Suggested For You...

Search
Twitter-fy!
This Website Built On...
Powered by Squarespace
Kids Music Worth Airing!
E-mail Me
This form does not yet contain any fields.

    Entries in Caspar Babypants (9)

    Monday
    Jan072013

    Review: I Found You! - Caspar Babypants

    Chris Ballew's consistently entertaining modernization of old folk tunes (and writing some modern folk tunes of his own) as Caspar Babypants is problematic.

    For the reviewer, at least.

    Ever since receiving his latest effort I Found You! for at least a couple months now and I've been struggling with how to write about the album.  It's his sixth full-length Caspar Babypants album, and just as every one that's preceded it, it's snappy music, simple but well-constructed -- really, just heaps of fun.

    Which makes me a bit sad.

    Because, really, if you are a Caspar Babypants fan (as I am), you may already have this album.  And you're probably reading this review a) to confirm your own initial impressions of the album, b) to confirm that yes indeed you should get the album if you don't have it, or c) because you're my mom.  (Just kidding!  I don't think my mom reads my site.)

    That doesn't make me sad.  What makes me sad is that if your family hasn't gotten into CB at this point, nothing I could write about this album would likely change your mind.  Chris Ballew writes catchy hooks with the frequency the rest of write grocery lists, and you're not already listening to him?  My pitiful wordsmithing can't change that attitude.

    The first tracks here -- the gleeful horn-aided "I Found You," the funky "Just Wondering," the preschool traditional "All the Fish" -- sound like many Babypants classics.  They're instantly catchy and perfectly constructed for preschoolers to grasp and sing along.  That's probably part of my challenge -- unlike a new band with a distinct sound, or an artist changing their musical approach, Ballew doesn't sound that much different here from his first album Here I Am!.  All the components of I Found You! -- the re-imagined folk songs, the obsession with animals and nature, the simple arrangements -- were there from the beginning.  For that reason, while I particularly like the title track and "Just Wondering," some of my favorite pieces are the songs that sound a little different, such as "Say Farewell," treated as a sea shanty, or the fun-spooky "Skeletone."

    As with all the Babypants disks, the target age range for this album are kids ages 2 through 6, though it'll certainly have broader appeal than that.  You can find the 50-minute album at the usual kindie suspects.

    Despite the occasional navel-gazing in this review, I hope I've also conveyed how excellent I Found You! is.  Just because Chris Ballew's found a groove in recording music as Caspar Babypants doesn't mean that uncreative reviewers such as me should spoil your fun.  Highly recommended.

    Tuesday
    May222012

    Video: "Stompy the Bear" - Caspar Babypants

    There's a pretty simple reason I continue to post Caspar Babypants videos here on the site.  It's because they continue to be awesome.  This one is for one of my favorite songs of his fine new album Hot Dog!, "Stompy the Bear."  It's by Charlotte Blacker and it's knitting awesome.  (Does the animation look familiar?  Maybe that's because you saw this video here last year.)

    Caspar Babypants - "Stompy the Bear" [YouTube]

    Wednesday
    May092012

    Kindie-Chartin': Kids Place Live's Top Songs of 2011

    Last year I reviewed the most popular songs of the year on Sirius-XM's Kids Place Live radio show.  It was an imprecise attempt to gauge the popularity of artists and songs on a national level.  Given that the show has nearly 17,000 fans on its Facebook page, its listenership is not small.

    Almost every weekend, the channel broadcasts its "13 Under 13" show, a Casey Kasem for the kiddos which counts down the week's top songs.  As noted last year, the list is not totally objective -- there is a subjective nature to the list which takes into the station's directors' sense of buzz, for example, associated with each song.  There's a practical limit to the number of times the station can play a song in a week without annoying its audience through oversaturation, a limit which may not totally reflect the demand for it via listener requests.

    Having said that, there does appear to be a rational relationship between the rankings and actual airplay.  For example, the most recent "13 Under 13" had the Board of Education's "Why Is Dad So Mad?" at #1, Keller Williams' "Mama Tooted" at #7, and Caspar Babypants' "Sugar Ant" at #14.  The total number of airplays (excluding double-counts) for the week that roughly corresponds to KPL's week, according to Dogstar Radio, was 25, 16, and 13,  respectively.

    Once again, I used the Kids Place Live Fans page as the source of my data, making assumptions regarding chart placement when Gwyneth wasn't able to record the list for the week.  I counted all songs which first charted in 2011.  (Note: some are still charting in 2012.)

    Now, all the standards and caveats from last year's effort still applies -- there are data gaps, it's not perfect, and may or may not be the best songs of the year.  But these are the songs to which, once they started getting some airplay, kids really responded to.

