Listen To This: "Sesame Street Theme" / "The Books I Like To Read" - The Hipwaders

Well, yesterday, I posted some old new school Sesame Street, so today I thought I'd post some new old school Sesame Street, courtesy of the Bay Area's Hipwaders. Yesterday they posted a couple new mp3s for your downloading enjoyment. The first track is the theme from the show, which, unbeknownst to me, actually runs a couple minutes long (and has lyrics to go with it). The second track is Frances England's "The Books I Like To Read." (This cover was captured on YouTube last year.) Both covers rock in typical Hipwaders style and worth heading over to download... (It also makes me think that kids music artists could do waaaaay more in having guest appearances on each others' albums.) Oh, the Hipwaders have their Kindie Christmas album on their way to the printer, but it's August in Phoenix -- I find it very hard to think about winter at the moment...

New Music From Frances England: "Sunset Shines On Me"

This is how much I trust Frances England and her music. For the life of me I can't get this video to work, but it's new music from Frances, celebrating her kids' preschool, Sunset Co-op Nursery School in San Francisco. Seeing as her career got started from recording Fascinating Creatures as a preschool fundraiser, I'm guessing she likes the place. So I'm posting it in hopes that you'll tell me what it sounds like. (And eventually I'll get it to work myself.) Update: I got a chance to hear it last night. My instincts were correct. For somebody unconnected to the school, it was a pleasant chance to hear Frances sing about something meaningful to her. I'm sure those connected to the school loooove the song.
Sunset Shines On Me from Frances England on Vimeo.

Live Videos From Frances England

OK, it's no "Tricycle," but it's nice to see Frances England post some live video, if only because I'd heard about the slide show she was bringing out for some of her shows. Here she is doing the mellow "Animal Inside You" with Jeff Koch on drums and Tim Thurman on guitar at the July CD release party for her fine, fine Family Tree CD. And lots of animal pictures. Frances England - "Animal Inside You" (Live) That's not all...

An Open Letter to Residents of Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area

So I've been getting newsletters from Elizabeth Mitchell on a regular basis talking about her late summer tour of the West Coast. I knew, therefore, that she was going to be singing with Renee & Jeremy earlier this month (Suni Paz in LA was a surprise) and Frances England and Charity Kahn this past weekend. I even knew (I think) that she was going to sing with Justin Roberts last month. (They sang the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning.") What I didn't expect is that nobody was going to upload any video to the Internet. C'mon, people! I don't have one of those fancy iPhones or other cell phones with a camera in them, but somebody out there must've gone to the show with one in hand. And now I hear that the lads from Recess Monkey are going to be joining Elizabeth on stage for their shows in Seattle this Saturday. Seattle -- you can do it! Video! Video! Video! (Hey, I gave you, like, fiveRecess Monkey videos.) (Note: Unless, of course, recording is expressly prohibited by the terms and conditions of the ticket entry. Then, er, forget I ever asked.)

Cover Me: The Hipwaders and Frances England and...

It's not like the Bay Area's Hipwaders haven't done their fair share of covers -- one check of their Myspace or YouTube pages will find any number of Disney or cartoon covers by the band. But recently they've started doing something new -- covering their contemporaries. First, they posted "What Am I Gonna Do?" on their Myspace page and gave much love to the song's creators, Austin's Telephone Company. I agree with Tito -- it's about time that the Company's long-unreleased album Panda Brain change that status. The Hipwaders' version is really, really cool, giving it a cool guitar line to go with the slightly surreal lyrics. Then, today they posted "The Books I Like To Read," from fellow Bay Area artist Frances England, off her first CD, Fascinating Creatures. It's a live video from about a month ago, and while the Hipwaders don't do any major alterations to the uptempo song in their cover, it's just interesting -- and refreshing -- to hear kids' artists cover their contemporaries. The Hipwaders - "The Books I Like To Read" (Frances England cover)