Interview: Jack Forman (Recess Monkey)

If Recess Monkey aren't the hardest-working band in kids music, then there's some other band who's figured out how break the 24-hours-in-a-day rule. The Seattle trio has been cranking out a new studio yearly like clockwork, touring locally and nationally, and coming up with crazy-cool collaborative notions like Kindiependent, the Seattle-area collective of kindie rockers.

Their latest project, the recently released album In Tents, has also spurred a burst of creallaborativity (that's a word I just made up to reflect "collaborative creativity"), as it was the soundtrack for a kid-friendly circus show by Seattle-based troupe Teatro ZinZanni.

Last month bassist Jack Forman took time out during a "dingy, Kafka-esque Seattle morning" (his words, not mine), to talk about the album, the circus, and keeping things fresh when you're so busy).

Zooglobble: What are your childhood memories of the circus?

Jack Forman: I didn't go to the circus a lot. I did go to the Ringling circus with my grandma in Indiana. They had real Transformers and Truckosaurus, when I was 7 or 8 years old. I've been interested in that combination of humor and darkness.

What are your favorite types of circus acts?

Oh, the contortion stuff, acrobatics, gymnasts. There's this 11-year-old gymnast named Saffi Watson in the ZinZanni show, she's just insane.

Those are some of my favorites. They're so good you sometimes forget they're just people. I saw a Cirque du Soleil show recently, and when one of the trampoline gymnasts couldn't nail a landing, it was almost a good thing, because it reminded you just how hard these things are.

Yeah, there's the humanity, too. It's refreshing to see when they've trained their whole life.

What came first - the album or the show?

The album came first -- we've been thinking about it for a couple years. We kinda joked about it -- you know, hokey melodies for 3 year-olds, dinosaurs, clowns like you'd see at a teacher supply store. But then we decided we wanted to steal back the idea from the cheesy preschool store and make it our own. Give it a rich treatment, work with Dean [Jones, musician/producer].

Four months out from recording, I mentioned it to Korum [Bischoff[, who's a drummer for Johnny Bregar and who also works with Teatro ZinZanni, and before we knew it we spent 6 monhts with them working on a storyline. Now we're so excited -- it's the coolest live show we've ever done.

So it's awesome live?

It's the first time we've played a record this fully live. We've focursed on making our show dance-driven. It's a pretty intense set, fully high-energy, sing-alongable. Kids never sit and listen. That's just what works for us. So there are a number of songs we've never played live. For this show, we play 13 of the 15 songs from In Tents.

"Carousel" is my favorite musically, underscoring the performance. There are 8 performers with costumes, a ballerina with 10-foot wings. It's collaborative, complementary. It's similar in some ways to a Flaming Lips show -- amazing visuals, interactive. There are some moments where we're part of a larger team. It's a dream come true.

Are there other favorites from the album?

"House of Cards," we don't do live, but the lyrics are really funny, and was the song most changed by Dean. It started out as a ragtime song, then became a samba with a crummy Casio loop. "Bouncy House" is really fun to play live. You nailed the comparison to "Get Back" in your review -- yeah, even to the guest on keyboards. (It was Drew's favorite song at some point at least.)

So you're probably the "Hardwest Working Band" in kids music... how do you keep the music and performances fresh?

Well, thank you for the premise of the question, that it's still fresh. I was really worried a few albums ago (around Aminal House) -- how do you do it if you think it's the best you've done? And it's been satisfying to detect growth each time. We're playing more every year, which has helped as we've played new genres and can play new licks we couldn't do a couple years ago. We've got 75-100 shows 'til the end of the year, but there's time to think about next year. Maybe a concept record, maybe something more loose.

We really just enjoy each other creatively.

Other things you're doing to help with that?

On the business stuff, I took a year off to be with [my son] Oscar. I do the booking and other stuff. It gives Drew and Daron time to have more creative energy. That's worked, I think. It's helped to preserve the artistic core of the band.

What's next?

