Review: Camp Lisa - Lisa Loeb

It's not like we weren't prepared for the possibility of a Lisa Loeb kids' music album -- after all, she (relatively) famously joined with her old Brown University singing partner Elizabeth Mitchell to produce Catch the Moon in 2004. But it certainly took Loeb a while to get around to a kids' album of her own, and it's not quite what we might have expected. Loeb released her new album, Camp Lisa, last week, and it's a considerably different album from Catch the Moon. Whereas that album was definitely targeted to the preschool set (it was packaged with a small picture book, after all), Loeb's album is a concept album that celebrates summer camps. I mean this in the best possible way -- Camp Lisa is an winningly dorky album. By that I mean it expertly blends earnest and original "camp life" songs with earnestly sung renditions of traditional songs and chants. I mean, the album leads off with the cheeky "Ready For The Summer," the theme from the movie Meatballs. While perhaps there's a small wink and nudge in Loeb's and Letters to Cleo's Kay Hanley's vocals, the group of kids singing along do so with gusto and without any irony. It's summer camp -- the more you through yourself into it, the more fun you'll have. The original tunes here, including "Best Friend," "When It Rains," and "It's Not Goodbye" (which features a nifty segue into the camp chestnut "Make New Friends"), have an appealingly laid-back, '70s AM-radio vibe whose sounds will appeal to the parents of kids going off to summer camp and whose lyrics, should the kids settle down long enough to pay attention, might actually frame their camp experience. (The whole album is well-sequenced, working from heading off to camp to leaving it.) The traditionals -- "Woodchuck," "Peanut Butter & Jelly," and "Father Abraham" -- wouldn't be strong enough to merit a whole album on their own, but integrated into the other songs, they provide a nice contrast. Loeb pulls in a whole bunch of help here, from Jill Sobule (on the dreamy "Cookie Jar Song") to Veruca Salt's Nina Gordon on the ukulele-accompanied "Linger." Kudos, too, to Loeb for a) getting Steve Martin to appear on her album, and b) asking him just to play banjo (which he does well on "The Disappointing Pancake"). Given that these are songs about going to camp, I'll put the age range here at ages 7 and up, though certainly a lot of the traditional tunes will appeal to the younger set, too. For the moment, the 39-minute album is only available at Barnes & Noble -- you can hear samples and buy the album here. (I should also note that in conjunction with the album's release, Loeb has also launched the Camp Lisa Foundation, a non-profit that will raise funds to help send underprivileged kids to summer camp.) Camp Lisa does a very good job of evoking -- both prosaically as well as emotionally -- the summer camp experience, and I think that any family who's gone through that (or is going to go through that) will find this a very worthy album. But even if you're doing the summer camp thing, there are enough good songs here that you'll probably linger a little while with it. Recommended.

Last Minute Father's Day Gifts, Courtesy of Frances England and Yosi

Perhaps it's too late for you to burn a list of songs for your dad for Father's Day onto CD. Well, then, Frances England has come to the rescue, providing an e-card to send to your favorite Daddy-ish guys. The music on the e-card? England's "Daddy-O," of course. (And file away "Best Friends Forever" and "Thinking of You" cards for future use.) But if you're like me -- you know, a dad -- and you feel a little weird sending yourself a Father's Day e-card, you'll feel much less weird reading a whole bunch of dad-related interviews over at Yosi's Indie Kids Rock blog. Lots of kids music dads join in the fun, including Ralph Covert, the guys from Hot Peas 'n' Butter, Mr. RAY, Robbie Schaefer, Ernie & Neal, and ScribbleJim (whose submitted family photo I think is a hoot). Worth a couple minutes of your time, even if you're not a dad.

Interview: Mr. Richard

Florida's Mr. Richard has no kids of his own, but he's got plenty of fans in the single-digit set. He has three albums of kids' music to his credit, the most recent being Polka Dot Puzzle, and a most devoted fanbase (which helped him take the 2008 KidVid Tournament crown for his "Cheese" video). Mr. Richard (real name: Richard Peeples) recently sat down and answered a few questions about himself and his music. Read onward for his thoughts on his guitar influences, the problem with delayed gratifications and kids, and the most perfect pop song ever. Zooglobble: What were your musical influences growing up? Mr. Richard: When I was little, I knew all the words to “Bottle Of Wine” by the Fireballs, and my brother and I wore the grooves off our copy of “The Jungle Book”, which gave us an early appreciation of Louis Prima. Like most kids, I heard what my parents listened to on records and the radio, so that meant the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and all those great AM pop hits of the late 60’s/early 70’s. When I started learning the guitar in 9th grade, I was totally into the Rolling Stones, so it was all about Keith Richards. He’s such a rhythm master. I also loved Hendrix and Brian May, but it was Keith’s licks I tried to copy, although my playing is closer to another hero, Dave Davies of the Kinks. However, I am first drawn to the words and emotion in a song, so I always ended up being the front man in bands, with better guitarists handling the gun-slinging duties. Since you never stop “growing up”, other favorites are the Beach Boys, Elvis Costello, Replacements, Young Fresh Fellows, Wilco, Guided By Voices, and I am drawn to smart-alecks like Todd Snider and Randy Newman. How did you find yourself playing kids' music?

