I'm sorry, Mr. Randy Kaplan -- despite your claim in your song "Ice Cream Man," from your new album Mr. Diddie Wah Diddie, I am the official ice cream king.
Even if you do have a cape. And a crown. And, er, an ice cream truck.
OK, I concede my title to you, sir. Where's my ice cream?
Randy Kaplan - "Ice Cream Man" [Vimeo]
Elizabeth Mitchell takes her time doing things, usually. The fact that she's releasing not one, but two, albums this year (Little Seed last month, Blue Skies in October) is the exception that proves the rule. More typical is this video for "Shoo Lie Loo," a song off her previous album, Sunny Day... released in 2010. Don't get me wrong -- I really like the video, which captures the simple, sharing nature of the song (a favorite of mine from the album). But I'm impatient -- I wish I'd seen it 18 months ago.
Elizabeth Mitchell - "Shoo Lie Loo" [Vimeo]
I'm posting this video from Los Angeles' Mista Cookie Jar and the Chocolate Chips for two reasons:
1) The song -- "Inner Child Rock" from their fine album Ultramagnetic Universal Love Revolution -- is one of the more ear-wormy pieces I've heard in kindie music in some time. I'm sure there are some folks for whom it is ear-wormy in a bad way, but for me, I think it's great. They could've done a video in MS Paint and I'd've probably featured it.
2) But they didn't do a video in MS Paint. The video, loosely themed as it is, totally reflects the hypercolorful, multi-cultural vibe Mista Cookie Jar and his music have. You could spend four minutes with this and completely understand the MCJ universe. And probably dance a bit.
Mista Cookie Jar & the Chocolate Chips - "Inner Child Rock" [YouTube]
I'm trying something a little bit different this time around with these radio playlists -- instead of posting an update to my Live365 station as I did for June, I've posted a Spotify update. It's limited, of course, in that if an artist hasn't chosen to post a song on Spotify, I can't put it on the list (though I do have a list of stuff that would've posted had it been there -- see the end).
Check out the list here or go right here if you're in Spotify.
**** New Music July 2012 (July Kindie Playlist) ****
Stephen Michael Schwartz – California Grey
The Cat's Pajamas – Funky Bears
Elizabeth Mitchell – Little Sugar
They Might Be Giants – Violin (Bonus Live Version)
Richard Younger – Barefootin'
Lunch Money – Gingerbread Man
Randy Kaplan – They're Red Hot
Playtime Music – Row Row Row Your Boat
Ozomatli – Flip Flap
[the non-Spotify list]
The Zucchini Brothers - Crazy Life
New Raspberry Bandits - Fine Country
Professor Banjo - John Henry
Forest Sun - Trampoline
One of the weird upshots of the rewiring of the relationship between musicians and cultural curators is that they're often friends. Sure, they could have always been friends in the real-world sense of things, but with the advent of Facebook, the number of "friends" available has increased exponentially. The cultural curator breed of "critic" is dying rapidly while "blogger" (for lack of a better term) has displaced the critic at the top of the music food tree, and while I'm not sure that critics were ever more "objective" than bloggers, my perception is that bloggers are more advocates for music they favor. This unsurprisingly leads to more friendship-based exchanges online. And, for someone raised in the world of the "critic" and who got into this music-writing business a decade ago in part because there seemed to be few critical distinctions when it came to kids music, it definitely feels different.
Which brings us to Spicy Kid, the fourth album from South Carolina band Lunch Money. The band is led by singer and guitarist Molly Ledford, who writes indie-rock melodies and arrangements circia 1992 in a voice that would be called wry if she didn't find it so hard to hide her general amusement and wonder. Ledford and the band are billing this as their album about parenthood, and that's what prompted my discursion above.
You see, Molly is a "friend" of mine on Facebook (along with 300 other kids'-music-related people). If you're not a friend of her, you might hear a song like "S.P.E.L.L.," about the well-known parental tactic to hide information and think she's giving her kids too much credit ("When you s-p-e-l-l in front of me / You're calling attention to the words / You're putting me on alert / It's either bad news or dessert"). But Ledford has posted too many status updates indicating that her kids are sharp cookies (and spicy kids) that unless she's the James Frey of autobiographical kindie rock, these are very much inspired by real life. And that true life dimension lends the songs additional resonance above and beyond the plain text of the lyrics.
