Listen To This: "Little Bird Hops" - Elizabeth Mitchell

Ahhhh... a new Elizabeth Mitchell mp3, just in time for Mother's Day.

"Little Bird Hops" would've sounded great on You Are My Little Bird -- mellow, with nifty guitar work, and less than 90 second, pfft, it flies away.

Why Should Rockists-In-Training Have All The Fun?

I'm typically either way ahead or way behind of the curve 'round here. In this particular case, I'm behind the curve as I'm mentioning the Stagecoach Festival, the country festival put on by the Coachella folks the week after Coachella. The Festival which, uh, happened last weekend.

But I wanted to mention it because it showed that country music is beginning to realize that maybe there's a market opportunity for them, too. Stagecoach had its own kids' music stage which featured, among others, Buck Howdy, Farmer Jason, The Hollow Trees, and The Bummkinn Band. (My personal favorite amongst these? The Hollow Trees, who do hootenannies up right.)

I heard that Sharon, Lois & Bram were gonna reunite for the festival but got booed offstage by Rage Against the Machine fans who were still stuck in the parking lot leaving the Coachella show.

Did I just make a Sharon, Lois & Bram joke? Goodness, I have issues.

There are a whole bunch of YouTube videos from the festival, but they mostly involve guys like George Strait and Kenny Chesney and other men with large hats worn unironically. So I'll just leave you with this video of Farmer Jason (Jason Ringenberg of Jason and the Scorchers fame, for those of you new to this whole kids-music thing). He's got a hat, too, but he's playing in some guy's backyard.

The Wiggles, this genre ain't.

Songs For Moms (Updated)

Because the Police's "Mother" probably wouldn't sound so good on your Mother's Day mix CD, I first posted a list of songs for mom last year. It's time to drag it out again (and update it a bit)...

Here's a list of songs for mothers or songs about mothers, in no particular order. I've avoided lullabies (songs by moms, typically), as well as songs about general parentual units, or songs about moms and dads. (If you're looking for songs about moms and moms, might I recommend AudraRox's excellent "Moms & Dads," which, song title notwithstanding, is about all sorts of families.)

If a song isn't on the list, it's because of one of the three "O"s: Oversight (I knew about the song and just forgot), Omission (I knew about the song and chose to exclude it), or Obtuseness (I didn't know about the song at all). I expect the third category to be fairly large, so feel free to add your suggestions in the comments section.

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"Mama Don't Allow" -- numerous versions; try Brady Rymer's version off of Every Day Is a Birthday
"Mama Hug" -- Brady Rymer, Every Day Is a Birthday
"Mama Is Sad" -- Justin Roberts, Yellow Bus (it's a song about divorce, so I'm guessing it's not gonna go on too many mix tapes)
"Five Little Ducks" -- try version on the Old Town School of Folk Music's Songs For Wiggleworms
"Thank You Mommy" -- The RTTs, Turn It Up Mommy!
"The Coffee Song" -- Ralph's World, At the Bottom of the Sea (not really about moms specifically, but it was the first song that came to my wife's mind when I mentioned the topic of the post)
"Hush Little Baby" -- try version on the Old Town School of Folk Music's Wiggleworms Love You, though it's just as often that Dad is the person buying baby that billy goat
"Mother and I" -- Bill Thomas (and a Circle of Friends), Time Can Be So Magic
"Hope My Mama Says YES!" -- AudraRox, I Can Do It By Myself (more about the kid than the mom, but that's what Mother's Day sometimes ends up being, no?)
"Mommy She Loves Me" -- Ginger Hendrix, Macaroni Boy Eats at Chez Shooby Doo
"Nerves" -- Terri Hendrix, Celebrate the Difference (not really celebratory, but the recipient mom will nod her head in understanding, then ask you to get her a beer)
"A Dozen Roses" and "I Made It For You" -- Peter Himmelman, both off My Green Kite

Review: Make Your Own Someday - The Jimmies

There are singers, and there are entertainers. In the former camp, I'd put artists like Elizabeth Mitchell, whose interpreter of songs is rivaled by few in the kids music genre and who have glorious voices.

In the latter camp, I'd like to introduce Ashley Albert, lead singer, songwriter, and mastermind behind the New York-based The Jimmies.

Don't get me wrong, Albert has a nice voice and could be a very adept interpreter of standards, kids-oriented or not. But on her band's recently-released debut album Make Your Own Someday (Silly Songs for the Shorter Set), Albert's strengths are in thinking like a goofy 7-year-old and performing for said kid. (It's not for nothing that Albert's done voice work for cartoons and commercials.)

Watch this completely infectious (pun mostly unintended) for "Do the Elephant," one of the catchiest songs on the album, and tell me that the Nickolodeon/Nick Jr. corporate behemoth shouldn't find some show to feature Albert and the whole band on a regular basis. It did wonders for Laurie Berkner -- it could do the same here.

Kinda like a cross between Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang and AudraRox, except skewed at a slightly higher age bracket.

The songs themselves sound bright and tackle common kid-themes like clothes (the swinging "What's On Your Shirt" or the rocking "Cool To Be Uncool") and pets (the unusually-sweet-for-the-album "Taddy") with a variety of musical styles. Albert gets the double-word-score for combining a foreign-language song with a song about pets (in "Spanimals," on which I kept expecting Rob Thomas to make an appearance on the Santana-lite melody). And the album's opener, "What's That Sound?," isn't quite a classic name-the-instrument musical piece like "Mama Don't Allow" and "Peter and the Wolf," but it's pretty darn close. The rest of the band -- who, like Albert, have day jobs that indicate serious musical talent -- backs Albert with aplomb. (Whatever "aplomb" is.)

The album's not perfect -- Albert sometimes has a tendency to cram too many words into the lyrics (making them hard to understand) and some songs are just sort of "eh" -- but it's not for lack of talent or imagination. The silliness here will be most appreciated by kids ages 5 through 10, particularly if they have a "Weird Al" Yankovic album in their collection. You can listen to 4 full tracks at the band's Myspace page or samples from the whole album at the album's CD Baby page.

You may as well get Make Your Own Someday now, because eventually these songs are going to end up on some TV show somewhere. Then your kids are going to beg to you play The Jimmies over and over again in the care and rather than investing in some dubious technology that rips audio from a DVD video, you may as well just get the CD and save yourself the hassle. Recommended.

Origins

In case you were wondering how this website got its name, I answer the question here. Actually, the post just refers you back here (the answer is within, might be a Zen-like answer), but it gives me another opportunity to mention that Offsprung is up and running. Do stop by.