Listen To This: "Rise and Shine" - Central Services Board of Education

It's no secret I've been a big fan of Central Services Board of Education ever since I caught wind of them many, many months ago. Their self-titled debut will be formally released late this summer, but I've been spinning the album for awhile now, and I've got to tell you, the opening prologue, "Rise and Shine," is my favorite album-opener in quite some time. It's a rip-roarin' song with sparkling keyboards, horns, and vocal gymnastics -- if you're not awake after hearing this, well, you may have some medical problems of some sort. What's that, you say? You want to hear this fine track? OK, courtesy of the band, here you go (for a limited time only): Central Services Board of Education - "Prologue - Rise and Shine" (too late!) If you're from Seattle, you probably recognize the DJ's voice at the beginning of the track -- it's John Richards, host of KEXP's Morning Show, known locally as "John in the Morning." A canny move by the band, but, hey, Richards' a daddy, too.

This Is The Way I Write a Post, Write a Post, Write a Post

I don't delve too often into the educational here at Zooglobble, but occasionally I'll get a little bookwormish. I got a note recently from Tracy Zimmerman, who's the public relations director for the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. She's also got a new blog, PRMom, about being a mom and how child development research might affect what she (or other parents) does as a parent. She pointed in the me direction of a conversation she had with Petra Kern, a music therapist at the Institute, about the importance of music in many developmental ways, including making transitions easier. If you're looking for some theoretical basis for why your kids will clean up better if you actually make a sing-song out of it (or a reminder of it), you can check out the 15-minute conversation. (And if you're wondering about the songbook Kern mentions near the end of the discussion, learn more here.)

Review: Nueva York! - Dan Zanes

Imagine if Kanye West decided his next album would be a bluegrass album. Or if Metallica felt they had a polka album in them. How would their fans react? How would the bluegrass or polka purists react? Most importantly, would the music be any good? I'm thinking about those questions after having listened to Nueva York!, the latest album from Dan Zanes. The album, released yesterday, is Zanes' eighth "age-desgregated" album, the follow-up to his 2006 Grammy-winning album Catch That Train!. And, after slowly building up his rep as the godfather of family-friendly music for American families, Zanes has chosen to release an album songs from Latin America and Mexico recorded 99% in Spanish. Zanes has released less obviously kid-oriented albums in the past -- an album of seafaring songs (Sea Songs) and an album of songs from Carl Sandburg's Songbag -- but those were released when Zanes had a little lower profile than he does now. So while Zanes probably couldn't act like Beck did early in his career, and release his higher-profile stuff with Geffen while releasing other, more challenging albums on small labels, he should still get credit of some sort for embracing this new album as the full-fledged follow-up to Catch That Train! But back to the original question -- is the music any good? Yeah, it's good. The album starts out with insistent drums and the driving "El Pescador," which rocks as hard anything in Zanes' kid-ography, helped out by Marc Ribot on guitar. "Colas" mixes tuba into a a Mexican son joracho recorded with the Villa-Lobos brothers. "Pollito Chicken" is the closest thing to a "kids' song" here, with a kids' chorus helping out the children's rhyme. On it goes -- through Daphne Rubin-Vega's turn on the beautiful la-la-las of "Alba Mananera," the Villa-Lobos brothers' forceful string playing on "El Pijul," and long-time DZ compatriots Rubi Theatre Company on the multilingual "El Canario." I certainly can't speak with any knowledge of how "authentic" the renditions are, but these mostly traditional songs probably don't sound like this today in their "home" countries, either. These renditions here are vibrant, full of life, with solid musical performances. More so on perhaps his other CDs, Zanes takes a little bit more of a backseat to his fellow musicians -- it's a more collaborative album than any of his previous efforts, which befits the learning and immersive nature of this project. As good as the music is here, I can't say this is the perfect DZ album. At over an hour in length, it goes on for too long. Kids who have grown up on Zanes' albums may miss the absence of Father Goose and his silliness especially. And it's going to be hard for a lot of English-speaking families to fully "get into" the album when it's virtually entirely in Spanish. None of which the album bad as an entity unto itself, but for those families who stumbled recently onto Zanes via a Playhouse Disney video and haven't been listening for five years, it's likely to be a little bit confusing, at least. While the album is another all-ages experience, it doesn't have quite the early-years hook some of Zanes' other albums have, so I'm going to put the target age range here at ages 5 and up. You can hear samples of the tracks just about everywhere online, or you can listen to "Colas," "La Piragua," and "El Botellon" right now at Zanes' Myspace page. With Nueva York!, Zanes has crafted another album of fun, family-friendly community music. Going back to the question I posed earlier -- does it really matter who does a bluegrass album so long as the album is good? While the album is a less-than-perfect introduction to his music, longtime Zanes families will embrace this CD as just another part of his wide-ranging musical explorations. And hopefully it'll introduce Dan Zanes to a whole new set of fans. You'll listen, you'll dance, and -- Zanes hopes -- you just might even sing along. Definitely recommended.