I mentioned a few weeks back the Bumbershoot offspring Youngershoot, and now it's here. The Seattle fest features Central Services Board of Education hitting the stage in about a half-hour, with Recess Monkey tomorrow, but here for your viewing pleasure is The Not-Its from Saturday's set playing one of the best tracks from their We Are the Not-Its! debut, "Shadows." Besides the fact that the brought their horn section to the show, I love the fact that the female trumpet player also donned a poofy skirt to blend in.
The Not-Its - "Shadows" (Live at Bumbershoot)
Video: "King Ferdinand" (Live) - Peter Himmelman
Here's another Peter Himmelman song from My Trampoline performed on his Furious World webcast. I just love the guitar riff in this song. Plus a bonus made-up song (with a word that may or may not be acceptable for the kids in your household) and a brief snippet of Igor Stravinsky (who probably made a lot more people upset than the use of that word I just referred to).
Peter Himmelman - "King Ferdinand" (Live)
(Kids) Musicians Who Need (Kids) Musicians: Booking Agents
In this episode of our sporadically popular "Readers Who Need Readers" series, I'm reprinting a portion of a recent e-mail from a kids musician who shall remain nameless...
Well, Stefan, how come I can't find a professional booking agent? Apparently I am at this weird professional juncture where I am now earning a healthy living and too busy and successful with shows and production projects to have any more time to actively BOOK my own shows (that seems good), but NOT quite successful enough to attract a professional booking agent (that seems bad). So apparently I am not such The Man after all. Admittedly, the extent of my booking agent search was to send a single unsolicited e-mail to nine booking agents I found online who represent other family musicians (and it was actually even hard to find NINE real agents in this business...), but thus far my "Yes, I would love to book [X]" response rate of precisely 0% is rather uninspiring... If you have any pearls of wisdom from your experience in this business... BRING IT ON PLEASE!Well, my specific pearls of wisdom (such as they were, and hardly meriting the all-caps of "BRING IT ON") would tip off who the artist is, but I'm opening this up to other artists out there. Thoughts about ways to find a booking agent? A booking agent you'd recommend? This does strike me as a trickier genre for booking than traditional rock music, a niche, no doubt. And don't forget about Kindiefest.com -- there's another community that may be of help. (But entering responses here will also help folks who come searching for this info in months and years to come...)
Hey Nice Lady, Have You Seen Dan Zanes?
Dan Zanes will be on this year's Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. 5:30 Eastern time on Monday. That's some sort of barrier broken, to be sure, regarding kids music in pop culture.
Video: "Aikendrum" - The Nields
Aikendrum has always has always made some odd sartorial choices, but in this version of the traditional song from the Nields' forthcoming DVD Kick a Hole in the Sky, dude is totally food-ed out. A pair of pears - hah!
The Nields - "Aikendrum"
Hopefully This Contest Will Cause You No Frustration
For those of you heading back to school with your elementary school young'uns, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer have a contest to get their (and your) rhyming skills back into shape. They've got a contest to write new lyrics for their song "Jubiliation" from the Banjo to Beatbox EP with Christylez Bacon. If you read the lyrics to the song, I think it's pretty obvious what they're looking for. Details are at the link above, but the top 5 winners get a free Cathy & Marcy CD of their choice plus a washboard. Entries due Sept. 30th.
Now... is Zooglobblation a word? Anyway, to get you in the mood, here's a mood for the song featuring lots of puppetation.
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer with Christylez Bacon - "Jubilation"
