Radio Playlist: New Music March 2014

Since the February playlist was posted so early last month, this March new music playlist has a lot of stuff from February (see the actual February playlist here).  Never fear, though, that just means there's stuff from March to put on the April playlist.  As always, it's limited in that if an artist hasn't chosen to post a song on Spotify, I can't put it on the list, nor can I feature songs from as-yet-unreleased albums.  But I'm always keeping stuff in reserve for the next Spotify playlist.

Check out the list here or go right here if you're in Spotify.

**** New Music March 2014 (February 2014 March Playlist) ****

Nick Bayard – You Can't Learn It All On the Internet
StarFish – Black & Blue
Heidi Siegell – Sleepy Little One
Dog On Fleas – Hinterlands
Jazzy Ash – Throw Me Something Mista
Rainbow Beast & The Rock Band Land Rockers – Ice Girl (With Serpent Swimmers)
Laura Doherty – Drum Kit (feat. Glenn Kotche)
Freckles – Be My Friend
Stacey Peasley – Summer Day
Rhythm Child – Looking Over

Listen To This: The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like This - Rain for Roots

Now, I realize that there is probably a not insubstantial portion of my readership with a distinctly secular/humanist/athiest worldview, and probably another insubstantial portion of the Jewish faith.  If you find yourself in either of those categories, you can probably move on, check out the site tomorrow.

But if you have a Christian faith background, and you're reading a kindie music site, then you should probably know about Rain for Roots, a Nashville-based quartet of women writing and performing thoughtful songs from that Christian faith background.  (It includes Katy Bowser from the still-wonderful, and secular, kids' jazz group Coal Train Railroad.)  Their first album Big Stories for Little Ones was everything their teaser sampler suggested, and their forthcoming album The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like This is another collection of lovingly-arranged folk-rock for the Sunday School set.  This is for fans of Justin Roberts' Why Not Sea Monsters? disks and Elizabeth Mitchell's more mystical/religious sounds.  Many of the songs, however, explicitly reference God and Jesus, so your taste in this music will be bound by your religious preference.

Weekly Summary (3/10/14 - 3/16/14)

How I Got Here: Laura Doherty (Billy Joel, The Beatles, Neil Young)

Laura Doherty_ELTrain_photo credit Phil Onofrio_lowres.jpg

Laura Doherty has a new album (In a Heartbeat, funded via Kickstarter) full of acoustic rockers for your favorite kindergartner, a new animated video ("Domingo the Flamingo"), a new band name (Laura Doherty and the Heartbeats) and a long history of making music for kids.

I've had a number of conversations with Doherty through the years -- she's one of the nicest musicians in a genre of nice musicians -- and so I was happy when she agreed to be the latest participant in my "How I Got Here" series of kindie artists reviewing influential albums.

Read on for not one, not two, but three albums of great importance to her on her El train to Chicago kindie musician.

Most of the music that influenced me when I was young, were pop and rock songs that had catchy melody lines, jangly guitars, and anything with harmony— the more parts, the better. I can’t remember ever not loving music and singing. I was the girl with headphones on, playing guitar with my tennis racket, in front of my bedroom mirror and singing into my hairbrush. Or I was often lying on the plush green rug in my yellow room, with my ear pressed up against my Emerson stereo speakers. (Thus inspiring the song “Yellow Room” from my band Sweet Hello’s album Well of Wishes).  

What album has influenced me the most in my own songwriting? I’ll break it down into one that has influenced my singing and one that’s influenced my guitar playing. And then a radio segment that rocked my world!

My parents did have a small collection of adult contemporary 60s and 70s records, such as Frank Sinatra and Barbara Streisand, which I liked, but it was really my brother’s record collection that I was drawn too. It was 1980, I was 10, and Billy Joel’s Glass Houses captured my attention. I stared at the teeny-tiny “hand-written” font of all the lyrics on the inside record sleeve, and I memorized every word. Growing up in NY, I had an instant connection to Billy’s voice. In “Sleeping with the Television On” I would sing it just like Billy, with a stronger NY accent that I actually had. To this day, if I’m in close proximity to a karaoke machine, you can bet I’ll be asking them to cue up “New York State of Mind”. “All for Leyna” was another favorites from that record. That driving piano riff and soaring vocal…pure 80s pop! I went on to collect all of Billy Joel’s albums after that. Of course MTV was in high gear with videos, and all the 80s music made an indelible mark on my brain.

Later in high school, I became completely obsessed with the Beatles, learning the words to every song, but oddly enough I never fully learned which songs are on which albums. This is because my introduction to the Fab Four came one Thanksgiving weekend, when NYC’s rock station 102.7 WNEW played EVERY Beatles song from A - Z. I popped in my cassette tapes and recorded the whole thing. My family must have not seen me too much that weekend as I was holed up in my room switching the cassettes! I remember it covered 3 days worth of Beatles music. And that’s how I learned Beatles songs…”Ob-la-di-bla-da”, followed by “Octopus’ Garden” followed by “Oh, Darling.”

Back to an album that greatly influenced my guitar playing. I discovered classic rock and folk-rock of the 60s and 70s right at the time I first picked up a guitar, around age 16. Neil Young’s triple compilation album Decade was one that greatly influenced me and I bought the accompanying guitar songbook too, and taught myself some chords. The chord progressions I play today, and the rhythmic way I approach the guitar, I believe have sprung from those Neil Young songs I was learning as a teen. “Old Man,” “Cinnamon Girl,” “Heart of Gold”…the guitar parts all have great melody lines. I could go on and on with influences after that, such as the Indigo Girls and all the female singer-songwriters emerging at that time. I immersed myself in this music!

