Ah, so lovely, both in the fleeting details (the shimmery Eiffel Tower that kicks off the animation) and in the big picture (the theme and the ending). Wonderful stuff from director Siri Melchior and Trunk Animation.
Rick Garcia (left) / William V. Malpede (right)You may think of Disney's TV channels as filled with brightly-colored sets and sounds, and of course there are plenty of shows that feature those, but there are some quieter moments on the channel.
Some of the loveliest quieter moments come courtesy of the new Disney Junior interstitial series "Quiet Is...", a ten-episode series created by illustrator Sara Pinto and photographer/filmmaker Luciana Frigerio and produced by Scotland-based animation studio Ko Lik Films. It's a series of two-minute shorts designed more for quiet time, for getting kids in the getting-ready-for-bed mood.
While the visuals themselves are striking, they're accompanied by tender, often (but not solely) mellow songs that don't so much explain the visuals as much as give the visuals an extra dimension. The series' songs were composed by Rick Garcia and William V. Malpede. The songwriting team have worked together on a number of other projects, including the movie Rango, but this project was considerably different. They chatted with me by phone yesterday in advance of Sunday's Father's Day premiere of the tenth episode in the "Quiet Is..." series, an episode titled "Dad Reading." You can see the nine previous episodes at Disney Junior's videos page, and even though the rest of the world won't see the latest video 'til Sunday, you can watch it here today. Read on to find out about the series' origins, the challenges of writing for this particular project, and whose voice they're blown away by.
Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?
Rick Garcia (RG): My first memory is from age 4 -- my mother was a singer and a big fan of Nat King Cole. She put on a record of his, and I was blown away by his voice.
William V. Malpede (WVM): Yeah, he had a fantastic voice... I have two memories. First, touching piano keys -- I was in 1st grade, maybe, and there was this magical connection between the body and the music. I also remember hearing opera, my mother playing opera, and my sister playing classic rock albums from the late '60s and early '70s.
How did you get involved in the project?
WVM: I had worked with Rick for about five years or so, working on films. We were both friends with Lori Mozilo [Development Executive, Disney Junior], and she approached us about working on this. I was thrilled. I'm a big fan of music in animated films, and this was tied to that. She brought mostly-completed videos to us, and they were lovely.
I was going to ask you next how the songs were created -- whether they came first, or simultaneously -- but it sounds like they came last?
RG: Yes, we met first with Lori and Nancy Kanter [Senior Vice President, Original Programming and General Manager, Disney Junior Worldwide]. They brought us a video and asked us to write a song for it. They loved the song we wrote and asked us to work on the project.
You know, the videos are beautiful in their own form. We were after an emotion, not as much the lyrics. The songs are truly unique unto themselves; even if you heard the song separately, you'd still be hit the same way.
WVM: The songs are supposed to be timeless. One of the directives we received was the songs weren't supposed to narrate the visuals, but instead tell a companion story -- they didn't want it to be spot-on.
You also wrote songs for Rango -- how was the experience of writing these songs different from writing songs designed to move the plot along in the movie?
RG: The Rango songs were written very differently -- they were the first pieces of music written for the film. We had a lot of free rein. The lyrical content in the songs was musical narration, so there were a lot of rewrites lyrically (and musically) for that. Here, we knew we were able to write different styles of musical. In Rango, there was a specific musical style (mariachi owls).
WVM: For "Quiet Is...", we'd often talk about instrumentation -- the choice of instruments sets the emotional landscape. It gives us musical colors or a palette to help out... One piece we did have to treat a little differently, there's a piece with some sheep getting a bit rambunctious ["Counting Sheep"] -- in that case we needed to be a little more literal.
What have you enjoyed most about the project, or what were you surprised by at the end?
WVM: There are many ways to go about scoring to pictures -- there needs to be a balance between the song form (a verse, chorus, so on) and the pictures. In theory, those two approaches conflict. But there were times when we'd write a song on piano or guitar and sometimes those things would go great with the pictures.
At times, some songs had too many lyrics and we had to get rid of some, but I expected that. Overall, it was really good.
RG: It was effortless working Lori and Nancy -- they have a lot of expertise, and their feedback was helpful throughout. In terms of concerns, you're always nervous when you have timelines to meet but people to be 1,000% satisfied. There was a certain amount of rewriting necessary, but it was a great experience, a great creative time.
It sounds like you had a lot of creative freedom, but I also know from talking with musicians that getting used to writing songs that are 2 minutes long -- not 2 minutes and 10 seconds, not 1 minute 50 seconds, but exactly 2 minutes long -- can take a little getting used to.
RG: We are used to writing to a certain time length and those constraints. But those deadlines, you start sweating bullets.
WM: When you write for media [pictures], it's just part of the experience. Not really a concern.
What's next for you, either with "Quiet Is..." or other projects?
RG: I don't know what's next with "Quiet Is...". There's a possibility of another project with Disney, but that's still in the works. Beyond that, want to dive back into the film world. I'm always writing, always singing. And it's such a joy to work with William -- it was mostly effortless.
WVM: Echoing Rick... I would love to see "Quiet Is..." get some buzz, but it's fairly early in the process. I'd like to write more with Rick, not just kids music but also other music. I also write choral music, so I'm always looking to do more with that.
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.
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.
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.
Monday, June 18, 2012 at 5:30AM 
