The Ketchup Report, Vol. 3

Another Ketchup Report, slathering kids music news all across the internet with all-natural ingredients.

-- Bill Harley channels a little Dylan and Guthrie on his song "Enough Is a Feast," which he's now offering as a free download here through Thanksgiving. (If you want to contribute to or volunteer at a food bank at this time of year when food is maybe even more important than it usually is, Harley suggests finding one here.)

-- I'm a longtime fan of the Tricycle Music Fest, even after its cross-country move to San Francisco. Check out the videos from last month's edition here, including "Tricycle," of course, from Frances England and other videos from Charity Kahn and the Time Outs.

-- Twin Cities folks, heads up, Clementown, the Okee Dokee Brothers, and Adam Levy are playing a benefit show on Saturday, December 4 for friends of Clementown's, Krista and Terry, who've both been diagnosed with cancer. Great lineup, good cause. More details here.

-- I'm also a fan of the "Listen To Your Buds" campaign encouraging kids not to turn up their speakers (or headphones) to 11. This fall's performers? Oran Etkin, who's performing in Philadelphia public schools this week and Brady Rymer.

-- Gustafer Yellowgold, back on (off-)Broadway! Gustafer Yellowgold’s Infinity Sock will have a run of Saturday performances (11 AM and 1 PM) at the DR2 Theatre, 103 E. 15th St. New York City, from February 26 through April 2. It apparently will include the song "Wisconsin Poncho," which is "set in an all-cheese clothing store." This, friends, is why I love kids music.

-- The Kindiependent concert at the Seattle Public Library some of you may have heard about? 1,500 people, folks. Strength in numbers, that's what it's about. The group's got a couple new concert series coming up in the Seattle area starting this fall, too...

Interview: Morgan Taylor (Gustafer Yellowgold)

I tend to think to think of Gustafer Yellowgold as a real character, with thoughts and feelings just like any other person. Which is a mistake, of course, because as most readers of this site know, he's actually from the sun and he's a fictional, animated character. Credit for this feeling really goes to Morgan Taylor, the musician and animator behind Gustafer, who in three DVDs has imbued his yellow creation with a three-dimensional character space via song and animation that exceeds many cartoons.

The fourth Gustafer DVD, Gustafer Yellowgold's Inifinity Sock, will be released on March 1, and in addition to letting us see the DVD cover, Taylor recently talked to us about AM radio, Gustafer's origins, and how evidently I'm not the only person who thinks of Gustafer as being real.

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?
Morgan Taylor: I remember the A.M. radio always playing when we were getting ready to go to school in the mornings. It's funny, when I recall the mornings, I remember it being cold. This would have been spanning around 1974-1980? The radio was a safe and constant home thing. Besides that I remember that before I could read, I knew which songs were which of our old 45s that my older brother and sister had collected. I knew from the designs on the paper rings, what song it was. I used to love playing, and drawing and making stuff while listening to records.

Were you an artist or a musician first?
I think my artist side emerged earliest. But by the 4th grade I knew I loved singing and started getting singing parts in school and church musicals and stuff. I spent the following 20-plus years doing one or the other in some form. But it wasn't until 2004 that I figured out the effect of combining the two. Plus, my mom has now finally stopped saying "I wish you would do more with your art..."!!

What was the inspiration for Gustafer? Did you (do you) come up with the songs separately and fit them into Gustafer's story, or were they (are they) written specifically with him in mind?
He was just a doodle at first, really. I drew him two or three times on some marker boards in a record shop in Dayton, Ohio back in 1997, and he stayed in the back of my mind until I started a book & CD project with my wife Rachel, many years later. It was backwards, because I wrote all these first-person, absurd story-songs with no one specific in mind. Then I realized the old doodle was actually "the guy".

Do you think of him as I have just there -- as a character that you actually know?
I've made enough content and material now that the aspects of his personality are all quite established now. At first I was just pulling together these random, weird songs and making the world fit the music I had already written. Basing the world ON the music and lyrics. Now it's the other way around. He exists. He has favorite foods, hobbies, wants and needs and aspirations and influences.