We're playing a lot -- a lot of time on the road with library shows and on the East Coast. We'll probably add some circus shows. [Note: They're playing a handful of shows in August and September.] And we're thinking about the new record -- themes, song ideas.

Photo by Kevin Fry

Interview: Rick Garcia & William V. Malpede ("Quiet Is...")

Rick Garcia (left) / William V. Malpede (right)You may think of Disney's TV channels as filled with brightly-colored sets and sounds, and of course there are plenty of shows that feature those, but there are some quieter moments on the channel.

Some of the loveliest quieter moments come courtesy of the new Disney Junior interstitial series "Quiet Is...", a ten-episode series created by illustrator Sara Pinto and photographer/filmmaker Luciana Frigerio and produced by Scotland-based animation studio Ko Lik Films. It's a series of two-minute shorts designed more for quiet time, for getting kids in the getting-ready-for-bed mood.

While the visuals themselves are striking, they're accompanied by tender, often (but not solely) mellow songs that don't so much explain the visuals as much as give the visuals an extra dimension. The series' songs were composed by Rick Garcia and William V. Malpede. The songwriting team have worked together on a number of other projects, including the movie Rango, but this project was considerably different. They chatted with me by phone yesterday in advance of Sunday's Father's Day premiere of the tenth episode in the "Quiet Is..." series, an episode titled "Dad Reading." You can see the nine previous episodes at Disney Junior's videos page, and even though the rest of the world won't see the latest video 'til Sunday, you can watch it here today. Read on to find out about the series' origins, the challenges of writing for this particular project, and whose voice they're blown away by.

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?

Rick Garcia (RG): My first memory is from age 4 -- my mother was a singer and a big fan of Nat King Cole. She put on a record of his, and I was blown away by his voice.

William V. Malpede (WVM): Yeah, he had a fantastic voice... I have two memories. First, touching piano keys -- I was in 1st grade, maybe, and there was this magical connection between the body and the music. I also remember hearing opera, my mother playing opera, and my sister playing classic rock albums from the late '60s and early '70s.

How did you get involved in the project?

WVM: I had worked with Rick for about five years or so, working on films. We were both friends with Lori Mozilo [Development Executive, Disney Junior], and she approached us about working on this. I was thrilled. I'm a big fan of music in animated films, and this was tied to that. She brought mostly-completed videos to us, and they were lovely.

I was going to ask you next how the songs were created -- whether they came first, or simultaneously -- but it sounds like they came last?

RG: Yes, we met first with Lori and Nancy Kanter [Senior Vice President, Original Programming and General Manager, Disney Junior Worldwide]. They brought us a video and asked us to write a song for it. They loved the song we wrote and asked us to work on the project.

You know, the videos are beautiful in their own form. We were after an emotion, not as much the lyrics. The songs are truly unique unto themselves; even if you heard the song separately, you'd still be hit the same way.

WVM: The songs are supposed to be timeless. One of the directives we received was the songs weren't supposed to narrate the visuals, but instead tell a companion story -- they didn't want it to be spot-on.

You also wrote songs for Rango -- how was the experience of writing these songs different from writing songs designed to move the plot along in the movie?

RG: The Rango songs were written very differently -- they were the first pieces of music written for the film. We had a lot of free rein. The lyrical content in the songs was musical narration, so there were a lot of rewrites lyrically (and musically) for that. Here, we knew we were able to write different styles of musical. In Rango, there was a specific musical style (mariachi owls).

WVM: For "Quiet Is...", we'd often talk about instrumentation -- the choice of instruments sets the emotional landscape. It gives us musical colors or a palette to help out... One piece we did have to treat a little differently, there's a piece with some sheep getting a bit rambunctious ["Counting Sheep"] -- in that case we needed to be a little more literal.

What have you enjoyed most about the project, or what were you surprised by at the end?

WVM: There are many ways to go about scoring to pictures -- there needs to be a balance between the song form (a verse, chorus, so on) and the pictures. In theory, those two approaches conflict. But there were times when we'd write a song on piano or guitar and sometimes those things would go great with the pictures.

