Contest Update: Coastal Exchange

Well, I've finally gotten around to picking winners in a couple of recent contests and just want to share the results. Both the East and West Coasts represent. First, in the contest to win the New York-based Deedle Deedle Dees' excellent new album, Freedom in a Box (review) for a local school or library, I randomly selected longtime reader and West Coast resident Katy, who offered four historical personages her family would love a Deedle Deedle Dees song about: Amelia Earhart, Abigail Adams, Benny Benson, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Lloyd Miller (Ulysses Dee) will actually record a song for Katy and her family using those people. No word yet on whether Lloyd will choose one or create his own historical mash-up of multiple characters. Anyway, thanks very much to Lloyd on that item. Second, in our contest related to the KidVid Tournament 2007 final, the randomly-selected voter was East Coast resident Christine, a big fan of the Portland (Oregon)-based Captain Bogg & Salty and voted for "Pieces of 8ight." Because she already has all three of the band's albums (including Pegleg Tango), she asked for a copy of San Francisco-based Frances England's Fascinating Creatures CD. Thanks both to Captain Bogg and his crew and to Frances for offering their CDs as prizes. (I'm sure I will have another opportunity to give the Bogg CD away.)

Zooglobble Live!

Before you get too excited, it's not a national concert tour, it was just me and a ukelele and someone else with a guitar singing after church this weekend. Didn't you do this before? Why, yes, I did have a singing party of sorts for my birthday a while back, but this time it involved two people playing instruments. Does that make it a hootenanny? In any case, after a brunch-y potluck at church, about 20 of us got together with some songs, some egg shakers, a person who knows about three or four good ukelele chords (me), and a person who knows many more guitar chords (not me). Again, we found that the attention span of the kids was, well, considerably shorter than that of the adults (I do not yet have that commanding stage presence). Starting the singing at 11:45 AM or so probably wasn't the wisest move on our part, either. But we did have fun... let's see, what did we sing?... "Pay Me My Money Down," "Polly Wolly Doodle," "John the Rabbit," "Kookaburra," "What a Wonderful World" (we closed with that one), "O Mary Don't You Weep," "Peace Like a River," "Little Liza Jane" (we have Elizabeth Mitchell and Ida Pearle's lovely songbook to thank for those two), "I've Been Working on the Railroad," and, if memory serves, "Jesus Loves Me." There were a couple others that were spur-of-the-moment things. All the songs seemed to work pretty well -- I think some of the songs could definitely be improved upon with additional thought and arrangement (there's no reason why "John the Rabbit" shouldn't lead to kids shouting, "NO MA'AM!"). Also, I really need to master the G-major chord on my uke. (Gotta practice for the Dan Zanes show, of course.) The national tour's probably a ways off, though.

Whose Idea Was It To Only Put 24 Hours In a Day, Anyway?

So many things to do (or write about), so little time. Which is probably good, otherwise I'd be spending too much time thinking about this weekend's Dan Zanes concert in Tucson. We are very excited about going, sad that our son won't be joining us. (We decided that a 2-hour drive and a concert smack dab in the middle of naptime was a perfect storm that might very well ruin the show for the rest of us.) We've been watching Zanes' All Around the Kitchen DVD this week to try to give our daughter some sense of what the show might be like, though we keep saying things like, "Yeah, I like her voice, but she's not going to be at the show." What does the show look like now? Well, the Old Town School of Folk Music's burgeoning video library has a video of the band from a show last November. (Warning: took me forever to download) In the meantime, I've got a couple reviews (I hope), maybe some other stuff. And, yes, I will get the contest winners announced very soon. Really.

That and Swim Lessons at the City Pool, and We're Set

We've been looking for activities for the kids this summer (we can only come up with so many art projects and trips to non-commercial air-conditioned locales), so I looked at the news of the "JAMbledance Camp" with interest. Art? Music? Yoga? Reading? With the participation of Charity Kahn? Our daughter would love that. We can fit that into the activities budget, right? But, oh yeah, we live in Phoenix. The commute to and from San Francisco would be a bear, no? Oh, and that's the first week of school for our daughter. Other than those things, though, we are so there.

Mrs. Davis Works Hard, Gives Stuff Away

I have been deficient in not mentioning Amy's contest to raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. If you like the possibility of personal gain associated with contributing for a worthy cause, Amy's got a bunch of cool stuff to give away. I was reminded of this after reading Amy's marathon entry listing 20 "Kids Albums for Parents Who Can't Stand Kids Music" (full entry here). I'd make a few changes to the list (and frankly, I see no reason not to throw, say, Justin Roberts' Meltdown! in there -- if that doesn't get 'em, nothing ever will), but to the list-compiler go the spoils. Or the props. Or something like that.