Itty-Bitty Review: "Luckiest Adventure" - Lucky Diaz

You can make a big impression in a small amount of time. With his debut family EP Luckiest Adventure, Lucky Diaz proves you can do it in about fifteen minutes. The singer-songwriter from LA has put together five fabulous songs that will probably stay lodged in your iTunes playlist, car CD player, and brain for a long time after you first hear it. "Blue Bear" is a shuffling rockabilly tune that must spontaneously generate handclapping solos in concert. It's followed by "Explorer," which has a bit of a laid-back Jack Johnson feel mixed with some nifty fret work from Diaz. "Fire Fighter Girl" apes the girl-group sound of fifty years ago, "Let Me Be Yours" sounds like a folk-rock love song for adults but works in a knock-knock joke (sort of), and the album concludes with an rootsy power-pop take on "This Old Man" -- complete with an appearance by the man himself. Diaz has a versatile voice that can do the big choruses and falsettos equally well, and it's ably backed up by the trio (Diaz and a couple others). The songs are most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 6. You can download the album on iTunes or Amazon, and you can stream 3 of the songs at Diaz's website. On Luckiest Adventure, Diaz has put more really good songs on a 5-song EP than a lot of artists fit in on an entire full-length. Full-length pronto, please. Definitely recommended.

Radio Playlist: New Music July 2010

Time for some new music to the Zooglobble Radio Station. A bunch of music has crossed my desk over the past month or two, and I know there's a bunch of albums that I haven't been able to squeeze in here (guess it won't be hard to put together New Music August 2010). This playlist airs in the mid-afternoons (West Coast time), but if you can't listen in the afternoon, the tracks are scattered throughout the day, too. Animal Friends - Poochamungas (Mud, Mommies and Mayhem) F & G - The Pop Ups (Outside Voices) America's Our Country - David Tobocman Moon Moon Moon (Alternate Version) - Laurie Berkner (The Best Of The Laurie Berkner Band) What A Big Wide World - Essie Jain (Until The Light Of Morning) Right Now - Jon Samson (Another Kids Album) Mariposa Mi Nina - The Bramble Jam (Move Your Boots) Va A La Playa - Mo Phillips (Robot Rodeo) Hard On You - Skyboat (On Trinity Street) All God's Critters - Kathryn Christian (I'm a Michigan Kid) I Want a Cookie - The Rozz and Val Show (The Rozz and Val Show) Turn the Sunshine On - Cathy Heller (Life is Good) Together Like You And Me - Brendan Parker (Spaghetti Eddie! And Other Children's Songs) on top of spaghetti - The Primate Fiasco (Wheels On The Bus) Tommy Got In Trouble - The Bazillions (Rock-n-Roll Recess) NOT! - Geff Crawford (Recess) The Cul-de-Sac Kids - Paul Rogers (The Cul-de-Sac Kids) Cumbia - Spencer the Gardener (Organic Gangster Vol. 1) Yonder Come Day - Gina Samardge (Together) Super Smart Guy - Daniel Schorr (I Smart) Explorer - Lucky Diaz (Luckiest Adventure) This list is random, and, due to internet broadcast rules, you'll hear them randomly on air as well...

Itty-Bitty Review: Move Over Lullabies... It's Time for Wake Up Songs! - The Flannery Brothers

Let's see if I can write the review for Move Over Lullabies... It's Time for Wake Up Songs!, the spring EP from Maine's Flannery Brothers, in less time than it takes to listen to the album itself - just 15 minutes. (A lot less than the amount of time I spun the disk, that's for sure.) It's a novel twist on the standard kids music trope, the lullaby album. That's right, with its bright yellow cover and a picture of a very friendly-looking dog on the back, it's an album designed to get your kids up and at 'em bright and early. If they listen to the disk before you have your coffee or yoga or morning routine of choice, you run the risk of premature grumpiness, because in less than 15 minutes, they will be excited for the day ("The Wake-Up Song"), grooving to a kazoo-playing dog ("In the Morning") and shaking like you've just given them their sixth latte ("Shake!" - a title which appears to be missing about four exclamation points). With the piano, guitar/bass, and drum trio, it's got a very sunny feel -- a little West Coast jazz for the kids. Kids ages 3 through 7 will most likely groove to the tracks here, a couple of which can be heard at the brothers' music player at their home page. I think preschool teachers will especially find a song or two on here worth incorporating into their morning routines. As for the rest of us, if this were 40 minutes long, the relentless cheerfulness might wear some folks down, but at 15 minutes in length, it's an excellent dose of orange juice for first thing in the morning. If that's what you need, this is for you. Recommended. Disclosure: I received a copy of the album for possible review. Also, I think it took me about 20 minutes to write this. Oh well.