At times, some songs had too many lyrics and we had to get rid of some, but I expected that. Overall, it was really good.

RG: It was effortless working Lori and Nancy -- they have a lot of expertise, and their feedback was helpful throughout. In terms of concerns, you're always nervous when you have timelines to meet but people to be 1,000% satisfied. There was a certain amount of rewriting necessary, but it was a great experience, a great creative time.

It sounds like you had a lot of creative freedom, but I also know from talking with musicians that getting used to writing songs that are 2 minutes long -- not 2 minutes and 10 seconds, not 1 minute 50 seconds, but exactly 2 minutes long -- can take a little getting used to.

RG: We are used to writing to a certain time length and those constraints. But those deadlines, you start sweating bullets.

WM: When you write for media [pictures], it's just part of the experience. Not really a concern.

What's next for you, either with "Quiet Is..." or other projects?

RG: I don't know what's next with "Quiet Is...". There's a possibility of another project with Disney, but that's still in the works. Beyond that, want to dive back into the film world. I'm always writing, always singing. And it's such a joy to work with William -- it was mostly effortless.

WVM: Echoing Rick... I would love to see "Quiet Is..." get some buzz, but it's fairly early in the process. I'd like to write more with Rick, not just kids music but also other music. I also write choral music, so I'm always looking to do more with that.

Photos courtesy Disney Junior

Interview: Rick Dobbis (myKaZoo)

Rick Dobbis' resume is a lengthy one, with many stops in the music and record business, including a stint as president of Sony Music International. His latest effort targets a younger audience than one he's spent much of his career focusing on -- preschoolers and elementary school-aged kids. Along with business partner Richard Ellis (that's him on the right, Dobbis on the left), myKaZootv and myKaZoo Music are attempting to bring a wide variety of music videos in one centralized (and curated) place as well as seeing if the idea of a kids' record label can be saved. Their label's first release, Farmer Jason's Nature Jams, comes out February 7, and the myKaZoo website will be up and running this month. They've got ambitious plans in a field that has seen many ambitious plans -- and seen many of those fail. Dobbins chatted with me this week about his introduction to kids music, why he thinks myKaZoo is good for the genre and not just his artists, and one inspiration for the site's name. Zooglobble: What are your earliest musical memories? Rick Dobbis: I grew up with a sister six years older than me. She was a huge, huge rock 'n' roll fan. This was the early '50s, so folks like Elvis Presley, Connie Francis. My sister was a huge Connie Francis fan -- my father once brought her an autographed picture of Francis and she just about died. My father... the name "myKaZoo" isn't specifically named for my father, but he was an amateur kazoo player. He opened for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes at an annual show three years in a row. My first kids record was the theme from Davy Crockett. My first album was "A Taste of Honey" by Jimmy Rodgers. How did you get into kids music? Well, Rick Chertoff, who's a distinguished producer, he and his wife and others formed Dream Jam Productions to do stuff related to music and movement. It'd primarily been focused on books. We were sitting talking one day, and we asked, "why don't we create our own music -- good music that shares the values we're trying to convey?" That struck a chord with me, so I worked with them and that's when the Dream Jam Band came into being. I worked with every genre over my career, and internationally at a particularly good point, a great time to open my mind. It was new, and new is healthy. There's some wonderfully creative content in the genre. It's also under-resourced and underrepresented in the marketplace.

Interview: Loren Hoskins / Kevin Hendrickson

When many of us last saw Loren Hoskins and Kevin Hendrickson, they were tearing it up as the leaders of the Portland-based pirate rock band Captain Bogg and Salty. So when I heard that they'd been tapped to write the music for (and appear in) Disney Junior's animated show Jake and the Never Land Pirates, I figured it'd be an excellent fit. And if you've heard the music (a soundtrack was recently released), you'll know that it doesn't sound that much different from their work in Captain Bogg & Salty. There's a new "pirate rock" episode airing tomorrow, Thursday, November 10th as part of a big Jake and the Never Land Pirates marathon highlighting the music from the series, including sing-along versions of the live-action videos from the show. (Airs 6 - 11 AM, but, as they say, check your local listings.) So I thought this was an excellent time to catch up with the pair. They talked last week from the studio (where they're working on music for Season 2 of the show) about their musical influences growing up, the good and not-so-good parts of songwriting for TV, and why you should check your spam inbox every once in a while.

