Laptop

Jesse Hartman, a Long Island native, manned the keyboards as a teenager during punk icon Richard Hell’s 1990 comeback tour, yet years passed before he circled back to making music. Opting instead for a career behind the camera, he enrolled in film school and penned the short Happy Hour, which earned the Best Short Film prize at the 1993 Berlin International Film Festival. He also helmed music videos for acts such as Helmet and Christmas.

Music eventually reclaimed him when he joined the Pavement-influenced indie-rock outfit Sammy alongside college classmate Luke Wood. The band issued its sole major-label release, Tales of Great Neck Glory—titled after Hartman’s hometown—before disbanding soon after the 1996 launch. Hartman then vanished from view, resurfacing three years later as Laptop with the EP Users Guide, whose sound leaned heavily on 1980s textures.

Loaded with biting humor and synth-funk rhythms, that EP previewed his 2001 full-length debut, Opening Credits. Reportedly tracked on an IBM Thinkpad, the album showcased sharp electro-pop cuts such as “Greatest Hits,” a dance-floor recounting of former girlfriends, the gleefully caustic “I’m So Happy You Failed,” and a mechanized cover of the Billy Joel classic “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.” Hartman performed the material solo, accompanied onstage only by an engineer. In fall 2001 he unveiled Laptop’s follow-up, The Old Me Vs. the New You.