Review: "Time Out To Rock" - The Not-Its!

There's not much secret to the appeal of Seattle's Not-Its -- take standard kid-friendly subjects like kindergarten friends, boo-boos, and fanciful trips to outer space, mix in crunchy alternative rock, and add a dash of visual style. Voila! The band had the formula down pretty much right out of the gate on their debut and on their follow-up Time Out To Rock they don't tinker with it much. There are hooks galore for the kids and parents to latch onto -- "Welcome To Our School" features a killer guitar riff, bouncy drums, sweet harmonies, and life lessons. It's a template the band duplicates through most of the album. It's proof, perhaps, that it's not so much the message of average kids music that drives parents bonkers as much as it is the often-poor delivery. I mean, being friendly to the new kid at school is at its heart obvious and a little preachy. But it's a song that stands up to repeated listening, which is more than can be said of a lot of other songs imparting life lessons. See also, for example, "Say It Loudly," which says as clearly (and loudly) as possible that people should speak up against bullies, or the mellow alt-rock of "Change My Luck." That last track is one of the album's last 3 songs, in which the band dials the rock back a bit, but for the most part this is an uptempo, bop-your-head-and-toes disk. As always, lead singer Sarah Shannon's clear and direct voice is a big asset to the band, not only on the rock tunes (the missing Heart kids song "Green Light, Go!") but also the gentler ones such as album closer "Hollow Tree." Kids ages 4 through 8 are most likely to appreciate the songs here. You can listen to a number of songs from the album here. (And I'd just like to say that I appreciate the high quality packaging, which makes it easy and appealing to give the album to others. While there's nothing particularly revolutionary about the Not-Its formula, they're still among the first that have successfully applied the '90s alt-rock musical template to kids music without going over the heads of the kids who are their primary audience. They rock, and that's enough for us. Definitely recommended. Disclosure: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review and also premiered one of the album tracks here on the website.

Video: "Big Pet Pig" - Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke

I know, I posted this video from Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke once already a few months back, but I haven't had the best luck watching the videos, including this one, on the Topspin widget. YouTube doesn't fail me, though... and, hey, it's always fun to go back and rediscover videos you haven't seen for three months. It's akin to that toy you hid from your three-year-old and brought out a few weeks later. Like new, right? Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke - "Big Pet Pig" [YouTube]

Secret Agent 23 Skidoo Recycles a "Road Trip"

So remember that Egg / Secret Agent 23 Skidoo collaboration "Look Both Ways"? Well, that's not the only thing that came out of this most recent collaboration. The leadoff track on the upcoming Skidoo disk Underground Playground is "Road Trip" and it was born out of "Look Both Ways." Skidoo came up with the idea for "Look Both Ways," Jeff Fuller and Egg wrote and recorded it. After Skidoo recorded his vocal take for the Egg song, Fuller sent him the separate studio files. Skidoo says he "grabbed the guitar and bass lines, chopped 'em up on my drum machine, and built a whole new song around them, thus resulting in this song... So 2 songs were born, with the thematic overlap that they're both sort of about roads, which was coincidental." Anyway, if you want to download the song (which is a fun, ever-so-slightly mellow ska-tinged tune) in time for your own summer road trip prior to its Aug. 31st release date, grab it at iTunes here. (And I plan to play it on my Live365 station later this week.) Just as with the Coal Train Railroad / Readeez collaboration I mentioned earlier, it's this long-term trading of ideas and songs and appearances that will, in the long run, give the sense to the public at large that this is a genre, not a fad. Children's book authors and illustrators trade off and collaborate all the time -- why shouldn't family musicians? Track listing for the album after the jump...