Review: All on a Sunday Afternoon - Sugar Free Allstars

There's no secret formula to the success of rising kindie stars Sugar Free Allstars -- the Oklahoma band's high-energy live shows get kids dancing and tire them out.  (It's the musical version of a long post-dinner swim.)

And while their first two kids' albums had moments of groove, neither one fully captured that live energy.  With their third album All on a Sunday Afternoon, however, the duo of Chris Wiser and Rob "Dr. Rock" Martin gets a lot closer to putting on disk (or bits) what gets kids hopping around.

The album kicks off (appropriately) with "Gotta Get Up," a groovy wake-up song featuring Jack Forman from Recess Monkey and Shawana Kemp from Shine and the Moonbeams adding vocals.  While SFA's kids songs are very much kid-focused in their subject areas (this time around there are songs about hiccups, putting away toys, and teddy bears), there is more diversity thematically ("Love Train" features Keller Williams and is as much praise of soul music over the past few decades as anything).  And bringing in some additional instruments, like horns ("Very Best Friend," for example) or strings (the epic slow-jam "Ready To Give Up Teddy") really rounds out the duo's funky sound.

The 36-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 7.  The physical copy of the album also comes with a live concert roughly 40 minutes in length which, though simple, features songs from all their albums and does a good job of capturing that live energy I mentioned above.   You can stream the album through the widget below.

The Sugar Free Allstars don't reinvent the wheel on All on a Sunday Afternoon, they just trick out the ride a bit.  It's danceable and goes down smoothly.  Works for me and probably for you, too.  Recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.

Review: Invisible Friends - Dog on Fleas

When interviewed about their music, it is not uncommon for kids musicians to say that they're not recording for kids.  It's a statement that for many artists puzzles me, because while I totally get what they're saying -- good stories and songs should resonate with a diverse audience -- it seems to deny what is obvious: songs about playgrounds or going to school or getting a dog are written with kids in mind.  They are kids' songs, no matter how good they are or how appealing to adults they may be.

New York's Dog on Fleas are one of the few artists making kids music whose music, stripped of context such as album art or a review on a website such as this, could legitimately be not described as "kids music."  Their brand-new album Invisible Friends taps into a feeling of childlike wonder and exuberance without ever sounding like somebody was tapping into memories of (anyone's) childhood.

What the songs do sound like, at times, are half-remembered childhood memories themselves.  The lovely and gentle "Fortunate Mistake" tells the story of a mouse (or someone the size of a mouse) whose name is indeed "Fortunate Mistake" while echoing the textures of Paul Simon's Graceland album.  (The lyrics "I bring good luck wherever I go / I bring good luck to you" sound to me like a blessing.)  On the other, more-minimal hand, the sung lyrics for the song "Party" are as follows: "I like to party, party, party / I like to party, party, party / Party, party, party, party, party, party, party!"  There's a little variation in that perhaps, but for the most part it's an excuse for Dog on Fleas mastermind Dean Jones to get his Memphis horns on.

Notwithstanding the occasional dance tracks, it's mostly a laid-back series of songs, with tracks like "Tell Me What You Love" or the group sing-along "Peapod" being the sonic equivalent of laying on your back in the shade of tree in a grassy field watching clouds go by.  Longtime fans of the band will may hear of lot of the last Dog on Fleas album, Beautiful World, on this new disk, but with some of the more electronic elements dialed back -- this is a much more organic album.  I liked Beautiful World, but I like this much more.

Given how much I've talked about the 42-minute album's all-ages sound, the idea of an ideal age range is sort of silly, but it's probably more appealing to kids ages 3 and up.  You can listen to the whole album here. 

Don't misunderstand me -- there's a lot of excellent kids music out there that is written with kids in mind, and I think that's great.  (Really, I think people should embrace that idea.)  But it's nice to have bands like Dog on Fleas blurring the distinctions between what is kids music and what isn't.  Like a preschool collage, Invisible Friends mixes stuff together that adults have long stopped mixing together but in spite of that (or possibly because of it) produces art.  Highly recommended.

Review: A Little Love - Renee & Jeremy

Cover albums are, depending on one's perspective, the last refuge of scoundrels or a songwriter's tribute to classic songs.