Fast forward 20 years or so, I’ve been living in Chicago and music continues to weave through my life. Always a passion, then as a part-time career, and eventually 4 years ago, it turned full-time career of teaching, performing, and recording music for kids. You can hear those early folk and rock influences in my 3 children’s records and my adult records too — I’ve got one solo, and two with folk-pop band Sweet Hello. 

I began writing songs for kids in 2008, and it seemed a natural progression to the music I was playing already, and a nice pairing to the early-childhood music classes I was teaching (Wiggleworms), at the Old Town School of Folk Music. It’s a program that 15 years later, still brings me joy to teach. So thanks to Neil, Billy, The Beatles, and the Indigo Girls for acoustically rockin’ MY world!

Photo credit: Phil Onofrio

Review: Two Kids Music Albums from Iceland

[Cue Jim McKay voice] Spanning the globe to bring you a constant variety of the best of kids' music from around the globe, it's Zooglobble! [End Jim McKay voice]

I've never been shy about shining the spotlight on kids music from outside English-speaking North America -- plenty of Spanish-language music from multiple continents, not to mention Putumayo and Secret Mountain (and other labels' ) albums from around the world.

I feel safe in saying, however, that this is by far the furthest afield I've ever traveled, because today I bring you not one but two album reviews from the fine country of Iceland.  Honest-to-goodness kindie music from the northern European country of just a shade over 300,000 people.

The first of the couple albums here is the classic Ekki bara fyrir börn.

"Classic?"  Huh?

Yes, because that album title translates into Not For Kids Only.  This, friends, is a faithful -- albeit Icelandic-language -- cover of the Jerry Garcia and David Grisman's classic 1993 family-friendly bluegrass album.

It's from Icelandic record label Warén Music, and while I'm not sure I could've told you what I expected such a remake to sound like in advance of hearing, I guess I was surprised at the result, which was... well, pretty straight-forward.  It is as if Garcia and Grisman learned Icelandic, got a pot of coffee, found a few more musicians, and re-recorded as if they were some American kindie version of Michael Haneke remaking Funny Games.  (What really happened? Somebody brought over a copy of the original, and the musicians were inspired to recreate it.)

Aside from the language barrier, musically it'll sound a lot the '93 version, albeit a little more punched up, as if a few more musicians stumbled across Garcia and Grisman as they noodled away in the woods.  It's a little odd at points to hear such familiar melodies with unfamiliar words (take "Lagarfljót" for example, the translated version of "Shenandoah").  And then there's Lautaferð bangsanna, which is "Teddy Bear's Picnic" as sung by a Tom Waits' vocal double in Icelandic.  (Listen to the whole thing here.)  With the language barrier, this is accessible to all ages.

I realize this is essentially a novelty record for the English-speaking world -- you'd have to be a massive Garcia/Grisman completist or speak Icelandic in your family to want this.  But it's joyful, and a neat reminder of music's boundary-less nature.

If Ekki bara fyrir börn is American kindie (or American proto-kindie) rendered inscrutable for the typical American audience, Skýjaflétta is thoroughly Icelandic in conception, but completely accessible to audiences of any language.  The album is the brainchild of Sólrún Sumarliðadóttir, who plays in amiina, an Icelandic sextet that grew out of a string quartet and, in addition to releasing music on their own has also played with Sigur Rós.  Sumarliðadóttir wrote the music to accompany a couple of modern dance pieces for very young children, up to age 3.  (According to Sumarliðadóttir, the first 5 tracks are for a piece called "Clouds," the remaining tracks score "Twist and Turn".)

As you might expect from that background, these aren't straightforward pop songs.  The word "Skýjaflétta" means "a braid made of clouds," and this is an ambient dreamscape, but a shiny one, filled with pops, clicks, and toy pianos.  Some tracks, like "Twisty Tangle and Turny Braid," (as translated in English) and "Build" are pensive, exploratory, while songs like "Explore" are designed for more reflective wonder.  They are all wordless, making them, of course, open to everyone.

You can listen to six tracks from the 31-minute album here.  Ironically, just as the Icelandic-language album is for all ages given that almost all Americans will just listen to the music, the instrumental nature of this album, makes it all ages, too, though kids under 5 might particularly groove to this.  This is a thoroughly charming album and while I'm sure I will never get a chance to see the dance pieces these were composed for, I'm glad the album has a chance to cross the ocean for families with adventurous listening habits.  Definitely recommended.

Video: "Call Me Mista Cookie Jar" - Mista Cookie Jar & the Chocolate Chips

Los Angeles' C.J. Pizarro -- better known in the kindie world as Mista Cookie Jar -- seems to be nearly omnipresent these days, showing up on a number of different kindie artists' albums.

As for his own music, though, he's been a little more silent, save for the release of the first Todd and Cookie EP last year.  Why is that?  Well, in small part that's due to the fact that he's spent nearly a year hand-animating (along with the rest of The Chocolate Chips) his latest video.  It's for "Call Me Mista Cookie Jar" off his Ultramagnetic Universal Love Revolution album.

It's hard for me to say that anything that reduces the amount of MCJ music in the world is worth the wait, but this video?  Worth the wait.  Really beautiful retro-styled collages.

Mista Cookie Jar and the Chocolate Chips - "Call Me Mista Cookie Jar" [YouTube]