Zooglobble: What are your musical memories growing up? Kevin Hendrickson: Listening to Credence Clearwater Revival and the Bee Gees on my mom's stereo. Taking piano lessons. Loren Hoskins: We listened to Marty Robbins' Gunfighter Ballads, Disneyland albums, Elvis -- I grew up in a fairly conversative household, but my parents said, "Elvis is OK." Given your work as Captain Bogg & Salty (and otherwise), it's obvious why Disney picked you for this job, but were there any interesting stories about how it came about? Hoskins: Actually, there is one interesting thing... I was working on a musical adaptation of Treasure Island, and Kevin was about to become a father again, and I happened to randomly check my spam e-mail filter. In there I found an e-mail from a VP of music at Disney saying they were interested in working with us. I re-read it 4 times and send it to Kevin, asking, "Do you think this is legit?" I talked with Steve Roslonek, AKA Mr. Steve on PBS, once, and he said that he'd learned a lot about songwriting, especially with TV's very short time limits on songs... what have you learned about songwriting in writing for Jake?

Interview: Laura Veirs

On her forthcoming album Tumble Bee: Laura Veirs Sings Folk Songs for Children, Laura Veirs makes old folk songs sound new. It's a cliche, sure, but there is often a kernel of truth in a cliche. There is certainly truth in that one regarding Veirs' album, her first for families, on which she invigorates songs so that people who've never heard many of these songs might not necessarily think of them as "old folk songs." (And those of us who have many of these songs many times over can listen again with fresh ears.) I chatted briefly with Veirs recently (on her birthday, no less) about her musical memories, why she made the album, and what kinds of gifts a musician gets for a baby shower. Zooglobble: What are your earliest musical memories? Laura Veirs: I definitely remember Dad singing me to sleep. He plays very casually -- the piano, guitar, charango. By very casual, I mean almost "half-correct." It was nice not to have that pressure. I actually don't know how to read music, which, now that I'm a parent puts me in a bit of a dilemma. For me it'd be nice to play piano with my son and have him play along, but I'd prefer him to have the joy. Anyway, we listened to a lot of classical music and the stars of the day -- Olivia Newton-John, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young. It wasn't a big emphasis, more of a passing fancy. When did you start thinking about making this album? Before your son was born?

Interview: Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops)

Opera singer to string band fiddler is not, as best I can tell, a common musical path, but that's exactly the path that Rhiannon Giddens has taken. The North Carolina native trained to sing opera, but also found herself drawn to learning the fiddle. One thing led to another, and by 2005, she was one of three musicians founding the Carolina Chocolate Drops. The band, now a quartet, has brought the centuries-old African-American string band tradition to a new century and new audiences. Including kids, as can be shown by their performance at the Green River Festival's Meltdown Stage earlier this month. I was intrigued as to what motivated Giddens and her bandmates to play for kids in addition to adults, as well as finding out more about the challenges (and benefits) of playing for a family audience. Giddens kindly agreed to take a few minutes out of her busy schedule (the band plays the Newport Folk Festival this weekend) to talk about just that... Zooglobble: What are some of your musical memories growing up? Rhiannon Giddens: Singing with my dad, mom, and sister (all the time!) and seeing amazing people like Sweet Honey in the Rock, Sapphire the Uppity Blues Women, and the North Carolina Symphony. What do you think your daughter will remember musically from her childhood? That's a big question, I'm eager to know myself! I hope she takes away the variety that she's being exposed to, and that music is a necessary part of life, even if she doesn't go into music professionally. What made you interested in playing the Meltdown (family) stage at the Green River Festival?