Of course, that's an adult's perspective.  Such debates are nowhere to be found in kids' music, mostly because preschoolers don't truck in adults' notions of hipness and because the history of the genre has been one of handing down songs from generation to generation.  There's a reason why kids have been singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" for hundreds of years in dozens of languages -- it's because it's a damn good song.

And lullaby albums are especially susceptible to the cover treatment.  It's hard work crafting loving songs that are memorable (but not too memorable, because, hey, the kids are supposed to go to sleep).

One of the bands that have worked the lullaby seam quite well in recent years are the LA duo Renee & Jeremy.  Many of their chilled-out songs (especially on their debut It's a Big World) are mellow, modern gems of love.  So it was with a little trepidation I gave their new album A Little Love -- a collection of ten covers given a mostly down-tempo burnish -- a spin.  "They write a good song," I thought, "why would they want to record others'?"

Whatever their motivation, the resulting album highlights Renee & Jeremy's number one weapon in making parents weak at the knees and kids very relaxed -- their voices.  Jeremy Toback and Renee Stahl are the best vocal duo in kids' music, bar none, and it's the interplay and harmonies between them that turn what could otherwise be a collection of "why bother?" covers of overly familiar tunes into something much bigger.  "Daydream Believer," "Shiny Happy People," "Love" -- all songs I never needed to hear other than by their original artists, but which R&J give a sufficiently mellow spin and artfully draw out the lullaby-ish nature of the song to prove me wrong.  And in some cases, like their take on Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away" and Coldplay's "Yellow," they provide an entirely different perspective from the original, breathing new life into those songs.  Some of that is due to the arrangements, but much of the credit must go to duo's voices, which seem perfectly matched.

It's mostly a lullaby album (ages 0 through 5), but besides the parents, the 25-minute album will probably translate well to the toddlers' older siblings as a mellow-afternoon spin.  (You can listen to 90-second samples via the widget below.)

I expected to like A Little Love, but was surprised how much I ended up enjoying it.  It has nothing to do with the fact that they're covering songs of my musical childhood and everything to do with the fact that they're turning those songs into music of our collective childhood.  That, and the fact that I'm pretty sure I would buy an album of the duo singing anything, including the happy hour menu at TGI Friday's.  I actually have a lot of love for A Little Love.  Definitely recommended.

Itty-Bitty Review: Creepy Crawly Love - Duke Otherwise

It's been awhile since I've heard a good off-kilter kids music album, an album with a distinct perspective on song subjects and a musical approach to match.

If your family collection is similarly deficient, allow me to suggest Duke Otherwise, AKA Noah Riemer, whose debut album Creepy Crawly Love comes out of the Upper Midwest's House of Mercy Recordings to take up space on your family's CD shelf (or computer hard drive) next to John and Mark's Children's Record, The Great Adventures of Mr. David, or perhaps Zak Morgan (thanked in the album's liner notes).

Take "I Used to Think," a jazz-with-a-bit-of-klezmer tune with a hyperactive narrator sounding a bit like Sesame Street's Count declaiming that features the lyrics "I used to think the world was flat, not round / I used to think I weighed a thousand pounds / Can you believe I used to think that e=mcHammer?"  Or Tin-Pan-Alley-via-the-midway "Git Yer Fiddle Out," featuring (among other things) a dog toy, train whistle, trombone, and strummed fiddle, and lyrics like "Get your fiddle out and strum it / Get your trombone out and drum it / Get your xylophone and drive it / C'mon! Drive, drive, drive!" that only get odder from there.  Riemer obviously delights in wordplay, using nifty, brainy lyrics to sing about short-tailed dogs ("Dog Without a Tail"), the Spanish language interrupted by other languages ("How Do You Say 'No' in Español?"), and other eccentrics, all in a musical packaging that's like a slightly peppier Tom Waits.

While a few of the songs will amuse preschoolers, it's really kids ages 6 through 10 who will most appreciate the album.  You can hear clips of many tracks at the Duke Otherwise homepage, or stream a few full-length songs here. I would be surprised if Creepy Crawly Love became a massively popular hit -- it's a bit too off-center for that.  But these types of albums often become adored in some households, and if what you hear here tickles your fancy, then I think your household will give this album a happy home.  Definitely recommended.

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.