KidVid Tournament 2007: "Pieces of 8ight" (1) vs. "Picnic in the Graveyard" (4)

Our other matchup on Day Three of the KidVid Tournament 2007 pits the #1 seed in the Ella Jenkins Region, "Pieces of 8ight" (or "Pieces of Eight," for those of you not paying attention) from Captain Bogg & Salty against the #4 seed, "Picnic in the Graveyard" from Uncle Rock.

Vote in the comments below. Rules: Video with most votes wins. One vote per e-mail address, please. Votes due by Tuesday 6 PM-ish East Coast time.

[Note: Hey, I can embed both videos here, too! Thanks once again, Internet-friendly kids' musicians and labels!]

"Pieces of 8ight" - Captain Bogg & Salty

"Picnic in the Graveyard" - Uncle Rock

KidVid: "Picnic in the Graveyard" - Uncle Rock

Hey, everyone, it's a kids' song about death!

Really.

Actually, this song is one of my favorites from Uncle Rock's Plays Well With Others album just because it's a disarming approach to the subject of death.

I'm not sure the "hey, lookie, it's your dead Aunt Petunia" part of the video will advance that concept with all but the most metaphorically advanced of kids (or with those who, well, believe in ghosts), but this is a great video to show how to put together a compelling video on what looks to be a relatively small budget.

Check out the glasses on the dad character -- I kept on expecting him to rip off the glasses and become Superman.

Or Uncle Rock.

Shows Possibly Worth Driving Through Ten-Foot Snowdrifts For

By the end of March those of us in Phoenix are typically slathering on sunscreen and complaining that summer and 110-degree weather can't be far away. The fading days of spring would be made considerably more tolerable if we had a few Elizabeth Mitchell concerts to attend.

Unfortunately for us, Mitchell lives in New York state and as a result those folks get some sweet music to go along with their March (and April) snowstorms.

To wit: Mitchell and Uncle Rock will be playing at Levon Helm's awesome Midnight Ramble series on March 31st. The good news for the kids is that it's not at midnight, but rather at 2 PM. The bad news is that it's already sold out. (Unless you have tickets, in which case I ask you not to lord it over us.)

But fear not, Mitchell fans, for she's also helping to organize a Family Concert Series at the High Meadow School. Besides the wonderful Hayes Greenfield doing his Jazz-A-Ma-Tazz program, the series also features Peter Schickele, creator of PDQ Bach. (Classical geek note: I once owned the PDQ Bach "autobiography." Hi-larious.)

Oh, and Mitchell's playing a show with Dog on Fleas on April 15th. That would be worth driving through a snowdrift of some sort, to be sure.

One More SXSW Kids Music Artist. Sort Of.

Just in case you get into Austin early for the Saturday Town Lake Kids' Show (and, no, folks, "Mastodon" is most definitely not a kids-friendly band about dinosaurs), you can also hear Uncle Rock (or at least his real alter ego, Robert Burke Warren) on a panel discussing kids' music. Also on the panel, rock journalist Holly George-Warren (the panel's big draw, who has also written a kids' book on country music and happens to be Robert's wife), and a Razor & Tie label representative.

I do hope, at the very least, that at least the panelists will refrain from using the phrase "junior hipster."

Not Satisfied With One Year-End Music Poll?

Well, how about this one?

At the same time that Bill and Amy and I were putting together the Fids and Kamily awards, our Pazz and Jop-inspired poll focusing on kids and family music, the masterminds behind Idolator were planning their own poll.

And despite the fact that I'm from Arizona, the state that spawned the New Times chain that took over the Village Voice, the New York newspaper that hosted Pazz & Jop for more than 30 years, then unceremoniously dumped Robert Christgau, who ran it all that time, I wangled myself an invitation to participate in the new poll. (See this NPR story for more info on the controversy.)

You can see my album votes -- which are the same as my F&K votes -- here. (I though about reordering my votes in order to vote for albums more likely to get support from the rest of the poll, but thought better of it.)

You can also see my Top 10 singles votes, which, since it was put together in about 3 minutes before deadline, probably needs some explaining. Not that those aren't great songs, but I think I need to put together a proper Top 20 list.

Frankly, the most surprising thing about the poll? I wasn't the only person to vote for kids' music:

-- Dan Zanes got two votes (though at the moment they're listed as Catch That Train! -- that would be my vote -- and Stop That Train!).
-- Paul Westerberg also got two votes for his work on the Open Season soundtrack.
-- Unsurprisingly, Bruce Springsteen placed high (#39) with his We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Session CD (Top 20 for me).
-- Uncle Rock got a vote for Plays Well With Others.
-- The Gothic Archies got a vote for The Tragic Treasury.
-- Other votes came for High School Musical, Spongebob Squarepants, Aly & AJ, Jack Johnson, and Smoosh.

You can also find some "kids music" listed in the Top Singles section.

Next year, we're asking Robert Christgau and Chuck Sasha Frere-Jones to participate in Fids & Kamily.