Ralph Covert and Eric Herman, Together At Last

No, not on record, but the one and only Ralph Covert of Ralph's World spoke with Eric Herman recently. Go here to hear the interview, which includes Covert's thoughts on songwriting, concert venues, and what he wants to be when he grows up. (He also has a made-for-the-Tonight-Show anecdote maybe 8-10 minutes into the interview worth the time just by itself.)

In Case Justin Roberts Is Looking For Album Ideas...

Eric Herman's blog has been both consistent and consistently entertaining since its inception. All that's missing is mp3 sound clips.

Oh, wait, now he's taken care of that, too.

Eric's recent post on where ideas for some of his songs came from was a particularly fun read. The music geek in me likes to read about the process of songwriting and being a musician, and the post has that in spades (plus lots of sound clips).

If that weren't enough, the post has, without a doubt, the best Photoshop creation I'm likely to see on a kids' music-related website this year. Go there just to see the picture (and read the whole thing to figure out what it's supposed to be).

If 2005-2006 was the year of the "Wolf" bands, 2007 should be the year of the Sock album. Go for it, Eric.

How I Got Here: You're the One - Paul Simon (Eric Herman)

Longtime friend of the site Eric Herman released his third kids' album, Snow Day!, earlier this year. His new blog, Cool Tunes for Kids, is filled with thoughtful posts on other kids' music artists, famous and not, and what Herman finds worthwhile in their music. I thought he'd be a great artist to lead off this "How I Got Here" series (for more details, go here). Without further ado, then, here's Eric on Paul Simon's You're the One.

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Paul Simon may be best known for his “and Garfunkel” years and his enormously successful Graceland album. But for me, his best album is 2000's You're the One. Being a big fan of Graceland, I picked up You're the One on a whim, thinking “ah, it's probably pretty good”. And on my first listen, that was the exact reaction I had. There was nothing necessarily innovative like Graceland's fusion of world music and pop, nor were there any standout hits like “You Can Call Me Al” or “Diamonds...” But it was intriguing enough, musically, and had some pretty interesting tunes, so I kept listening... and listening... and listening.

More than any other album I've heard, You're the One has layers that reveal themselves upon repeated listens. The words of a song like “Look at That” work both literally and metaphorically, and the music is both immediately engaging and also densely arranged with some cleverly involved percussion. The album is full of brilliantly poetic lyrics like these from the title track: “Nature gives us shapeless shapes/Clouds and waves and flame/But human expectation/Is that love remains the same”. There is also ample wit and humor evident on songs like “Old” and “Darling Lorraine”, and sometimes even delicate humor within songs that are otherwise serious. Tracks like “The Teacher”, “Love” and “Quiet” are deeply moving and a nice contrast to more energized songs like “Hurricane Eye”, “Look at That” and “You're the One”. And yet, the upbeat songs may be just as likely to generate goose bumps with the power of their sentiment.

You're the One makes me want to laugh, cry, love, learn, pray, mourn, sing and rejoice for the mysterious wonder that is life. I doubt anyone would hear my music (especially my kids' music) and think, “Oh, it sounds like Paul Simon”, but this album has been an enormous influence on me as an artist striving to color my world as vibrantly as possible.

That Blogging, I Hear It's Popular These Days

I've previously mentioned Brady Rymer's blog, which, though updated only sporadically, is a fun read. There are a few other musician-authored blogs I've been reading for weeks if not months now, and I've been failing in my kids-music-news duties by not mentioning them before.

The best kids' musician-penned blog I know of is Monty Harper's blog, which includes links to his podcasts and gives some insight into the working world of a kids' musician. Harper's good humor, noticeable in his songs, is evident here, too.

A couple other artists who have more recently started blogging, of a sort, are Eric Herman and Yosi. Both take a slightly different approach from Rymer and Harper -- they've focused (thus far) on other kids' music artists. Herman's blog talks generally about assorted kids' artists, both well-known (Ralph's World) and not, and why he's enjoyed them. Yosi's blog focuses more on specific albums that he reviewed for a parenting magazine in New Jersey.

Harper has been blogging for a while now (longer than this site, even), so he understands what it takes to write a blog on an ongoing basis. We'll see whether Rymer, Herman, and Yosi want to keep it up. (And believe me, after that initial burst of expression, it's easy to let the blog just die a slow, painful death.)

Now there are other ways to communicate with fans -- Justin Roberts is a fairly regular newsletter publisher, for example, and Dan Zanes' newsletters, while not as regular, always have a nugget or two of good (or fun or useless, or all three) info. And Myspace, of course, has its own blogging capabilities. But I'm actually surprised that more artists haven't plunged into the blogosphere. It does seem to me a fairly cheap and easy way to establish connections between the artist and the audience, especially one that may be growing, at least in terms of the ability of an artist to reach a national audience. Monty, Eric, Yosi, Brady -- has it helped? Or is it a useless, time-consuming pain in the rear?

Review: Snow Day! - Eric Herman and the Invisible Band

Longtime FOZ (Friend of Zooglobble) Eric Herman released his third kids' music album, Snow Day! (2006), a couple weeks ago. It's taken me awhile -- three albums' worth -- to put my finger on how to describe his music, but I think I've got it -- it's a mixture of Shel Silverstein and the Beatles. Now, before Eric uses that as the pull-quote to end all pull-quotes, I should explain further.

Herman typically includes a few songs with lyrics by the poet Kenn Nesbitt on his CDs, and Snow Day! is no exception. Four songs include lyrics by Nesbitt, and those songs, like many of Silverstein's poems, take a skewed and occasionally dark view of life. "Snow Day," written in two- and four-word lines, is a quick, punky song about a kid who runs into a tree on his sled. "I Can't Wait For Summer" is a nifty, Beach Boys-inflected song about how wonderful summer will come when it gets here which ends with a cruel (for a kid, anyway) punchline. Indeed, five of the album's twelve tracks have a final-line punchline. And, punchline of not, many of the lyrics are humorous, like in "Cowboy Bergaleoukaleopaleous," about a sheriff whose less-than-catchy name leads to folks attributing his fabulous deeds to others like Annie Oakley whose names were less than a mouthful. It's something that would fit in perfectly on Where The Sidewalk Ends. (The book, at least, if not the album.)

Musically, Herman uses a wide variety of styles, employing country, disco, a Beatles reference (or a very Beatlesque guitar riff) on the opener, "Melody Ring." The best songs are those where Herman's just trying to write a song without getting too humorous or add over-the-top storytelling stylings. "My Lucky Day" is a darkly humorous pop tune about one kid's increasingly lucky day. The penultimate track, "Hide and Go Seek With the Moon," is a fabulous, gentle pop song about a kid's perspective on looking for the moon throughout the day (and night). One of the problems with the album, however, is that some of those gentler songs feel out of place on the disk. The best tracks also don't show the limitations of not working with a real band.

The album (with the exception of the final two tracks) is probably best for kids age 6 through 10. You can hear samples from all of Herman's albums here; the album is available from his website and the usual online suspects (both in physical and electronic form).

I liked individual tracks on the CD, but for me, the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The inconsistent tone between the darkly humorous tracks and the sweeter, more positive tracks was hard for me to negotiate. Kids (and parents) with more flexible minds, however, may find the album a worthwhile spin. And if you're a big Shel Silverstein fan, definitely check this out.