The Bay Area three-man band The Hipwaders released their second (self-titled) album in 2005. On the 42-minute CD they cover a wide range of musical styles, from the jangle-pop of the album opener "Come Along With Us" to the new wave stylings on "Silly Robot Dance" to the vaguely Nirvana-esque stylings of "Stand Up To The Bully," with many more styles as well ('60s psychedlic pop in particular). Generally, it's a guitar-based pop-rock confection.
With the exception of two songs, all songs were written or co-written by the band. Lyrically, they cover the gamut of elementary-school-aged themes -- cleaning up one's room, bugs, and the sheer wonderfulness of jelly beans, just to name a few. The Hipwaders also have a slight science bent, with songs about earthquakes ("It's An Earthquake!") and volcanoes ("Volcano," natch).
With 18 tracks on the CD there are bound to be some favorites and less-than-favorites. I particularly like the "Rock Lobster" echoes on the driving ode-to-antsiness "Twitchy," the funky new-wave "Silly Robot Dance," and the brief, strutting '80s pop "Kelly the Clown." There are a pair of eerie story songs about a Civil War-era ghost/skeleton/thing ("Mr. Wiggly Jiggly Bones") and werewolves ("Howling at the Moon") which I find to be too long, breaking up the overall poppy flow of the album. But I think that's just personal taste (they're not bad songs) and older kids may find them appealing. (At the very least you can enjoy the Cab Calloway reference on "Bones.")
Given the lyrical themes, I think the album is most appropriate for kids age 5 through 9. You can hear 4 of their songs in their entirety at The Hipwaders' MySpace site. You can buy the album at Amazon, CDBaby, and a few other sites linked through The Hipwaders' main website.
In sum, The Hipwaders is a solid album of kids' pop-rock. In its broad appropriation of pop music stylings, it is very reminiscent of Ralph's World albums. They're not at a Ralph's World level of polish and songcraft yet, but give The Hipwaders time. They may just get there. Recommended.
Review: Folk Playground (Putumayo) - Various Artists
"Folk Playground is neither 'folk' nor 'playground' -- discuss."
The Putumayo label got its start a number of years ago putting together mix tapes for use in its clothing store. They have since abandoned the clothing store, focusing solely on music, and have developed a kids' music label, Putumayo Kids. The latest entry in the Putumayo Kids series of CDs is the 2006 release of Folk Playground, to be released on Tuesday.
The 33-minute CD may confuse folk purists while also confusing some parents new to the children's music scene. The key component in the definition of "folk" seems to have been whether or not acoustic guitar was included on the track. The "playground" songs -- "This Old Man," "Froggie Went A Courtin'," -- aren't necessarily "folk music" in execution (or, if they are, it sort of stretches the definition.) The term "Folk Playground" is marketing and stretches the definition of what's actually on here.
Now, if you are a devoted children's music listener, you may already have half the songs (or at least half the artists) already in your collection. The problem with the selections from the more familiar artists is twofold. In some cases, the selections are not very representative of the artist's work (Justin Roberts' "Roller in the Coaster," while a nice little song, is a less common type of song for him, compared to the rave-ups; Laurie Berkner has made a name for herself for her originals, not covers. Neither would be considered folk artists.) In other cases, the songs are more representative of the artists' overall work, but not necessarily a highlight from their catalog (Dan Zanes' "Hop Up Ladies," Trout Fishing in America's "Fill It Up," Elizabeth Mitchell's "Crawdad"). These songs are perfectly fine, but I could probably have come up with a half-dozen songs each that I'd've preferred to see on here. (I do think Brady Rymer's "It's All How You Look At It" is pretty good, though.)
Of the less familiar artists (kids' related -- Leon Redbone is hardly an unfamiliar artist), the clear standout song on the CD is Zoe Lewis' "Sheep," about her musings while seeing sheep from far above in an airplane ("I wonder what are you thinking as your little pink lips go round and round and chew / Does night time bring you dreams of spring, mutton, mint sauce, leg of lamb or stew? / (Sorry, sheep)"). It's a sprightly melody, sung with whimsy, and mixed with tin whistle, among other instruments. Forget about the less familiar artists -- it's the best song on the CD, period.
