Yes, "I Wish I Lived In Michigan" is awesome. So is "I Hog The Ground (Groundhog Song)".
But I have a third awesome song to share: Georgie James' "The Grizzly Jive."
The track is off the forthcoming DeSoto Records kids' compilation Play!, which I've been anticipating for awhile now.
I got an advance copy this week, and while you'll have to wait awhile for my review, this bubbly indiepop track from the new-ish DC-based duo is just so great that I need to spread the word now.
And I find to my delight DeSoto Records is super-obliging, offering up a full mp3 of the song at its Downloads page. You can also download "Always Check For Holes," from Channels w/ Damon Locks. (Channels includes former Jawbox member J. Robbins and Janet Morgan, who supplies the British accent on the track.)
Go. Now.
Review: Park Slope Parents The Album (Vol. 1) - Various Artists
Compilations are notoriously hard things to compile. Any fool can put together a CD of good or popular songs, but their appeal as a single entity often fades after time. (Really, who listens to those Now! CDs, like, six months later?) The key is finding some loosely unifying theme or spirit to guide the collection.
Park Slope Parents The Album (Vol. 1) has just enough theme to carry the day. The 17-track collection plucks chooses songs old and new, released and not, from mainly New York City artists. There are a few tracks that deal with life in New York City -- David Weinstone (Music for Aardvarks) contributes his simple "Subway" ("Bing bong / the doors open on the train / bing bong / All the people pile in") while Michael Leyden has a more rocking take in "I Hear a Train."
Any compilation should also be measured by how well it does in helping you to discover new artists, rediscover chestnuts from old artists, and getting new tracks from your favorite artists. In terms of discovering new artists, Courtney Kaiser and Benjamin Cartel's "The Season Song" is a perfect pop tune from an adult band (whose members both teach in schools) writing a kids' song (specifically for this album). Dan Zanes contributes the "The Monkey's Wedding" from his Parades and Panoramas disk while Daniel Schorr's "Good Boy with a Bad Reputation" (off his first album) is a great example of his countryfied Dwight Yoakam-esque rock.
And the new tracks. These, my friends, are why you should get yourself on the CDBaby waiting list and order the disk. Smack dab in the middle of the disk are two great new cuts. The Deedle Deedle Dees contribute their ode to New York City roadways (had to balance out the public transportation songs, I suppose) with "Major Deegan," which was recorded for their upcoming album. The loping song sounds timeless, especially with those "whoo-whoo's". And The Quiet Two continue their surreal attack on kids' music with the loopy and giddy "When I Dream." AudraRox's reggae song of tolerance "Moms & Dads" and the sometimes-out-of-control (in a good way) "Drunken Sailor" contributed by Astrograss (with backing vocals from AudraRox's Audra and Jen) are just as good.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the sweetest track, the album closer "Fools Will Try." Somehow these Brooklyn parents got Ralph Covert to contribute a track from his 1997 album Birthday, and it's nothing less than some of the best advice you can give to a child. This is one of those songs that should appear on a lot of new parents' mix CDs...
The album is probably most appropriate for kids 3 through 8 (who probably don't care less about the appropriateness of a compilation and who just care whether a CD has good songs, which this one does in spades). The album is a fundraiser for Park Slope Parents, an informational website for parents in Park Slope, Brooklyn. For those of you who don't live in New York City, I'd recommend the CDBaby page, where you can hear samples. (The cover, by the way, is by children's author and illustrator Mo Willems, who contributes drawings that are more "Knuffle Bunny" than "Pigeon.")
Though collected for kids living in New York City, Park Slope Parents The Album (Vol. 1) is appropriate for families visiting New York City, learning about New York City, oh, heck, lovers of good music. It's a great collection of music and it's definitely recommended.Review: Bullfrog Jumped (Children's Folksongs from the Byron Arnold Collection) - Various Artists
It's Alan Lomax for the kiddos.
Released last year by the Alabama Folklife Association and given a new release this upcoming Tuesday, Bullfrog Jumped is a collection of folksongs sung by mothers, grandmothers, and other women in the summer of 1947, when they were recorded on front porchaes and in kitchens by Byron Arnold, a Professor of Music at the University of Alabama. There are some standards -- "Frog Went A-Counrting" and "Skip To My Lou," for example -- but many of these folksongs were new to me, or at least the melody or lyrics were. There are, for example, three different versions of "All The Pretty Little Horses," none of which quite sound like the wistful lullaby has become more than 50 years later. "Skip To My Lou" has about 10 verses, only 3 or 4 of which I'd heard before.
