Kindiefest 2011: Artists' Showcase in Video and Pictures

Be it SXSW or Kindiefest, there are different reasons to see an artists' showcase at a music conference. You can see your favorite bands, or perhaps bands you're familiar with but are curious to see and hear them live. And sometimes you stumble upon a new favorite. The Kindiefest 2011 artists' showcase on Saturday night was for me a combination of all three, which suggests how well the lineup was put together. Now, I should note that though the lineup featured several artists I'd consider my favorites, I'd never actually seen any of them perform live. (That would have to wait for Sunday's public performance, for whom I'd seen half the lineup live.) But as someone who puts together shows here in the Phoenix area, that live aspect is important to me.

This summary is long, but I encourage you to skim the entire thing, you never know when you'll find your new favorite artist.

The lineup kicked off with Billy Kelly and the Blah Blah Blahs, faced with the unenviable task of starting the show while everybody filed back from dinner or a run to their hotel rooms. That and selecting from a bunch of great songs. They went meta ("This Is The First Song" -- they should close with that one day), sweet ("Family Garden"), doubly sweet ("Pen Pal," duetting with Lunch Money's Molly Ledford), and classic ("The Legend of Johnny Box"). The last song featured none other than Johnny Box himself, played by... well, let's just say by someone very familiar to Zooglobble readers. Good stuff.

From there it was on to The Pop Ups, whose set was basically a very abbreviated version of their PASTA! musical. Were there puppets? Yes! Were there apes in capes? Yes! Was there lots of hand-clapping? Yes! Was there lots of pasta? Well, you'll just have to see the musical for yourself to see the answer. But it's hard not to see how the musical would be very popular with the 5-year-old set.

The Pop Ups - "Pasta" [YouTube]

But we were just getting started, with six more artists to go...
After the fizzy pop of The Pop Ups it was time for the fuzzy rock of the Not-Its!. I thought the Not-Its!' ("Not-Its'!"? "Not-Its'"? Note: exclamation points as part of the name: very confusing, grammatically) was just about perfect as a "showcase set" goes -- they came out spent the next 20 minutes conveying the exact same energy and image they have on disk... just better. Seriously, just watch the video below (or the other video I took, for "We Are the Not-Its," though the sound isn't as good, here) and tell me that isn't something that would have your kids bouncing and pretty much wiped out on the car/stroller-ride home.

The Not-Its! - "First Kid in Outer Space" [YouTube]

And then there's Shine and the Moonbeams, a band so new I'm linking to their Facebook page. Remember category #3, stumbling upon a new favorite? That would be this band, a collaboration between singer Shawana Kemp and guitarist Jeff Feagler, featuring some soul and a little bit of jazz. It was a set where the buzz in the audience was just palpable. I mean, there were a lot of great sets Saturday night, but there was something different going on here, a recognition of something missing in the genre that had now been found. After the set, Bill Childs stepped up to the microphone and said, slightly stunned, "Oh. My. God." Those of us in the audience started describing the set with small curse words, then moved up to the larger curse words, and everybody, and I mean everybody was asking, "When did Stephanie say that album was coming out?" The answer (hopefully) is, this fall. I could probably critique the songs in some way, and listening to an album in a home or car might result in a diminished experience, but as another artist said later that night, there was something in the performance -- and Shawana's in particular -- that touched folks emotionally. I don't know of another debut album that will be as highly anticipated as theirs...

Shine and the Moonbeams - "High Five" [YouTube]

Seattle's Central Services Board of Education had the unenviable task of trying to follow up Shine and the Moonbeams, and I think they pretty much succeeded by bringing their own energy to the room. Lead singer and drummer Kevin Emerson plays standing up, and the five-piece band really sold the highly literate and slightly skewed songs live. Sadly, they didn't have time to play any of their new stuff from their forthcoming album, but luckily their first album is pretty much awesome.

Central Services Board of Education - "Ice Ages Are Fun!" [YouTube]

I liked Cat and a Bird, but after the whirlwind of energy from the first five acts, their chamber-Gypsy-pop almost felt a little out of place. (They would have fit in a little better on Sunday's lineup, I think.) I use the phrase "chamber" pursposefully -- the trio sat down for the entire performance, two violins and a guitar. As performers, the band's probably the newest of the bunch (even Shine and the Moonbeams have played a few shows and the members have been performing music for a looong time), and I think with experience they'll figure out how to turn their sweet songs (performed very well) into something a little more interactive. [Edit: Apparently that was the first public performance for that particular lineup of the band... pretty good from that perspective.]

Cat and a Bird - "Cat and a Bird" [YouTube]

The list of kid-hop artists -- good ones, anyway, is short. Boston artist RhymeZwell made a compelling case for adding his name to that list. Unlike Secret Agent 23 Skidoo (who was in the crowd, nodding his head), RhymeZwell targets a slightly younger set (preschoolers and kindergarteners), so his lyrics aren't quite as intricate as Skidoo's. But he got the crowd moving and cheering, so count me in as intrigued.