The album is probably most appropriate for kids age 2 through 8. You can download lyrics and listen to sound samples at Putumayo's page for the release.
In the end, after listing all my criticisms, you might be surprised to read that I like the CD. It's a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Putumayo's history as a mix-tape creator serves it very well here as Folk Playground is a CD which will serve as a very pleasant soundtrack to a session of coloring or game-playing. While there are few standout tracks here, the overall listening experience is nice.
Review: Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang - Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang
Released in 2003, the debut self-titled CD from Los Angeles' Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang had its genesis in the 2000 movie Chuck and Buck.
Movies about stalking childhood friends 15 years later don't typically serve as the inspiration for forming a children's music band, but Beck drummer and music producer Joey Waronker asked unimonkered LA folk-rock singer Gwendolyn to contribute a song to the movie soundtrack -- out of that grew this entire album.
The entire album has the feel of a Saturday morning cartoon or kids' variety show. Gwendolyn sings with a somewhat high-pitched and nasally-pinched voice. In addition, there appear to be "characters" singing along on many of the songs (there are characters pictured on the CD case but the liner notes aren't clear). The entire thing just screams, "CUTE!"
As someone who tends to react allergically to cartoony voices and cuteness in general, I mentally prepared myself to actively dislike the album. It's a testament to the strength of the melodies and musical production that I can look past the characters' voices and focus on the melodic hooks.
Some of those hooks have lodged in my brain, and may never come out. "Anatomy" isn't much more than a spoken-word recitation of a whole bunch of body parts and their purpose, but the poppy chorus, "It's your anatomy," repeated nearly ad nauseum, is running through my head right now over and over. "Farm Animal Friends" has a nice loping country song feel to it. The song from Chuck and Buck, "Freedom of the Heart (Ooodily, Oodily)," isn't necessarily a kids' song, but it's got a kid-like feel and a very '70s pop sound and a chorus that goes "Oodily oodily oodily oodily oodily oodily fun fun fun." (I assure you, it's head-bopping.) The song "Little Monkey," for a character which appears to be an Elvis impersonator, has a suitably '50s Elvis-like sound. In addition to being catchy musically, the band (seven members in total) sounds good, too.
Lyrically, the 26-minute album deals squarely with typical preschooler concerns -- manners, sharing, washing, and bugs, among other things. The lyrics are direct ("Please" -- "When you say things with a smile / A little tiny inch becomes a mile / You can go far when you're cheerful / Because nobody likes someone who's tearful"). The earnest lyrics don't leave a lot of room for adult humor, but some sneaks in. (In the aforementioned "Anatomy," Gwendolyn mentions, "Hair / Everybody has hair / Well, except for my dad.")
Given the show-like approach of the music and lyrics, the album is most appropriate for kids aged 2 through 6. You can hear samples of music from their two albums and a full download of "Farm Animal Friends" here. You may want to double check that the characteristics of the CD I could see past you can see past, too. The album is available through their website or the usual online suspects.
Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang had all the hallmarks of being a CD I wasn't going to like at all, but very quickly it wore down my defenses. It's a fun little CD with great melodies that's likely to engage your kids. Recommended.
Review: The Hollow Trees - The Hollow Trees
The Hollow Trees are a Los Angeles-based band who released their debut self-titled album in December 2005. Led by Greg McIlvaine and Laura Steenberge, the Hollow Trees drew inspiration from Dan Zanes in looking for ways to make family-inclusive music, making Zanes Pete Seeger to their Bruce Springsteen.
