Traditional Music. New Locations. Also, Parenting Tips.

Y'know, now that kids' music is the bee's knees, the cat's pajamas, and the kangaroo's Underoos, you can't take three steps without running into some new kids' music program. Except now they're moving into even older or less traditional locations. Such examples (and suggested alternative locations) include:

Enzo Garcia -- playing at Golden Gate National Park's Crissy Field. If your kids don't like the show, you can always tell them that Alcatraz is but a short ferry ride away. (Uh, wait. They'd probably like that. Never mind.)

SteveSongs -- playing at the Life is Good Festival in Fenway Park. No word on whether he'll do "Sweet Caroline" for the kiddos. Please take this opportunity to tell your kids how inferior Fever Pitch the movie is compared to Fever Pitch the book.

Hot Peas 'n Butter, Little Nashville, and Babaloo -- playing at the On the Waterfront festival in Rockford, Illinois. If your oldest kid keeps complaining about his brother and how he coulda been a contender over and over and over, just explain to him that you'd be glad to Leave. This. Stage. Right. Now. and take him to see "The New Cars" (playing Saturday night) and explain to him ad nauseam how there's no way that can be better than the original lineup. Also, you had to listen to music at home on something called a stereo when you were his age and so can he please take off the headphones right now.

That and Swim Lessons at the City Pool, and We're Set

We've been looking for activities for the kids this summer (we can only come up with so many art projects and trips to non-commercial air-conditioned locales), so I looked at the news of the "JAMbledance Camp" with interest. Art? Music? Yoga? Reading? With the participation of Charity Kahn? Our daughter would love that. We can fit that into the activities budget, right?

But, oh yeah, we live in Phoenix. The commute to and from San Francisco would be a bear, no? Oh, and that's the first week of school for our daughter.

Other than those things, though, we are so there.

A Poopy Welcome on My Part

I'm belated in doing this, but welcome to those of you visiting here from The Poop, the San Francisco Chronicle's online parenting website. (Best. Online Parenting Website Name. Ever, by the way.) The KidVid Tournament was a bunch of fun, but noodle around here for more good kids' music.

Review: LMNO Music (Green) - Enzo Garcia

Over the course of just a few years, San Francisco-based Enzo Garcia has released nine albums of original and occasionally quirky folk reworkings of traditional and original kids' songs.

The recently re-released Green is a good example of Garcia's work. One of the primary things I find so appealing about the series is the fact that electronic keyboards, which in many artists' hands is the great bane of children's music, are long absent. Instead, on tracks such as "What Do You Do?," Garcia employs a toy piano. I'm not necessarily a huge toy piano fan, but Garcia's fondness for using instruments you don't typically hear (on albums of any kind) means getting to hear familiar songs in unfamiliar ways. And so on "This Old Man," Garcia is joined by Tom Waits' occasional side man (and budding kids' musician in his own right) Ralph Carney on slide clarinet. Garcia and Carney also team up on a rousing "Drunken Sailor," which spares no lyrics in the tale of the punishments for the inebriated crewmate, Garcia's rolling of the "r's" on "rusty razor" echoing Carney's tenor sax.

There's no track on here that's quite as engrossing as "Hold My Hand" on his Pink CD, but the round on the traditional "My Paddle's Keen and Bright" comes close. (I also liked Garcia's "Dee Dee.") Even more than Pink, Green will be most enjoyed if you participate along with the music. The disks were created to accompany Garcia's weekly music classes, and so if you move around (or accompany with shakers and tambourines) the music here, you'll get the most out of the album.

The songs here are most appropriate for kids ages 1 through 6. You can hear samples at the album's CD Baby page.

Enzo Garcia is right in the middle of the great folk music tradition that encourages music-makers to take traditional tunes and make them their own. On Green, Garcia continues to help families hear old tunes in new ways (and maybe even start to make them their own). It's as good as any Garcia album to introduce you to his music. Recommended.

[Note: Bryan at The Pokey Pup notes that they're currently running a special offer where if you buy Green you can get LMNO (Red) for free. Easy-peasy. Click here for more...]

A Very Sippy Cup Christmas

My grand plan to list a bunch of Christmas songs this December kinda fell apart under the typical rush of December activities, but I didn't want to forget the Sippy Cups' slightly-slowed down version of "Jingle Bell Rock," now available at their Myspace page.

(Thanks, by the way, to Gwyneth, who first pointed out the song at the Sippy Cups' own website. If you're not reading Gwyneth's site on a daily basis, you're missing out on some great roundups of news.)