Deep Woods Revival album cover
The folk music revivalist Red Yarn is back and for the first video from his new album Deep Woods Revival, he (unsurprisingly) brings a whole bunch of Portland-area folks -- and puppets -- for a singalong. "Bile Them Cabbage" will sound an awful lot like "Shake Those Simmons Down," but that's part of the beauty of folk music, how it bends to suit musicians' will.
Also, it's good for singing along with.
Red Yarn - "Bile Them Cabbage" [YouTube]
Los Animales album cover
Over the past few years, Massachusetts-based Ben Gundersheimer -- best known to the under-6 set as Mister G, has released a number of albums partially or even predominantly in Spanish, and he shows no sign of stopping that trend. He's just released Los Animales (the album title's a pretty good clue as to the album's theme and primary language) and to celebrate, the album's first video for its title track, world-premiered here!
Mister G teams up with the same folks who created the animated video for "Cocodrilo" -- director Leo Antolini and animator Andrea Cingolani. This one's every bit as charming as that one, a rainbow of animals. Non bastante! More, please!
Mister G - "Los Animales" [YouTube]
Kindie Rock Showdown logo
Well after nearly a full month of kids music video competition to the death... OK, there was no death or even injury whatsoever, the Kindie Rock Showdown over at batteryPOP has come to a conclusion. When I last let you know what was going on, we were in the middle of Round 1, as Danny Weinkauf's "Ice Cream" knocked off Caspar Babypants' "The Stump Hotel" and Alphabet Rockers' "Dynamite" triumphed over The Bazillions' "No Homework" while we awaited the results of Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band's "Blue Bear" vs. Secret Agent 23 Skidoo's "Gotta Be You" and Josh and the Jamtones' "John Jacob" against The Not-Its' "Haircut."
Long story short, in the semi-finals the following week, Danny Weinkauf defeated Alphabet Rockers and Secret Agent 23 Skidoo beat The Not-Its, which set up an epic final between the bassist for They Might Be Giants and the hip-hop musician who knew a thing or two about winning a video showdown. More than 10,000 votes were cast in the final round, and while it was close all week, with the lead changing hands several times, in the end Danny Weinkauf's video "Ice Cream" took home the prize.
As I noted in my last blog for the tournament, thanks to the artists for participating, batteryPOP for taking this idea and running with it, Laurie Berkner for doing a bunch of video intros, and everyone for watching and POPping their favorite videos. Hopefully this isn't the last time!
Let's watch "Ice Cream" one last time to celebrate Weinkauf's victory. I think I know how he might celebrate his victory...
Danny Weinkauf and the Red Pants Band - "Ice Cream" [YouTube]
Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over cover
This week sees the release of another dreamtime book/CD collection from Canadian publisher The Secret Mountain, but unlike their last release, the classical "hits" lullaby collection Sleep Softly, this new release is a collection of 21st century folk-pop. It's called Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over, and features songs, a story, and clay characters created by Vancouver musician Hilary Grist.
I'll have a review of the album and book soon, but thought that this video was too lovely not to share first. It's for the title track, a melody featuring Grist's clear voice, which hits gorgeous heights on the chorus. The video features the brother-and-sister clay characters Grist created to illustrate the story. Perhaps you'll see the robin whose voice I think Grist is inspired by in the chorus.
Hilary Grist - "Tomorrow Is a Chance To Start Over" [YouTube]
All Kinds of You and Me album cover
If you set out to make a modern update of Free To Be You and Me, as Alastair Moock has done, you've got a pretty high bar to clear.
But based on the first song from All Kinds of You and Me, Moock may have stuck the landing. The first video from the album is for "It Takes All Kinds" (which inspired the album title), and it's a feel-good sing-along -- no hand-clapping, but definitely encouraging of hand-clapping, and with nice vocal assists from Rani Arbo and Anand Nayak.
And then there's the video itself, animated by fellow kindie musician Key Wilde, which does a nice job of melding Wilde's familiar animals-doing-crazy-things (a cat on skis!) with the theme of the song, accepting all kinds of people (and animals), such as a boy who prefers dresses and a girl who loves to climb trees. It's just good, good stuff.
All Kinds of You and Me is out June 19.
Alastair Moock - "It Takes All Kinds" [YouTube]
Aw, this is just such a sweet song. It's from Molly Ledford, multi-hyphenate extraordinaire. (You know, from Lunch Money! And Molly Ledford and Billy Kelly! And from Instagram and Facebook photos of her kids, who I feel should have a book deal or video deal or some deal from somebody because they're just awesome.)
At first she just wrote music for one puppet musical. But now she's gone ahead and done it again, which I think officially makes her a puppet musical expert. This time it's for the Columbia Marionette Theatre's production of the Russian folktale The Frog Princess.
Ledford's released a simple video directed by her husband and fellow Lunch Money conspirator Jay Barry that features Molly accompanying herself on the ukulele while puppeteer Mitra Salehi controls the Frog Princess marionette. In 86 seconds, they say so much.
Molly Ledford - "Frog Skin" [YouTube]
Zooglobble
Zooglobble helps you find kindie music -- news, videos, mp3s, reviews -- for your whole family.
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