The Hollow Trees owes a debt to Zanes in a couple ways. Most noticeably is the inclusion of two songs covered by Zanes on his CDs -- "Polly Wolly Doodle" and the album closer "Buckeye Jim." Less noticeably perhaps, but more importantly, is the feeling of "let's get together and make a CD, and why don't you invite your friends" that permeates the disk. Now, Zanes clearly has more musically famous friends than the Hollow Trees (there's no Sheryl Crow on the Trees' version of "Polly Wolly Doodle.") But that doesn't make the Trees' version less fun. Indeed, my favorite cut on the album, their rollicking version of "Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor," sounds like there are about 15 people crammed into a living room with a microphone and would sound just great on a Zanes album. Songs like that, uproarious and boisterous, are where the Hollow Trees shine.
The rest of the album are faithful covers of other folk and bluegrass standards (some more familiar to me, others less so) done with care and competence. The originals (only 4 of the album's 17 tracks) are a mixed bag -- I liked "Forest Melody," which has a very 50's folk-rock sound to it and "Nelson," but found "Bunny Hop" to be a bit repetitive.
Like many folk/bluegrass albums, the notion of age-appropriateness is much less relevant than for other CDs, but I think that kids aged 2 through 7 would like this album the most. You can hear complete tracks from the CD at the Hollow Trees website, as well as order it there or from CDBaby.
The Hollow Trees is a fun album of folk and bluegrass for the entire family. If you don't care at all for folk and bluegrass, this album won't appeal to you. But for the rest of us, we'll enjoy the album just fine. Recommended.
Review: Catch That Train! - Dan Zanes and Friends
[To Dan Zanes and Salon.com readers -- greetings and thanks for stopping by. And check out the main site for tons more music for kids and adults. No, that's not an oxymoron.]
The short review of Catch That Train!, Dan Zanes' 2006 release and his fifth album specifically for kids and families is that it's like his previous family music album, but more so -- more musically diverse, more lyrical, more... everything.
The long review is... well... the thing is, after listening to this album so many times, I didn't want to write the short review, which might otherwise have just said, "It's like every other Dan Zanes CD -- it's great." So I went back to his first family music album, 2000's Rocket Ship Beach, to see if I could notice progression in Zanes' music that is harder to see from just looking at his last album, House Party. And a couple things struck me as I listened to his first and his latest CDs.
The first thing that struck me was how Zanes has gradually broadened his musical horizons since 2000. Six years ago, the debut's most adventurous musical step could very well have been the appearance of Father Goose (Rankin' Don) and his dancehall stylings. On Catch That Train!, Rankin' Don's appearance on "Choo-Choo-Ch-Boogie" almost feels safe compared to the rest of the album. The Blind Boys of Alabama on the gospel "Welcome Table," the Rubi Theater Company on the strutting "Walkin' the Dog," the forward-thinking Kronos Quartet on the retelling of the psycho-pet story "Grey Goose" -- they all come from diverse musical places and yet fit in perfectly on this disk. It's as if Zanes has released his very own Putumayo collection. Which is not to say that the stuff that's been around since Rocket Ship Beach -- Rankin' Don, the duet with Barbara Brousal ("Mariposa Ole," in Spanish, of course), and the duet with a female singer-songwriter (Natalie Merchant on the lovely "Loch Lomond") -- isn't there, and isn't great. Because it is.
The other thing that struck me was that the first CD seemed to me a collection of songs that Zanes really liked. The latest CD does seem to have a thematic cohesiveness to it, and it's not about trains. It's about community. "When we ride / We ride together," Zanes has written on the title track, and there is a strong sense of doing things together that runs through the album. Inclusiveness ("All God's children gonna sit together," from "Welcome Table"), neighborliness ("High and low, people that we know / They say 'Hey there,' and 'How’ve you been?'," from "Wander in the Summer Wind"), and a welcoming neighborhood ("Wherever you’re from / Know that you’re welcome / If you want to bring your family ‘round / To this moonlit town," on the album closer "Moonlit Town.")
Quite possibly my favorite song on the album is Zanes' "While the Music Is Playing," about wanting to linger in the neighborhood into the night, listening to all the different music in the air.
