Review: Easy - Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

Easy.jpgI know that the kids' music genre is flowering when less popular subgenres such as kids' hip-hop or kids' country are starting to bubble up. I especially know that that's the case when those genres start producing albums that aren't just "kids songs done in a [fill-in-genre-name] style," but fully realized albums on their own. Case in point: Easy, the debut kids' CD from Asheville, North Carolina's Cactus. He spends a lot of time rapping and playing with the music collective GFE as Agent 23, but who adopts the cool-kids name Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.. From start to finish, the album is totally geared at kids in its subject matter but is not dumbed down one bit in the creativity of its beats and melody. On its strongest tracks (and there are a number of them), Cactus blends smooth rapping with occasionally eclectic instrumentation ("Luck" features nice banjo work) and an all-positive message. Sometimes that message is a little more overt -- "Luck" raps about how we make our own luck by knowing what it is we want; "Gotta Be Me" is about how everyone should have their own style, and that's OK. If the message is a bit direct, it's delivered with precision and flowing words. (Even his 5-year-old daughter Saki gets in on the act, very smoothly trading lines with her dad on "Family Tree.") Perhaps even better are his songs that take a more imaginary bent. "Hot Lava" so completely nails the 7-year-old feeling of pretending on the fly (don't touch the floor! -- it's hot lava! -- jump from couch to couch!) that I'm not sure there is a better kids' song about the power of imagination. Songs about dragons, mermaids, and robots feature in the mix, too. It's very much story-telling with a compelling musical background. I'm going to peg the messages and stories here as geared primarily for kids ages 4 through 9. You can hear samples of a number of the songs at the album's CDBaby page. The list of really good kids' hip-hop albums is very short. Not only does Easy go to the top of that list, it should find a lot of fans among people who don't consider themselves big hip-hop fans. It's a really good CD, period -- lots of fun and certainly worthy of repeated spins. Definitely recommended.

Kidzapalooza Branches Out

When I first saw this weekend's press release announcing the announcement of the Kidzapalooza 2008 lineup, I was somewhat confused. Lollapalooza and its Kidzapalooza stage is scheduled for CHICAGO August 1-3. The Paul Frank Store Los Angeles is, uh, located in LOS ANGELES. As the poster announcing the announcement says, "Of course!" What better place to announce a lineup for a Chicago show than in LA? Perhaps they can also tell us what's coming to the Art Institute of Chicago in early 2009. But then came this announcement (hat tip: Idolator) that Kidzpalooza is getting its own stand-alone concert at the Hollywood Bowl September 28, with pre-show activities starting at 4:30 PM and the show starting at 6:30 PM. The only artist currently announced is chief Lollapalooza poobah Perry Farrell. While I think this is a great idea, and one producer Tor Hyams had previously suggested would happen, two concerns: 1) Ticket prices are $12 to $70 (!) dollars. I know, I know, a bunch of people can afford that on the upper end. And that's a pittance compared to, say, Hannah Montana tickets. But I gotta tell you, it was hard enough convincing people to plop down $20 for a Dan Zanes ticket. Anything more than that, even for more multiple artists, is going to be hard... 2) 6:30 PM on a Sunday night? Monday morning's going to be a pain getting the kids ready... I'd also note this is the same weekend as Austin City Limits Festival, which will certainly make Tor a busy man that week. Anyway, tickets for the Hollywood Bowl show go on sale Saturday morning at 10 AM. And once you've done that (or not), go over for the events at the Paul Frank Store Los Angeles (which also includes a raffle for a trip to the festival in Chicago). Schedule is after the jump.

Snacktime Leftovers

I couldn't squeeze everything I wanted to into my day of Snacktime stuff. Mostly because the stuff I wanted to talk about hadn't actually been, well, posted yet. (I tried to convince them that Monday was the day to do this, but did they listen to me? No.) But better late than never. First, if you're on the fence about Snacktime (and you probably shouldn't be after reading my review), go over to AOL's New Releases page and you can stream the entire CD. Second, my friends at the Land of Nod music store have posted their latest Nodcast Podcast with Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies. It's another fun podcast, with Ed playing acoustic versions of "Raisins" and "A Word For That" and spins a couple other tracks from the record. He also plays a game called (echo voice here) "Is It A Guitar?," lets you compose the Nodcast Podcast theme song, and answers exactly why the band got its name.

