Itty-Bitty Review: Rocknoceros - Rocknoceros

While Virginia trio Rocknoceros finishes up their third album, they've remastered and re-released their self-titled debut CD. I've always thought of the band as the East Coast Recess Monkey -- or maybe they're the West Coast Rocknoceros -- and here's yet another similarity. This debut album is not as good as what follows, but contains glimmers of the talent shown to much fuller extent on Dark Side of the Moon Bounce (review). The songs here are much more direct -- counting songs, songs about hygeine and sharing. But there's subtleties and off-kilteredness, too -- the sadness and acceptance of the stone-cold classic "Big Head," the sparse "Zen Garden," and the too-meta-for-preschoolers "Trying to Write a Song." The 33-minute album features mostly pop and rock stylings, but with some blues and other rootsier music thrown in for color (literally, on "Blue"). It's most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 6. You can hear samples here or some full track at the band's homepage. The debut isn't where I'd direct newcomers to Rocknoceros; for that I'd go to the second CD. But if you like Dark Side..., then you and your kids (especially the preschoolers) will also dig this disk. Recommended.

Review in Brief: Long John - Johnny Keener

I suppose Portland, Oregon-based Johnny Keener could do worse than taking the path Elizabeth Mitchell has blazed before him -- one part covers of old tunes, one part covers of new tunes, add a pinch of original stuff, stir gently. With a mix of rockabilly, blues, and modern pop, Keener further refines the gentle formula above, originally outlined on his debut Elephants Over the Fence (review). What's new is the presence of a kids chorus on several tracks. At its best, the chorus enlivens old tunes, even giving Apples in Stereo's already-awesome "Energy" a tweaking that makes it a great kids' song. Keener's call-and-response with the kids on the title track shows off the chops he's honed at the Portland Children's Museum -- Ella Jenkins would be proud. (I also like the kids on Keener's original "Run Around.") The sound is perhaps a little fuller than the first CD, but there's nothing particularly fancy. Which gets back to how things haven't changed. There's still some nifty guitar work (check out Keener's bluesy take on "The Cat Came Back") and covers that seem odd but make perfect sense (Cat Stevens' "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out.") The album isn't perfect -- Keener's cover of John Fogerty's "Down on the Corner" doesn't add much to the CCR original, and I'd like to officially put a moratorium on covers of "Three Little Birds" -- but it gets the job done. Oh, and the album packaging is one of the niftiest of the year, a simple yet elegant cardboard envelope. Kids aged 2 through 6 will most appreciate the 25-minute disk, from which you can hear samples at its CDBaby page. Long John shows an artist maturing in his kids music vision, and it's a well-done collection of Americana-influenced tracks young and old. Recommended.

Review in Brief: Tom Glazer Sings Honk-Hiss-Tweet-GGGGGGG and Other Favorites - Tom Glazer

Smithsonian Folkways is best known in kids music for releasing classic albums more than a half-century old from Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and others. Aside from the still-recording legend Ella Jenkins and Elizabeth Mitchell, most of their kids music lineup features musicians who don't have webpages of their own, and must rely on, say, Wikipedia pages. Tom Glazer is no exception. But just because there's no Facebook fan page doesn't mean that a musician's recorded output isn't worth keeping in print. Last week's release of Tom Glazer Sings Honk-Hiss-Tweet-GGGGGGG and Other Favorites, consisting of live tracks from three previously released and out-of-print albums, makes the case for Glazer to be considered alongside his more famous Folkways counterparts as a key early figure in the kids music genre. Which makes it sound like a dry historical recording, which it isn't. From the very first track, "Come Down the Aisle," on which Glazer makes up verses as families arrive at the concert that's just started, Glazer is constantly inventive in his interpretations of familiar classics. "The Bus Song," better known now as "Wheels on the Bus," features the money on the bus going "clink, clink, clink, dunk - dollar bill." Glazer's introduction to "Jennie Jenkins," which features some especially silly banter, keeps the kids in stitches. Really, you can hear how much Glazer has the kids' attention throughout the entire disk. Listen to the kids sing along -- shout, really -- on "Haul Away Joe" (they shout "JOE!"), and tell me there isn't one child in that audience who isn't having a great time. As much as the album is for kids (and it's really more of an album for kids than one which will constantly engage the adults), kids musicians ignore this album at their peril -- it's almost a master class on how to play to kids. And Glazer's voice is in fine form, too -- it's no surprise that he was asked to sing on some famous "Singing Science" albums. This album will be most appealing to kids ages 2 through 7. You can hear samples and download the typically awesome Folkways liner notes (written by Glazer's children) here. Tom Glazer might be best known for writing "On Top of Spaghetti" (yes, that's here, too), but on this album, he runs through a series of kids tunes with consummate child professionalism and enthusiasm. This'll probably be the only Tom Glazer album your family will ever need, but it's a good 'un. Maybe there'll be a Facebook fan page for him yet. Recommended.