There are some stellar voices on the disk. Vera Hall, whose recording of "Troubled So Hard" was sampled by Moby on Play (and who was definitely familiar to Alan Lomax), has a great song, "Little Lap Dog," here. The voice that made me snap to attention every time I heard it was that of 17-year-old Mozella Longmire, who has 4 tracks on the disk, including "Little Sally Walker" and "Two Little Gentlemen From the Spring." Sixty years later, Mrs. Longmire is still singing in the choir at Mt. Triumph Baptist Church, and it seems to me someone needs to record an album of her singing folksongs. I'd buy it.
The songs are most appropriate for kids ages 0 through 6. You can hear four tracks here, two more here, and samples of all the tracks here.
With 42 tracks in about 36 minutes, sometimes the snippets of songs are just to short to be of much listening interest heard straight through. The a cappella nature of the album can also become a bit repetitive for an entire disk. But as a sampler and recording of songs familiar and much less so, the recording (which sounds great for a recording 60 years old) and the liner notes (of Smithsonian Folkways quality), should be in every library and preschool.Review in Brief: Asian Dreamland - Various Artists (Putumayo)
The first region-specific release in its Dreamland series, Putumayo's Asian Dreamland collection was released earlier this month with, yes, a collection of lullabies from Asia. Coincidence or not, it's one of the few areas of the world that Ellipsis Arts hasn't covered in its collections of world lullabies.
Although I keep an open set of ears when it comes to music, after more than three decades of listening to it, I've certainly developed some preferences, and one of those is a general indifference to music from Asia. I think it's perhaps the stringed instruments found in many Asian melodies, which may be relaxing to some, but not to me. So it came as little surprise to me that my favorite tracks on this 32-minute disk were those that downplayed the stringed instruments, such as "Cradle Song," from the Tatarstan artis Zulya, or "Aka Tonbo," a Japanese lullaby sung by Aiko Shimada and Elizabeth Falconer. Instrumentals like "Asadoya Yunta," which features a shamisen, a 3-stringed instrument similar to a banjo, were less pleasant to me. As slow as the instrumentals were, they would definitely keep me awak.
But one of the advantages of youth is that the ears of the young haven't developed their prejudices like their stick-in-the-mud dads, and so it's possible your kids will be incredibly relaxed by this collection. At the very least, it's a user-friendly collection of traditional Asian tracks supplemented by Putumayo's always helpful liner notes (you think I could identify a shamisen by myself?) A collection of lullabies, it's most appropriate for kids ages 0 through 6, though I'm sure older kids interested in traditional Asian music would find this a useful starter. Listen to Real Player samples here. Again, this collection is not for everyone, but if you're willing to try something new, Putumayo as usual offers you a good place to start.Yet Another Kids Music Compilation
Not to be confused with YAKMA (Yet Another Kids Music Article), YAKMC reflects what will certainly be a trend to watch in 2007 -- compilations of kids music by "adult" artists.
I've known about this compilation for a few months now, but now that it has a release date, it's time to get the word out.
DeSoto Records, home to artists such as Jawbox and (the late) Dismemberment Plan, has finally announced a April 17, 2007 release date for its three-years-in-the-making compilation Play. With artists such as the Young Fresh Fellows, Mudhoney, and Supersuckers, it will at the very least be interesting to listen to.
(By the way, if you're a fan of Jawbox, you may be interested in the news regarding Callum Robbins, the infant son of Jawbox singer/guitarist J. Robbins (who's gone on to produce bands such as Jets to Brazil). Cal has been diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and the DeSoto website is soliciting donations on behalf of the family for what will likely be expensive medical bills.)
Melissa Block's CD Changer and Ours Look Similar
To those of you visiting here from Melissa Block's post on CDs her family's been enjoying, welcome. You'll find over 140 reviews of CDs here (all accessible from the artist links on the right-hand side of the page), plus news and interviews squeezed in whenever I can find the time.
For what it's worth, you can follow the links below to my reviews of the albums Melissa lists...
-- Catch That Train! - Dan Zanes and Friends (review / interview)
-- You Are My Little Bird - Elizabeth Mitchell (review)
-- New Orleans Playground - Various Artists / Putumayo (review)
-- Alphabet Songs - Steve Weeks (Vol. 2 review, Vol. 3 review)
-- The Johnny Cash Children's Album - Johnny Cash (review)
-- Whoever Shall Have Some Good Peanuts - Sam Hinton (review)
And thanks for stopping by!
