Itty-Bitty Review: Sundrops - The Harmonica Pocket

Harmonica Pocket album cover

The Seattle-area duo The Harmonica Pocket (songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Keeth Monta Apger and his wife Nala Walla) have always been led by an animating interest in the natural world, but never quite as fully as on their fourth family album Sundrops, which is officially released today.  The theme -- sunshine and rain -- is a pretty genius one (especially for a Pacific Northwest band) and the dozen tracks here explore (mostly) the beauty of both sun and rain.

The album starts off particularly strongly -- the country-folk of "Sing In the Sun," followed by the pure pop goodness of "Raindrops," which features fellow Northwest musician and co-producer Johnny Bregar on the Hammond B3.  That song, with the lyric "We'll dry off someday / It's just water anyway," and "It's Gotta Rain (If You Want a Rainbow)," give you a good sense of Apgar's songwriting attitude.   (They also feature the small band Apgar and Bregar brought in to fill out the sound.)  Much of what follows is also an enjoyable, amiable folk-pop shuffle through the natural world -- I particularly liked "Digga Dog Kid" (a duet with Chris Ballew AKA Caspar Babypants, who knows his way around songs about being outside) and their reworking of "You Are My Sunshine," featuring many new lyrics.  I didn't like "Are You a Monster Too?," which didn't seem to fit in at all amongst the sun and rain songs, but since I greatly adored "I Love Ukuleles," a song featuring wordplay around the phrase "I love you..." (and Marcy Marxer on ukulele as well, natch) perhaps I just didn't like "Monster," period.

The 40-minute Sundrops is most appropriate for listeners ages 3 through 7.  Its mellow sound and open-hearted lyrics will make a nice accompaniment for both rainy afternoons and sunny Sunday mornings.  Recommended.

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

Interview: Molly Ledford and Billy Kelly

I like to think that Molly Ledford (of Lunch Money) and Billy Kelly (of Billy Kelly) met in the comments section of my NPR piece on Billy Kelly's "People Really Like Milk," but the truth is, they met some time before.

The duo's friendship has produced a wonderful new album, Trees, which will be released next month, on March 20, the first day of spring.  They chatted with me last week to talk about their friendship, recording the album, and a little bit, just a little bit, about trees themselves.

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Zooglobble: Normally I'd start off an interview with the question, "What are your first musical memories?," but instead, let me ask, "What are your first arboreal memories?"

Billy Kelly (BK): We had a mimosa tree in front of my house growing up.  I'd climb my tree, and I remember my grandma sitting in a chair with a white afghan in her lap, saying that I climbed "he's like a little monkey."  And then my dad cut it down -- he said mimosa trees were dirty, so he cut it down.  Not while I was in it.

Molly Ledford (ML): That's the origin story of why Billy is now very flip.

BK: "They cut down his first tree…"

ML: We had a magnolia tree.  I was never a good climber -- I could climb on top a fence nearby, and then get onto a branch, and that was as far as I could climb.  So in "Angel Oak," I could climb that tree, but it's illegal [to do so].  The song "By the Roots" my brother and I would roll Matchbox sportscars around with all these exposed roots.

BK: So that's what that song's about!  I pictured you crashing an actual Lamborghini into the tree… I remember we also had a big oak tree.  I'll tell you at the beginning of the story that Dad cut that one down, too, a couple months ago.  It had a big branch that had a horizontal branch that he hung a climbing rope for that.  He'd say to us, while we were climbing, "You don't want to fall, right?  So you won't."  That dispelled fear of heights that I had as a kid.  Too much, really.  It came back to me when I was 35, and I won't go any higher than a stepladder.  So I'd use the tree to hide from people.  Somebody would come over who I didn't want to play with, and I'd climb 50 feet in the air while my mom was calling, "Billy, your friends are here…."  I should write about that for Trees, Volume 2.  She never takes the bait every time I mention it.

ML: Hey, I've already written a couple songs!

How did the two of you meet?

MK: Well, we met because you posted a clip of the video in progress of "People Really Like Milk."  I thought, "Hey, that's really cool, I'm going to say 'hi' to that person right now" and I reached out to him and bought his record and he thought of me as a nice, crazy fan until he figured it out and we've been talking shop ever since and enjoying each other's sense of humor.

