Interview Sandra Velasquez (Moona Luna)

Up above in the title for this interview, I've written "Moona Luna" after Sandra Velasquez, because if you're reading this website, you're probably most familiar with the New York-based Velasquez as the mastermind behind the bilingual Spanish kindie band.

But like many musicians, Velasquez wears a number of hats, and so it's just as likely that the intrepid Google-r will eventually find their way to this interview because they're fans of Velasquez's band Pistolera, the Spanish-language band she founded in 2005.

Or maybe you grooved to "Cheerleader," the leadoff single from SLV, the band featuring Velasquez and multi-instrumentalist Sean Dixon.

So there are a lot of reasons to listen to Velasquez, and I'm offering you one more -- the interview below, completed while Velasquez was on tour, and in which she talks about starting her musical life as a reluctant keyboardist, the impact of songwriting on her life, and the different audiences she plays to.

---

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?

Sandra Velasquez: I was forced to play piano as a child. So my earliest musical memories of are being forced to practice and playing piano recitals in lace dresses.  I begged my parents to let me quit piano, which they did when I was 13. I bought my first electric guitar and started taking lessons immediately to learn all my favorite Nirvana, Hendrix, and other rock songs. Incidentally, the first band I played in when I was fifteen was as a keyboardist. We mostly practiced instead of gigging. Those were wonderful years because we were so naive in our freedom.

What inspired you to form Pistolera?

I moved to New York City the day after I graduated from music school in 1999 and spent that first summer completely in shock of the lack of Mexican and/or (more importantly) Chicano culture.  I always said that I had I stayed in California I would have just played in a rock band. I started Pistolera out of a longing for trucks driving by with accordion melodies blaring out of them, for taco shops with banda music leaking out of the kitchen. But of course being a rocker at heart, Pistolera was always a blend. Latin music with rock attitude. 

How did the birth of your daughter inspire Moona Luna?

I could have never started Moona Luna without my daughter. I would not have known what to write about! I am the kind of songwriter that writes from personal experiences. I can't make stuff up. 

What have you enjoyed about writing songs for Moona Luna as compared to writing them for Pistolera?  What has been more challenging?

Writing for Moona Luna has taught me that at the end of the day I am a songwriter. Not just a songwriter for Pistolera, or for one demographic. I enjoy writing songs. I'm addicted to melodies. Writing a good song can be challenging no matter who you are writing for. Some songs flow out easily and others you have to work on, put aside, and work on some more. I did find that giving myself a theme for the second Moona Luna album (Vamos, Let's Go!) helped me write.

Has your songwriting for families changed as your daughter has grown older?  As you've grown older?

Now that I have multiple bands I have found that the songwriting just changes with time regardless. There is a the perception that I as the songwriter change the music, but lately I have been feeling like it's the music that changes me. I grow through the music.  It is all equally valid and growth-inducing. 

This may be difficult to answer, but are your Moona Luna audiences mostly filled with families for whom English is a second language, or are they more families for whom English is their primary language?

It really depends on the show. We did a residency in Santa Barbara where we played for underprivileged communities and most were bilingual if not mostly Spanish speakers. This may sound sad, but going to concerts at $15 a pop tend to be less accessible financially to families who do not speak English. When we play free city parks concerts in New York City the non-English speakers tend to be the childcare workers.  This has been my experience. 

Are there gaps that you see (in terms of musical styles, subjects, audiences) that "kindie" doesn't serve well enough?

Kindie audiences, or more specifically, kids, don't tend to favor dark or slow music in a live show scenario. This is just my experience with my own 7-year-old daughter. She likes upbeat music. I do too, but I also love slow, moody, minor and diminished chord music. This is why it's great to have multiple projects because it's hard to satisfy all of my musical cravings with just one band. If I just did Moona Luna I would feel more like an entertainer. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I don't always feel cheery -- do you? It would be unsatisfying for me if my only musical experience was to put on a happy face and dance. I have many moods and thankfully, three bands to express them all. 