Review: Color Wheel Cartwheel - Laura Freeman

I've been waiting a long time to review this album, longer than I should. I'd been waiting for Austin, Texas artist Laura Freeman to release the follow-up to her 2005 album Color Wheel Cartwheel, thinking I'd include that album in a review of the new album. Well, forget the new album (which will come out someday, just not today), because Color Wheel Cartwheel is pretty special; to wait any longer would just be wrong. The album is, as you'd expect from its title, a concept album, dealing with colors. Down through the rainbow the songs move, from "Red" to "Orange," on through "Yellow," "Green," "Blue," and "Indigo and Violet." ("Purple" is thrown in there for good measure.) It'd be pretty easy to make color songs just by listing things that are of that particular color, but the what makes this album so much better are the differing stylistic approaches for each song. "Red" is loud and brassy, "Orange" is sassy ("You take a little yellow / you take a little red / Mix 'em up together and voila! / Orange, oh orange / Orange makes me wanna cha-cha-cha"). "Yellow" is a mellow, bluesy little tune, while "Green" is set to classic country music. Certainly listing different items of particular colors help drive home the point for each song, but Freeman is also using the colors for jumping off into other stories (a philosophical discussion on blue jeans in "Indigo and Violet," for example). The differing approaches, the use of color to, well, color the songs, they give all the songs life. Interspersed between the songs are friends and musicians reciting the colors of the rainbow in various languages. I don't think there's any thought that kids will actually learn colors in a foreign language, they just subtly drive home the point about colors being all around us in the world. Freeman went to New Orleans to record the album, and she's pulled in contributions from a whole bunch of musicians. Kids ages 2 through 7 will most derive educational value from the songs. You can hear samples of the songs at the under-30-minute album's CDBaby page. I mentioned to Laura Freeman recently that Color Wheel Carthweel was a fun little album and she replied, "Well, we had a lot of fun making it." That fun is evident on this excellent little disk. I hesitate to call it an "educational" album, because every album is educational, but also because it unfairly narrows down the prospective audience. This is one of the rare "educational" CDs your family will listen to long after they've mastered the concepts inside. Definitely recommended.

