Itty-Bitty Review: On the Bright Side - The Bazillions

The Bazillions - On the Bright Side album cover

Minneapolis band The Bazillions have an ear for power-pop hooks. Or, like, 23 ears, because each album of theirs has more hooks than one ear could possibly handle -- even one of those punks' ears with safety pins all over.

Their third album, the recently-released On the Bright Side, does not stint on the hooks. "Superhero Rock Band," which kicks off the album, is like one of those movie pitches ("They're superheroes from DC and Marvel... but they play in a band!") that is so high-concept that song quality would scarcely seem to matter, but luckily for the power-pop enthusiast in the family, it's got crunchy guitars and a catchy singalong chorus, too. That's followed by "Family Tree," a roots-pop song celebrating, well, family -- along with the album closer "Sons and Daughters," it's the first I've really heard the band try for something more emotional.

Of course, at this point, it wouldn't be a Bazillions album without several educational songs, including the jangly "Use a Contraction," the shimmering "Ed (Been There, Done That)," and their first science-related tune, "Water Cycle." Longtime readers will know my general antipathy towards songs that have such an explicit educational bias unless the melodies and lyrics are really tight, but listen to the chorus for "Favorite Book," which is really just a reading-positive song, and tell me it isn't precisely constructed for maximum earworm.

The 37-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 5 through 10; you can hear three of the tracks from the album here. As with their previous albums, On the Bright Side includes a number of power-pop and jangle-pop melodies that stand up to repeated spins, regardless of whether you need to learn some 2nd grade concept. Whatever educational value they have (and is enhanced by their catchiness) is just a nice bonus. Definitely recommended.

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

Josh Shriber and Patrick Hanlin of Josh and the Jamtones

Interview: Josh Shriber and Patrick Hanlin (Josh and the Jamtones)

If your family has never seen Josh and the Jamtones live, then it's possible you have a realistic view of a "high energy" concert. If you have seen the Boston-area ska/punk/rock kids' band, however, your definition of "high energy" is entirely unrealistic. The band BRINGS IT, and in addition to being very danceable, they've got a great sense of humor.

The band released ROCKSTEADY, their latest album, last week. The new album captures that live energy (and some humor) for those fans who can't catch the band live. I talked with bandleader Josh Shriber and drummer/producer Patrick Hanlin about the origins of the band, the interaction between the live shows and recording music, and being the only guy in Music Together.

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?

Josh Shriber: I remember taking road trips -- listening to the Beatles and Billy Joel when I was 12, driving from Mississippi to Indiana

Patrick Hanlin: Playing piano in kindergarten. Oh, and listening to Simon and Garfunkel in the backseat of the car on road trips. "Feelin' Groovy."

Josh: We totally agree on "Feelin' Groovy."

What was your musical background?

Josh: Early on, my grandma had a baby grand piano, and I'd play on that at her house -- then she convinced my mom to move it to my house. I took years of piano lessons. I always loved practicing and playing -- the classical music I put up a little bit of fight against -- but I played everything.

I'd go to summer camp and Jewish summer camp, and at temple I was always watching the song leader. That was my first way of performing, picking up a guitar in front of a group, going up front.

As a cantor?

Josh: No, I never wanted to be a clergy member as a cantor. But in the [Jewish] reform movement, the song leader teaches the songs, leads the group in singing. Making a living [doing that] wasn't on my mind until I realized that there was money in doing that, and I could do that in the morning, leaving the evenings free for other music.

When did that change -- when did you start to move full-time into kids music?

So I'd do the temple thing on Sunday, plus another couple hours during the week, and I'd think, "How can I find forty hours a week of this?" So I went to a local preschool, and I started to do Music Together. That was great, though the Music Together leaders would sometimes say, "play a little less guitar."

Yeah, we did several sessions of Music Together with our kids, and it's definitely not a performer's showcase.

Josh: Right, but the moms were happy to hear someone. There weren't many guys doing that -- I'd be the only guy except for the janitor. I think some parents thought it was cool to have [their] sons see a guy singing.

So my preschool and private lessons grew, to the point where I was hiring other teachers, and after a couple years of Music Together, I branched out on my own. I was incorporating other original music of my own, and rented space to incorporate all things I was doing. Pat had come in by then as a teacher.

