The Twin Cities-based Okee Dokee Brothers' Kids With Beards is one of the better kids music albums I never got around to reviewing -- a solid, occasionally odd, but often quite enjoyable collection of tunes released in 2008. You've never heard banjos and disco mix quite like this.
Well, Joe and Justin have some new tunes, and they're trying them out live. More importantly for the audiovisual needs of your friendly kids music blogger, they're also posting them to YouTube. Fun stuff, plus banjos. Banjos go a long way with me, as do gratuitous mid-'80s references. I think they'll go a fair way with your kids, too.
The Okee Dokee Brothers - "Wash Your Face" [YouTube]
One more live video after the jump. Lots of fun wordplay in this one.
Video: "Yes, It's Christmas" - The Hipwaders
It's a pity that this, the final video from The Hipwaders' A Kindie Christmas album, came out so close to Christmas that it didn't necessarily attract a lot of pre-Christmas attention. Because the video for "Yes, It's Christmas" is the best of the bunch. Dig the band in animated Victorian gear. Dickens totally would've written about chainsaws, had chainsaws been invented when he was alive.
The Hipwaders - "Yes, It's Christmas" [YouTube]
Video: "The Kid with the Replaceable Head" - Richard Hell
Really, when you think about it, this might almost be the perfect Pancake Mountain song -- punk, with a kid-friendly-in-a-Roald-Dahl-sort-of-way narrative. The song's performed by Richard Hell (Television and a solo career, primarily), and although the song's pushing 30 years old at this point, I'm guessing this version is from his new Destiny Street Repaired release.
Really, though, it's about 10 months too late, as the animation (and song) is just about perfect for Halloween...
Richard Hell and the Voidoids - "The Kid with the Replaceable Head" [YouTube]
Video: "Freight Train" - Elizabeth Cotten
Imagine, if you will, Mick Jagger performing "Satisfaction" at John Lennon's house, where John and Yoko record him for posterity.
This is the kids' music equivalent. Elizabeth Cotten performing "Freight Train" at Pete and Toshi Seeger's house, as recorded by the Seegers. The sound quality isn't the best, and I've noted this clip before, but now it's been posted to YouTube. Given how little video we have of the early days of recorded family music, this is quite valuable. (Not to mention a great song.)
Elizabeth Cotten - "Freight Train" [YouTube]
Video: "One Shoe Blues" - Sandra Boynton (B.B. King)
I like Sandra Boynton's music, and this, her first video, for "One Shoe Blues" featuring B.B. King, is just as droll as the rest of her output. Not clear what NPR's favorite part was. I liked the stone-faced sock -- "Momsock" -- with glasses and purple hair.
That is a sentence I'm pretty sure has never been written before. The video isn't embeddable, but here's a "making of" video that's, er, longer than the actual video.
Video: "Dreidel Bird" - The Macaroons
This was either the last kids music video for Hanukkah 2009, or it's the first kids music video for Hanukkah 2010. It's "Dreidel Bird" from The Macaroons, and the video for the fanciful alt-country tune is the finest use of backwards video since Coldplay's "The Scientist." (Or maybe not.)
The Macaroons - "Dreidel Bird" [YouTube]
