A Great and Noble Experiment

Or, at least, this sounds like it'll be cool. The first of many guest DJ sets at Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child can be heard this weekend from Andy Ure of The Quiet Ones. (Didja read the review?)

At some point I'll have a guest DJ slot myself... I just need to figure out how to cram an entire musical philosophy into about 45 minutes. (Or maybe I should just play They Might Be Giants repeatedly.)

Anyway, go forth and listen.

Review: Plays Well With Others - Uncle Rock

You don't often get a second chance to make a first impression, the cliche goes, and that's especially true in children's music. A cheesy song is enough to make the parent quickly hit the eject button lest the children get too attached to music that drives the parent absolutely nuts; a poor album cover will doom the CD before it even reaches the player. So it was with Uncle Rock's 2nd CD, Plays Well With Others (2006), released a couple weeks ago. Uncle Rock? Just the name made me a little dubious. The logo? Designed by a child (the artist's son, as it turns out). And the opening song? Starts with the shouted phrase "Are you ready?" I was thisclose to hitting eject and never looking at the CD again, let alone listening to it.

And then within the space of about one minute, I was interested. The opening track, a general dancing around song, has a nice groove and includes the lyric "I'm gonna shake my head like the head of a mop." OK, you've got me back -- I'll stick around. Uncle Rock, as it turns out, is New York State-based Robert Burke Warren, who's played with both Wanda Jackson and RuPaul, among others. (I feel fairly certain that puts him in fairly small company.) Joined by a bunch of musicians on various tracks, he brings a loose roots-rock attitude to the CD, giving it a nice, organic feel. (The production is a lot better than the 4-track home recordings on his debut album.) The best cuts are those that are more fully realized instrumentally and lyrically. "Picnic in the Graveyard," for example, is a great kids' song about... er... death. Well, not exactly, but it's about Dia de los Muertos, a day of celebration where people have a picnic in the graveyard. "We're gonna sit in the grass / With people from the past / And we will not be afraid," goes the lyrics. It's got a great chorus backed by a horn section. The amusing "Gettin' Big Blues" is a bluesy number about how difficult it can be for kids to grow older ("I once had a T-shirt / the coolest thing around / but since I can't get it over my head / It's gonna be a hand-me-down" ... "I once had attention / I was an only child / But now there's a baby in the house / So I'm going wild... Pick me up / 'Cause I don't wanna walk") It works for both kids and their parents. The kids on the album generally add, instead of detract, from the mix.

Some songs ("Playin' Possum, "Shoe Bandit," "I'm a Pirate") don't work as well for me, they seem a little cheesy. But I give Warren credit for trying different things. He turns in a nice medley of "Magic Carpet Ride/Hey Bo Diddley/Magic Bus." And while the album's best cuts are the midtempo rockers, the closing ballad "Connected" is a sweet song.

The CD is most appropriate for kids age 3 through 8. You can hear clips of a few songs at Uncle Rock's MySpace page, though only one song, "Sugar Talkin'," is off the new CD. (Robert, update that page, pronto!) You can also hear samples at the album's CDBaby page.

Warren has made big strides in this, his second album. Teaches me to judge a book by its cover. He's got a little bit of Ralph's World and a lot more of Brady Rymer in him. Plays Well With Others is an album with some great cuts of kid-friendly roots-rock. Recommended.

A Note From My Family To Me

Dear Honey/Daddy/[unintelligible]:

You can't blog about everything. Sometimes other people will have the same idea you do, and occasionally they'll post something about it before you can. Deal with it.

Besides, they'll still want to read your review of that new artist they haven't heard of tomorrow.

Love,
Your Family

Review: Make Some Noise - The Quiet Two

Unfortunately for New York band The Quiet Two (formerly the Quiet Ones), their 2005 debut Make Some Noise didn't, er, make some noise, or at least not as much as it should have. And while I can't answer the question of how in the name of They Might Be Giants did this album fly under the radar, I can do my best to explain why it shouldn't have.

The Quiet Two are Chrstopher Anderson and Andrew Ure, 2/3rds of the band Muckafurgason, which toured with They Might Be Giants and whose final album was produced by John Flansburgh of the band. The They Might Be Giants reference is appropriate here, because the album is filled with lyrical flights of fancy that would not sound out of place on a TMBG album. Take, for example, "Polar Bear," a country-ish tune which starts out with the line "Straight to the point / I wanna be a polar bear," then comes back to the concept later on in the tune with the line "Back to the point of being a polar bear," a meta reference that is likely to amuse the parents within a very kid-friendly song about, well, being a polar bear. Or "Invisible Trousers," in which the narrator talks about how he "Wore them to the dentist & to the pet store / And everyone was pointing / Because they’d never seen invisible trousers before," which is a punchline that will reward the older kids and parents listening. For adults tired of listening to kids' albums with too many lessons, the lessons here are few and far between, with the band typically content to tell stories with subjects of interest to kids, like running ("How Fast Can You Run") and superheroes ("Ultrafoot").

Sonically, the album has a very British vibe, with some songs sound more like British Invasion bands ("Make Some Noise"), some like XTC outtakes (the amusing "My Keyboard"), and some like the Beatles (the lovely "I Remember Purple"). And, gosh, I've somehow managed to not mention my two favorite songs, the power-poppy "You Can't Hide Your Bike" (which is about exactly what the title implies), and the narratively exuberant album closer "Fizzy Milk."

Well, kids ages 4 through 9 -- especially slightly silly ones -- will enjoy this album the most. You can hear samples of some songs here or all songs at the album's page at Amazon. You can also see the lyrics and hear karaoke versions of most songs here.

Can you tell I liked the album? There are no bad songs here, just songs you'll like more or less than others. At just over the 30-minute mark, the album is short but very sweet. Fans of power pop or XTC or They Might Be Giants should check out the album post haste. Like, yesterday. As for the rest of you, the appealing goofiness and catchy melodies make Make Some Noise also worth your time. Definitely recommended.

Brady's Bunch

Brady Rymer. Elizabeth Mitchell. Hayes Greenfield. I doubt another lineup will top this, the best one-day-only concert of 2006. Heck, it can even give those multi-day festivals in Chicago and Austin a run for their money. Pity our family has no plans to beanywhere near Long Island on August 27.

Oh, and Brady, you really should blog more often. That Clearwater Folk Festival entry was fun to read.