Maker Songs for Maker Kids

I don't know if this generation of kids are any more DIY than previous generations, but those kids with maker tendencies (or parents who want to encourage those tendencies) have never had as many opportunities to indulge them (not to mention temptations to ignore them).

I was listening to The Board of Education's fine new album Binary when it occurred to me that the song "I'm Not Here Right Now," about a kid not so keen on sitting in a classroom but very keen on getting out and constructing and exploring, could be an anthem for today's maker kids.

So here's a playlist to be inspired by the next time you and your kids are turning a cardboard box into a race car, learning basic electronic circuitry, or building your own cardboard drum set.  I tried to stay pretty close to the maker concept (and avoiding music-making or cooking and the like), but strayed occasionally into maker-friendly songs that more generally celebrate imaginative use of found objects and creating one's own entertainment.  (Also, despite the number of tracks covering the Woody Guthrie classic, this is nowhere near the number of versions of "Bling Blang" that are available.)

Yes, I understand the slight irony of listening to others' creative works while creating your own, but nobody's perfect.  Go forth and create!

Maker Songs for Maker Kids [Spotify url]

Billy Kelly – The Ballad of Johnny Box
The Biscuit Brothers – I Did It Myself
The Board of Education – Vasimr (to Mars!)
The Board of Education – I'm Not Here Right Now
The Board of Education – Know Your Inventors, Pt. II
The Board of Education – Know Your Inventors, Part I
The Board of Education – Lunchtime (Tin Foil Robots)
Brady Rymer – Bling Blang
Caspar Babypants – Googly Eyes
Coal Train Railroad – With A Box
Dan Zanes & Friends – Thrift Shop
Dog On Fleas – Bling-blang
Elizabeth Mitchell – Bling Blang
Fox and Branch – Bling Blang
Frances England – Bling Blang
The Hipwaders – Art Car
The Hipwaders – My New Camera
Imagination Movers – Imagination Movers Theme
The Jellydots – Adventure Quest!
Johnny Bregar – Yes I Can
Johnny Keener – Bling Blang
Justin Roberts – Cardboard Box
Keith Munslow – Cardboard Box
Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band – Lemonade Stand
Lunch Money – Come Over to My Dollhouse
Matt Clark – Cardboard Box
Metric – Everybody Has a Talent
Monty Harper – My Video Camera
The Pop Ups – Box of Crayons
Ralph's World – Sunny Day Rainy Day Anytime Band
Recess Monkey – Fort
Recess Monkey – Science Fair
Recess Monkey – Toolbox
Recess Monkey – I Got A Toy, But I Played With the Box
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo – Hot Lava
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo – Brainstorm
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo – Bored Is A Bad Word
Sugar Free Allstars – Cardboard Box
They Might Be Giants – Science Is Real
They Might Be Giants – Put It to the Test
They Might Be Giants – Computer Assisted Design
They Might Be Giants – Where Do They Make Balloons?
They Might Be Giants – The Edison Museum

How I Got Here: Secret Agent 23 Skidoo (Midnight Marauders)

Many years ago, I started a series called "How I Got Here," which was my attempt to get kids musicians to talk in their own words about albums that influenced them as musicians.

Well, calling it a series was generous, because it consisted of exactly one entry.

But it's time to make it an actual series, with the next entry (and I promise you won't have to wait another 5 years for the third).  It's from the master of words and beats Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.  I think Skidoo's most recent album Make Believers is the best in his line of excellent albums for kids, and he's working on a live album for possible release this winter.

Here he writes about A Tribe Called Quest's 1993 album Midnight Marauders...

***

The first time I heard hip hop was at a friend's house, somewhere in the late 80's. We'd spent all day skateboarding and riding his 4 wheeler, and then he busted out the boombox and slid in a tape of RUN DMC. When I left that day, it was with a blown mind and a cassette dub of Beastie Boys' License to Ill, which I would wear down till it broke. These first tastes of rap single handedly moved me beyond Metallica territory and solidly into the land of Public Enemy and N.W.A. in which I would stay for years afterwards, and fully infected my brain, laying the groundwork for who I am today. But above all, I think it was A Tribe Called Quest's 3rd album, Midnight Marauders, that might have taught me the most.

Although many intelligent and artistic rappers have laced many funk fried beats before and after that time, something about that tape and when it came into my life made it become the bedrock of my style. I had to go listen to it again to write this, to figure out why it's such a depth charge to my psyche, and it turns out it has everything I love about hip hop in one neat package. The beats are sharp and full of pocket, right in the 93-99 bpm zone that I love best, and they sample dirty funk and jazz, complete with the crackle and pop of old vinyl heard for the 500th time. Lyrically, the 2 rappers, Phife Dawg and Q-Tip aka The Abstract Poetic, encapsulate everything it means to be an M.C. or Master of Ceremonies.

