Video: "Here and Now" - Renee & Jeremy (World Premiere!)

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from the Southern California duo Renee & Jeremy. While both Renee Stahl and Jeremy Toback made music in the meantime, particularly Renee with a couple of well-received albums with a series of musical partners (including Toback) under the Renee & Friends moniker, it’s been nearly a decade since the duo last released an album together.

But the memories of parents sitting in quiet rooms with their young ones don’t fade easily. Their first two albums in particular — It’s a Big World and C’mon — were in constant rotation in Little Boy Blue’s preschool years in the Zooglobble household. Those albums were followed in 2012 by a holiday-themed album and an album of covers called A Little Love which showcased the duo’s lovely harmonies on often surprising arrangements of modern classic pop and rock songs.

Luckily for those families with long memories (and for families who might not have even been families nine years ago, R&J are back with a new album next week! It’s called Whole Lotta Love and it’s the spiritual successor to A Little Love as it’s another album of (almost entirely) covers. I’ve enjoyed their first two singles from the album, their versions of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” and Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child ‘O Mine” (the latter a refreshingly different take on the song), and judging by the YouTube comments (I know, never read the comments), their are lots of families who are eager for the duo’s return.

Renee Stahl and Jeremy Toback standing in a field

The new album dips from the same well of intriguing covers A Little Love dipped from, with a cover of MGMT’s “Kids,” for example, sitting alongside one of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People.” (I particularly enjoyed the leadoff track, a take on INXS’ “Don’t Change.”)

But there’s one original song on the album, “Here and Now,” and I’m glad I get to world premiere the video for that song. The song itself considers the impermanence of things and the importance of being present. (It’s not a Buddhist song… but I think a lot of Buddhists would recognize many of the concepts here.) The video, directed by Ron Hamad, a commercial and film director and friends with the duo, captures the mood and lyrics well, with Renee and Jeremy walking through abandoned buildings amidst the Salton Sea. Toback says the video shoot consisted of just the three of them plus director of photography Wes Cardino “chasing magic,” in Hamad’s phrase. The ending scene under an amazingly glowing moon, happened by accident, they report. Like much of Renee & Jeremy’s music, the video’s a little mesmerizing.

Again, Whole Lotta Love is out next week! Having listened to it all, I know that if your family still grooves to the music they made before, they will dig this, too.

Renee & Jeremy - “Here and Now” [YouTube]

Photo credit: Stuart Burton

Video: "Jump for Joy" - Red Yarn (World Premiere!)

There is… a lot going on in the world right now — death, destruction, anger, systemic injustice made manifest. And so I completely understand someone’s surface-level reaction to the idea of posting a video for a song titled “Jump for Joy” at this point.

Red Yarn (aka Portland, Oregon’s Andy Furgeson) gets it, too. He’s releasing his sixth album, Backyard Bop, on August 7th, and when he wrote the leadoff single “Jump for Joy” in January 2020, the world (at least in the United States) looked a lot different than it does as summer officially kicks off. At the time, Furgeson says, “I was thinking about the power of activism and my responsibility to spread joy from my position of privilege… I had no idea what the world would look like just six months later. Now, in this moment of pandemic and civil unrest, I'm more aware than ever that I have a duty as a privileged white male artist to use my small but mighty platform for good.”

So, yes, on the one hand this video is a silly little thing, featuring Furgeson’s trademark puppets as the crew for the video. (Furgeson assures me that it was filmed in a socially-distanced manner by Lake Karavias, also known round these parts as the ringleader of the Big World Audio Theater.) But with a chorus featuring the lyrics “Stand right up, raise your voice, get up with me, and jump for joy!,” the rockabilly song has a social activist heart that puts it in good company with recent releases from artists like the Okee Dokee Brothers, Alastair Moock, and Alphabet Rockers (not to mention legends like Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger, and Raffi). And most activists will tell you that there’s got to be a bit of joy alongside the hard work of social change.

Anyway, I’m happy to present the world-premiere of the video. You can listen to “Jump for Joy” wherever your family streams music here, or also via the player following the video below.

Red Yarn - “Jump for Joy” [YouTube]

Red Yarn · Jump For Joy

A Massive Caspar Babypants Playlist

Today marks the release of Jump For Joy!, the 13th album for kids from Caspar Babypants, AKA Chris Ballew.

Thirteen albums for any artist is a significant achievement, but the fact that Ballew has done so in basically little more than 9 years is even more amazing.

And the fact that those 13 albums are uniformly good to great -- not a stinker among them -- is the most impressive feat of them all.

Jump For Joy! is another good Caspar Babypants album, and while I'd probably pick a different album to introduce a listener to CB (More Please! or Sing Along!, to suggest a couple), it's certainly a worthwhile spin.

I have written many words about the music of Caspar Babypants -- many, many words. Let's face it, trying to say something interesting about the latest album from some who is releasing new music every 33 or 34 weeks can get difficult. Let's just say I think that Ballew is one of the great songwriters for preschoolers of this era or any other.

So rather than going into more detail on his latest album saying, basically, "I like this -- you should try it out," I decided to put together a playlist of my favorite Caspar Babypants songs. And as I went through his albums one by one, I quickly realized that to do something like a 15- or even 30-song list wouldn't do Ballew justice.

I present to you, then, one hundred awesome Caspar Babypants songs, up to and including songs from Jump For Joy!, out today. I have not tried to organize these 100 songs into the perfect Spotify playlist -- they are simply CB songs, ordered chronologically by release date. The one exception I made was to move all the songs from Night Night!, Ballew's lullaby/nighttime album, to the very end, but even then you'll hear a few lullabies from his other works scattered throughout. (I also tried to keep the songs I picked from Winter Party!, his Christmas/holiday album, not very... Christmas-y so that it works even in the heat of late August.)

Anyway, parents, enjoy, and Chris Ballew, thanks.

Video: "Paletero Man" - Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band

There's nothing not to like about the first single from the brand-new Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band album Made in L.A. "Paletero Man" is every bit as refreshing as the ice cream popsicles the paletero man sells to "todo los chiquillos."

The song's now got a snappy new lyric video featuring art from longtime Diaz collaborator Micah Player, one more reason for the song to lodge in your brain.

By the way, I know the album is called Made in L.A., but if you happen to find yourself in the Phoenix area, I definitely recommend Paletas Betty for all your paletas needs.

Anyway, enjoy!

Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band - "Paletero Man" [YouTube]