Review: Here I Am - Caspar Babypants (Chris Ballew)

One thought I had upon spinning Here I Am!, the upcoming first album from Caspar Babypants, the alter ego of Chris Ballew from the Presidents of the United States of America, was that it shouldn't be this easy for someone who spent a lot of years making music for adults to turn his or her attention to the kids music genre and turn out an album that sounds so good. And maybe it isn't easy. But it is good. Now, there's no such thing as an overnight success, and Caspar Babypants is no different. Ballew put together a compilation of kids songs for a Seattle-based organization way back in 2002 -- he's been doing this for awhile. But over that time he's expanded his repertoire and approach considerably. There are 22 tracks here, almost all of them with something special to recommend them, so I'll just touch on a handful. Ballew has done a good job finding traditional songs -- some, like "Three Blind Mice," are changed enough to keep them listenable after a couple spins ("Mice" gets a 60's London sounds makeover and additional lyrics in the spirit of the original.) Others, like "Billy Pringle," get rescued from obscurity and are given new life. Amidst the traditional songs, kids and folk, Ballew also mixes in some originals. Among my favorites are "Monkey River," an old song of Ballew's that he's recorded more than a dozen times and, lyrics tweaked slightly, is a hypnotic little family song. "Heard A Bird" is a great pop tune for 3-year-olds that could've been written 100 years ago. Production-wise, these simple songs get some small amount of ornamentation, but not much. There's a lot of keyboards, some guitar, the occasional tape loop, and a fair amount of "la la las" and "cheep cheeps." I'm a sucker for good "la la las." Ballew gets the occasional vocal assistance from Jen Wood and Fysah Thomas, but for the most part, it's just him and his instruments. If I have any complaint with the disk, it's that at 49 minutes, it feels just a little too long -- it might have been better to trim 6 or 7 tracks from the disk. This album will hold the most appeal to kids ages 2 through 7. You can hear (and download) several tracks from the album at the Caspar Babypants website. Now, I don't usually review albums ahead of their scheduled release date, and Here I Am! won't actually be available until February 14. But I think this album deserves an exception to that rule. It's just simple, organic kid-folk and pop. With his Caspar Babypants project, Chris Ballew might make a whole bunch of great CDs for the family -- this is the first of them. Highly recommended.

Itty-Bitty Review: Musical Farm - Biscuit Brothers

Austin's Biscuit Brothers are TV's greatest kids music secret. OK, Dusty and Buford Biscuit aren't a huge secret in Texas, but these guys deserve a larger stage. In the meantime, we'll content ourselves with another album from the Brothers, Musical Farm. Released last summer, it's another stellar collection of familiar and slightly less traditional songs with snazzy arrangements, along with some originals, all from the Brothers' Emmy-award-winning TV show. If you have the DVDs at home, you may find yourself a bit tired of some of the tracks ("'This Old Man' again?"), but they're all solid. I'm always a big fan of Tiny Scarecrow, and this album features our family's favorite TS track, the duet with Buttermilk Biscuit on "I Am Singing Softly," which manages to be simultaneously educational, hysterical, and sweet. (New to me, but also amusing, is Tiny's "Continental Tango.") As always, the production, singing, and playing are top-notch; as you might expect from folks who work on "Old MacDonald's Farm," Americana is the most commonly heard genre, but you can also hear some rock, Latin, ragtime, and organ-based pop-rock ("Polly Wolly Doodle"). The album is most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 7, though since these are mostly traditional tunes, that's pretty flexible. You can listen to soundclips here. While nothing's a substitute for their TV work, and the album will probably hold the most interest for fans of the show, Musical Farm is also a fine collection of tunes in their own right, no TV required. Recommended.

Review: More! More! More! - Bunny Clogs

It seems like kids music is the new "side project" for an increasing number of musicians. What better way to deflate expectations and clear out a little creative room than by deciding to create music for the elementary school set? I don't mean that negatively at all -- in fact, it's that "anything goes" approach that helps to make the genre vibrant. It's in that spirit that I'm calling Bunny Clogs, the kids music project from the Honeydogs' Adam Levy, a "side project" in the best sense. Now, Levy already has a side project -- the I-never-thought-I'd-be-typing-this-name-in-this-blog band "Hookers $ Blow" -- but Bunny Clogs' first album More! More! More! has been 5 years in the making, recorded with Levy's two daughters and a host of guests (and featuring some pretty cool album art from his son). So it reflects a fair amount of thought and craft. At its best, the album recalls the family-friendly community-celebrating vibe of Dan Zanes, such as on the midtempo "Midtown Greenway," which extols riding a bike through town and features Semisonic's John Munson on bass. "Song For Powderhorn" celebrates another part of Minneapolis (and benefits the local V.O.I.C.E. Music Saves Lives program doing work in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood). There are a lot of songs about food, with very little in the way of lessons (though there are some snuck in there). Sometimes the album is plain silly -- "Velveeta Girl and Squatsy" is a bunch of (danceable) nonsense while "3 Dogs and a Pancake" is a bunch of (not-entirely-danceable) nonsense. And sometimes the album marries the old (Woody Guthrie's "Car Car") into a new, strutting hand-clappable classic -- "Are We There Yet?," the best song on the album. Not every track is perfect -- I can't say that I ever need to hear the drum machine-aided "Butter" more than once a year at the most -- but Levy's use of a whole bunch of different styles and instrumentation (check out the middle eastern touches on "Pharaoh Pharouk's Phyrst Phood Phyramid") makes even less compelling songs more fun to listen than most kids songs. The album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 10. You can hear tracks at Bunny Clogs' Myspace page, or also pick it up at eMusic or Lala. More! More! More! is clearly a labor of love for Adam Levy. It wasn't recorded to cash in on the kids music scene, it was created for the fun of it. Families who listen to the album with the same sense of joy that went into making it will get a kick out of this. Definitely recommended.

