I'd heard about the music that guitarist Tom Gray of the British band
Gomez had done for a couple of kids' puppet shows for at least a couple years now. So was it merely an amazing coincidence or was it fate that I had an e-mail ready to go to Katherine Morton and Polly Dunbar, proprietors of
Long Nose Puppets and creators of said puppet shows, when I received the press release saying that that very music would finally be made available on iTunes?
The answer is probably irrelevant, but does provide some background as to why I was particularly eager to give the music a spin. Gray's first score was for the 2006 puppet show
Shoe Baby, the first Long Nose Puppets production and an adaptation of a children's book written and illustrated by Dunbar's mother Joyce Dunbar. (It's about a baby who disappears in a shoe and has lots of interesting travels.) Compared to the two later productions, the gentle pop-folk music for
Shoe Baby is pretty simple in terms of orchestrations, but it might almost be the album that least needs the visual of the puppet shows (or the books) to understand the music.
The second show,
Flyaway Katie, was based on Polly Dunbar's book, which (the book -- and presumably the puppet show) is about a girl who dresses up very colorfully and becomes a bird (briefly). As you might expect, there are lots of songs about colors -- a moody one about gray, a mellow one about green, and bright one about the yellow sun. It's more orchestrated than the first show -- literally, in some cases, as strings make an appearance on several songs, and Gray even duets with another singer on one of the tracks. (My favorite track: "The Red Bus".")There's also a Mark Mothersbaugh-like instrumental "The Mice Theme" that is very pretty though makes less sense without the context of the puppet show itself.
The newest show is
Penguin, which debuted just last year. It's also based on one of Polly Dunbar's books about a silent penguin. Without visuals for the puppet show, it is easest perhaps to follow along to the narrative arc in this album. (There's another fun instrumental in "A Lunar Tune," all spacy and with bleeps and bloops.) That may make things confusing if you're listening without benefit of the book (who exactly the singer singing to in the funky second-line-like "Say Anything" is not clear unless you know it's boy singing to his silent penguin). But I think the songs here are the most engaging and most beautiful of the three albums -- "Penguin's Song" could easily rest outside the kids music world.
The songs here are most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 7. The songs are available on iTunes (link to all 3 albums
here). You may find the albums a bit pricy -- about $27 for barely more than an hour of music -- so you'll probably want to try a few samples and start off with one of the albums (one of the latter two) before taking the plunge for all three.
While the albums don't quite match the (too high) expectations I had for them, Tom Gomez's scores for
Shoe Baby,
Flyaway Katie, and
Penguin feature simple, gentle and occasionally beautiful songs your family would enjoy listening to even if they've never seen the shows that accompany this music. They make me want to rewrite that e-mail to Long Nose to say, "When's your US tour starting?," and that's praise for the music in and of itself. Recommended, especially
Flyaway Katie and
Penguin.
Disclosure: I received electronic copies of the albums for possible review.
It's hard to review benefit albums because the worthy cause behind most such albums makes reviewing the music itself difficult. Who wants to say the album's bad if the cause is good? In the case of Joey's Song for Kids, Volume 1, luckily, the songs are mostly pretty good.
First, the cause -- the album benefits The Joseph Gomoll Foundation, which raises money for epilepsy research and advocacy in honor of Joey Gomoll, who died suddenly at the age of 4 while afflicted with Dravet's Syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. After his passing, his dad channeled his energies into establishing the Foundation and getting literally dozens of artists to donate songs (mostly unreleased ones at that) for a series of benefit albums, some with music for adults, some for kids and families.
Which brings us to the music itself. The first few songs, while certainly competent, aren't terribly exciting, staying in a bland album-oriented-rock rut. If you've heard a dozen or more different versions of "The Wheels on the Bus," for example, Lowen & Navarro's version isn't going to stand out at all. But a few songs through, maybe around April Smith and The Great Picture Show's fun and bouncy "Say, Say, Oh Playmate," the album gets more interesting and mostly stays that way. Jon Dee Graham's previously-released "Hippopotamus," is a great little acoustic country-folk tune, and Ellis Paul (no stranger to family music) turns in a wistful "Mr. Teetot." Special mention also goes out to Gurf Morlix's previously released "Dan Blocker" - not specifically a kids song, but the one most likely to be stuck in family's heads. The album is probably most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 7. (For those of you without kids in that age range, you may also care to try the similarly-titled Joey's Song, Volume 1, a collection of songs for adults from the same types of artists - Neko Case, HEM, Robbie Fulks - found on the kiddo version, though I think I preferred the kids' album.)
In the end, beyond the worthy cause, Joey's Song for Kids, Volume 1 stands on its own merits musically. Good intentions aside, it's an album that will likely be played after the initial charitable impluse has subsided. Bring on Volume 2. Recommended.
Disclosure: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review.
Always a little bit under the radar, Los Angeles' 
The music of the South Carolina band 
Is it uncharitable of me to say I don't understand why 
One thing that's been striking to me is the relative absence of an independent Australian family music scene, at least viewed from the American vantage point. One might think that the tremendous success of four nice blokes in bright t-shirts might have spurred a lot of imitators and counter-revolutionaries, but that doesn't seem to have been the case. In fact, you can argue that the Wiggles have had a lot more influence on the American kids music scene, either through imitators (the Fresh Beat Band), people headed in the opposite direction (many of the artists on this site), and folks with their feet firmly planted in both camps (Yo Gabba Gabba!).
So I'm glad to see that Australian indie-folk musician 
