Austin Kiddie Limits: The Early Guide

Anyone who's read Neal Pollack's Alternadad knows that Neal's family's experience 2 or 3 years agao at the Austin City Limits Festival, though not a debacle on the level of Woodstock '99, wasn't a familial high point, either.

Still, that's not gonna bring the fine friends at the ACL Festival down, because once again they're organizing Austin Kiddie Limits, a separate stage just for the young folk at this year's edition scheduled for September 14 through 16, 2007. (Note: that's "young folk," not "Young Folks" -- Peter Bjorn & John are on an entirely different stage.)

In any case, I'll leave the obsessive "this lineup is awesome/this lineup is sucks" discussion for the 93% of the lineup not specifically for the kids to other websites; this is the place for the obsessive "this lineup is awesome/this lineup is sucks" discussion pertaining to kids music.

Now, the lineup can be basically divided into two categories:
1) Adults Playing For Kids
2) Kids Playing For Adults

In the former category, you have the following:
-- The Sippy Cups -- Psychedelic-inspired kids rock, with a hint of punk and Replacements tossed in. Also, costumes. As a result, those attending ACL for Bob Dylan and Bjork might find them slightly amusing.
-- Daddy A Go Go -- Straight-ahead rock 'n' roll with a side of smart-aleckness. It's exactly as if ACL artist LCD Soundsystem played Southern-fried rock with teenagers. OK, it's nothing like that, but until Jimmy Buffett plays ACL Fest, I got nothin'.
-- Farmer Jason -- Countryfied rock without a trace of irony. The obvious parental equivalent would be Jason and the Scorchers, but no dice.
-- Sara Hickman -- I understand from the folks in charge that she'll be pulling double-duty, playing both an adult and the kids stage.
-- Q Brothers -- Good-time hip-hop and rap. (Is there any other kind for kids? I mean, is gangsta rap for youngsters doomed to be forever untapped?
-- Jambo Kidz -- Bluesy stuff from LA
-- Bummkinn Band -- Gentle country for the kids. Not Shania Twain country, much more traditional.
-- Jellydots -- If you've been reading this website for any length of time, you're familiar with Doug Snyder and his band, The Jellydots. Awesome stuff.

In the second category are bands made up of youngsters or recently-adulted young folks. I really got nothing on these three except that the School of Rock has a Police song up on AKL's Myspace page (a perfectly acceptable version, and timely to boot), and the Steps is an Austin-based band.
-- Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars
-- The Steps
-- We Go To 11

As 2 1/2 afternoons of music go, pretty good. (And the evenings, not for the kiddos, might have a band or two worth catching...) If we can avoid chucking juice boxes onto the stage, then even better.

More details to come.

The Jellydots LIVE at SXSW

The Sippy Cups and Daddy-A-Go-Go went back to the late '60s in namechecking the past at SXSW this weekend. The Jellydots didn't go quite that far back. Think late '80s. Think rappers wearing large clocks.
Doug Snyder threw a little Public Enemy (who apparently had quite the set at Auditorium Shores) into "Race Cars Go."

A Public Enemy reference. At a kids' show. (But appropriate for kids, in any case. Not like he sings "911 Is a Joke" or anything like that.)

Jason Molin, who wrote the reggae-fied "Lake Rules" the band recorded on Hey You Kids! also caught Doug and the crew doing "Mr. Cookie."

Review: Mommy Says No! - Asylum Street Spankers

Longtime fixtures of the Austin music scene (with fans in the U.S. and abroad), the Asylum Street Spankers would probably rank low on the list of bands you'd expect to see turning out a kids' album. Any band that counts EPs entitled Dirty Ditties and Nasty Novelties as part of their discography clearly hasn't made their name by recording albums suitable for use in your kid's preschool.

So it's not unreasonable to ask -- is Mommy Says No!, their first family-friendly kids album, really family-friendly or for kids?

The answer is yes, sort of, mostly. The band, who have made their name playing a broad range of musical genres using acoustic instrumentation, apply that same formula to a more benign set of song topics. Learning to ride a bicycle ("Training Wheel Rag"), wondering about being an adult ("When I Grow Up"), or being afraid of the dark ("Don't Turn Out the Light") -- these are all standard subject matter for kids music. But rather than setting those topics to pop fare, they turn them into a swinging rag (with some killer fiddle), funky New Orleans brass-band strut, and a sweet pop tune interrupted by some "Thriller"-like vocals. Whatever the style, throughout the album, the band sounds great.

What distinguishes the album from most in the genre is its winking sense of humor, which at times ignores the kids and aims straight at the parents and at times may give parents pause. More benignly is Christina Marrs' "Be Like You," a sweet little ditty with toy piano and a background chorus of the guys in the band sounding like SNL's old "Unfrozen Cavemen Lawyers." Wammo's "You Only Love Me For My Lunchbox" may have some of the more nervous parents in the crowd skipping for the next track as Wammo leads the rest of the band through a set of tongue-twisters that ends with one more apropos for the over-21 crowd. The band's bluegrass cover of Nirvana's "Sliver" is downright awesome, though lyrically ("Mom and dad went to a show / they dropped me off at Grandpa Joe's / I kicked and screamed, said please no / Grandma take me home") is hardly the paean to childhood a lot of parents want. (Whether kids appreciate the familiarity of the situation is another matter.)

