Listen To This: "Crayon Man" - Roy Handy and the Moonshot

Bill played "Space Kitty" on this morning's Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child, so I thought it'd be worth directing you to the other track from Roy Handy and the Moonshot, "Crayon Man" -- if Roy G. Biv is your (or your kid's) best friend, this song is for you. Also, if you (or your kid) like a good power-pop rockin' tune, this song is for you. If you (or your kid) like meowing, this song is not for you. I've heard more of Handy's music, and I think the full-length, when complete, is gonna have a lot of fans...

Yo Gabba Gabba Goes To The Super Bowl

Yo Gabba Gabba's Muno (the tall red one) is co-starring in a Super Bowl ad for Kia. I could make the serious tsk-tsk noises about how this proves that the show is targeted at least in part at adults because why else would the ad agency use a character from a show whose most popular song encourages kids to eat everything on their plates. Instead, I'll just note that whatever swelled head Muno might get compared to his (unseen) YGG co-stars would be wiped out by the fact that that Paul Frank monkey gets most of the good scenes (the tattoo was particularly amusing).

Share: "All About Bob" - Ralph's World

One of my favorite tracks from the upcoming Ralph's World disk All Around Ralph's World is "All About Bob." Want to share it amongst your family and friends to see if they agree with me? OK -- Bar/None Records is offering a free download of the track -- go here to download the mp3. Tres catchy.

Review: Rock Paper Scissors - Dean Jones feat. the Felice Brothers

This is the noisiest kids' CD you'll hear all year. Dean Jones, musician with a dozen hats (including one as the ringleader of the wonderful folk/pop/jazz/whatever band Dog on Fleas), turns to a bunch of friends, primarily the Felice Brothers and Earmight, for his latest album Rock Paper Scissors. Unlike his first solo kids' disk, the lullaby(-ish) Napper's Delight, this new album is loud and sloppy and all over the place. (If the two albums are in the same place at the same time, they will explode, just as if you put matter and anti-matter together.) The opening track, "Hail! Hail! The Gang's All Here!" outdoes Dan Zanes and anybody else who's ever attempted to put a party group jam on record. You will not hear a better album-opener all year, and the album almost suffers from being unable to match that level of energy and raucous joy the rest of the disk, as if anything could. As the album proceeds, Jones and his pals move from the jazzy title track, the Jazz Age novelty track (in spirit, anyway) "Butterflies" to the sing-it-loud-and-proud midtempo "Sing Like a Sparrow." Jones pal Uncle Rock shows up to mug his way through the loudest song about snoring you'll ever hear "Roncando," while the band channels a little bit of the great band Morphine on "Poison Ivy." It moves through many emotions and many instruments (haven't seen "car-horn-o-phone" on an instrument list lately). While this isn't quite the folk/pop that Dog on Fleas mastered on When I Get Little, people who adored that album and didn't have quite the attachment to its follow-up Beautiful World will probably find this a worthy successor. Kids ages 4 through 8 may dig the album more so than kids of other ages, though kids ages 34 through 38 will enjoy it just as much. You can hear clips from the approximately 34-minute album here. So, yeah, Dean Jones throws in everything but the kitchen sink on Rock Paper Scissors, and then goes ahead and throws in the sink for good measure. Lots of kids albums describe themselves as a good party, but this album is the real deal. Definitely recommended.

Share: "Little Lamb Jam" - Oran Etkin with Charenee Wade

Next month sees the release of Putumayo's latest kid-friendly release, Jazz Playground, and to promote the disk, they're offering a free download (well, free except for giving up an e-mail address) of the swingin' minor-key "Little Lamb Jam" by Oran Etkin with Charenee Wade on vocals -- go here directly to sign up. You can also click on the Jazz Playground link above to hear the first 3 tracks from the album, including one of my favorite jazz-for-kids artists, gypsy jazz swing man Lewis Franco & The Missing Cats (see my review of his disk from a couple years ago here). Chris McKhool's take on "Spider-Man" is pretty cool, and it's hard to go wrong with the Cuban jazz of Jose Conde "Cumbamba." Full track listing after the jump

Will Rockabye Baby's Nap Be Cut Short?

I've probably received more CDs from Rockabye Baby than from any label. Every two or three months, a new disk shows up, tinkling away melodies familiar and less-so, depending on the particular artist subject to the Rockabye lullaby treatment. Next up for the Rockabye treatment is Journey -- their album comes out next week. The last track, of course, is "Don't Stop Believin'," and having heard the disk, no, they don't end the track mid-song. (If you want to listen to the track, you can go here.) I don't talk much about Rockabye Baby here because I feel conflicted about the series -- I do think that a fair amount of musical talent goes into producing them, but have always felt that the series puts the parents at the center of this to the near exclusion of the kids themselves. Meaning, what conceivable reason would a newborn have for listening to Journey? Well, none -- the disk is entirely for the parents. Which isn't to say that the music on the disk isn't good, or that there isn't value in having parents enjoy listening to a disk because they recognize the song (and thereby communicating enjoyment of music to their kids). But those are tangential. Really, what's the difference between this and having your kids listen to this and, say, Lullaby Renditions of Color Me Badd? The difference is perceived coolness and actual popularity among people who, you know, are old enough to be parents. Your newborns won't care one bit. But, man, the series shows no sign of slowing down, and why should it? People like me who have this uneasy feeling the series is more for people who want to get a laugh from a baby shower gift will be outnumbered by folks who have very strong feelings for the Rockabye-d artists and probably will be until we're grandparents ourselves. So I'm going to pass along this interview I received via Rockabye's publicist. It's with Lisa Roth, Vice President of CMH Records (Rockabye's label parent), and even with the softball nature of some of the questions and the essentially self-congratulatory nature of the interview as a whole, I think it does say some interesting things about the series and what they go through in producing a particular record.