Fast forward a few years, he said he was writing an album about trees.  I've often along the way as work-avoidance behaviors, messed in other people's business instead of doing what I need to be doing.  I said, "Here's a trees song" and I wrote "Standing By You, Sapling," and offered it up to him…  He said, "Hey, you want to do this with me?" and I said, "Heck, yeah!"  Before that we wrote "Pen Pals" together,

BK: I sent some lyrics, then she wrote a verse in about ten minutes.  So I asked, "Do you want to record this with me?"

ML: And I was just having fun writing the words, but I said, "Sure!"

BK: Molly bought [Thank You for Joining the] Happy Club and the e-mail came in with the subject "Lunch Money" -- I still have it.  That's all it said in the "from" line in the e-mail.  It was the first album I ever sold to a stranger.  At the time, I thought it was weird.  It was an adult e-mailing, buying it and not making any mention of kids and it says "lunch money" for no reason.

ML: It was just the address...

BK: Which I know now as I see about 42 e-mails in my inbox that just say "lunch money." About a week later, I started snooping around and I realized who this was, and I reached out to her…  You know, you [Stefan] tried to introduce me once to someone else via e-mail.  It didn't work out at all.  I think he was too similar to me.  Molly knows everybody in the kindie scene  For a while, I kind of fancied myself the Howard Hughes of kids music.

What was the genesis of Trees specifically?

BK: I had written the opening song called "Trees."  We moved into our new house about 4 years ago and there's this massive, massive tree in our yard, a silver maple.  When you walk past the tree -- it reminded me of that big blue whale that's hanging in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.  That awe-inspiring feeling you get walking under.  So I wrote that song, "Trees," and then I afterward wrote "(It's Just a) Dumb Ol' Stick" and "Bonsai."  And that was as far as I got.  Molly was so encouraging.  I hope I'm encouraging to her, but mainly I hope she's encouraging to me.  But I didn't get anywhere .  I put "Bonsai" out [on Again!] because I wanted to get it out there.  Then Molly wrote "Standing By You, Sapling"… And I said, "We should do this."  I should do it with my pal Molly who lives in South Carolina and maybe we'd get to spend time with each other.

ML: There was talk of working with Dean [Jones, producer of Trees].  Normally I'm making records at home with all the other responsibility… Almost like a retreat of song recording sounded like the grand prize.

I've come to decide that a good part of the benefits of vacations -- even working ones where you're just working away from home -- is that you don't have to do all the routine things you'd normally do at home.  You don't have to worry about the garbage or the dishes or the laundry or making sure the kids get off to school OK in the morning.

BK: This is why the staycation will never take over the vacation.

How did the recording process for Trees work?

ML: Robert Drake from WXPN and Kids Corner and KindieComm heard we were doing Trees and asked us to do 15 minutes at KindieComm [in 2014].  I went to Lewisburg to practice some songs with him, so it wouldn't be all be new when we got up on stage.

We left the possibility of working together on the songs on the table, but I don't write much with other people.  So we were sending stuff back and forth, supporting each other's songs.

When we recorded, we brought people out of their comfort zones.  That was where the fact that Dean and Billy are really good musicians helped.

BK: Yeah, that's where the collaboration came in.  I'm flip, Molly's emotional.  For the song "Here Come the Trees," for example, [there's a spoken-word part, and] they tried to get me to talk in just a normal voice.  Molly turned off the light [in the recording studio] and just used a flashlight to help encourage me to be myself.  Or on "The Dichotomous Key," which has a really fast, high-pitched part for Molly to sing.

ML: It was like we were all leaning over the same car engine.  All three of us are bandleaders of our own projects, so we'd bring in our own ideas on arrangements… It was suggested that everybody should sing together, like at a funeral, for "Count Your Rings."  That was weird.

BK: We were literally standing together, like at a funeral.  We were so serious.

ML: There were other points where we were dancing around [Billy], on "I, Wood."

BK: While I was doing my Tom Jones impression...

ML: We were feeding off each other.

BK: The whole week was so fun.  They'd be dancing around me, trying not to make the floorboards creak.  It really was a three-way split.

