Video: "Costume Party" - The Pop Ups

This is such a sweet little video from The Pop Ups.  It's for their song "Costume Party" off their forthcoming release Appetite for Construction.  (Preorder it on iTunes here and Amazon here.)  The premise of the song is simple -- it's OK to wear all types of different clothes -- and the gentle groove serves as perfect accompaniment to the feeling of acceptance in the lyrics.  The video, meanwhile, features the duo (and puppets, and kids) goofing around with different clothes.  It's a feel-good song and video in more ways than one.  (Hat tip: OWTK's Jeff Bogle, premiering the video on Huffington Post.)

The Pop Ups - "Costume Party" [YouTube]

Video: "I'm a Little Fish" - Laura Doherty

"I'm a Little Fish" is a simple acoustic folk song that leads off Laura Doherty's fine album In a Heartbeat, and there's an accompanying video that's every bit as charming as the song itself.  The art by Jessica Pignotti and animation from Dick Schmidtling... well, it just does everything right.  A tiny little jewel.

Laura Doherty - "I'm a Little Fish" [YouTube]

World Premiere: "Archaeology" - Danny Weinkauf

Danny Weinkauf has released a number of videos for his poptastic album for families No School Today and I'm pleased to bring you the world premiere of his latest video from the album.  It's for "Archaeology," and seeing as he also wrote and sang a little song called "I Am a Paleontologist," perhaps Weinkauf is now attempting to corner the kindie market on these aged issues.

In any case, the video from Yvonne Grzenkowicz is a little kinetic wordplay mixed with some rock.  Or, er, rocks.  Enjoy!

Danny Weinkauf - "Archaeology" [YouTube]

Video: "Echo" - The Okee Dokee Brothers

By the time you read this, hopefully I will have crossed a small portion of the Appalachian Trail as part of our family's summer vacation.  Maybe we'll just essentially drive across it, or maybe we'll have time to walk a mile on America's most famous trail.

So I'm using that as an excuse to post one of the videos from The Okee Dokee Brothers' latest album, Through the Woods.  It's an album inspired by and partially written during the duo's trek along parts of the Appalachian Trail, and this song, "Echo," has, as you might expect from its title, a sing-along chorus.

I do not plan on jumping into a large body of water from a multiple-story-tall cliff, however.

The Okee Dokee Brothers - "Echo" [YouTube]

Video: "Love Bug" - Raffi

Raffi's got a new album, his first of original kids music in more than a decade, coming out later this month.  It's titled Love Bug, and one of the album's strongest tracks -- and certainly one of the most "Raffi-like" in nature.  While his brand new video for the song isn't his first in the decade (here's "Hockey Days" from just a couple years ago), its existence is something to celebrate.

And, luckily, it's good, too.  Nothing terribly original -- a little fingerpainting, a little facepainting, and a little more "Kids Say the Darnedest Things" -- but it's stitched together nicely and fits the snuggly song so very well.

Raffi - "Love Bug" [YouTube]

Video: "Haircut" - The Not-Its

Seattle's sartorially-superior schoolhouse rockers The Not-Its are releasing their fifth album Raise Your Hand in a couple weeks and judging by their brand new video for "Haircut" (premiered this morning over at USA Today's Pop Candy blog), they have chosen to not cut their hair until the album actually drops.  This will amuse the kids and parents for different reasons -- the kids for the silly hair, the adults for the silly... OK, it'll amuse 'em for the same reason.  (Is it churlish to wish they'd also thrown in a Pavement reference?)

The Not-Its! - "Haircut" [YouTube]