You recently released a song -- "Together" -- with Secret Agent 23 Skidoo.  Are there other musicians you and Moona Luna would love to work with?

I loved collaborating with Skidoo. I heard his voice in my head when I wrote the song so I was pretty happy that he agreed to do it. I really love Lori Henriques' new album. She would be fun to collaborate with. 

You have lots of ongoing projects going on -- Moona Luna, Pistolera, your solo album -- what's next?

At the moment I am really focused on SLV, which in the beginning was billed as my "solo project" but it's not really that, though the band name is my initials! It's really a new band and an equal collaboration with my drummer Sean Dixon, who is the drummer for the experimental electronic band Zammuto. (Check them out!). Since we recorded and released an EP with Meshell Ndegeocello in 2013, we have been working on our debut album. It's been over a year and I'm happy to say it's done and the first music video is filmed. It will come out this spring and you can expect to see us on tour this summer. I've started a new Moona Luna album too and hope to escape the cold of NYC and finish the songwriting part of it in February somewhere warm.

Photo credits: Shervin Lainez (Sandra Velasquez), M. Sharkey (Moona Luna)

Review: Question Bedtime - MC Frontalot

It's an open question whether "nerdcore" is a larger or smaller niche than "kindie," but almost by definition "nerdcore kindie" is smaller than either, and with Question Bedtime, MC Frontalot (who coined the term "nerdcore") has essentially created the first nerdcore kindie album.

Question Bedtime is the Brooklyn-based rapper's sixth album, and first for families, and instead of addressing subjects like video games in his songs, he's gone back in time to fairy tales from various cultures.  But rather than straight-up retellings, he's often given them a twist.  Goldilocks and the Three Bears becomes "Gold Locks," featuring rapper Jean Grae as the titular character, who rather than being scared of the bears, is a bear-eating hunter.  "Start Over" features a conversation of sorts between the Big Bad Wolf and a chorus of girls who aren't exactly buying his version of events with Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.  Nor does he limit himself to more familiar fairy tales you've heard hundreds of times - "Wakjąkága" features the title character who, well… just read Frontalot's lyrics, and you'll understand that it's not common.  Besides "Start Over," I also particularly liked "Shudders," whose retelling of the story of the youth who went out to learn what fear is (and is really more about fearlessness) is a useful song in an album that features stories that kids have, at points, shuddered at.

One listen to a handful of songs (or reading those lyrics above), and you'll quickly gather that this is not an album for your favorite preschooler.  Not that it's inappropriate or a Joseph Campbell treatise, mind you, just that his dense wordflow and his refusal to dumb down the darker themes of the stories are going to appeal more -- and, really, mean more -- to a significantly older audience, probably ages 9 or 10 and up.

I liked Question Bedtime, but it demands close attention if the listener is to get the most out of it.  (And close attention is hard, no matter if you're 6 or 36.)  The more you like dense hip-hop wordplay, the more you'll like this, and that's not what every kids music family is looking for.  But if you've read this far, and thought, "Hmm, that sounds kind of cool," then I think it's definitely for you.  Recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.

Itty-Bitty Review: If We Must We Must - The Good Ms. Padgett

As kindie music families go, the Littletons are talented.  There's Daniel Littleton, an integral part of You Are My Flower, AKA Elizabeth Mitchell (Littleton's wife), not to mention their daughter Storey, who also appears on their albums.  There's also Daniel's brother Miggy, an integral part of The Good Ms. Padgett along with Anna Padgett (Littleton's partner) and 7-year-old daughter Penelope Littleton.