What I find remarkable about the album is that she hits the topics of parenthood in a way that honors both the parents' and kids' perspectives. The album's title track celebrates spicy kids without denying the feeling of frustration such kids can produce in their parents. "Awake" is nominally about a child sneaking down the hallway to see if her mom is awake, but it also works from the perspective of a parent sneaking down the hallway to see if his son's awake. And while there are songs that are as strong expressions of a parent's love for a child as you'll hear this year (see: "Translator," which is pitch-perfect), it's the empathy of both perspectives that helps it avoid mawkishness. It's like the album is from everybody's favorite Aunt Molly. Which isn't to diminish the role of her band (which now officially number four in total as the former trio has added Russell Ramirez on trombone), who give Molly's words room to breathe, except when they need to rock out. Just that it's Aunt Molly's house.
The album will be most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 7. You can hear the album on the band's music page. Also, as usual, I love the design and layout of the band's album packaging, courtesy of Ledford's husband and bandmate, Jay Barry.
If Spicy Kid works in a slightly minor key, less a celebration of parenthood than a diary, that doesn't mean it's less joyful than any of its predecessors, and fans (or fans-to-be) of those predecessors should be every bit as enamored of this new album. As for me, I'll hope that Ledford one day writes the book (non-fiction or otherwise) that chronicles life as a parent (or a kid) that's so obviously somewhere inside her waiting to be written. Consider it advice from a friend, Molly. Highly recommended.
Note: I received a copy of this album for possible review.
Here's my ugly Woody Guthrie secret: I never much liked Woody Guthrie's music. Not the songs themselves, just their presentation on record. Neither of his two albums for kids he recorded in 1947 and released in 1956 -- Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child and Nursery Days -- get much play in our house. To my ears, it almost sounds like Woody was just rushing to get these recorded, and nobody would suggest that these 65-year-old recordings of Woody and his guitar are sonically gorgeous.
The songs themselves, however? Those are great. They just needed someone to give them a little tender loving care.
Who better than Elizabeth Mitchell, possessor of one of kids' music most gentle and empathetic voices? In the decade-plus she's been recording kids' music, she and her husband Daniel Littleton have consistently been one of the best interpreters of songs, drawing both from the folk tradition as well as more modern tunes (Velvet Underground, anyone?). Each of her previous albums have included versions of Woody Guthrie songs and now on Little Seed: Songs for Children by Woody Guthrie she mixes those versions with some newly recorded tracks for what is now an essential Guthrie-related album, a nice tie-in to the bigger Woody 100th birthday celebrations.
The seven new tracks here are every bit as good as the five that have come before. "Bling Blang," quite possibly my favorite Woody kids' song, gets a sparse backing arrangement of little more than banjo, ngoni, and knee slaps that is quietly and intensely joyful. ("Why, Oh Why?," almost certainly my least favorite Woody kids' song -- and that's being generous -- is almost tolerable to me.) I love Clem Waldmann's percussion on "Rattle My Rattle" and the simplicity of Mitchell and Littleton on "Merry-Go-Round," reminiscent of those lo-fi afternoon recordings on You Are My Flower lo these many years ago.
These songs are most appropriate for kids ages 0 through 5, though kids raised on Mitchell's recordings (ahem) will enjoy them beyond kindergarten. As alluded to above, five of the tracks on the twelve-track album are previously released and on a 29-minute album, that's no small percentage, and really its only downside. (The mp3 version on Amazon, currently just $4.99, may be an acceptable compromise, though that would be mean forgoing the as-usual excellent physical packaging from Smithsonian Folkways.)
Longtime Elizabeth Mitchell fans will love the new recordings on Little Seed, and if you're a newcomer to Mitchell's music for families, it's a sweet half-hour introduction to the kids' artist most visible folk interpreter. She does right by Woody Guthrie. Definitely recommended.
Zooglobble
Zooglobble helps you find kindie music -- news, videos, mp3s, reviews -- for your whole family.
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