Review in Brief: I Count To Ten and other Very Helpful Songs - David Tobocman

It's been nearly 7 months since I first watched (and wrote about) David Tobocman's fabulous video for his song "Home." (If you haven't watched it, stop reading this, click on the link, and see you back here in about 3 minutes. Really. Go now.) Clearly I liked the video, so you might be wondering, why in the world haven't I review the rest of Tobocman's debut, I Count To Ten and other Very Helpful Songs? And the answer is... well, I have no good reason. I can't blame this on the dog eating the CD or a snowstorm -- sometimes good CDs just don't get reviewed on the site in a timely manner. In any case, many CDs attempt to impart lessons to kids -- I know, I've heard a lot of them -- but very few do so in a totally appealing musical manner. This CD easily makes that small but distinguished list. I think there are a couple reasons for it. The first is that the songs are, for the most part, solid. The jazzy title track and "Brush Your Teeth," the pop of "My Rainbow," the country, banjo-inflected "Buttons and Bows" -- they're great melodies back up by well-crafted instrumentation. And more than half a year after I first heard it, I'm still moved by "Home," easily one of the top kids music tracks of the year. The second reason for the album's appeal I think is that instead of conveying its lessons as a direct "you should do X" or "everybody feel Y," the lyrics are sometimes sung from a first-person perspective, telling the listener how the singer reacts. So the singer counts to ten and doesn't feel so angry ("I Count to Ten"), or the singer keeps his pajamas on through the night ("Jammies Song," based on a real-life problem Tobocman encountered with his daughter). It's not always the case, but there's very little sense of "should" here, and that makes the lessons easier for everyone to take. The songs are most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 7. You can hear lengthy clips from the 33-minute album here and here. David Tobocman's I Count to Ten and other Very Helpful Songs is a solid little album. I can't guarantee your kids won't blow their top as much or brush their teeth more willingly with repeated listens, but I'm pretty sure you or your kids won't blow your tops if you listen to this a lot. Recommended.

Review: Rock All Day, Rock All Night - The Nields

With their latest album, Massachusetts' The Nields joins the company of the Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam. Really. That's right, because on their new 2-CD family album, Rock All Day, Rock All Night, the Nields sisters join those two alternative rock heavyweights in putting out an album with both an uptempo and a downtempo disk. (Those two albums, in case you're wondering -- the Foo Fighters' In Your Honor and Pearl Jam's best-of rearviewmirror.) Now, I can't say that the Nields rock quite as hard as those bands do, but I'm also not sure there's anything quite as giddy on those disks as on the sisters' banter on the brass-band-accented "Muffin Man." (Did you know there was a whole neighborhood on Drury Lane? Well, you do now.) The first disk is a mixture of folk songs and originals (some old, some new). The sisters have run a HooteNanny program for families with young kids, and many of the songs sound like they are come from that program. Unlike a lot of CD collections from kids and family music programs, however, the collection actually holds together as a decent listening experience even if you've never taken a class with them. It's probably mostly due to the fact that there are some really good songs here. The traditional "Going To Boston" kicks off the disk, and like many of the tracks, there's a life to the recording that encourages you to sing along. The brass band sounds great on "When The Saints Go Marching In," as it does on "Muffin Man" (as noted above). The new tracks are no slouches either, with "Who Are You Not To Shine" -- a shimmery folk-rock song and worthy successor to "Anna Kick A Hole in the Sky" from the last disk -- and "Superhero Soup," actually one of the oldest songs in the Nields' songbook, but re-purposed here. Not all of the tracks are great, but, like I said, as a whole, it holds together well. The second, slower disk is, unsurprisingly, less focused on singalongs and more focused on great, slower songs. I hesitate to call it a classic lullaby disk as there isn't quite a hush-ness that I associate with lullaby disks. Instead, it's more like a warm nook on a cold day, encouraging you to stay put and contemplate the day and maybe drift off for a tiny nap. (Or, if you're a kid, play with your Legos or read a book.) One of my all-time favorite ballads, "Wild Mountain Thyme," makes an appearance, with the Nields' dad, John Nields singing along (as on the first album, he sings on several tracks). The Nields also engage in some re-purposing here, as "Easy People," one of their most famous songs, gets a simple treatment. I think I like this disk slightly better than the "day" disk, but that's just a personal preference for the more classic songs. The first disk is probably most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 7; the second disk is essentially all-ages. Right now, the disk only available through the Nields themselves (go here to order), though national distribution will start shortly). For samples, you're best off checking out the YouTube clips I've compiled here. The Nields continue to make vital family folk music with humor and tenderness. Rock All Day, Rock All Night is an all-purpose collection of songs that will serve your family well in times both of play and rest. Definitely recommended.