Kids Write the Darnedest Songs

You might be avoiding your NPR station this week (just pledge already!), but if you are, you would've missed a nice 7-minute interview with Kid Pan Alley founder Paul Reisler on this morning's Morning Edition.

I love this quote from the piece:

"In general, when I've worked with high school kids, the songs are not as good as the elementary kids because they're thinking linearly and logically as opposed to in image and metaphor."

Linearly and logically? No wonder I'm a lousy songwriter.

(Here's my review of the Kid Pan Alley CD.)

Radio Shows For Kids Like Us

Is Professor Schnoodle ready for his close-up?

Amongst all the talk of songwriting workshops and sold-out song camps, I dropped Robbie Schaefer a line this week to see if he'd be doing something similar. The answer was no. Why? Turns out Robbie will become the last on-air personality for XMKids, the kids' channel for XM Radio. They've been running ads for the past couple weeks, but I've missed 'em -- he'll be broadcasting from 7 to 11 PM East Coast time Monday through Thursday and 10 AM - 2 PM Saturdays. If the show is half as amusing as Songs For Kids Like Us or how Schaefer is in interviews, it should be, well, moderately-to-definitely amusing.

I Was Born A Ramblin' Man

Don't forget that tomorrow, March 3rd, Bill and Ella at Spare the Rock will have a certain long-winded visitor appearing on the program. We'll be discussing the effects of this week's stock market collapse on the world economy playing some rockin' tunes (and a few non-rockin' ones as well).

Do stop by and tune in.

Multimedia Notes From All Over

I know that bar on the right side of the main homepage is a bit on the long side, but it's time for some updates...

Planet KidVid is a new enterprise from longtime Friend of Zooglobble Monty Harper and kids' musician Mr. Billy. If they keep up with the posts, this could be a website that causes lots of families to go over their allocated "screen time."

The Harper family is evidently trying to take over the web as Monty's wife Lisa and her daughter Evalyn have established the Kids Music Planet podcast. What is slightly different about this podcast from many other kids' music radio shows is that they play multiple selections from a few albums. So if for some reason my review of an album isn't clear enough you can decide for yourself. ;-)

Belinda and Hova finally seem to have settled on a new internet location for their Greasy Kid Stuff playlists. If you go to their website, you can also find out all about their Mar. 18th "Grease Ball" with Captain Bogg & Salty, The Jellydots, and The Sprockettes. You can also hear They Might Be Giants' penned-just-for-Belinda-and-Hova "Greasy Kid Stuff."

I've also added Fred Koch's new children's music-related blog to the sidebar. Fred is another longtime listener and reviewer of kids music and I'm glad to see him start up a blog.

Regular readers will certainly be aware of Amy's appearance on WNYC's Soundcheck on Tuesday. Amy made a lot of excellent points (and ones I mostly agree with) and is to be commended for always sounding coherent, a not at all easy thing to do live on the air. Listen to the 20-minute segment here.

Finally, children's media publicist (and, well, fan) Beth Blenz-Clucas talked about a couple of her clients and other kids' musicians and topics on Vicky and Jen's Grammy-related podcast. The podcast also includes discussions with Richard Perlmutter (he's working on Beethoven's Wig 4, apparently), Dan Zanes, and Ezra Idlet from Trout Fishing in America. (Beth was also kind enough to mention this website as a good resource...)

KidVid: I Hope My Momma Says Yes! - AudraRox

So, the taste-making juggernaut of Jack's Big Music Show continues with this video for "I Hope My Momma Says Yes!" from New York-based AudraRox (see the video at Jack's webpage).

Stylistically, this song isn't really like the rest of her fun debut album I Can Do It By Myself (review here), but the peppy bluegrass/country lends itself well to the madcap playing with the kids in the video. Plus, the band looks like they're having a blast. That's the difference, I guess, between kids music videos and adult music videos -- you rarely see a bunch of tormented kids pounding their hands against the wall in the rain.