Elizabeth Mitchell has posted a couple new tracks on her Myspace page. The first, "Little Bird Hops," she posted before (and it's still there for the taking, if you'd like to).
So the bigger news is a new track from Elizabeth Mitchell and fellow Smithsonian Folkways artist Suni Paz, whom she sang with in LA back in September. Mitchell's posted a duet of the traditional Argentinian lullaby "Arrorro." The lyrics (courtesy of here) sound like a balm to tired parents of newborns:
Sleep my baby, sleep my sun,
Sleep piece of my heart.
This beautiful baby wants to sleep
But the sandman won't come.
Sleep piece of my heart.
Interview: Randy Kaplan
I love doing the interviews I've done here on this site -- Dan Zanes, Ella Jenkins, Justin Roberts, so many great ones -- but I've got to admit that the e-mails I do over the phone or in person are a pain-and-a-half to transcribe.
So I'm really excited about this interview with Randy Kaplan, filmed just before his show here in Phoenix at the end of last year. I'm excited not just because it's a cool interview and provides some insight into Randy's musical beginnings, how songs like "Shampoo Me" came to be, and how Kaplan pictures, but also because I filmed it and uploaded it to YouTube. No work.
Of course, the sound is a little odd, and occasionally the camera pans left or right just so it's not 7 minutes of Randy on camera, but I still think it's cool.
Review: More! More! More! - Bunny Clogs
It seems like kids music is the new "side project" for an increasing number of musicians. What better way to deflate expectations and clear out a little creative room than by deciding to create music for the elementary school set? I don't mean that negatively at all -- in fact, it's that "anything goes" approach that helps to make the genre vibrant.
It's in that spirit that I'm calling Bunny Clogs, the kids music project from the Honeydogs' Adam Levy, a "side project" in the best sense. Now, Levy already has a side project -- the I-never-thought-I'd-be-typing-this-name-in-this-blog band "Hookers $ Blow" -- but Bunny Clogs' first album More! More! More! has been 5 years in the making, recorded with Levy's two daughters and a host of guests (and featuring some pretty cool album art from his son). So it reflects a fair amount of thought and craft.
At its best, the album recalls the family-friendly community-celebrating vibe of Dan Zanes, such as on the midtempo "Midtown Greenway," which extols riding a bike through town and features Semisonic's John Munson on bass. "Song For Powderhorn" celebrates another part of Minneapolis (and benefits the local V.O.I.C.E. Music Saves Lives program doing work in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood). There are a lot of songs about food, with very little in the way of lessons (though there are some snuck in there). Sometimes the album is plain silly -- "Velveeta Girl and Squatsy" is a bunch of (danceable) nonsense while "3 Dogs and a Pancake" is a bunch of (not-entirely-danceable) nonsense. And sometimes the album marries the old (Woody Guthrie's "Car Car") into a new, strutting hand-clappable classic -- "Are We There Yet?," the best song on the album.
Not every track is perfect -- I can't say that I ever need to hear the drum machine-aided "Butter" more than once a year at the most -- but Levy's use of a whole bunch of different styles and instrumentation (check out the middle eastern touches on "Pharaoh Pharouk's Phyrst Phood Phyramid") makes even less compelling songs more fun to listen than most kids songs.
The album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 10. You can hear tracks at Bunny Clogs' Myspace page, or also pick it up at eMusic or Lala.
More! More! More! is clearly a labor of love for Adam Levy. It wasn't recorded to cash in on the kids music scene, it was created for the fun of it. Families who listen to the album with the same sense of joy that went into making it will get a kick out of this. Definitely recommended.Elizabeth Mitchell Goes To Japan, Takes a Few Pictures
There isn't a lot music-related about this post, but Elizabeth Mitchell set up a Little Bird Records Flickr site recently with some photographs from her travels across the country and even across the ocean.
"We are not fancy photographers," she says, but some of those compositions (particularly of the arts and crafts from the preschool they visited in Japan last fall) are quite lovely and worth a minute or two.
Back in the States now, Mitchell will be playing at NYC's Jewish Museum this Saturday with a special guest (hmmm... playing "Catch the Moon" and "Stop and Go"... now who could that be?...) and next month up in Bill's neck of the woods for a benefit show Bill helped organize.
Concert Recap: Randy Kaplan (Phoenix, December 2008)
I look at the date of my last post, and clearly I've been taking an unofficial vacation from the site. Lots of stuff to do, both pleasant and less so, but before it gets too far in my rear-view mirror, I wanted to be sure to talk about and post some photos and videos from last weekend's concert by Randy Kaplan here at Church of the Beatitudes in Phoenix.
One of the first songs Randy led off with was a cover of Elizabeth Cotten's classic "Frieght Train"...
Don't Forget: Randy Kaplan in Concert
Uh, like the title says -- Randy Kaplan in concert. Don't forget about it -- Saturday, Dec. 27th at 2 PM at Church of the Beatitudes in Phoenix. (7th Ave and Glendale -- soooo central.) Tickets are just $3 per person, $10 per family.
It will be lots of fun -- hope to see you there.