Review: Beautiful World - Dog on Fleas

Well, there's certainly no flies on New York's Dog on Fleas. Flies on fleas? Huh? What I mean by that is that their last album, When I Get Little, was a fabulous little piece of sun-kissed Dan Zanes-ian roots-pop, and it would have been very easy for the band to turn out another collection of free-range music. But for whatever reason (including the departure of a couple band members to other things), the band has taken a somewhat different approach on this new CD. There's a lot of experimentation here, even more than you'd expect from a Dog on Fleas disk. Some of it sounds great -- "I Love Your Accent" is little more than the song title sung in falsetto and people reciting where they're from (from around the world), but it's lots of fun and very global in its worldview, obviously. "Unbirthday" is a raucous, occasionally distorted celebration of each person's other 364 days of the year. I was much less enthused by "Star Tonight" and "Do You Wanna Know My New Dance Step?," two funky tunes that didn't have that dancing spark Fleas tunes often have. My general feeling is that the second half of the album is less "experimental" and will be more familiar to long-time listeners. There are a number of guest musicians on the album. Lorette Velvette takes lead vocals on the storytelling "Lima Bean," with Uncle Rock providing backup assistance. Frances England joins with Pia Ruissi-Besates on the gorgeous and mellow album-closer "Babies." (The song would have fit perfectly on the band's Dean Jones' lullaby(-ish) album Napper's Delight.) As with most Dog on Fleas tunes, the 35-minute album doesn't quite have an age range, but let's say it's most appropriate for ages 3 through 9. You can hear samples at the album's CD Baby page. Beautiful World isn't as fun as their last album, When I Get Little, and if you're new to the band, I'd recommend starting there first. And if you're a huge fan of that CD, it may take a while to get used to the new sounds here. But there are a lot of good songs and the lyrics are filled with love for the world and its inhabitants. There are many worse ways to spend 35 minutes dancing with your kids. Recommended.

Itty-Bitty Review: Sesame Street Playground - Various Artists (Putumayo)

Sesame Street Playground, the latest globetrotting collection of kids music from cultural omnivores Putumayo, solves the problem of "what region do we tackle next?" by moving on to children's television. Sesame Street is broadcast all around the world, of course, and this collection culls a sample set of songs from some of those local versions. The downside of the collection is that unlike a lot of the Putumayo compilations, the overall quality of the songs isn't as compelling. Sesame Street has such a rich musical history here in the U.S. that it almost seems unfair to limit it to just Elmo's Song, "Sing," and a Chinese-language rendition of "Rubber Duckie." It's not that the songs are bad (I like the India show opening "Galli Galli Sim Sim" and "Ricas Frutas" from Mexico), just that it casts such a wide net that there isn't the cohesion your hear on the other, more sonically focused collections. On the other hand, the disk also includes a DVD with videos for five of the songs on the album. It's the visual that gives a lot of context to the songs. On video, the point of the songs is clear, even without the captions that are provided. (And Putumayo's liner notes are, as usual, very strong.) The album will be of most interest to kids ages 3 through 6; you can listen to clips and watch all the videos here. I don't think Sesame Street Playground has quite the repeat playability a lot of their albums has. But a lot of the songs are enjoyable and the videos serve as an easy introduction to cultures (or, at least, muppets) from around the world. If your kids enjoy Sesame Street, they may find this album an interesting side trip.

Itty-Bitty Review: Wag Your Tail - Jamie Barnett

When I say that Wag Your Tail, Jamie Barnett's third, recently-released album of kids music is gentle, don't mistake that for bland. As with his previous CD, Just Look At You (review), on his new disk the California-based Barnett rarely rocks, but there's beauty of different sorts there. Sure, there might be a lead single of sorts in the almost-peppy "Waterbottle," with its catchy chorus ending in the delightfully tongue-pleasing phrase "Packed myself a snack sack / Put in my backpack / Got a water bottle / Full of water." For the most part, however, Barnett is content to explore the gentler side of life, like the ecosystem around a single tree ("This Tree"), pets (the title track) or tiny pleasures ("Lemonade"). The music will remind you a bit of John Prine or perhaps John Hiatt, though with about 1% of the trials and tribulations their music brings to mind. The album concludes with 4 traditional songs designed for singing along and playing along. If they don't quite fit with the production on the rest of the album, they do fit philosophically with Barnett's sing-along approach (as with the prior CDs, Barnett's kids and friends join in on the fun throughout the disk). Think of it as a separate EP appended to the end of the disk. The 46-minute album's most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 7. You can hear clips at the album's CDBaby page. With Wag Your Tail, Barnett isn't making any great artistic statement other than appreciating the world we live in on a daily basis. Which, come to think of it, isn't a bad artistic statement to make. Recommended.