Interview: Audra Tsanos (AudraRox)

Audra Tsanos, the driving force behind the New York band AudraRox, seems to know every kids' musician in New York. In AudraRox, she's assembled her own set of talented musicians whose debut CD, 2006's I Can Do It By Myself, ran the gamut from country to slick power-pop and very kid-targeted lyrics. Audra kindly answered a few questions about her musical upbringing and AudraRox's formation, among other things. Read on for the story behind Audra's first band name, her experience in a Music for Aardvarks cover band, and, yes, the title to their upcoming CD. Thanks to Audra for the interview (and the accompanying photo). ************ 1. What are your musical memories growing up? I was raised by fundamentalist Christians in Kansas City, Kansas - so my first musical and theatrical experiences were in the church. I sang my first solo when I was 2, did my first musical at church when I was 7 and joined the adult choir at 11. On my own I listened to bad Top 40. I won the talent show in high school my freshman year. I put together a band with the bass player from the jazz band and a sax player, played piano and sang Whitney Houston's' "Savin' All My Love for You." YUCK! My best friend in high school, Linda Amayo, played Ella Fitzgerald for me. The only cassette tapes I owned when I went to college were The Police, The Doors, and Sade. Hats off to Joetta, my first roommate from California - she played me The Violent Femmes, The Smiths, Billie Holiday, and Bessie Smith. Then I dated and married a guy who had an album collection of about 1,000 and finally, I grew up musically! I'm a late bloomer.

Review in Brief: Brazilian Playground - Various Artists (Putumayo)

The latest in Putumayo Kids' "Playground" series, Brazilian Playground continues Putumayo's tradition of selecting appealing tracks from cultures near and far and mixing them together for families' enjoyment. A stroll through Putumayo's typically well-done liner notes reveals that many of the songs weren't written with kids in mind -- songs about love or dancing until dawn. Of course, the foreign-language nature of the songs allow parents to use themes as a jumping-off point and the music as a dancing-off point. Claudio Jorge's "Coco Sacudido" ("Shaken Coconut") is about a Brazilian religion with a lot of rituals and ceremonies -- your kids won't care, they'll just be dancing to the big band. For the kids who've been raised on their parents' Bebel Gilberto CDs, Marissa's brief electronica bossa nova "Alo Alo" ("Hello, Hello") will sound familiar. One warning about the disk, though -- the CD's description of the tracks as "lively" is somewhat generous -- the two tracks above are among the more shimmering and vibrant of the tracks here. Which isn't to say that the rest of the CD is bad, just that the overall vibe is a bit more subdued than I'd expected. More 4 PM (if not quite 4 AM) than 9 AM... Musically, the 36-minute CD is appropriate for kids of all ages, though kids ages 3 through 7 will probably respond to the kids' voices in some of the songs. You can hear samples (and download a teaching guide) at Putumayo's page for the CD (released a couple weeks ago), or hear samples elsewhere on the web. If your family has enjoyed Putumayo's previous Playground releases, they will enjoy this one, too. It's another good compilation. Recommended.

Clap Your Hands. Stomp Your Feet.

Long before I spent lots of time with children's music -- or at least spent lots of time writing about children's music -- I wrote a baseball blog. There's not much to say about it -- I enjoyed the writing, but got burned out by the daily nature of it. Covering a team that ended up losing more than 100 games in 2004 didn't help, either. Trying to figure out how to write, "we're really bad" in new ways every day is a creatively draining experience. It's almost as bad as trying to figure out how to write, "we're neither good nor bad" in new ways every day (which was my 2005 experience). That's right, I'm an Arizona Diamondbacks fan. I've got a soft spot in my heart for other baseball squads -- the Twins, the Rangers, even the Giants -- but the Diamondbacks are my favorite professional team in any sport. So I'm excited to be going to Game 2 of tonight's National League Divisional Series against the Cubs. My seats are waaaay the heck up there, and one of the friends I'm going with is a Cubs fan, for goodness' sake, but I'll be there. It's weird, because it's clear the Diamondbacks, though talented, are here in large part due to luck (and an excellent bullpen). As a result, there's an excitement around the team that isn't laden with pressure or nervousness. It's kinda exhilerating. My record in attending playoff games is mixed. Went to a game against the Mets in '99. Lost that one. Been to first-round playoff games for the Suns and Coyotes, and they've lost those, too. But I was in the crowd for Arizona's first professional sporting championship. OK, it was Arena Football and the Arizona Rattlers, but still. Oh, and I was there for Game Seven of the 2001 World Series where the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees. Total pandemonium. So on the whole, I guess I've done OK. Anyway, to those of you whose teams didn't make it (sorry, Seattle), my condolences. To those of you cheering on the 8 playoff teams, best of luck (except once they play the Yankees). And to all of you, which children's song would you choose as your "strolling to the plate" music?

