’s best album to date, as it combines great songwriting with great sounds, blending acoustic and electric elements nicely.  Possibly my favorite John Mayer song, “Why Georgia,” is on this album, not to mention another close runner up, “Love Song for No One.”

And I’ll always have an odd memory of this album.  When I first bought it and started listening to it, I was hooked and couldn’t get enough of it.  It gradually became the album that I would listen to in the shower and sing along to, practicing and enjoying singing.  Now, this was before I had a portable set of speakers for my iPod, so I would put the CD in my stereo and blast it loud enough to be heard down the hall, in the bathroom, with the water running for the shower.  (I obviously only did this when no one else was home.)

So, I was thinking about songs that I really would like to learn and record, and “Not Myself” immediately came to mind.  I’ve always liked the structure of the song and the overall mood of the studio recording.  I hope I’ve done it justice and that you’ll enjoy listening to it!

Don’t forget to hurry home early, hurry on home (as Warren Zevon would say) for Jeff’s video tomorrow, then hurry even faster for the man, the myth, the legend — Jim Fusco! — on Monday.  (And I must assure you that this warm reference to Jim has nothing to do with the fact that he gave me the best birthday present a man like myself could ever hope for — an all-expenses paid set of recording sessions at Fusco-Moore Studios and his creative input as producer on my new album!  I’m more excited than I can quite explain in words right now to think about what my songs will sound like with his expertise and creative input, especially based on what his new unreleased music sounds like.)

See you next session!

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