Of course, in both cases, the women are the ones in front singing and writing the songs.  And on The Good Ms. Padgett's third album If We Must We Must, Padgett takes a page out her sister-in-law's playbook by mixing in some choice covers amidst her originals.  Compared to the folksier and often hushed Mitchell, however, Padgett cranks up the volume, if not to 11, at least to 8 or 9 on a few tracks.  It's hard to go wrong with Jonathan Richman, and her take on his "Hey There Little Insect" is nicely crunchy.  "Mommy's Lips," a reimagined version of the Vaselines' "Molly's Lips" (made famous via a Nirvana cover), is sweet and swirly and indie-poppy.  Padgett's originals can be roughly divided into two camps -- rocking songs like the title track and "Tattle to the Turtle" that tend to have a lesson to share, and mellower songs like "Beach House" and "I Love Your Heart" that tend toward the more atmospheric and simple.  I tend to prefer the latter, but the energetic and organic sound of the band (which also includes Daniel Littleton on a number of instruments, Elizabeth Mitchell on vocals and "poncho coordination," Jean Cook on violin, and Tara Jane O'Neil on "ecstatic tambourine") makes those tracks listenable for far longer than those types of "teaching" songs usually are.  (Side note: LOVE the cover, designed by Tae Won Yu.)

You can stream the 33-minute album, most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 6, here.    If I had to choose between the two bands, I'd still pick You Are My Flower (hey, we've been listening for more than a decade), but If We Must We Must is The Good Ms. Padgett's best album yet, and it stands up entirely on its own.  Recommended.

Review: Laurie Berkner Lullabies - Laurie Berkner

When asked to name a Laurie Berkner song, most parents in the midst of the Berkner phase of their life would probably name "We Are the Dinosaurs" or "Pig on Her Head" or any of the peppy songs that I'm sure are still garnering lots of views on Sprout or Noggin or YouTube or wherever it is these the young turks are watching their music videos.

But Berkner's also written and perform some lovely lullabies over her kindie career.  For my money, "Moon Moon Moon" is one of the best songs she's written, period.  Given that she hadn't focused as much on slower nighttime songs, the decision to record Laurie Berkner Lullabies, her latest album, released earlier this summer, isn't that surprising.

Let's get the worst thing about the album out of the way -- the title.  I can deal with the awkwardness of the title (the grammatical pedant in me keeps wanting to rename it "Laurie Berkner's Lullabies"), but I should warn you that this is probably not the soothing album you'll listen to quietly as you feed your infant at 2 AM or something your preschooler listener will drift off to sleep to.  There are too many songs that are -- for a lullaby -- a bit too exuberant.  In other words, taken as a whole, this album may not always work to aid sleep.

But if you reframe your perspective, if you instead think of this as a "cool down" quiet time album with songs that reassure the young listener that they're sounded by love, then on that level the album succeeds admirably.  There are a number of new classic songs -- "Fireflies" most immediately comes to mind, but so does "A Lullaby" and "Stars Are Shining" -- that more closely approximate the more hushed tone I think of when the word "lullaby" comes to mind.  She covers classic lullabies "All Through the Night" and "Little Boy Blue" and "I Gave My Love a Cherry (The Riddle Song)," all well done (Berkner's daughter Lucy duets with her on the latter).

Berkner's desire to revisit some of her classic tracks yields mostly positive results -- "In the Clouds" has too much production value to be an adequate lullaby, but it undoubtedly sounds better than the 15+-year-old version on Berkner's debut album Buzz Buzz.  (I also like Berkner's duet with sometimes Laurie Berkner Band bassist Brady Rymer on a slightly simpler "Under a Shady Tree.")  I don't like how Berkner complicated the simplicity of the original track of "Moon Moon Moon," but I understand why she wanted to try her hand at a new version.  As always, Berkner's voice is a strength of the album, and she manages to avoid the overly precious approach that dooms a lot of lullaby album from repeat listening.

The 21-track 52-minute album will be most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 7.

I liked Laurie Berkner Lullabies quite a bit once I stopped insisting it be the perfect lullaby album.  Berkner fans (and kindie fans generally) will not be disappointed -- it's an album that lets Berkner stretch some other songwriting muscles and show her playfulness in a more relaxed set of songs.  Definitely recommended.

