Our other matchup on Day Three of the KidVid Tournament 2007 pits the #1 seed in the Ella Jenkins Region, "Pieces of 8ight" (or "Pieces of Eight," for those of you not paying attention) from Captain Bogg & Salty against the #4 seed, "Picnic in the Graveyard" from Uncle Rock.
Vote in the comments below. Rules: Video with most votes wins. One vote per e-mail address, please. Votes due by Tuesday 6 PM-ish East Coast time.
[Note: Hey, I can embed both videos here, too! Thanks once again, Internet-friendly kids' musicians and labels!]
"Pieces of 8ight" - Captain Bogg & Salty
"Picnic in the Graveyard" - Uncle Rock
Multimedia Notes From All Over
I know that bar on the right side of the main homepage is a bit on the long side, but it's time for some updates...
Planet KidVid is a new enterprise from longtime Friend of Zooglobble Monty Harper and kids' musician Mr. Billy. If they keep up with the posts, this could be a website that causes lots of families to go over their allocated "screen time."
The Harper family is evidently trying to take over the web as Monty's wife Lisa and her daughter Evalyn have established the Kids Music Planet podcast. What is slightly different about this podcast from many other kids' music radio shows is that they play multiple selections from a few albums. So if for some reason my review of an album isn't clear enough you can decide for yourself. ;-)
Belinda and Hova finally seem to have settled on a new internet location for their Greasy Kid Stuff playlists. If you go to their website, you can also find out all about their Mar. 18th "Grease Ball" with Captain Bogg & Salty, The Jellydots, and The Sprockettes. You can also hear They Might Be Giants' penned-just-for-Belinda-and-Hova "Greasy Kid Stuff."
I've also added Fred Koch's new children's music-related blog to the sidebar. Fred is another longtime listener and reviewer of kids music and I'm glad to see him start up a blog.
Regular readers will certainly be aware of Amy's appearance on WNYC's Soundcheck on Tuesday. Amy made a lot of excellent points (and ones I mostly agree with) and is to be commended for always sounding coherent, a not at all easy thing to do live on the air. Listen to the 20-minute segment here.
Finally, children's media publicist (and, well, fan) Beth Blenz-Clucas talked about a couple of her clients and other kids' musicians and topics on Vicky and Jen's Grammy-related podcast. The podcast also includes discussions with Richard Perlmutter (he's working on Beethoven's Wig 4, apparently), Dan Zanes, and Ezra Idlet from Trout Fishing in America. (Beth was also kind enough to mention this website as a good resource...)
This Week: All Over The Board
If I have no theme for the week other than "no theme," does that mean I have no theme?
While I'm pondering that conundrum, do check out my reviews of disks from Duplex and Captain Bogg & Salty if you missed 'em. (And, yes, there will be plenty more this week.)
And thanks as always to everyone who reads, comments, and e-mails. Keep 'em all coming!
Review: Pegleg Tango - Captain Bogg & Salty
Let's see... rock songs with not a little bit of theatricality. Lots of nautical themes. Band out of Portland, Oregon. We're talking about the Decemberists, right?
Well, not exactly. Pegleg Tango, released in 2005, is the second album from the Portland-based group Captain Bogg & Salty. Captain Bogg & Salty has been playing pirate-themed rock and pop for kids and adults since 1999. Unlike Monty Python's famous short film appended to the start of The Meaning of Life, The Crimson Permanent Assurance, which applied the themes of the business world to a pirate movie structure, Pegleg Tango more often applies themes of pirate life to a rock/pop song structure.
Musically, the six-piece band appropriates a number of different styles on the 39-minute disk -- gorgeous pop on the midtempo "Sea Monster," theatrical Decemberists-esque storytelling on "Scallywagg," or the '50s rock rave up "Pirate Party," to name just three. The theatrical background of the band (many of them with musical theater or sketch comedy backgrounds) comes through most noticeably on songs such as "I'm A Pirate," which interrupts its surf-rock tune to do an amusing "Wide World of Sports" riff, or "Sea Kings," an Elvis-like slow pop tune featuring a spoken-word interlude by the clearly demented Captain Bogg himself.
If you're looking for true pirate songs, I have a feeling you'd be a little disappointed by the disk, which only has 3 or 4 songs which I would consider shanty-like. Lyrically, however, even the most modern tunes have a very piratical focus, alternating between the boredom of life at sea (and what's done to alleviate that boredom) and the excitement of plundering. Frankly, the only parts of the disk that I didn't care for very much were the 3 audio sketches, and that was mostly for the fact that audio level on those was so much quieter than the music that it made it hard to listen to.
Kids love pirates, though without the visuals, I think the CD itself would appeal most to kids age 5 through 9. You can listen some sound clips at the band's website here or more here.
There are those of you for whom listening to pirate music would be akin to walking the plank. (What, you didn't think I'd make at least one pirate reference here?) You should stay away from this. But for the rest of us, even though the captain is slightly deranged, the journey on Captain Bogg & Salty's Pegleg Tango is an enjoyable one. Recommended.