People gather all around the square People laughing in the evening air Swirls and mingles with the songs that brought us there That brought us all there.If that's not Zanes' ideal world in a nutshell, I'm not sure what is. The midtempo tune mixes a wistful chorus, brass band, and a backup singer count which eventually must reach double-digits to posit a world where community is paramount. (Its placement smack-dab in the middle of the album just before the pro-working-man "I Don't Want Your Millions Mister" can't be just random.) With Zanes entering the fray over a proposed Brooklyn development, these are no longer idle concerns for him. As with all Dan Zanes albums, Catch That Train is for people of every age. But if I had to narrow down the age range, I'd call it ages 5 through 10. You can hear samples, etc., by following the links at Zanes' Catch That Train! page. In the end, if you're at all a fan of Dan Zanes' music, you'll enjoy this album. (And if you're in the minority who don't, this album won't change your mind.) Catch That Train! is Zanes' strongest album to date, a celebration in music of the joys of family, community, and music itself. Highly recommended. [May 19, 2006 Update] Now that I've had the full copy of the CD and packaging for a few days, rather than just an advance promo copy, I wanted to add a few additional comments to the review. 1) The packaging is quite nice -- Zanes has replaced the book format of his previous kids' CDs with more of a foldout design similar to which he employed on Parades and Panoramas. The entire design is thought out quite well (the title, "Catch That Train!," is actually the very end of a sentence that runs through the entire physical package). 2) Lyrics! Chords! The presence of these two things in the liner notes only makes the absence of them in previous albums that much more stark. Again, Zanes had started doing this with Parades and Panoramas and Sea Music, but their presence here is very welcome (especially for an artist so enamored of public singing). And, Zanes' comments in the liner notes are useful, too. (Not to mention finding out little things like Warren Zanes plays guitar on "Mariposa Ole.") 3) The video for "Catch That Train!" is OK, but nothing special. Dan Zanes plays around in his apartment while a tiny little animated train drives around. The scene where Zanes looks at a comb by his sink, then shakes his head as if to say, "naaaah," did make me laugh, though. So, there you have it. And if you don't (have it), why not?
Review: I Am Your New Music Teacher - Parker Bent
With many children's music albums struggling to crack the 30-minute mark, defining the length of a children's music EP is a tricky proposition. At just under 19 minutes long, the 2005 debut album from Los Angeles-based musician Parker Bent is either a long EP or a really short full album. Still, Bent packs a surprisingly diverse group of songs into the short runtime.
Bent is a preschool music teacher in Beverly Hills, California, and his subjects -- the alphabet, numbers, or pets, for example -- will be very familiar to preschoolers or their parents. One of my favorite songs on the album is the gentle pop-rock tune "I Wanna Go Home," about a preschooler who's reached his or her sensory limit, is tired, and just wants to go home. My other favorite track is "Count On," whose melody and fuzzy-guitar-and-handclap instrumentation reminds me of the rootsier "Tuesday Night Music Club"-era Sheryl Crow.
The vocal harmonizing on the brief acappella leadoff track "AAA" is totally different from the the above songs, but a nice bit of musical styling nonetheless. The humorous storytelling stylings of "I Am Your New Music Teacher" may be over the heads of the 3-year-olds in the audience, but with Bent playing the role of a controlling music teacher, his snarled lyrics, "We will not have any singing / We will not have any dancing / Instead I thought we'd spend / The entire music class / With everybody sitting in timeout" made me smile. The entire album has a gentle, albeit sly, sense of humor.
The album will probably be of most interest to kids age 3 to 6. You can hear samples of the CD and purchase it at Bent's CDBaby page. It's also available on iTunes Music Store.
Regular readers of this website will probably find at least one or two tracks worth checking out on the album. Even with its short length, the album shows Bent's promise as a children's songwriter and musician. Should Bent ever decide to release a double album (at, say, 38 minutes in length), it could be very, very good.