Review: Snacktime - Barenaked Ladies

Snacktime.jpgI'd like to think that my offhand comment 7 months ago ("Why has this band not recorded a kids' CD?") was the genesis of Snacktime, the first kids' music album from Canada's Barenaked Ladies. The band, after all, recorded the album in November and December of last year, a good month after my comment. I gotta tell you, if I was somehow responsible in some tiny way for the album, released tomorrow, that would justify a lot of my work here at Zooglobble -- this is one fun set of songs. (Note: I'm not delusionary enough to suggest that I actually am. But it's nice to dream, eh?) Barenaked Ladies always seemed to me a little bit the yin to They Might Be Giants' yang when it came to geek rock -- while TMBG focused on absurdly catchy melodies, BNL's strength was more lyrical. From the goofiness of "If I Had a $1000000" to the wistfulness of "Brian Wilson" to the, er, I-have-no-idea-iness of "One Week" (which I will proudly admit to still adoring), the band always had a good narrative line and a fascination with words. A fascination with words is a good thing to have for certain kids' albums, and it pays off well here. From the very first song -- "7 8 9," which takes the old kids' pun of a hungry #8 and #9's sad demise and turns it into a Western stomp that touches on Gordie Howe, Pluto, and canine (teeth) -- lovers of wordplay will rejoice here. There are several wordy classics here. On the soundplay of "Food Party" the band perfectly anthropomorphizes (sonically) tastes such as "sweet," "sour," and "bland." "Crazy ABCs" pretty much writes the final ABC song ever (sample line "G is for gnarly"). "Vegetable Town" is a slow, dreamy song about a place "Where we can ride the zucchini subway / Or watch the carrot planes land on the runway." "I Can Sing," on the other hand, is a zippy bluegrass tune which features lines like "I can dance I can dance I can dance faster / I tried to keep up but it was a disaster. / One more move and I'm gonna be the master! / So crank it up loud on the ghetto blaster." Not every song works -- the title track, for example, mostly consists of musicians and actors (Geddy Lee, Lyle Lovett, Sarah McLachlan, Jason Priestly) phoning in their favorite snack foods, and after the first listen you're likely to skip forward (and probably once more, past "Popcorn"). But that's what happens when you put 24 tracks on a 54-minute album -- some are bound to be duds. And some songs aren't going to be of much interest to your kindergartner, but just means that songs like the awesomely rocking "Allergies" will make them convulse with laughter 3 years from now and make you hope that Dr. Demento is still recording his radio show, because it deserves to be there. (He is.) The nice thing with all the silliness is it makes the more serious songs stand out more. "My Big Sister" encapsulates in just under a minute the woes of a younger brother and hand-me-downs. "Bad Day" is an "everything will be better" song that avoids sappiness. The album will be of most interest to kids ages 5 through 9 and adults who got rid of their copies of Stunt a while back. [Raises hand.] You can hear some songs at their Myspace page or "Crazy ABCs" here. By the way, you can also order the CD with a book from the band's own website. The book isn't absolutely essential -- it's just the lyrics to the songs with drawings from band member Kevin Hearn interspersed with the text -- but it's a solidly-bound hardcover, and I can't think of too many other kids' CDs where I would be more likely to read along to the lyrics with my kids than this one. It may be worth the extra $4 or $5 to you... Snacktime is too long by half, kids will be bored by some of the songs, and "Humungous Tree" should probably be written as "Humongous Tree." And even with all that, it's still a great CD. It's not perfect, but the joy and spontaneity in its creation shines through. The Barenaked Ladies have crafted a CDs that will appeal to just about every family member, at least most of the time. It's a classic Barenaked Ladies album, just a little bit... smaller. Highly recommended.

Interview: Tyler Stewart (Barenaked Ladies)

TylerStewart2.jpgTyler Stewart was the last of the founding members of the rock group Barenaked Ladies, which means he's only been with the band for 18 of its 20 years of existence. He's been the band's drummer ever since. Stewart chatted by phone last week about what his kids listen to (Neil Young and High School Musical, just to begin with); his views on the relative merits of Barney, Sesame Street, and Beethoven; the genesis of their first kids' CD Snacktime; and what's to come for the band. (Photo courtesy Wikipedia.) Zooglobble: I'm going to start the with the question I always ask whenever I interview someone and that is -- what were your musical influences growing up? Tyler Stewart: Well, my parents are pretty young so they were into popular and good music. My dad was a big fan of British rock bands like the Who, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, and my mom was really into Motown music and soul. There was always good music playing in my house. Specifically, what do you listen to with your kids? Well, my kids, their dad's a musician, so it's a pretty varied catalog, and my wife, too, has pretty good taste in music. My iPod has 14,000 songs on it, they run the whole gamut. Recently my daughter Millie was saying, "Gawd, I'm so tired of this old people's music -- I don't want to hear any more Neil Young." My daughter's nine. "I like Neil Young, but not all the time." Yeah, I'm guilty of that. Right now they're heavily into High School Musical. High School Musical 1 and 2 is like the Grease of today. Both my daughters really like Alison Krauss and her fiddle music. Of course they love the Beatles, the universal music of all time. And we really love to listen to They Might Be Giants, their three kids' albums, together. They know every word, and they love 'em. Do they listen to the Alison Krauss-Robert Plant CD? You know, I haven't gotten that one yet. I can't believe I haven't... They like the live record she did, the 2-CD one she put out 4 years ago -- they really like that one a lot. My kids, they run the gamut, they like all kinds of different music. That's sort of my goal. When I got them iPods, I filled them with all kinds of varied different kinds of music so that nothing seems surprising. I don't want them to have any musical prejudices or fears at that age. So that when they want to listen to Hilary Duff, OK, we'll put on Hilary Duff... But that's their own choice, and they've listened to everything else...