How much did you know about trees before writing and recording the album?  Did you check out a book on California?  [That, readers, is a shout-out to "Coniferous Trees."]

BK: Hah!  Yes, we checked out some books.  Years ago, I was a birdwatcher, and so learned some about trees through that.  I had a casual interest in trees, but by no means was I am expert.  My songs [on the album] were more info-driven and on things that I didn't know [when I started].

ML: I don't really know much about trees -- I thought I would learn more when I started this project.

It's funny, when we announced the project, we'd get letters or posts from people who, in all seriousness, would say things like, "I'm sure you're going to do the birch."

BK: "The willow!"

ML: So on "Trees," which leads off the album, Billy gave me the more dreamy, less technical lines, which really set up the whole structure of the album…  On "Coniferous Tree," his instructions when he gave me the lyrics were that I should make it as difficult as possible for him.

BK: She was supposed to be the Fozzie Bear to my Kermit

ML: So there was the script, and I was really sick that wick.  We stayed with Rachel Loshak (singer and wife of Gustafer Yellowgold creator Morgan Taylor), and she took care of me and was such a mom to me and would send me with concoctions.  I was in a bit of a daze.  I'd kind of lost my place in some of the songs.

BK: I'd get a little frustrated with her interruptions, and then I'd remember that my instructions to her were "Try To Ruin The Song."

ML: I like to think of it as, "That's Molly, daydreaming" and there's Billy, trying to provide real information.

So what from this experience do you take away into the rest of your recording life?

BK: I want to be first and I want to be sincere?  Can I? I love my studio here, working with my band, but the experience of this was one in a million.  The whole week was great, Dean was on point the whole time.  The takeaway was something like this might not happen again -- it was magic and creative.  We talk often about working together on other things, but I don't know if we could recapture it.  Even if we didn't record anything, the week was worth it.

ML: For me, it's the power of working with other people who are also writers of words, of melodies.  It was kind of electric.

It had to happen fast.  Sometimes there's the danger of taking a song and everybody knows it so well, it's lost that brand-new magic.  I've learned that the first time you sing a song, that's the take you want.  Redoing it, you can't recapture the magic, you lose touch with the magic.  I'd tell Dean, "This isn't practice… let's record the vocal just in case."

BK: Half the album is probably first takes.

ML: We did one take "Angel Oak," Count Your Rings," "Acorns" -- the first takes had so much of what they had to have.  We did those songs live.  On "To the Woods," we learned the song together… It was so fun what I want to take away from it in [other] times is to do my best to have that live quality in recording and not get too bogged down in click tracks and having everybody taking their turn.

BK: It was really interesting have three leaders… and no fights.

​Photo credits: J.P. Stephens (Lumos Studios)

Review: Full Moon, Full Moon - Papa Crow

Michigan-based musician Papa Crow zigs and zags.  His hushed, heartfelt debut Things That Roar was earnest, while the follow-up EP What Was That Sound? was… well, maybe it was heartfelt, too, but it was a heartfelt and fun album about flatulence, so I think you see my point about the zigging and zagging.

Having gotten toots out of his system -- so to speak -- Papa Crow (aka Jeff Krebs) returns to the warmth of his debut with his recent release Full Moon, Full Moon.  If the first album sounded a little bit like it was recorded in the middle of a Michigan winter, this new album has a sunnier, more expansive feeling, like it was recorded over the course of some long Michigan summer days with many friends.

"Moving to the Beat" is a gentle ska-tinged tune featuring organ and saxophone, while "Great White Pine" is straight-ahead bluegrass tune about camping.  If "I Wanna Rock & Roll" starts out softer than I'd expect a song titled that to begin, it ends with a suitably loud riff.  Krebs says the album loosely follows a day in the life of a child from sunup to sunup, so as you'd expect, a lot of the album's second half is mellower -- "Give Some, Get Some," featuring Frances England, is a highlight, as is the title track and "The Michigan Waltz," the latter written by Krebs' grandfather.