Note: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review.

Interview: Bari Koral

Musician Bari Koral made her way to making music for kids and families the same way a lot of her compatriots did -- after getting burnt out making music for adults.

But as she's released four albums for families (the latest, The Apple Tree and the Honey Bee, came out earlier this summer), she's also been in the vanguard of folks who have focused on bringing yoga to families.

Koral and I chatted via e-mail recently and in the interview below, she discussed how her new album differed from her other recording experiences, how her first album came to be, and how she brought her yoga and musical lives together.

---

Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?

Bari Koral: I remember listening to Thriller and the Grease Soundtrack pretty much on repeat when I was younger. I also remember being around 6 or 7 and being in camp and the counselors teaching us campers a new song. I seemed to get it before anyone else and I remember her saying “Now we know what Bari can do”

 I never forgot that.

What led you into making music for kids?

I was burned out and totally exhausted from being on the road playing colleges and other places as an “adult” singer-songwriter. I was also broke and in debt. I had no idea what was next for me. The one thing I had was my niece. She was 5 and was a MAJOR light in my life. She was also deaf but got cochlear implants. Once she could start to hear around 4 she became a big music fan and she was especially obsessed with my adult song “Aspiring Angel” - which I have to say was one of my strongest songs I had ever penned up to that point.

I saw the sophistication of her taste and often thought about why she was so drawn to that particular song. Around this same time I saw Ralph’s World and was very impressed by the elegant simplicity of his songs, and the fact that the band rocked and there were no gimmicks other than great music.

I was also doing stuff on the side for Jim Packard at the Long Island Children’s Museum who suggested I take a real shot at writing songs for children. And finally, John Medeski, who is a friend, leant me the keys to his cabin in Woodstock. He had just gotten a kids record deal and he heard what I had written for the Children’s Museum and he said, “take these keys to the cabin and go write some songs.” And that is what I did. I thought of my niece Mikayla, at the time, pretty much my only influence and wrote almost our entire EP in one weekend which included “Nothing I Wouldn’t Do” and “A Day at the Beach.”  Eight years later those are still two of our most beloved kids/family songs.

You've worked with a few different producers - what led you to go to Nashville to record The Apple Tree and the Honey Bee with Brad Jones?

Brad Jones is a great record maker and music maker. He’s old school. He digs in deep, he’s got such good ears. He’s got old Martin Guitars lying around, everywhere and tons of off beat instruments. He’s such a great player and he has worked with Josh Rouse, Over the Rhine and many others who are easily some of the best singer songwriters we have today. Singers and songwriters are drawn to Brad because he can steer the ship in the most melodic and luckiest of places. Plus as a band we all got to honker down in the studio for almost a full week which is a total luxury these days. It was really something to get to work with him - I’ve been a long time fan and he’s been a great friend for years.

What was challenging (or exciting) about working with Jones?  Did knowing you were going to record in Nashville change your songwriting approach?

I already had the songs. I don’t record unless I have the material. I had just filmed 52 episodes of a TV show Yogapalooza with my bandmate Dred (air date to be announced) and I was totally exhausted. Brad said “you can relax and let me steer the ship. You can just lean back and sing and play." That was a VERY different approach to making an album. Usually you’re the ears of everything. But I trusted Brad, so I was able to give him the reins. That was a VERY new experience for me. 

Sometimes you have to get out of the way to let in some magic, and also of course there are times when you have to put your foot down and say “no, that’s not me, that’s not my audience, next idea please.” And that happened too but pretty rarely. We were on the same page pretty much immediately. He’s been making albums for so many years, and now he has 2 young children so the timing was ideal for him too.

But we did get Dan Cohen on the album to add some kickin' country twang. That was real Nashville and so fun. I had already penned my Johnny Cash-ish "Big Truck" when we decided on Nashville.

Do you prefer writing songs or performing them?

