Radio Playlist: New Music May 2015

Summertime... and the listenin' is easy... [OK, I love Gershwin, but that's too much...] Lots of new releases coming up... If you want to catch my list from April you can see that playlist here.

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.

**** New Music May 2015 (May 2015 Kindie Playlist) ****

“Shake a Friend’s Hand” - Andy Z

“It’s Gotta Rain (If You Want a Rainbow)” - The Harmonica Pocket

“Hellbender” - Fire Dog

“Dancing Room” - Ratboy Jr.

“Seashells Singing in the Sunshine” - Seth and the Moody Melix

“Trapped in the Attic” - Lloyd H. Miller

“Jump Little Froggy” - Jen Havens Romanat

"Squish It Up” - Dave Kinnoin, Randy Sharp

“Ya Viene Otono” - Future Hits

“Robby Dobby” - Here Comes Trouble

Video: "It Takes All Kinds" - Alastair Moock

If you set out to make a modern update of Free To Be You and Me, as Alastair Moock has done, you've got a pretty high bar to clear.

But based on the first song from All Kinds of You and Me, Moock may have stuck the landing. The first video from the album is for "It Takes All Kinds" (which inspired the album title), and it's a feel-good sing-along -- no hand-clapping, but definitely encouraging of hand-clapping, and with nice vocal assists from Rani Arbo and Anand Nayak.

And then there's the video itself, animated by fellow kindie musician Key Wilde, which does a nice job of melding Wilde's familiar animals-doing-crazy-things (a cat on skis!) with the theme of the song, accepting all kinds of people (and animals), such as a boy who prefers dresses and a girl who loves to climb trees. It's just good, good stuff.

All Kinds of You and Me is out June 19.

Alastair Moock - "It Takes All Kinds" [YouTube]

Video: "Frog Skin" - Molly Ledford

Aw, this is just such a sweet song. It's from Molly Ledford, multi-hyphenate extraordinaire. (You know, from Lunch Money! And Molly Ledford and Billy Kelly! And from Instagram and Facebook photos of her kids, who I feel should have a book deal or video deal or some deal from somebody because they're just awesome.)

At first she just wrote music for one puppet musical. But now she's gone ahead and done it again, which I think officially makes her a puppet musical expert. This time it's for the Columbia Marionette Theatre's production of the Russian folktale The Frog Princess.

Ledford's released a simple video directed by her husband and fellow Lunch Money conspirator Jay Barry that features Molly accompanying herself on the ukulele while puppeteer Mitra Salehi controls the Frog Princess marionette. In 86 seconds, they say so much.

Molly Ledford - "Frog Skin" [YouTube]

The Kindie Rock Showdown: Week One in the Books, Week Two Underway!

Kindie Rock Showdown logo

Well Week One of the batteryPOP/Zooglobble Kindie Rock Showdown is in the books and...

Wait, you don't know what the batteryPop/Zooglobble Kindie Rock Showdown is? OK, read this and come back. It's OK, I'll wait.

So, yeah, last week a bunch of you voted and Danny Weinkauf's "Ice Cream" knocked off Caspar Babypants' "The Stump Hotel" while in a squeaker, Alphabet Rockers' "Dynamite" triumphed over The Bazillions' "No Homework." Those two winners move on to the semifinals next week.

But this week we've got four new videos going head-to-head: Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band's "Blue Bear" vs. Secret Agent 23 Skidoo's "Gotta Be You" and Josh and the Jamtones' "John Jacob" (that's a lot of "J"s there) facing off against The Not-Its' "Haircut." Some solid video action there, too.

You can read more about the videos and the matchups here. And, just as she did last week, Laurie Berkner's providing some color commentary of her own on the videos.

So head on over, watch the videos, "POP" your favorites daily, and see who moves on to the semifinal round next week!

Itty-Bitty Review: Sundrops - The Harmonica Pocket

The Seattle-area duo The Harmonica Pocket (songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Keeth Monta Apger and his wife Nala Walla) have always been led by an animating interest in the natural world, but never quite as fully as on their fourth family album Sundrops, which is officially released today. The theme -- sunshine and rain -- is a pretty genius one (especially for a Pacific Northwest band) and the dozen tracks here explore (mostly) the beauty of both sun and rain.

The album starts off particularly strongly -- the country-folk of "Sing In the Sun," followed by the pure pop goodness of "Raindrops," which features fellow Northwest musician and co-producer Johnny Bregar on the Hammond B3. That song, with the lyric "We'll dry off someday / It's just water anyway," and "It's Gotta Rain (If You Want a Rainbow)," give you a good sense of Apgar's songwriting attitude. (They also feature the small band Apgar and Bregar brought in to fill out the sound.) Much of what follows is also an enjoyable, amiable folk-pop shuffle through the natural world -- I particularly liked "Digga Dog Kid" (a duet with Chris Ballew AKA Caspar Babypants, who knows his way around songs about being outside) and their reworking of "You Are My Sunshine," featuring many new lyrics. I didn't like "Are You a Monster Too?," which didn't seem to fit in at all amongst the sun and rain songs, but since I greatly adored "I Love Ukuleles," a song featuring wordplay around the phrase "I love you..." (and Marcy Marxer on ukulele as well, natch) perhaps I just didn't like "Monster," period.

The 40-minute Sundrops is most appropriate for listeners ages 3 through 7. Its mellow sound and open-hearted lyrics will make a nice accompaniment for both rainy afternoons and sunny Sunday mornings. Recommended.

Note: I was given a copy of the album for possible review.

Video: "Thank You" - Vered

Vered's latest album Hello My Baby was an interesting album in that it featured songs that were both incredibly sweet and tender about the interaction of between mother and child as well as surprisingly raw about the emotional ups and downs of being a caregiver to a young child.

Her first video from the album, for the song "Thank You," resides in the former camp. It's a simple video for a simple song, and if you (and your child) learn nothing more than the sign language for please and thank you, then the video's done its job.

Vered - "Thank You" [YouTube]