Review: Monkey Business - Eric Herman and the Invisible Band

As a parent of a pre-schooler, I've heard lots of CDs with pretty simple lyrics. "Row, row, row your boat" may be a model of Zen equanimity to some with a Matrix-like philosophical underpinning, but, really, it's about rowing your boat downstream. Over and over and over again.

This is not to say that simple lyrics are bad. Just that they've been the norm thus far in my infant/toddler/preschooler parental music experience.

So it takes some adjustment on my part to listen to music obviously geared toward older kids. Lyrically, the new CD from Eric Herman and the Invisible Band, Monkey Business, has some moments of inspired weirdness, which I mean as high praise. For example, the song "The Monkeys" tells the familiar story (to thirty-somethings and forty-somethings, perhaps) of four monkeys named "Mick and Dave and Mike and Pete" who sang in a band, and were accused of not even playing their instruments. The song concludes with lyrics such as "I'm in love... I'm a banana eater" and "Take the last vine to Clarkville." Another song, "Don't Bother Any Butterflies," works in a nice Beatles reference in an appropriate place. So lyrically the album works in enough sly references and humor to amuse both the children and the adults.

I think this CD works best (for adults at least) when Herman is telling a simple story or just singing -- "In the Box," the uptempo song that starts the CD is a fun song about cleaning up. The two slow songs at CD's end -- "The Hero of Your Dreams" and "Rest Easy Now" -- are sweet, slower songs appropriate for CD's end. Less successful for me were storytelling songs in which Herman assumes the voice of pirates or a robot. I can see six- and seven-year-olds really enjoying those songs, especially in concert or on a video, but I think their parents (or, at least, this one) won't enjoy them nearly as much on this CD.

Kids age 5 through 8 would probably enjoy this CD the most. You can buy the CD through online stores such as Amazon or CDBaby, or through Herman's website.

Review: House Party - Dan Zanes

There are those kids' albums that sound like they're specifically geared toward, well, kids. The best of these get into the kids' worlds, their hopes and fears. The worst talk down to kids, way too stickly sweet.

And then there's Dan Zanes. His albums are the best example of what I'd call "family music." Instead of gearing his music primarily toward kids, Zanes finds (or, on occasion, writes) songs the whole family can enjoy. Zanes' 2003 album, House Party, exemplifies this approach. The title track is all about making music at home with family friends. My daughter asks to listen to it all the time, along with the uptempo "Down In The Valley." "House Party" is followed up by the traditional bluegrass tune, "Wabash Cannonball." There's nothing about "Cannonball" that makes it geared towards kids, except the fact that it's just a great little song, part of the American song canon.

"Cannonball" is only one a few traditional songs Zanes uses to good effect on the CD. My favorite is a lovely duet with Debbie Harry on "Waltzing Matilda," on which Harry's voice is so lovely you can't believe you're listening to the same person who led (and still leads) the rock band Blondie. As fun as that and other songs are on the CD, my very favorite is a Zanes original that ends the CD, "A Place For Us." A simple song about friendship and belonging, with composer Philip Glass on pump organ, I find it almost heartbreakingly beautiful, which lets me indulge its 6-minute runtime. (It's way too long for kids, of course, but I think it's great.)

Like all of Zanes' CDs, this one comes packaged in an illustrated book-like cases with liner notes. But you'll probably be too busy dancing with your kids to read it. (Unless, of course, you're driving. Then you're not dancing. I hope.)

DVD Review: Here Come The ABCs - They Might Be Giants

In my younger days, I went to clubs to hear Rawk Bands. And in my much younger days, I watched Sesame Street.

It is no knock on this new DVD -- it's high praise, in fact -- that I could see clips from the DVD played at clubs and on Sesame Street.

My review from last week on the CD version of this album was interpreted in the comments section by a snarky friend as being a negative review. As a long-time They Might Be Giants fan, I prefer to think of my less-than-5-star CD review as a reflection of them just failing to meet the high standards I've set for them. And part of that was a result of some songs that sound like they were designed for the DVD that were less than compelling without visuals.