    I'm presenting here the Top 13 songs of 2011, a year-long "13 Under 13," as it were.  That's mostly because the data lent itself to a nice division.  (It also makes for a nice comparison to KPL's own summary from New Year's weekend.)  And due to the data gaps, I'm presenting them in three relatively distinct groups points-wise, ordered alphabetically within each group.  So here goes:

    Top 6

    • Baron von Rumblebuss - "Did You See (What the Cat Dragged In)?"
    • Caspar Babypants - "Butterfly Driving a Truck"
    • Todd McHatton - "I Think I'm a Bunny"
    • Mike Phirman - "Chicken Monkey Duck"
    • Barbra Streisand (Llamanator Mix) - "Duck Sauce"
    • Keller Williams - "Mama Tooted"

    Notes: the McHatton and Williams songs are still charting, more than half a year after they first made the chart.

    Next 5

    • Blue October - "Jump Rope"
    • Seth Decker and the Missing Piece - "Cucumber Canoe"
    • The Fray - "Mahna Mahna"
    • Joe McDermott - "Kitty Fight"
    • Recess Monkey - "Flapjacks"

    Final 2

    • Cars 2 - "Collision of the Worlds"
    • Recess Monkey - "Grandmom's House"

    Note that Jonathan Coulton's "The Princess Who Saved Herself," which made the Top 5 list last year, would have made this list had it been expanded to Top 15.  It is without much doubt (according these lists, anyway), the most popular song of the past couple years.

    Finally, there are always some artists who don't score massive hits, but get multiple hits.  So, the top 10 artists if you look at songs which first charted in 2011, listed alphabetically, are:

    • Baron von Rumblebuss
    • Caspar Babypants
    • Joe McDermott
    • Todd McHatton
    • Mike Phirman
    • Recess Monkey
    • ScribbleMonster
    • Secret Agent 23 Skidoo
    • Barbra Streisand (Llamanator Mix)
    • Keller Williams

    Thank you for letting me indulge my inner numbers nerd just a little bit.

    Monday
    Apr302012

    Red Eyes and Nemeses: Kindiefest 2012

    There are relatively few benefits of living on the West Coast from a Kindiefest perspective.  It's a long plane flight, which means reduced flexibility in choosing how you get to Brooklyn, how long you stay, and what you do when you get there.

    One advantage, however, is that you get a 5-hour flight.  That's not so great when you're going there anticipating the conference (or when you have to do it on a red-eye as I did this year).  But when you're flying back, it's a lot of time to sit and think about all that you heard during the weekend.

    It is hard to overestimate just how much listening one does at Kindiefest.  There are the panels, of course - those are more typically geared toward musicians, but if you are more broadly interested in how one carves out a career as kids musician, a non-professional musician can find nuggets of things to ponder.

    Besides the panels, there is all the music.  The showcase performances on Saturday night, the public festival on Sunday -- it's more than 7 hours of music in total, from all sorts of genres and all around the country.

    And depending on your personality or need, you can spend more time than either of those just listening to others in one-on-one (or more) talks. Conversations are two-way, of course, but as a member of the media who isn’t looking to do interviews but meets a lot of artists who want to say ”hi” or tell me about their album plans or just introduce themselves, I do a lot of listening then, too.  It's enough to make you want to see a museum or go out for a run on Sunday morning, neither of which I got to do this year.

    What did I do at this year’s Kindiefest?  Well, I got into Littlefield, the conference's home for the past 3 years, about 12:15 PM Saturday after the aforementioned red-eye, so I missed the keynote on Friday night and the post-talk schmoozing.  Which meant there was even more schmoozing to do in the limited amount of time I was there.  I did a lot of it -- seeing old friends, like Jeff and Dave and meeting folks I had previously known only through the magic of the Internet (hi, Jeff Giles!). I also talked with a lot of musicians and booking artists and PR folks.  I don't think I talked with every single one of the 350 or so record-setting number of attendees, but there were times when I felt that I did.  The only way I know I didn't is that there were folks that I wanted to talk to whom I realized on the flight home I didn't.

    Late in the afternoon, I moderated a lively panel on The State of Kindie, a free-flowing discussion on all things kindie music.  An hour-long discussion is way too short to even scratch the surface of the various topics covered, such as what's improved over the past 10 years (too much to mention), what concerns still remain (sometimes a lack of diversity in audiences), and whether or not the Grammys matter.  On top of that, people gave their one piece of advice to artists.  (Mine had to do cooperating and competing, out of which the notion of nemeses -- that one person who brings out the best in you in competition -- took hold.)  If this description sounds dry, I assure you the panel itself was not, as the panelists were funny and engaged.

    The showcase was even more crowded this year, with 10 different artists taking the stage.  The number of artists meant that the performances themselves were shorter than in past years.  There were way too many (and probably too brief) to adequately give them all justice in a review, but a handful of memories from the evening:

    -- Renee & Jeremy captivating the audience with their chilled-out lullabies (not to mention Chris Ballew joining in on their version of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away).  For those of you wondering if the duo sounds as good live as they do on record, the answer is an unequivocal "yes."

