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    Entries in Mista Cookie Jar (6)

    Wednesday
    Aug012012

    Video: "Inner Child Rock" - Mista Cookie Jar & the Chocolate Chips

    I'm posting this video from Los Angeles' Mista Cookie Jar and the Chocolate Chips for two reasons:

    1) The song -- "Inner Child Rock" from their fine album Ultramagnetic Universal Love Revolution -- is one of the more ear-wormy pieces I've heard in kindie music in some time.  I'm sure there are some folks for whom it is ear-wormy in a bad way, but for me, I think it's great.  They could've done a video in MS Paint and I'd've probably featured it.

    2) But they didn't do a video in MS Paint.  The video, loosely themed as it is, totally reflects the hypercolorful, multi-cultural vibe Mista Cookie Jar and his music have.  You could spend four minutes with this and completely understand the MCJ universe.  And probably dance a bit.

    Mista Cookie Jar & the Chocolate Chips - "Inner Child Rock" [YouTube]

    Monday
    Jun182012

    Review: Ultramagnetic Universal Love Revolution - Mista Cookie Jar & the Chocolate Chips

    Sometimes all you want is a lazy afternoon reading with your kid or playing Legos with them while rain gently falls outside.

    This is not the album for those times.

    Ultramagnetic Universal Love Revolution, the second album from Los Angeles' Mista Cookie Jar (and his backing band, the Chocolate Chips), is bright and shiny -- as chaotic a melange of sights, sounds, and smells as the boardwalk pier featured on the album's cover photo -- and intended to make you dance.

    Just listen to the first track, "Inner Child Rock," and you'll have a pretty good idea whether the album is for you.  Mista Cookie Jar (AKA C.J. Pizarro) sings out his rapid fire lyrics while his daughter, 9-year-old Ava Flava, and Miss Mikyla chime in with background lyrics (their oft-repeated "We HEART you" is lodged in my brain for the next year at least), offset by the occasional "Let's get, let's get, let's get wild" bridge.  I find it nearly irresistible, but I admit that others might find it over the top.

    There are some slightly less wild tracks -- in the liner notes for "Lover Not a Fighter," Pizarro said he "aimed to pilfer some of that Jackson 5 bubble gum-soul-funk-magic" and it's a worthy re-appropriation of the sound.  "Happy Place" is a sun-drenched groove that should be played loudly as the neighborhood kids jump around in the front yard slip-n-slide.  (If you or your kid want to double-down on the sonic craziness of "Inner Child Rock," I'd suggest tracks like "Lucas!" or "Best Day Ever EVER.") 

    Lyrically... well, I think a sample from "Crystal Cave" illustrates where the lyrics sometimes go: "Inside ur heart there is a crystal cave / where the witches and the wizards invent their games. / They sew a string of sing-alongs / and tie them to the wings of swans / connectin' hearts to stars to cookie jars /in daisy-chain-trains!"  We are a long way away from songs about how to tie your shoe here, but it really fits in with the sound.

    The album is most appropriate for kids ages 5 through 9.  You can listen to extended samples from the 43-minute album here.

    As is the case with many good albums, Ultramagnetic Universal Love Revolution won't please everyone, and in fact some folks might downright dislike it.  But I think there are more than a handful of families who are going to absolutely adore the beats and rhymes and very palpable sense of love that pervades these dance tunes.  Me, I'm more in that second camp (and hope that everybody at least checks it out).  Recommended.

    Wednesday
    Jun062012

    Radio Playlist: New Music June 2012

    Time again to update the Zooglobble radio station, covering assorted tracks collected this spring.  You can see my April 2012 playlist here.

    This playlist airs in the mid-afternoons (West Coast time), but if you can't listen in the afternoon, the tracks are scattered throughout the day, too. The listing below is in alphabetical order; the on-air play order is totally random (due to Internet music restrictions).

    "Handbone" - Big Don (Big Don's Brand New Beat)
    "Oh My Dog" - Billy Kelly (Oh My Dog)
    "Come With Me" - Dan Dan Doodlebug (Dan Dan Doodlebug)
    "May The Trail Rise Up To Greet You" - Dave Stamey (Putumayo Kids Presents - Cowboy Playground)
    "Fortunate Mistake" - Dog On Fleas (Invisible Friends)
    "I Used To Think" - Duke Otherwise (Creepy Crawly Love)
    "Your Body Is A Zoo" - Ellen And Matt (It's Love)
    "Ice Cream Sunday" - Groovy David (Kiddie Lounge)
    "Swingin' Little Duck (Alexander Calder)" - Hope Harris (Picasso, That's Who! and so can you!)
    "My Neighborhood" - Johnny Bregar (My Neighborhood)
    "I Like Summer" - KBC (Milk Money)
    "Raised By Trolls" - Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke (Here Comes Chuckers)
    "Alphabet City" - KinderAngst (KinderAngst)
    "Itsy Bitsy Spider" - Kori Pop (Songs For Little Bean)
    "Lines And Dots" - Lucky Diaz And The Family Jam Band (A Potluck)
    "Elephant Shrew" - Michael Hearst (Songs For Unusual Creatures)
    "Happy Place" - Mista Cookie Jar & The Chocolate Chips (Ultramagnetic Universal Love Revolution)
    "Rad" - Play Date (Fun Fun Records Sampler)
    "I Could See (Magically)" - Recess Monkey (In Tents)
    "give it away" - renee & jeremy (a little love)
    "Evening Star" - Steven Elci & Friends (Crayons In A Box)
    "Put 'Em Away (Featuring Marty Beller)" - Sugar Free Allstars (All On A Sunday Afternoon)
    "Benjamin Franklin" - Yosi (Benjamin Franklin)
    "Oh My!" - Your Imaginary Friend Your (Imaginary Friend)
    Tuesday
    May012012

    Video: "Happy Place" - Mista Cookie Jar & the Chocolate Chips

    To call this video from Mista Cookie Jar and the Chocolate Chips sun-drenched understates the amount of sunshine that went into its making -- if it could convert the solar energy inside into electricity, it'd be a big enough carbon offset for an entire town.  It's for "Happy Place," the leadoff single from their new album Ultramagnetic Universal Love Revolution, out May 8th.  A lovely summer jam with a fun California-beach video to match.

    Mista Cookie Jar & the Chocolate Chips - "Happy Place" [YouTube]

     

    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.