So, then, the questions is, "how are the visuals?" And the answer is, fantabulous. Really. The video for "Pictures of Pandas Painting," while not a favorite song of mine, has a hypnotic, psychedelic feel. The art in "C is for Conifers" is nothing less than, well, art. "Q U" is a quirky live-action bit with Q and U (I love the shot of them walking through Central Park, with the crowd completely ignoring them). The puppetry in songs like "Who Put the Alphabet (In Alphabetical Order)" is lots of fun and a little surreal (e.g., the guitar windmills of a nearly-punk-rockin' pink poodle). And with visuals, songs such as "Letter Shapes" are much more enjoyable. (One note: if you're interested in the DVD because you want to see the actual band, you'll be mostly disappointed as the "thumb puppet" Johns get almost as much screen time as the "real" Johns -- i.e., not much.)

Taken in one 50-minute sitting, it's almost too much, but these visuals would fit in perfectly as interstitials (between-segment shorts) in Sesame Street. They would also make perfect oblique sense played on TVs in a rock club between sets.

One other minor complaint -- the DVD menu doesn't have scenes by chapters. If you're trying to limit a child's viewing time, trying to get to a particular song (and then play it from there for, say, 15 minutes) takes more work than it should.

But these are minor complaints. Excellent DVD.

Review: Here Come the ABCs - They Might Be Giants

As a follow-up to their popular and critically-acclaimed children's CD No!, Here Come the ABCs is a bit of a let-down only in comparison to such a strong disc. Part of this is probably due to the deliberate narrowing of subject matter of the new disc. How many different ways can you sing songs about the alphabet, a subject whose signature song was written by Mozart? But the relatively abstract nature of the lyrics allow TMBG to run amuck across the musical spectrum: jaunty ("E Eats Everything"), prog-rockish ("Pictures of Pandas Painting"), sometimes within the same song (the ballad/British Invasion/"Leader-of-the-Pack"-ish "D & W").

Since this CD was created with a companion DVD in mind, some of the songs ("Can You Find It?," "Letter/Not A Letter," "Letter Shapes") seem deficient without any accompanying visuals (I'll address whether or not that's actually the case in an upcoming review of the DVD). And unlike No!, which used a few songs from TMBG's "adult" career, the songs on ABCs are definitely more targeted at kids (thereby increasing the likelihood of odd stares from co-workers should you take the CD to work).

But that's not to say there aren't some standout tracks. "Alphabet Lost and Found" is a electronica-lite song about well, lost and found letters. "I C U" has some great wordplay (or, rather, letter-play). "C Is For Conifers" is a fine entry in the long TMBG tradition of educational songs and covers ("Mammal," "Meet John Ensor," "The Sun Is A Mass (Of Incandescent Gas)"). And "Q U" is just cute (or "qute," I guess).

Can I envision sneaking this off to work like I did with No!? Probably not -- it's not as strong an album in total. But if you (or your children) liked No!, there's no reason to believe you (or they) won't find Here Come the ABCs enjoyable as well.

Review: No! - They Might Be Giants

The band They Might Be Giants are elder statesmen of what has sometimes been called "geek rock." The band has been recording albums for close to 20 years, and for most of that time they aimed their records right at your typical rock-listening audience of high schoolers and those with high school in their rear view mirror. But if you see them live, you'll find something unusual for rock concerts -- little kids on their parents' shoulders.

In 2002 the band released No!, their first album specifically for kids. Some of the songs could just as easily have been released on an album for adults (indeed, some have been concert staples of theirs for years). Some of the songs are very simple, if somewhat skewed. "I Am Not Your Broom" and "I Am a Grocery Bag" are about, well, what their titles say. Other songs, however, are significantly more complex, both in instrumentation (full band!) as well as song structure. "The House At the Top of the Tree" has a Memento-like storytelling structure. (Oddly enough, that song is one of my 3-year-old daughter's favorites, and thanks to constant repetition, she's probably better at the lyrical intricacies than I am.) "Bed Bed Bed" is a 6-year-old's version of the Beatles' "Day in the Life" off of Sgt. Pepper's, complete with the sound of a placid ping pong game buried deep in the mix at the end.

I would recommend TMBG CDs to kids of all ages (they're the one rock band I don't have any problem playing for our daughter), but this CD is probably best for kids age 3 - 8. There are a number of wonderful songs on the CD -- the first three ("Fibber Island," "Four of Two," "Robot Parade") are particularly strong. The CD is interactive, with lots of games (sort of) you can play while listening to the songs. You can also go to http://www.giantkid.net for more TMBG kiddie-related goodness.