    -- Speaking of Chris Ballew, I was so glad to see Caspar Babypants play live.  As you might expect give how long he's been performing, he's very good at holding an audience's attention with nothing more than a voice and a guitar.

    -- Lori Henriques playing a solo piano set, including a great new song, "Dinosaur," which was great as a kids' song about a dinosaur and also as a metaphorical song about a relationship breaking up (that was, to be clear, my interpretation and not -- I checked -- Henriques' intent).

    -- Mista Cookie Jar put on an energetic performance with Ava Flava, the youngest performer of the night, rapping and singing.  All that and a roller-skating backup dancer.

    -- Elska's performance, which between the music (electronic), costumes (sewn), and songs (fanciful), was the most eclectic and unusual of the night.

    -- It is always good to see Dan Zanes perform; this time he eschewed his ”Friends” for a different set of friends, the Latin band Bomba Yo.  There was a 20+ (er, 10+) minute song featuring one of the band's female members dancing in front of the stage, then the pink-tutu-ed Sarah Shannon of The Not-Its joining in, then other women, then Chris Ballew, Rudy Trubitt - even I ended up joining in (shyly) near the end.

    On a related note, I must say (again?) that one of the things I will always love about the Kindiefest showcase is that there is nothing like an audience of musicians for crowd harmonizing and fill-in hand-clapping.  Does my harmonizing, fill-in hand-clapping soul good.

    After the showcase and some chatter at the venue, a large group of us went to a bar a couple blocks away and continued the conversations we'd all been having all day.  Artists, media, bookers, etc. -- while I learn stuff from the panels, I learn much more from these informal conversations.

    I woke up too late and was moving too slowly to be able to take a jog through Prospect Park, so instead I went to see Recess Monkey play at 92Y TriBeCa.  I realized I hadn't seen them play live in a couple years, so I got to hear some newer tunes, including 3 off their upcoming album.  They are a fine-tuned machine playing live at this point.  They are, I would note, the model of the new kindie band.  Skilled musicians and songwriters, talented at more than just music (note how many videos they make), and always seeking new opportunities to have their music heard (they're playing with a circus, for cryin' out loud).  They are good nemeses for other musicians to have, though it's hard to curse them.

    I skedaddled back to Brooklyn for the public showcase. Again, too many bands (and I missed Apple Brains, SteveSongs, and almost all of KBC Kids), so I'm not going to provide individual comments, but I will note that the hard work of publicity for the event paid off.  What was often a somewhat lightly attended event at least early in the afternoon in past years was completely packed when I walked in around 12:45.  Good to know word got out.

    Why do I spend so much time talking about an industry-only conference, you might ask, particularly if you're not in the industry.  It's because this is one of the most significant events of the year and what transpires here leads to stuff you’ll end up enjoying for years to come.  Plans are hatched, songs are written, connections are made that will lead to some awesome experiences for kids and their families.  I'm sure I know but a small amount of everything that results from this gathering of artists, but even if you never come to Brooklyn, this weekend matters.

    Hats off to the organizers, thanks for asking me to join y'all again.  Totally worth the red eyes.

    Tuesday
    Apr102012

    Itty-Bitty Review: Hot Dog! - Caspar Babypants

    Hot Dog! album coverThere is no stopping Caspar Babypants.  He released my favorite kids album of 2011, Sing Along! (review), in August 2011, and his next album is due out in September 2012.

    An album out once a year would reflect a pretty creative clip as it is, but that's too slow for Mr. Babypants -- AKA Chris Ballew -- as next week his new album Hot Dog! is released.  How's a new album every 6 months or so work for you?

    It works for Ballew.  There's no sign that he's cranking out subpar music, trading on his good name for a quick buck or two -- just the opposite, in fact.  He's tapped into some super-creative vein, a modern-day folksinger amplified with a home studio with a whole host of instruments and mixing programs.  With Laurie Berkner taking multiple years between album releases, Ballew has taken over the mantle of Preschool-Songwriter-In-Chief.

    Ballew's equally adept at reconfiguring traditional folksongs ("This Old Whale," a take on "This Old Man") and writing new ones ("All That I Have Got").  He'll mix in the occasional story song ("Eleanor the Elegant Elephant") and pure kid-friendly pop (the funky "Stompy the Bear" and the light-as-a-feather "I Don't Mind").  And while Ballew is responsible for most of the music here and offers a clean, minimal sound, he puts the occasional guest artist (Visqueen's Rachel Flotard, for example, on "More Moles") to good use.

    The 49-minute album will be most appreciated by kids ages 1-6, but as with most Caspar Babypants albums, you'll probably listen unabashedly even if they're not around.  With Hot Dog!, Chris Ballew continues his streak of fabulous songwriting for kids.  I, for one, am glad I'll only need to wait another five months or so to hear more Caspar Babypants music.  Highly recommended.