I've written before about the awesomeness that is Seattle's Central Services Board of Education, the kids' side project of the band Central Services (which, in itself, is pretty darn enjoyable).
Well, after many, many months of wondering when they were going to get into the studio and record more than just the four great songs on their Myspace page, my (OK, unvoiced) wonderings have been answered. According to this post, recording on a full-length album has begun and "will probably be done by spring." Sounds like they're bringing in a bunch of guests including members of the awesome band Awesome on "horns, appliances, and harmonies."
So this automatically moves to my Top 10 list of most anticipated albums for 2008 (how could it not, not with titles like "know your inventors, part V"), but it begs the question... What are you looking forward to?
New Dan Zanes Music: "Colas"
Head on over to Dan Zanes' new blog, The Welcome Table, for a free download of a track recorded as part of the session for Zanes' upcoming 2008 album En Latino.
The new song, "Colas," is not a tribute to highly sugared carbonated beverages. Rather, it is (in DZ's words), "is a traditional son jarocho from Veracruz, Mexico introduced to me by the Villa-Lobos Brothers, a trio from Veracruz now living in Nueva York." The opening riff sounds a bit like "Catch That Train," but then it moves into a slightly more traditional sound. Zanes' Spanish sounds passable. The whole track is a bunch of fun.
Something Else!
Not really. In fact, I posted something about this a month ago, but hey, now it's on YouTube with a little extra content.
They Might Be Giants are doing video podcasts -- "Podcast For Kids!" -- to plug their upcoming Here Come the 123s, and the first one, with "High Five," is up. If all it was was the video, I wouldn't have bothered, but the podcast also includes "bumpers" from the John and John sock puppets. It includes this classic line at the end of the piece -- "Come back next week for another song... about letters... or numbers... or something else... waaaaaahhh."
Trust me, coming from the mouths of sock puppets, it's pretty funny. As for the videos on the band's site promised by the album's PR materials, well, they're still not there.
New Music from the Hollow Trees v. 2.0
Many months ago, I exchanged e-mails with Gregory Hollow Tree of the L.A.-based the Hollow Trees -- known to his kin as Greg McIlvaine -- about what lay ahead for the band. He said what lay ahead was "the Hollow Trees v. 2.0."
He wasn't kidding. What used to be a pretty small band has now morphed into the kids' music equivalent of the Polyphonic Spree or We're From Barcelona -- I'd checked out their new lineup 3 or 4 weeks ago and was shocked to see all the names listed there.
Well, since I last visited their website they've announced their new CD -- Welcome to Nelsonville -- and posted 3 mp3s: go here to listen to the fun traditional "Ain't Gonna Rain No More" (a sequel in spirit to their first album's "Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor"), a shuffling Hollow Tree original "Hootenanny", and a zippity cover of "Skoodle Um Skoo." All three tracks just sound good. The band may have swelled to indie-pop size, but they're still making a great Americana roots and folk sound. (Hat tip to Gwyneth for the heads up.)
New Album Next Year From Steve Lee. Also, DIY Video.
It's taken me a little long to get around to this, but Nashville's Steve Lee announced 2-3 weeks ago that he's completing work on a new album. In Lee's own words:
"The whole record will not be a "kids" cd. But I will be taking the kid songs from the record and making a remix ep for the kidz babyyyyyy."
Aside from the extra "y"s in that sentence, I'm down with that...
Really, go to his Myspace page and give his tunes from 2007's What Did You Do Today, Stephen Scott Lee? (particularly "Grab A Balloon") a spin. (Or listen to the whole thing here.)
And, if you want to watch a do-it-yourself from the funky traffic-rule-discussing "Green Means Go," then Lee's got ya covered, too:
Two Songs (and a Catchy Jingle) from Brady Rymer
This has been available for awhile, but I wanted to point out that Brady Rymer has three new songs available for download as part of his Children's Dimetapp Breathe & Boogie Tour. Go here to download "Healthy Livin'" and "Even the Animals Sneeze," a couple mid-tempo folk-rockers that would've sounded fine on his recent Every Day is a Birthday CD.
Also available for download is "We are the Sniffles," which also has a video on the site. I'm sorta bummed because it's the best of the three tracks -- propulsive, great harmonies -- but it's got a couple shout-outs to Dimetapp (both in the song and on the video). It's worth a spin, though, because aside from the commercial reference (which kinda kills any repeat-listening value for me), it shows Rymer and his band at their best.
Rymer, incidentally, will be releasing his latest album, Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could, on March 4. You can hear one of the songs from the upcoming CD, "Road Trip" by attending one of his final shows on this tour in Rochester (NY), Houston, Dallas, and Madison, New Jersey (details here) and picking up the free six-song Rymer CD they're distributing.
So, yeah, I'm just waiting for the edited version...