RhymeZwell - "I Love Music" [YouTube]

We wrapped up the night with a set from Detroit's Candy Band, the undisputed veterans of the showcase, with five (six?) albums to their name and a finely honed live show. The advantage of being a bunch of punk rockers is that you can power through, like, 9 or 10 songs, as they did. And that's without the two-song encore they had the privilege of taking thanks to their position at the end of the show. It was exactly how I pictured a Candy Band set being, maybe better.

Candy Band - "Skip To My Lou" [YouTube]

With that, the crowd buzzed around the venue for another half-hour or so, then went out into the beautiful Brooklyn night to carry on the conversations...

Review: "High Five" - Candy Band

The problem with "subgenre" albums in kids music is they sometimes become jokes. "Hey, everyone, wouldn't it be funny if we did "Wheels on the Bus" reggae style? Or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in polynesian tiki music?" And, yeah, maybe it's funny at first, but it gets old. And even if it's not meant to be funny, at some point the subgenre needs to move forward, to write songs that honor where they're coming from but at the same time are very much for kids. After all, those toddlers and preschoolers eventually hit grade school, where "Wheels on the Bus" is, well, not appreciated in any style.

Detroit's Candy Band, four moms who play punk and rock for kids, have done reasonably well in avoiding the turning punk rock for kids into a joke. (They, along with Jam Toast and, especially, the Boogers, do yeoman's work in that regard.) They've just released their fifth and latest album, High Five. Don't be afraid of the "punk" label -- from the get-go, this is a high-energy, high-fun album that's accessible to any family not afraid to rock a little. (I'm not a huge punk rock fan, and I dig this a bunch.) "Cookie Jar" gives the "who stole the cookie from the cookie jar" song a energetic stomp; that's followed by the irresistible original "I'm a Monkey," guaranteed to have your kids (and maybe even you) bouncing around the room making monkey noises on the chorus.

I know that some of my appreciation of the music is because of the musical shout-outs the band tosses to the adults listening along. "It's Raining Green" is a pitch perfect melding of Green Day's "Brain Stew" and "It's Raining, It's Pouring," while "Ice Cream" throws in the title snippet of Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough." But sometimes it's those little things (and they're always pretty little) that mean the difference between cursing at and humming along with the disk if your kid gets attached to it. Also, it takes confidence to pull off a version of "Ode to Joy" on a punk album -- it works out pretty well, as it turns out.

Kids ages 2 through 7 will most appreciate the music here -- they're also the most likely to bounce maniacally. You can listen to "Ice Cream" here, as well as buy the disk. High Five is Candy Band's best album and my new favorite punk rock album for kids. Definitely recommended.

I was provided a copy of the disk by the band for possible review.

Review: Calling All Kids - CandyBand

One of the downsides to the recent increase in attention paid to kids' music -- what, there are downsides? -- is a proliferation of music that uses kids' songs as jokes, applying traditional songs to non-traditional song forms. The albums aren't so much for the kids as they are for the adults.

CandyBand plays punk music for kids and their recently-released fourth album, Calling All Kids is a fine example of why this band rises above the kids-music-as-source-of-amusement genre to make kids' music worth listening to.

To begin with, the Detroit-area band actually rocks. Paula Messner (or, er, "Almond Joy") has nifty guitar work throughout the album, particularly on songs like "Simon Says" and the "Eenie Meenie Song." And the rhythm section of Anita Kelly and Tammy Ristau, along with Daniela Burckhardt's vocals, are strong, too. None of which would matter if the songs weren't any fun or any good, but a lot of them are. For the most part, the band is writing its own songs at this point. While there might not be something as great previous CandyBand songs like "Ken Lost His Head" or "Get Up Already," families will definitely have fun with the bouncy "Octopus On My Head" (the chorus of "I've got an octopus on head / It's messing up my hair / It's sleeping in my ear / I've got an octopus on my head / And I hope it won't make breakfast of me" will live your head for a loooong time). "It's Your Birthday" is deservedly destined for many 5-year-old birthday party mix CDs. And the band re-records an older tune, "Monsters," except this time they go all "American Idiot" on us and add strings from the Detroit Symphony Civic Youth Ensembles.

Kids ages 3 through 7 will probably enjoy the songs here the most. In true punk fashion, the album is brief, running through its 10 tracks in less than 22 minutes. You can hear the first couple tracks here.

CandyBand is a great example of kids' artists who are melding their non-traditional kids' genres to kids' themes and songs in ways that respect kids while providing something for the parents to latch onto as well. If your family sits on the rock side of the pop-rock divide, you'll particularly enjoy Calling All Kids, but even if you don't have the complete Clash and Green Day discography, it's an album worth checking out. Recommended.