Has the animation/DVD production process changed since the first DVD?
Yeah, when I started, I was just drawing one flat image per lyric line. But now I understand the animation process better, so I can give the animator an image file with multiple layers. I want to stay within a certain set of bounds, because the limitations of the animation are what gives it much of it's feel. We want to keep that intact, but take new steps creatively at the same time. We're just finishing the fourth DVD and now have it down to a pretty calculable process. Some of it is creativity on a deadline, but I secretly love having the pressure to create.

What's been the coolest thing a child's said to you/written to you about Gustafer?
Just hearing kids talk about Gustafer as if he's real, and say their own creative thoughts about what Gustafer could do. We've also gotten some flat-out inspirational letters from fans/families who thank us and tell us they enjoy how it brings the family together. Mind-blowing for us, because we never really think about that side of it while we're making stuff. We see the people at the shows who are having fun, but for some folks it goes even deeper.

Will future Gustafer DVDs have somewhat more of a narrative arc than the initial disks?
Yes, the next DVD called Gustafer Yellowgold's Infinity Sock is a full, real story. With (hopefully) suspense and everything! [Ed: That's the cover right there, folks.]

What's next for you?
Considering the length of time it takes to create content, my mind is already on DVDs #5 & 6! I feel blessed to be able to do this for a living and I hope we can keep it going for a long, long time.

Photo credit of family: Erin Patrice O'Brien

The Ketchup Report, Vol. 2

I optimistically titled my first attempt at a generic roundup of Volume 1, but, hey, here's Volume 2! All the news too small for its own post, super-sized for you.

-- As previously noted, Tor Hyams was developing a new podcast and the first episode of Kindiecast premiered last weekend. Thirty minutes, 8 songs -- stream or download it here. (And today the website notes that Recess Monkey has another batch of songs ready to go, but those guys write songs in their sleep, I think.) Anyways, iTunes podcasting will be happening shortly...

-- Speaking of Hyams, Frances England's Mind of My Own (produced by Hyams) is released Nov. 9th and she's got a lot of new stuff associated with the release. This weekend she's got a new show on Sirius-XM's Kids Place Live (check there for details), she's selling artwork, and, while I have a vague memory that Frances told me about these "Creative Family Challenges" contests, the first one is now here and embedded below:

-- Speaking of upcoming albums, The Baby Grands release their new album The Baby Grands II on Nov. 16, and today only they're running a deal on Plum District's Atlanta site to get that and their debut album for just $9 plus shipping... I like the creative thinking on getting their music out in front of a wide audience...

-- To complete the upcoming album trifecta, The Boogers' second album Let's Go! comes out Nov. 23rd and they're letting you have one of the energetic album's best tracks, "Otto's Orange Day," for the price of an e-mail address. Go here to grab it.

-- The Deedle Deedle Dees' Lloyd Miller will be recording his November sing-a-alongs in Brooklyn for a new album to be released soon. For free. Woot!

-- Gustafer Yellowgold has a blog. Yes, a blog.

Even More Free Holiday Music From Jitterbug.tv

In the midst of Hanukkah, and only a week or so before the solstice, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, it's prime time for holiday music. No sooner do I post about a free track than the folks at Jitterbug's let me know about their holiday playlist. It's a good one and even better, it's a free one, available for downloading or streaming. Music from The Hipwaders, Brady Rymer, Didi Pop, Gustafer Yellowgold, Princess Katie & Racer Steve, Rock Daddy Rock, and David Tobocman. Good stuff (I've already talked about a few songs on the list), downloadable here and in a few cases, nowhere else.

Video: "Fa and a La" - Gustafer Yellowgold

I've been resisting the urge to post winter holiday-related videos and stuff because I'm that grumpy old man who gets irritated when hearing Christmas carols the day after Halloween.

Rest assured, I'll get to them eventually (maybe after Thanksgiving), but I'll make an exception for this new video from Gustafer Yellowgold. It's mellow (natch) and neatly captures the warmth that the Gustafer-se generates and ties it to the season. Add some chords, and perhaps you could carol that thing.

Gustafer Yellowgold - "Fa and a La" [YouTube]