From the first song, "Steve Biko," it's obvious that these cats love rapping, that the act itself is the most fun to them. You can see them rocking a house party with a crappy plastic mic, in the corner busting freestyles endlessly to the party people, with hilarious punchlines, witty wordplay and perfectly in-the-funk-pocket delivery. By the time they get to "Award Tour," they become the prototype for the Super Emcee, globetrotting the whole planet not based on hype or gimmick, but high level, sophisticated, intellectual lyrics over unpredictable, head knocking beats. Then they flesh out their skills further, using "8 Million Stories" and "Midnight" to show mastery of storytelling, some straight day-in-the-life stuff that pulls you right into their world like a 3 minute documentary with a dope soundtrack.

Later in the album, they get serious on social issues and the state of the culture. These guys tackle topics with skill and intelligence, actually thinking things through instead of going with cliches and easy outs. And even though this is one of the deepest and most complex and artistic rap albums at that time, it never stops being fun.

No matter wether I'm creating for kids or grown ups, Party Rocking, Storytelling and Topic Tracks - these are still the 3 basic categories of songwriting for me. The freestyle feel and pocket flow of Q Tip's delivery is like one of my first teachers, and lives on like a funky ghost in my head, and if any of my beats cause me to screw up my mug into a funk face anywhere near as extreme as I do for some of these tracks, I know I've done right.

That was in the golden age of hip hop, when the most popular groups were also the most intelligent, skilled and unique. I miss those days. But it's nice to see that by that description, this must be the golden age of family music!

Photo credit: Mike Belleme

Make Believers - Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

Every time I listen to a Secret Agent 23 Skidoo album the same question runs through my mind:

Why isn't anyone else doing this?

Not the kids' hip-hop thing -- there are a number of artists mixing beats and rhymes and some of them are pretty good.

No, I'm talking about something a little more specific, namely hip-hop for kids who have kindergarten in their rearview mirror.

There is nobody making music for your favorite 8-year-old except for the Asheville, NC rapper.

Luckily for us, Skidoo is really good.  And on Make Believers, he elevates his game a little more, turning in his most adventurous and, yes, imaginative album.  He's always rapped about adventures and the power of imagination, but on the new album, drives the point home repeatedly -- if you have the courage to stand up for yourself and believe in your schemes, your life will be much more interesting.  It might not be easy -- and Skidoo is upfront about that -- but the alternative is much sadder.  He's much more interested in the daydreamers -- on "Space Cadet" Skidoo's daughter who performs as MC Fireworks trades off a series of crazy questions with her dad -- to him and his wife (Bootysattva, who sings the hook) she's their "little space cadet / and [they] wouldn't have it any other way."

If Skidoo just rapped his rhymes over plain beats, it would still be good, but his secret weapon has always been a musical community of dozens lending support.  "Brainstorm" features furious guitar work and a propulsive beat and the soulful "Rocketfuel" ("Treat your heart / Like a piece of art / And it'll be the spark / That lets you see in the dark") features organ and cello.  He and Lunch Money's Molly Ledford co-write the gentle "Snowforts and Sandcastles."  And "Hot Sauce" (all about trying things that are hard) features some Latin sounds. 

The 41-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages... you know, I'd like to propose a new subgenre of kids music.  A lot of kids music targets kids ages 4 through 8, with some focus on younger kids and virtually no focus on kids older than 8.  Independent artists in the genre have virtually ceded that ground to the artists getting airplay on Radio Disney and not necessarily recorded with 9-year-olds specifically (or at least exclusively) in mind.  Meanwhile, when it comes to books, there's a whole burgeoning genre of young-adult fiction, not to mention chapter books which have always been popular.  So I'm going to coin the term "middle-grade music," based on "middle-grade fiction," which tends to cover the age range of 8 to 12 -- yes, tweens.  Certainly kids that age will want to listen to Selena Gomez or Beyonce or whatever artist they covered on Glee this week, and sometimes the lyrical themes of those songs will resonate with the tween crowd.  But I think skilled songwriters can address the rest of the life experiences of that age group.  There is plenty of room to join in.

All of which is to say that Make Believers is a great album for the slightly-older kid in your life.  Secret Agent 23 Skidoo is a trailblazer in kids music in more ways than one, and while I hope he gets more competition over time, if we just had him making his music for this particular audience, I guess I'd be cool with that.  Highly recommended.

Video: "Gotta Be You" - Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

We don't talk about "star quality" much in kids music -- the giants of the genre like Ella Jenkins or Raffi command the stage more with quiet presence rather than loudness.  But Secret Agent 23 Skidoo has that other kind of "star quality," which suggests he's supremely confident in what he's singing and rapping about.

Watch this video for "Gotta Be You," a track off of his new album Make Believers, and tell me that he -- and DJ Fireworks and Adam Strange, who also contribute -- doesn't have some star quality. (Hat tip: Dadnabbit)

Secret Agent 23 Skidoo - "Gotta Be You" [YouTube]

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.