This form will allow you to send a secure email to the owner of this page. Your email address is not logged by this system, but will be attached to the message that is forwarded from this page.
New music from Ralph's World. According to Gwyneth, who filmed this at the DC-area hotbed of kids music Jammin' Java this track will be on the next Ralph's World album. Some nifty chord and guitar work, a loping melody, and another addition, to Ralph's extended canon of vehicle-based songs. Seriously, there's pretty much a full album's worth of wheeled songs.
I thought I'd wrap up my coverage with a few final thoughts and suggestions for improvement about the AKL stage, plus add a few pictures.
1. The revised stage configuration of this year's AKL stage was an improvement. Less sound bleeding from the Xbox 360 stage next door meant that the AKL artists were never drowned out. Yay! And maybe it was just my imagination (or possibly the cooler weather), but the new layout seemed blessed with more shade.
2. It's still too loud between sets. Lord knows we're big fans of Romeo and his BBoy City crew (quite possibly Miss Mary Mack's favorite part of the festival this year), but they're forced to crank the volume to a point that it drives all the families away from the stage. Perhaps next year they can swap the dance stage and the pottery/kefia tents so that it's pretty close to the stage and the volume can be reduced.
3. There are probably points where the sound on the AKL stage during sets can be reduced -- I could hear 23 Skidoo's set close to half a mile away as we were crossing Lady Bird Lake.
4. Moving on to the weather -- I will gladly take a chance of (or actual) rain in return for cooler weather. I'm so glad that the festival's been gradually pushed back into October and am happy to see it further pushed back to the second week of October (Oct. 8-10, 2010) next year.
5. The guest sets have been really cool, and I'd love to see them used even more to drive families to see bands they wouldn't have seen otherwise. That was the case for me with K'Naan on Friday. I also got a chance to meet Ben Sollee backstage briefly on Sunday before heading back to Arizona, and based on this clip of Sollee covering "Wild World" later that day, I have a feeling that if I'd seen him at the AKL stage playing his cello, I'd have been sure to see him later that day on a bigger stage. (Though it should be noted, I did see him playing with Abigail Washburn the year before.)
6. The fact that the AKL stage hosted both K'Naan and Ben Sollee, both Mr. Leebot and Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, speaks to the fact that the stage can handle a fair amount of diversity, which is somewhat reflective of the ACL Festival as a whole. There's obviously only so much diversity you can have when you've got just 8-10 acts playing a set or two, but I encourage Tor to continue mixing it up as much as possible.
7. Can these festivals really be done with families? Well, it's definitely hard work, but if you're willing to sacrifice some of your own needs (sorry, Karen O, maybe next time), you can definitely see a lot. I'm conflicted because I have to balance my own musical tastes with that of my kids with my need to cover the festival (and the AKL stage in particular) on the press pass with the fact that my family lives in Austin and I want to see them, too. Sometimes I felt like I did none of those things well. But the AKL stage is situated about as well as it can be to serve as a base station for families exploring the festival. (And, hey, there's always babysitters.)
8. Finally, thanks to everyone at C3, particularly Tor, for making the AKL stage (and the press area) run so smoothly. Hope everyone reading got a good sense of the weekend of fun... Pictures after the jump...
So remember all that rain from Saturday? Remember the nice green grass the city had installed with C3's money with great fanfare?
It wasn't, like, Glastonbury mud, but it was deep enough in some places that, as Gwyneth noted to me, it felt like it could suck the shoes right off.
Anyway, after meandering through the media area and (ever-so-briefly) the Artists' Lounge (cleaner than the media area, and with ice cream), we (Miss Mary Mack and I) headed to see Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears from backstage. Saw Bill and his family up there. Jammed to the last few songs of the set. Made our way through the mud to the AKL stage. There we saw Ralph's World play their second set of the festival. Ralph Covert has a pretty tight band at this point, and he's got his live act down pat...
Ralph's World - "The Rhyming Circus"
Ralph's World - "Dumptruck"
Ralph's World - "Sunny Day Rainy Day Anytime Band" (particularly apropos for the weekend, always a good set closer)
After Ralph, Romeo and the guys from BBoy City came on and did their stuff, which is pretty incredible and has been each year. Might have been Miss Mary Mack's favorite part of the festival...
(Check out this last one. Oh my.)
At this point, it was either fight the mud and crowds to catch the second half of the B-52s' set or stick around at AKL. And while I'd've been willing, asking Miss Mary Mack to do that before a long series of transportation options that would park us back home 5 hours later was too much.
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo - "The Whalephant" (new, unreleased track)
And then we skidaddled across the mud, onto the shuttle bus, into the car, and after many more transportation changes, made it back home. I'm not finished yet with my AKL/ACL thoughts -- more to come...
The fine folks at Disney have decided that if they can't beat 'em, join 'em, which means, yay, YouTube! They've started to post individual videos from their artists on YouTube, and today I'm going to feature them, just because I feel like it.
This one is from Ralph's World's latest album with Disney, The Rhyming Circus, a driving number featuring his band wearing t-shirts spelling out "RALPH." It was either this or a video featuring Ralph Covert in a Sgt. Pepper's-like outfit. I'm guessing Covert didn't have final wardrobe say on these. But I really like this song.
Ralph's World - "Gotta Be Good"
One more, Green Gorilla, Monster & Me's "Dance Around," the video for which was available on the Welcome to Ralph's World compilation...
An oddity of the KindieFest 2009 showcase was that the headliner, Ralph's World, actually played their set smack-dab in the middle of the showcase (as opposed to the final set). Mr. Ralph's World himself, Ralph Covert, had already played a couple shows earlier in the day, but you wouldn't have known it from the long, energetic set he turned in. More so than probably any other performer, Covert attempted to engage the folks in attendance, from regaling them with a story about dealing with Disney (a story that might not have been of interest to an audience made up primarily of 4-year-olds but was of great interest to the industry-heavy crowd in attendance) to several times encouraging the audience to sing or dance along.
What I'll remember most about the set, I think, is Covert inviting all the musicians in attendance up on stage with him for "Sunny Day Rainy Day Anytime Band." It's a song that the 4-year-olds typically hop up on stage for, but most of the adult musicians there up on stage air-guitar-ed (and air-bass-ed, and air-drummed) with their inner 4-year-old, so it really didn't make much of a difference. It's a song that I've never been that enamored of on record, but totally rocked on stage.
Ralph's World - "The Rhyming Circus"
Another song (an oldie but goodie) and picture after the jump. Ralph's World - "The Coffee Song"
All photos -- except the fuzzy one of everyone up on stage with Ralph -- used with permission of J.P. Stephens from the band Lunch Money; visit him at Lumos Studio. (The fuzzy one is mine.)
Monday, November 9, 2009 at 8:31AM 
So I've talked a lot about 
An oddity of the 
What I'll remember most about the set, I think, is Covert inviting all the musicians in attendance up on stage with him for "Sunny Day Rainy Day Anytime Band." It's a song that the 4-year-olds typically hop up on stage for, but most of the adult musicians there up on stage air-guitar-ed (and air-bass-ed, and air-drummed) with their inner 4-year-old, so it really didn't make much of a difference. It's a song that I've never been that enamored of on record, but totally rocked on stage.