You can listen to 3 full songs from the 42-minute album (most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 8) here.  The album is made with evident care and craft, and will again appeal to families who are fans of Frances England, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Dan Zanes, artists who originally inspired Papa Crow.  This album which celebrates the outside world is a worthy successor to both of its predecessors -- more so the debut than the cheekier EP -- and worth checking out regardless of how well you know his music.  Definitely recommended.

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

Review: Through the Woods - The Okee Dokee Brothers

There aren't many blockbuster albums in the world of kindie.  There are lots of albums that sell well, and lots of albums that achieve a level of critical popularity inside and outside the kindie world -- but something that combines parts, that's rare.

The Okee Dokee Brothers' Can You Canoe? was one of those rare albums.  It was critically acclaimed as the best album of 2012, winning the Grammy for best children's album of that year as well as taking the top spot in the Fids and Kamily Awards.  It also continued to be one of the few kindie albums (Non-Laurie Berkner/Elizabeth Mitchell/TMBG Division) to make Top 50 charts at iTunes and Amazon.

All of which is to say, Justin Lansing and Joe Mailander, those boys from Minnesota, had a mighty big task in following up that album. Did they succeed with Through the Woods: An Appalchian Adventure Album?

It's hard to say, precisely because of its predecessor's tremendous success. Are all the elements there? Yes -- a big-hearted spirit, a fancy for metaphor, tenderness leavened with humor, it's all there.  But I would be lying if I said I had the same instantaneous reaction to this new album as I did 2 years ago, and maybe the reason it's taken me 3 months to write this review is that I've been trying to figure out why.

The best answer I can come up with -- and it's not a great one, though it is an honest one -- is that it's mellower, its philosophy perhaps more inwardly focused.  Compared to Canoe, whose can-do attitude and celebration of exploration was front-and-center from the first note (my NPR review of the album is one my favorite pieces there and draws heavily on those themes), this new album, inspired by walks along the Appalchian Trail, generally sings in a more relaxed key.  The title track, featuring a lovely descending bass line, is the spiritual successor to the last album's title track, but most of the songs are more content to celebrate tiny moments -- dancing with neighbors in "Jamboree," the gentle love song "Evergreen," the ode to keeping things loose "Out of Tune."

The Brothers do a good job of reworking some well-known folk tunes like "Big Rock Candy Mountain" (featuring Hubby Jenkins from the Carolina Chocolate Drops) and "Hillbilly Willy," their version of "Old Dan Tucker."  Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer each make a separate appearance, with Marxer's banjo playing on "Fiddlestick Joe" of particular note. Dean Jones co-produces with Lansing and Mailander, and Jed Anderson with his usual light (and spot-on) touch.

The album will be most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 9.  The album packaging, featuring art from Brandon Reese, is lovely -- it's the sort of thing that warms this physical product fan's heart.  (There is also a DVD with music videos and footage from the trip.)

So, in sum, Through the Woods is an excellent album, one that should provide your family with hours of very pleasurable listening.  If you came to love the band because of Can You Canoe? then you will continue to love them no less after this new album.  And if you, like me, love this album a little bit less, it's OK, too -- it's still pretty great.  Highly recommended.

Video: "Echo" - The Okee Dokee Brothers

By the time you read this, hopefully I will have crossed a small portion of the Appalachian Trail as part of our family's summer vacation.  Maybe we'll just essentially drive across it, or maybe we'll have time to walk a mile on America's most famous trail.

So I'm using that as an excuse to post one of the videos from The Okee Dokee Brothers' latest album, Through the Woods.  It's an album inspired by and partially written during the duo's trek along parts of the Appalachian Trail, and this song, "Echo," has, as you might expect from its title, a sing-along chorus.

I do not plan on jumping into a large body of water from a multiple-story-tall cliff, however.

The Okee Dokee Brothers - "Echo" [YouTube]

Interview: Raffi

Raffi is the man whose music literally created the kids music section -- his first kids music albums, starting with Singable Songs for the Very Young, were so popular that record stores created new sections for his music.

This week, Raffi releases Love Bug, his first kids music album since 2002.  His voice is in as fine a form as ever, and his gentle music will likely stir up fond feelings in the hearts of Raffi's "Belugagrads," those who grew up listening to, say, Raffi's Baby Beluga album and who now bring their own kids to Raffi's concerts.