That is a great question and I’m not sure. Sometimes I prefer writing, sometimes performing. It depends on the show and the experience! It’s amazing how quick the writing time is compared to all the other work such as playing, promoting, etc. I was just thinking about that today. I heard Elton John say he never spent more than 1 hour writing the music for any of those songs. Hard to believe how many hours he has spent playing the songs he wrote in under 1 hour.

A major part of your career involves yoga for kids -- how did that come about?

I got into yoga because I suffered from rather severe anxiety in my early 20’s. I really suffered. Right away the first doctor I saw wanted to prescribe medication. I had no tools whatsoever to help me but knew medication was not the answer. Finally someone told me about meditation and yoga. These and other tools I can only describe as lifesaving.

As I had already been practicing yoga for almost 20 years, I finally got certified to teach around the same time that I started writing music for children. For a long time I kept the music and the yoga more separate, I was the yoga teacher at JetBlue for example and I was so afraid they may Google me one day and see that I sang for children!

It took a lot of energy to keep both of my words apart. And then one day, it seems so obvious but I just decided to put everything together! Because that is what makes us unique - it’s our unique combinations of interests/talents/influences. When that all comes together- magical things can happen.

Is it easier to rouse a sleep audience of kids or to calm a hyper audience of kids?

For me it’s easier to calm down a hyper audience. I have lots of tools!

What's the thing you've made for families that you're most proud of?

Songs and records made with love.

What's next for you?

I’m playing the Newport Folk & Jazz Festival Family Show this [past] Wednesday! I cannot wait! [I'm] also playing the Monterey Jazz Festival and am the keynote for the first Kids Yoga Conference in DC. I’m really into getting more parents and teachers knowing about how our music works for kids yoga too, so that is a big part of what I’ve been doing. I hope the show airs soon and would love to do some Yogapalooza live shows with rockin’ music and some music, movement and kids yoga and bring it to a town near you! I also have a lot of concert tickets to sell to our shows this fall. And we recently bought a beautiful house on a 4 acre pond outside of Woodstock, NY and I’m into nesting at the house whenever possible and sharing it with family and friends.

Photo Credits: Shervin Lainez

Itty-Bitty Review: Good Egg - Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights

When I think of the female stars of kindie -- Laurie Berkner, Elizabeth Mitchell, Frances England, Molly Ledford of Lunch Money, to name some -- the names that come to mind are folk-rockers or indie-rockers, (sometimes) with more of an emphasis on preschool audiences.  What's missing are lots of nationally-known names making pop-rock for the elementary school crowd -- the female equivalents of your Justin Roberts, Recess Monkey, and Ralph's World (among many more).

I'm not going to speculate on why that is, but would suggest that New York City's Joanie Leeds is close to staking her claim in the kindie pop-rock star canon.  On her sixth kids' CD, Good Egg, Leeds and her Nightlights run through the gamut of kid-accessible topics -- food fights, Halloween, parents, doctor's visits -- filtered through a pop-rock lens (with the occasional punk-rock or arena-rock touches).  She's not tackling the subjects in any particularly unique way, but the combination of her fine voice, solid playing (and producing from Dean Jones), and hummable melodies produce a set of songs that sound good here (and will sound good live as Leeds increasingly plays on a national stage).

I think Leeds is at her best in songs with the tiniest bit of edge.  Songs like "Food Fight" (I think you can guess what that's about) and "Confusing Costume" have more vim than the kinder, gentler Leeds on tracks like "Kids Place" or "With My Dad."  (I'll forgive "Hipster in the Making," which seems likely to bore the kids while amusing the Park Slope parents in Leeds' backyard with Pitchfork and dub-step references.)

You can stream the entire 42-minute album -- most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 9 -- here.   I'm not sure that Good Egg is the final step towards Joanie Leeds' total world domination, but it is a slick collection of appealing pop-rock songs that, if your family is a fan of Justin Roberts and Recess Monkey, perhaps your family should try on for size.  Recommended.