Pat: The program grew really fast -- now it's JamBaby, JamKids, drama classes. Every semester -- and semesters are four times a year -- we'd do a CD featuring new songs. So after 3 years we had 100 songs.

Then we started getting asked to do gigs. The Jammin' With You band became the Jamtones. The Jamtones are now different -- not educational, just entertainment.

I had never engineered a band before in my life -- now I've done about 30 albums.

Is there a change from focusing on the daily classes and doing stuff with the band?

Josh: They all feed each other. People who attend a Jamtones show may sign up for class; the biggest promotion for Jamtones shows are in our center. The classes are me with a guitar, while the Jamtones shows are some 2-piece gigs, but generally guitar-drum-bass, sometimes steel drums. It's always good to practice songs -- get the extra rep, get better and try new songs.

How did the new album come about -- were these new songs?

Pat: Last year, we put out Fall, Winter 1, Winter 2, and Spring [semester] albums, physical CDs for the class. But for the Jamtones, once [the] Bear Hunt [album] came out, we thought our demographic wasn't 2-4 years old. So we went crazy with the cheese whiz -- we had new songs we wanted to put on a slammin' ska record.

Josh: About a quarter of these we'd work on in class.

Any favorite memories from recording?

Pat: I remember tracking the best bass player in the city. I wrote horn parts, which is something I hadn't done before.

Josh: We collaborated with Jesse [Wagner] from the Aggrolites. We collaborated with [Secret Agent 23] Skidoo -- he's awesome.

Pat: We'd work hard during the day, let loose at night, have a couple beers. The beatboxing was fun.

Recording with other artists, we've started to think about developing JamHouse Records [with other artists].

What do you enjoy more -- recording songs or playing live?

Josh: Both are exciting -- writing and recording songs that new, you're working on your own, and you hope it's going to explode. The audience is where we get energy -- we've played in front of 600 kids or more. [It's fun] to see parents whip out their phones to take pictures because the kids are going nuts.

Pat: One wouldn't be as fun without the other... One year I played on the Warped Tour, and playing 45 minutes a day, 7 days a week, that got boring. When you've got that balance between recording and playing live, that's really great.

What's next for the band?

Pat: World domination! [Laughs] Lots of videos -- after we did the Kickstarter [for Bear Hunt]. we got names of 40-50 animators. We love our video content, now we want to put out a show with them. We want to develop other acts.

This [new] record came out 18 months after Bear Hunt -- we don't want to wait that long for the next album.

Josh: This is our first summer working with [booker] Rebecca Allison, and she's great -- we've got lots of shows.

Pat: We want more places for classes. Lots of stuff going on, we're busy, that's how we like it.

Photo credits: Eric Barry

Jazzy Ash Goes NPR

"Where y'at?" This is, according to several sources, a New Orleans way of saying "hello." So a big "Where y'at?" to all of you who've found your way to this website looking for information on Jazzy Ash, AKA Ashli Christoval, and her new album of New Orleans-inspired music Bon Voyage in the wake of hearing my review on NPR's All Things Considered. (While I've been to New Orleans a couple times, I claim no expertise in N'Awlins language and will stop forthwith.)

You can -- and should -- listen to that review on NPR, but if you'd like, you can read my original review (similar in many ways to the NPR review) as well as read some thoughts from Christoval herself on those two Ellas I talk about in my review -- Ella Jenkins and Ella Fitzgerald.

Regardless of you're a new listener or longtime reader, thanks for stopping by!

Video: "I Made a Mess" - They Might Be Giants

The unstoppable march towards They Might Be Giants' new kids album Why? continues. ("Time... is marching on...") Today's TMBG Dial-A-Song treat is "I Made a Mess" and while as with many TMBG songs, its thematically ambiguous lyrics could fit on an album for kids or adults, lines like "No matter how much I wash / It looks even messier than / It did before / I'm making it worse / By trying to clean it up" sure sound like kids' album to me.

The only thing that gives me pause is that the video is filled with public-domain video clips and while it's cute and totally worth your kids' time (and yours), the band has tended to commission brand new animation and film for its kids DVDs. Maybe this is a song that won't make the final cut for Why?, which means we're in for one fine time...

They Might Be Giants - "I Made a Mess" [YouTube]

Video: "Q and U" - The Bazillions

Quick - I have a question for you.

Has there ever been a band quite as educationally questioning as the Bazillions?

Y'know? Because this is a new video for "Q and U," off their album On The Bright Side? Get it?

