Review: Dreamers of Dreams - Erin Flynn with the Co-Op Band

erinflynn.jpg It’s hard work reinterpreting classic kids’ tunes -- it takes imagination and a little bit of brazenness. Originally released in 2004, Erin Flynn’s debut Dreamers of Dreamshas enough of both. Flynn, who now teaches at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago (and appeared on their Wiggleworms Love You album), recorded the album in Philadelphia with a large and talented Co-Op Band, giving her freedom to take musical chances. My favorite reinterpretation is their version of the classic “Mary Mack,” which starts off slowly and gradually picks up speed before becoming a full-on punk version. In “Twinkle,” Flynn uses “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” as a jumping-off point for original music (reminiscent of Guster) and sky-centric lyrics. The original songs, while decent, collectively may be too earnest for the adults and too abstract in places for younger kids. (I tried but couldn’t resist, however, the best song the Partridge Family never sang, “Join In With a Song.”) The 40-minute album employs many musical styles -- the punky “Mary Mack,” for example, or country and bluegrass on the “Train” medley -- but most commonly has a folky, jam-band feel, thanks especially to the adept percussion work. The album is best for kids age 3 through 7, with sound clips (and the album) available at the album's CDBaby page. Fans of Elizabeth Mitchell, Brady Rymer, and Frances England will find much to like on this collection, particularly the fabulous reinterpretations. Recommended.

YAKMA (or, Yet Another Kids' Music Article)

But a decent one, with substantial comments from Dan Zanes and Ralph Covert of Ralph's World. Paste Magazine (which I've subscribed to for a couple years now -- it's a good read and has reviewed a few kids' music CDs in its pages), has finally posted online their article on the wave of artists entering the kids' music business. (I've had the magazine for about 3 weeks now, and was about to post without the link, but it showed up today.) My favorite comments from each artist? Dan Zanes -- "Soon we'll have a generation that doesn't know that 'Yellow Submarine' or 'Octopus's Garden' were Beatles songs; they are just gonna know them as songs they sang together in kindergarten." Ralph Covert -- "I have no interest in making 'kids' music.' I won't ever make a 'kids' record,' but I'll make music kids love." Go read. ------ I'm still feeling like I'm living a life out of Where's Waldo?, but that will end soon. To all of you who've e-mailed me recently, I will get back to you soon. I've got more reviews, more news, and more surprises coming up.

Pining For The Fjords

It's a Monty Python reference, having to do an "ex-parrot." (Go ahead and Google it.) The blog's not dead -- I'm off for some (mostly) R&R and (a little) business. Expect more posts later next week. In case you missed it, make sure you read the ScribbleMonster report from Kidzapalooza and the report from Jackie Schimmel (from Justin Roberts' band) below that. I got pictures of the musicians, too, but Blogger was balky. Have fun. Rock on with your bad selves. Or good selves. Whatever.

When ScribbleMonster Played Kidzapalooza

When the cold, hard truth that I wouldn't be attending Kidzapalooza/Lollapalooza sunk in, I thought about who could write an interesting summary of their experiences there. And the first person that came to mind was Jim Dague aka ScribbleJim, whose newsletters (and few e-mails to me) have been generous and amusing. Jim's summary below -- covering both Friday and Saturday -- does not disappoint. Many thanks to Jim for taking the time to put this together. **** The Bozo Show has been collecting dust or gone for about a dozen years now. Still, there are countless Chicago-area children’s performers who proudly and prominently list their appearances on “Bozo’s Circus” (and I think they stopped calling it “Bozo’s Circus” about 25 years back) in their bio. Heck, if I were on The Bozo Show, I’d do the same. In its heyday, there reportedly was a 10-year waiting list for tickets. You never knew anyone who actually got to attend the show. Except for ScribbleJayne. Her uncle did advertising for Channel 9, so she actually scored tickets and went as a kid. We’ve tried to figure out a way to somehow make that qualify as saying we appeared on the Bozo show. We can stop thinking about that now. Now we can say that ScribbleMonster played Lollapalooza.

At Kidzapalooza with... Jackie Schimmel (Justin Roberts' Band)

[Looking for Justin Roberts' Today show appearance? Go here for the link and check out the Justin Roberts links on the right for more Justin reviews.] Since I couldn't actually attend Kidzapalooza/Lollapalooza, I thought I'd do the next best thing -- have somebody else file a report for me. The first of the two reports comes from Jackie Schimmel, who plays bass for Justin Roberts. Jackie's been reading Zooglobble for awhile now, and I thought she'd be a great person to give a "behind-the-scenes" perspective from Kidzaplooza. And she does, in spades. It's long, but it was a long day. Many, many thanks to Jackie for taking the time to write this and for letting me publish it... ****** Hi! My name is Jackie Schimmel, and I play bass in Justin Roberts’ band, The Not Ready for Naptime Players. I first met Justin through our mutual friend, Liam Davis, and I started playing with Justin in February 1998. I’m on all of Justin’s cds except for his very first one, Great Big Sun. The Not Ready for Naptime Players have played A LOT of shows together over the years, and we have a great line-up for today’s show: Justin, Liam, me, Dave Winer on trumpet, melodica, percussion (and the BIG SHOES), and Gerald Dowd (who also plays with Liam in his “grown-up” band, Frisbie) on drums. Lollapalooza is unlike any show we've ever played before. For one thing, at most of our shows, we're the only band on the bill. When we've played at other festivals, they've been specifically for kids (so the other performers have been folks like Hi-5 and They Might Be Giants). Appearing at a festival which is primarily for adults is definitely a first for us. Lollapalooza is an incredibly well organized event -- every single person we encounter over the course of the day is friendly, knowledgeable and thoroughly professional – and the Kidz Stage performers were treated like royalty. I really can't say enough about what a great experience it was! Here's a timeline of my day: 7:00 AM: Time to get up! When you play in a rock band for kids, you have the exact opposite schedule from a regular rock band: instead of getting to the venue at 8 pm, sound checking at 9 PM and going on at 11 PM, we do all of those things 12 hours earlier. One of the good things about this schedule is that we don't stagger home at 3 AM smelling like cigarettes. Another good thing is that we aren't exhausted this morning the way the rock stars playing on the other stages appear to be!