Video: "The Mesopotamians" - They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants' latest CD, the very entertaining The Else, isn't always kid-friendly -- it's not quite as goofy overall as their earlier work, almost as if they're cleaving a little bit between their kids' stuff and adult stuff. The album closer, "The Mesopotamians," is a bubbly tale of some ancients hitting the road as a band. Think of it as the Geico cavemen meet Gorillaz. Think of it as an early world history lesson (who was Hammurabi again?) Or, if you don't want to just think about it, head on over to Stereogum, where they've got the new video here. The animation is pretty sweet. It's mostly OK for older kids -- there is some not-too-bad stylized violence and one PG-rated curse word.

Austin Kid's Day, A Recap

Ah, Austin, a city I've called home (or home-away-from-home, or home-away-from-home-away-from-home) for well over twenty years. Which means that I'm entitled to feelings of "when-the-hey-did-they-build-this-thing?," even if I was just there a couple months ago. Driving from the airport to the Glenn at the Backyard, site of the first Austin Kid's Day, held this past Labor Day weekend, I was constantly amazed at the width of the freeways and the number of power centers I passed. (Of course, this being Austin, many of those power centers are tastefully tucked in behind some trees so they're not nearly so noticeable from the road.) I take that brief detour (metaphorically) to suggest that Austin, while it might have been able to put together a music festival 20 years ago, it certainly wasn't at the point where it might have supported a long afternoon of quality kids' music.

How Do We Make Money? Volume.

There was an old Saturday Night Live fake ad about some bank whose sole function was to make change. The spoof had the mixture of trustworthiness and responsiveness that is the hallmark of most ads for financial institutions, right down to the founder who, when asked how he could make money solely making change, responded in an eager tone, "Volume." The ad came to mind as I pondered Radiohead's decision to release its new album, In Rainbows, as a digital (DRM-free) download on Tuesday, October 10th, just 10 days after announcing it. (There's a deluxe boxset to be released in December, with a physical version of the regular CD scheduled for sometime in 2008.) There are probably countless bands who are giving away music for free, but none with 1% of the popularity of Radiohead. If you go to the site and ask to buy the download, you can indeed enter "0" as your desired price of the digital download of the album. But Radiohead is probably banking on the goodwill of its fans and the interest of other music fans to generate a fair amount of change. Other music fans like me. I'm not alone in saying OK Computer is one of the best albums of the past 10 years, but most of the rest of Radiohead's post-OK work has left me cold. So it's safe to say that if In Rainbows was appearing at my local record store in a physical format next week, I would not be picking it up. Nor would I be scouring a bunch of torrent sites looking to download it for free -- it's just not what I do. But this morning I went to the site and put down 2 British pounds (about $4 US) plus about a $1 service charge to download it next week. Why? Well, in part it's the musical equivalent of playing the Powerball lottery -- I always viewed $1 I paid when the pot got large and the office collected as entertainment, not as investment. This is much the same, no? It's also part of the giddy glee in helping to make major label executives nervous about whether they can continue business as usual. So here are my questions to you: 1) Was I too cheap? A kids' musician e-mailed me last night saying he'd put down $10 -- a dollar a song. But I think he's a bigger fan than I am. It might be cheap, but $4 is $4 more than Radiohead would have received from me in the absence of this experiment. But if Spoon did something similar with their next album, I guarantee I'd've put down $10. Maybe more. 2) Is this a model that can at all work in the kids' genre? I've always pooh-poohed the idea of digital downloads because I think kids like the physicality of things, and mp3s don't have a lot of physicality, know what I mean? But if somebody like, say, Dan Zanes did something similar, I think he'd probably make a fair amount of change. (Though I'd certainly miss the album packaging, which has always been top-notch with his work.) Of course, he's already reaping all the profit from his CDs, something that Radiohead, while they were on a label, did not, so perhaps his incentives to do so is less... Readers, musicians, thoughts?