Forget this, then. I'm quitting.

The Bazillions - "Q and U" [YouTube]

Review Two-Fer: Mister G's "Los Animales" and Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band's "Adelante"

The first wave of Spanish-language kids music was essentially created by Jose-Luis Orozco and Suni Paz, who've been recording music in Spanish for young children for decades. (They continue to do, and you'll be hearing more from them in the months to come, but not today.)

The second wave of Spanish-language kids music was in the late 2000s and early aughts when there were a number of Spanish-language albums whose primary purpose was to, well, teach Spanish. Songs about counting, about animals, about... well, the things a 4-year-old might be learning about. While some of these results were reasonably sophisticated in their production and songwriting, they often put the learning in the foreground, limiting their appeal if your family wasn't specifically trying to learn Spanish.

The third wave might have started almost concurrently with the second wave, but as opposed to the second wave, which has petered out, has gained strength. Rather than using music primarily as a tool for learning a language, this third wave uses Spanish-language music and musical styles because... it's fun to sing and write in those genres. Unsurprisingly, the results, musically, at least, have been better, as illustrated most recently by two releases from this summer.

The first of the two summer releases is from Massachusetts-based Mister G. For Mister G (aka Ben Gundersheimer), his music has gradually taken on a more bilingual bent, and his latest album, Los Animales, is his third such album (to go along with three other albums which are primarily in English).

As you might guess from the title and cover artwork, this new album takes animals as its focus -- elephants ("Siete Elefantes"), frogs ("La Rana") and dancing ants (the excellent "Baila como las hormigas") all make an appearance along with other members of the animal kingdom. Almost entirely in Spanish, some of the songs are simple enough lyrically that no translation is needed ("Siete Elefantes" is a counting song), but others need translation if you're not a Spanish speaker, so I hope that the lyrics and translations get posted to the website soon. (Hint, hint.)

Musically, some of the songs, like the folk-funk of the leadoff title track, or the Americana bent of "Vamanos," have familiar musical textures, but Gundersheiemer and his co-producers Noe Benitez and Emilio D. Miler take full advantage of the trio's many friends in the recording community who make music in the Latin and Hispanic worlds. Some of highlights are the soulful "La Rana" and "Una Jirafa en Mi Casa" and the salsa-drived "Baila como las hormigas" (roughly, "Dance with the Ants"). (You can stream the 22-minute album, most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 7, here.) Recommended.

As for the Los Angeles-based Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band, they, too, have gradually discovered the joy of recording in Spanish. Adelante is their seventh album, and third primarily in Spanish. Their first Spanish-language album, ¡Fantastico!, featured re-translated versions of some of their shiny English-language pop hits (and was co-produced by Noe Benitez), while the follow-up Aquí, Allá featured original songs and a somewhat more traditional sound. (I called the music on Aquí, Allá "indie-jano," or indie + Tejano.)

While I liked those two albums, Adelante, advances what Diaz is doing -- this album merges his unerring pop-hook sensibility with what happens to be Spanish-language lyrics. "Piñata Attack" is already a big hit, and features a sneaky surf-rock guitar line from Diaz himself, but that's hardly the only earworm on here. "Cuantos Tacos (The Taco Song)" deftly weaves Diaz's Spanish-language verses (featuring a lot of counting) with Alisha Gaddis' English-language counterpoints -- even if you know very little Spanish, her "That's a lot of tacos for a guy who wanted nachos" hook in the chorus gets the basic point of the song across. There's some updated '70s electronic funk ("Aquel Caracol"), hip-hop ("Guacamole Boy"), and new wave ("Cantaba La Rana" -- again with the frogs!).

While it's not entirely in Spanish -- there's more mixing of Spanish and English, some songs do need translation if you're not a Spanish speaker, so I hope that the lyrics and translations get posted to the website soon. (Hint, hint.) The 34-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 9. Definitely recommended.

The third wave of Spanish-language kids music is really the wave in which an English-language family puts on an album not because they want to learn Spanish, but because it's fun or helps the child grow in a global sense. Both Los Animales and Adelante succeed on that score. Los Animales is more for the younger listener, Adelante is more for the pure dance party. I happen to like Adelante more, but that's mostly just personal musical preference. I'd be happy to have either of these albums pop up in a record rotation.

Note: I received copies of both albums for possible review.