Video: "10,000 Pancakes" - Gunnar Madsen (World Premiere!)

It's been a decade since Gunnar Madsen released an album for kids (2008's I'm Growing!), but the drought is at an end with the release next month of I Am Your Food.

Perhaps unsurprisingly based on the album title and cover art, it's an album featuring nothing but food-related tracks, with guest artists like Bill Harley, Frances England, and Justin Roberts also part of the menu. (OK, promise -- that's the only food pun I'll make in this post.)

This song, "10,000 Pancakes," features the title repeated many times at nearly shouting levels of volume. And if you're anything like me, the phrase "Ten thousand pancakes!" will randomly pop up in your head for at least a week after hearing the track.

The video will just help reinforce that hijacking of your brain. It features animation from Madsen himself and while the animation isn't Pixar-quality ("I can sometimes draw a cute little cartoon," says Madsen, "but the results are hit-or-miss -- mostly miss"), the angry pancakes in particular capture the energy of the song. I like it.

I Am Your Food is out June 15 (iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Bandcamp).

Gunnar Madsen - "10,000 Pancakes" [YouTube]

Video: "Blue" - Ants Ants Ants (World Premiere!)

Yay for new bands making a splash! The band in question is Ants Ants Ants, and even before the release of their debut album Why Why Why? next month, I'm already tickled pink by one of their brand new videos. It's for the song "Blue," about blue whales, inspired in part by a conversation which one half of the duo Johnny Clay had with his daughter -- “On the way to school one morning, my 7 year old asked what the biggest animal on earth was - I told her it was a blue whale and we looked it up together when we got to school. We found out they can be 80 feet long!”

For the gentle, hummable song about blue whales, the Portland, Oregon duo of Johnny Clay and Dave Gulick turned to animator Chris Purdin. The animation from Purdin (who also did the album art) is a perfect fit for the music, friendly and warm. I'm happy to world-premiere the video. And while Why Why Why? isn't available until May 20th, if you pre-order it at all the places you preorder music these days, you can get "Blue" as an instant download. So go forth and, er, dive in! [Slinks away slowly...]

Ants Ants Ants - "Blue" [YouTube]

Listen To This: "Waiting for the Elevator" - Laurie Berkner (World Premiere!)

Laurie Berkner Waiting for the Elevator cover

It's always nice to see new music from Laurie Berkner cross my desk, so when her latest single, "Waiting for the Elevator," popped in my e-mail inbox, I clicked "play" without reading anything about it. It starts out simply, as Berkner songs often do, with an ear-wormy melody, Berkner's clear voice, and lyrics about riding up in an elevator. Aside from the fact that she sings about riding up to the first floor (are we in Europe now?), it seemed like it was an appealing, albeit fairly conventional, song.

And then it got a little strange.

Not Inception strange, or in any way inappropriately, but what I'm saying is, listen to the whole thing. (Your preschoolers will make you, anyway.) I'm happy to be world premiering the track today right here, but you can also listen at your other favorite places (iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, Spotify).

Laurie Berkner - "Waiting for the Elevator" [YouTube]

Video: "Constellation Jig" - Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer (World Premiere!)

While I think one of the things I've appreciated most about kids music over the past decade plus is the genre's expansion into new sounds, it's a little sad that there isn't as much history, so to speak, aside from the many traditional folk songs that reinterpreted many times over.

So I was glad to hear that Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, key players in the kids music field for many years, were honoring some of their forebears with their forthcoming album Zoom a Little Zoom! A Ride Through Science. The new album takes songs from the classic set of albums called Ballads for the Age of Science. Those albums, also known as the Singing Science Records, featured songs by lyricist Hy Zaret and composer Lou Singer, performed by Dorothy Collins, Smithsonian Folkways artist Tom Glazer, and more. They Might Be Giants covered a couple songs off the album, so it's not totally unfamiliar, but as songs that essentially beat Schoolhouse Rock by a full decade, they're important in the history of American kids music.

Fink and Marxer don't cover every song off the albums, but the ones they do, including this one, "Constellation Jig," (very Irish, natch) get contemporary arrangements commissioned by Zaret's son Robert. The accompanying video is lovely, with lots of detailed animations (including, of course, the constellations themselves) to accompany the lyrics. I'm happy to world-premiere the video below. And if you want to pick up the album, which comes out this Friday, March 30, feel free to check out iTunes or Amazon.

Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer - "Constellation Jig" [YouTube]

Monday Morning Smile: "Heroes" (David Bowie) - Choir! Choir! Choir! feat. David Byrne

You will notice that this website has been... not so active recently. That's mostly due to "real life" taking up most of my time. The day job, parenting, a desire to keep myself healthy -- I value all of those things higher than this website. But the minute I saw the latest post in David Byrne's journal, I knew that it would make its way here.

The post recounts Byrne's experiences singing with Choir! Choir! Choir!, a Canadian group which organizes public singing with formal arrangements. Recently he sang David Bowie's triumphant "Heroes" in New York City with members of the public briefly rehearsed by Choir! Choir! Choir! and the result is, well, my favorite rendition of the song, and a reminder to me, of the joy and communal feeling that drew me to kids music its performers in the first place.

[Also, to say that I'm really excited to see Byrne on tour this spring is an understatement. Even if there's no public singalong involved.]

Choir! Choir! Choir! featuring David Byrne - "Heroes" [YouTube]

Steve Denyes and 20 Kindie Artists Write 20 Kindie Songs in 20 Days

Sounds like a logic problem, right? "If Steve Denyes and 20 kindie artists write 20 kindie songs in 20 days, how many days would it take Steve Denyes and 1 kindie artist to write 1 kindie song?"

The answer -- contrary to what logic would tell you -- is one day.

Or, to be more specific -- today. That goes for whenever you read this, because for the next 20 days, Denyes (best known as the main guy in San Diego's Hullabaloo) and a guest artist will pick a song title out of a hat and, by 5:00 PM daily, write, record a post a song based on that title. Actually, both Denyes and the guest will each write a song, so it's actually 40 songs in 20 days, but Denyes' title was already set. (Logic is tough, y'all.)

Why would Denyes do such a thing? I'm sure there are many intrinsic motivations, but an external one would be to raise money for Happy Star Melodies, a San Diego-based charity that brings musical instruments and performances to kids facing long hospital stays. Denyes has already raised a nice sum of money, and although the time to suggest songs is long past, I'm sure the group could use whatever you can spare via the donation page.

I could list some of the guest artists, but then I'd be afraid of leaving some out, and, really, there's no good way to handle the issue other than to say the guest artist for the first day, February 1, is Jason Didner, and there's plenty more good stuff coming.

Denyes' plan is to post the song(s) by 5 PM Pacific time daily, and my plan is to update this post -- hopefully daily -- with all the songs.

So, again, visit that donation page and give a little bit if you can. And enjoy the music!

"My Best Friend Riley" - Steve Denyes / "My Best Friend Riley (Is a Dog)" - Jason Didner