With all due respect to Trout Fishing in America's "Alien in My Nose," I shouldn't let this review go on without noting the best song about snot ever written, the wildly amusing "Boogers" -- it strikes the perfect balance between juvenile humor for the kids and sly references (Quiet Riot -- haven't thought about them for years) for the adults.

So, I'm pegging the age range at between 4 and 9 years of age, though a couple of the songs on the 46-minute album do seem pegged somewhat above the 4-year-old mark. The album's been available at the Spankers' website since August 2006, but is getting a proper release next week. You can hear a medley of songs there or go to major internet retailers to hear snippets.

In the end, sometimes the band is referred to as, simply, "The Spankers." Whether you think that's a particularly good or bad name for a band recording an album for kids will go a long way toward determining whether you like the album. Some mommies will say "no" to Mommy Says No!. A sizeable minority of families won't like it all. But I think most people who are reading this review here will find it a hoot, energetic enough and tuned into kids' lives for the kids, while entertaining for their elders. Definitely recommended.

Review: Down at the Zoo - George Carver / Papa Mali

Usually when I review CDs that aren't of the most recent vintage, it's because I want to go back and touch on a reasonably well-known CD and see whether or not it's stood the test of time (recognizing that that test might just be two or three years long). I've been writing reviews in one form or another for five years now, and even though I might not have reviewed everything, I've heard quite a bit, and heard of a lot more. But every now and then I stumble across a CD that makes we wonder how this escaped my radar screen.

Down at the Zoo falls into the latter category.

Even though I'm just now hearing the CD, it didn't completely escape notice -- it won an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal award. But this 2002 disk, from Austin musicians George Carver and Malcolm "Papa Mali" Welbourne (each with more "adult" recordings and bands), deserves greater attention, even almost five years later, because it's an excellent collection of family-friendly tunes.

The 35-minute CD includes 10 songs, all about the zoo or zoo animals. This theme, however, doesn't become at all tiring because the tracks are so strong. From the Cajun-styled opening title track all the way through to the final reggae tune, "Jammin' at the Zoo," Carver and Welbourne have crafted strong melodies and matched them with accessible lyrics. The pure country of "I Don't Like My Cage" touches on the good and bad of zoos for endangered species ("I don't like my cage / It's not where I should be / But it's all that's keeping my kind / from being a memory.")

On top of that, Carver and Welbourne have recruited an able group of musicians to join them on these tunes, which besides those mentioned above include the folk-blues ("They Got Feet"), big band ("Jungle Swingers"), and what a Tom Waits kids' track might sound like ("Snake House"). The band really tears it up on my favorite track, the soulful and funky "The Funky Yak."

The album's best for kids ages 2 through 7, though older kids may still dig it well past the age of 7. You can hear samples at the album's CDBaby page.

Better late than never? In this case, yes. Down at the Zoo may be five years old, but this fine album is worth a listen even today. Definitely recommended.

Review: Newborn / Toddler - Sara Hickman

Austin-based artist Sara Hickman has been making albums for well over 15 years now. I can remember owning a cassette with her self-produced debut Equal Scary People (who knows where that tape resides now?)

Several years ago, Hickman decided to record a kids CD inspired -- of course -- by the birth of her kids. And so in 1999, Hickman released Newborn, a collection of songs for "parents who have trepidation about singing to their newborns." Half collection of lullabies, half something more uptempo, the 40-minute album generally succeeds, usually in more the uptempo parts. A simple swinging version of "A-Tisket A-Tasket" or a gentle reading of Cat Stevens' "Moonshadow" -- pleasant to listen to. And Hickman gives her own "A Slice of Heaven" a nifty a cappella treatment. Less successful are the lullabies. I'm a parent who has no trepidation about singing to my kids, and the lullabies here intimidate me, actually. "It's Alright" is a song Hickman created for her 4-month-old daughter, and while the lyrics are sweet and give great comfort, Hickman's strong voice is a bit overwhelming. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it doesn't sound at all like the way I would sing to a colicky baby -- it's that version that I want to hear. The lullabies are fine (I've heard much worse), but they don't always sound the way lullabies might actually be sung.

Now, if the first album occasionally suffers from a bit of preciousness, Hickman's 2001 follow-up Toddler suffers in no way whatsoever in that regard. In about 43 minutes, Hickman records 31 tracks of silly songs, playground rhymes, and a few stories that do a much better job of showing how simple it can be to just sing for your kids. In writing notes on the CD, I repeatedly used the word "fun" to describe the tracks. From the instant-classic playground chant "I Like My Boots" (co-written by Hickman and 8-year-old Kristen Nichols) to the zippy "Weenie Man" to the ear-wormy melody of Hebrew folk song "Hiney Rakevet," Hickman seems to be having a blast. It's multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and a blast of energy from start to end. Unlike Newborn, Hickman also uses a few more instruments (on both albums, the playing is great).

Sara's choice of album titles makes it remarkably easy for this reviewer to peg the age range, though I'd go a little on the older side, 0-4 for Newborn, and 1-6 for Toddler. You can hear samples and read lyrics for Newborn here and a few samples from Toddler here.

Sara Hickman has crafted a couple nice CDs here. With some sweet melodies, Newborn might make a nice gift for a parent-to-be and is recommended, if only because it's not totally lullaby-driven. But it's Toddler that's definitely recommended -- it's the stronger album and will get much more use owing to the fun evident on the disk.