Dancing About Architecture From Kids Musicians

... or, in more search-friendly terms, writing about music -- ie, blogs -- by kids musicians. I know that Warren covered this last week, but I've had this on my to-do list for awhile, so I'm going to press forward with a highlighting of another wave of kids musicians turning their thoughts to the blogosphere. Some have a lot to do with the kids music genre, some very little. But I'm guessing at least one of 'em will be of interest to most of you and/or your RSS reader...

-- Ann Torralba, best known as Little Miss Ann, is trying her hand writing about kids music at littleshouldersmusic, focusing in particular about music in the Chicago area where Ann lives.
-- Bill Harley has long been one of the most talented wordsmiths in the kids music field, so I'm glad to see that he's started a blog. He tells his stories very well, and anyone interested about the arts and school culture generally will find this of value.
-- Robert Burke Warren had a long career making music for adults before starting to make music for kids as Uncle Rock. Now he's got a blog in which he's every bit as thoughtful on paper as he is in person.
-- Debbie Cavalier records music for kids under the moniker Debbie and Friends but her day job (OK, other day job) is Dean of Continuing Education at Berklee College, so, uh, yeah, she knows something about music education. She has not one, but two blogs. One, on Music, Education and Technology, is geared more toward Berklee's students, but occasionally deals with stuff of interest to a broader audience, while the other, Kid's Music Matters, is a pretty good example of an artist blog, mixing self-promotional stuff with more behind-the-scenes stuff.

KidVid Tournament 2009: Debbie and Friends vs. Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

Our other matchup in the Pete Seeger Region for KidVid Tournament 2009 is a matchup featuring #2 seed vs. the #3 seed. It's Debbie and Friends' "Hangin' Around" from her debut album Story Songs and Sing Alongs going up against Secret Agent 23 Skidoo's video for "Gotta Be Me" off his debut Easy.

Comments welcome below, but the videos and the all-important official poll are after the jump. All votes due by midnight tonight (Wednesday) East Coast time. One vote per person, please. And, yeah, play nice.
Debbie and Friends - "Hangin' Around"

Secret Agent 23 Skidoo - "Gotta Be Me"

Video: "Hangin' Around" - Debbie and Friends

I can't say that I thought "Hangin' Around," one of the tracks from Debbie and Friends' Story Songs and Sing Alongs was more than a mildly pleasant tune, but the new video for the song has done what good videos often do -- make you listen with new ears.

The song lists a bunch of animal group names (which, incidentally, seem to be a whole bunch of verbs -- "flock," "mob," "span," "clutch," etc.) with some cute computer-animated renditions of said animal groups. I dig the sheep -- I think kids will really dig the whole thing.

Debbie and Friends - "Hangin' Around"

Music, Milieu, Manners... and Megadeth

We've had mixed luck taking our youngest, Little Boy Blue (who's about 2 1/2 years old), to cultural events. The Dan Zanes concert last month? Boy, the kid sat there and took it all in, bouncing a bit and clapping his hands. The musical version of Goodnight Moon we attended at our fabulous local theatre for young audiences, Childsplay? Let's just say it's a good thing we were in the back row, near the "screaming kid" room.

I'm gonna chalk that one up to hunger, but you know, maybe it's because we didn't have a chance to watch a Goodnight Moon DVD over and over like we did with Dan Zanes to prep the guy.

Anyway, Debbie Cavalier, who recently recorded a kids' music CD of her own called Story Songs and Sing-Alongs as Debbie and Friends, just penned a good guide for parents about to take their kids to their first musical event.

It's a solid set of common-sense recommendations which, thankfully, doesn't completely assume that your child's first concert is necessarily going to be the symphony. The suggestions -- listen to the music together beforehand, talk about speakers and appropriate concert behavior -- apply just as much to Megadeth as to Mozart. Though I'm guessing Dave Mustaine wasn't quite who Cavalier had in mind...