Raffi and I chatted on the phone as he came back from a walk.  It was an appropriate lead-in to an interview about his new album and his views on the (in)appropriateness of information technology and social media for kids.

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Zooglobble: What are your first musical memories?

Raffi: Of my father singing and playing accordion in Cairo, where I lived for the first ten years of my life.  I loved to hear him play -- he would hold court with his big, booming voice.

I first sang in the Armenian Church choir in Toronto with my dad when I was eleven, twelve years old.

In my teenage years, I listened to the Beatles.  I bought a guitar from a pawn shop when I was sixteen and sang in 3-part harmony with friends.  We listened to Pete Seeger, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan...

What are your memories of being outside, in nature?

When we lived in Cairo, I remember we'd get into our two-tone Studebaker and drive up to a cafe, the Cafe du Vue de la Pyramide -- the "Cafe with the View of the Pyramids."  We'd play in the Cairo sands.

When I first came to Canada, to Toronto, it was quite different for me to experience sliding on ice.  

My father took us to see the fall colors outside of Toronto.  I loved it, so much so that I won a poster contest with my drawing of the woods.  I was thirteen years old, and my poster won the Smokey the Bear Fire Prevention Contest from over 5,000 entries.  I remember it like it was yesterday… it was titled "Keep It Peaceful."

It's been more than a decade since you last released an album of kids music, though you've been recording other music and commenting a lot on social media -- what made you want to go back and record a new album (Love Bug)?

I think it's going forward, actually.  I always make music when I feel a new stirring, and I felt like I wanted to do one for the Belugagrads, the term of endearment for millions of fans.  I wrote these songs about the joy of the real world.  It's the first Raffi album in the digital era.

The [title track] itself came from a little guitar riff, you can hear it in the song, and for the first time I played the piano.  I recorded the whole thing in my living room, and about 80% of the whole album was recorded at my home in Salt Spring Island, an island of about 10,000 people between Vancouver Island and Vancouver.

You've written about the potential dangers of information technology and social media, particularly for kids under 13, in your book Lightweb/Darkweb.  How did those themes manifest themselves in the new album? 

It was clearly a response to the digital overreach in our lives.  It prompted a full-on celebration of the real world.  [That connection] is the primary purpose of being human.  It has nothing to do with InfoTech [Information Technology] devices.  Those devices are not designed for kids' hands and laps.

My position -- that those of developmental experts like Terry Brazelton and Penelope Leach -- is that kids' primary attachment should be people -- that's what a child needs to bond with.  The internet is the opposite -- it's shiny and flat.  It's too seductive, too powerful an intrusion.  The reports of tech device dependency and addiction in young people bears me out.

It's hard for middle-aged people to avoid.

Yes.  Younger kids need to learn how to use these.  It's not fair [to them].

You know, you could go back and listen to albums like Singable Songs for the Very Young at the start of your nearly 40-year recording career, and the listener would find those same themes of connection and natural world there, too.

Sometimes I think, why record a new album now?  Have I already said it all?  But there's room for creativity, to say things in new ways.  Like, that impulse to hug someone, where does it come from?  In "Love Bug," from viruses.

Have you noticed any changes in your live audiences from when you were last performing consistently?  More faces turned down, looking at black or white rectangles?

Not at all -- it's a remarkably similar vibe compared to when I was doing it in the '90s.  We ask the audience to turn their cell phones off, not record anything.  The audience is all singing along.

I play a lot of the familiar songs, respecting the kids' needs for their familiar toys.  Most of the adults are Belugagrads, so they're experiencing it in two ways, both as parents as well as in their hearts from childhood.

I'm a very lucky man.

Any other plans after the release of Love Bug?

Well, I'd like to eat lunch.

Ha!

Then there's dinner...

Ha!

That's one of my favorite subjects… But there are more shows coming -- I hope to announce some shows in the United States soon, they're more "select shows" rather than touring.

There are new songs brewing, I'll be recording a new CD this fall.  It's a very creative time for me right now.  I'm loving the power of music within me and the embodied joy young children are.  I hope that my fans find diverse pleasures [on Love Bug], different moods to hear.

Photo credits: Billie Woods