I feel so lame.

You know after Jeff's really wonderful comments on the Terrible Two and the Wiggles earlier, I felt seriously stupid. I should be able to defend the subtitle of this here blog with such eloquence and thoughtfullness. I was mad at myself and frankly just felt lame. And it made me think of something that happened several days ago.

My daughter was invited to a party at a place at the mall entitled Glam Girls. Or maybe it's Girlz with a z. Ugh. Anyway, we went, we're pretty good friends with the parents and such. And don't think I didn't know it would be bad. But it was far worse than I had imagined. They initially tried to put her in an outfit that didn't even begin to cover her incredibly petite five year old body, to which she thankfully said, "Um, I can't wear this, my tummy shows" and then she chose a full length goth number. But it was downhill from there. Make-up ("Just sparkles please" I micromanaged), nails, hair-do's that were surely don'ts by anyone's standards and they included FALLS as in FAKE HAIR, lots of it. They paraded them through the mall like this (which is wrong on many levels.) Then they went to a room with a stage and a kareoke machine. The choices were all Disney tunes: Hannah Montana, High School Musical, the Princess Collection, the Duff girl, and so on. My daughter felt weird because she didn't know any of these songs. I felt weird because every other girl did. These were all five year olds. They knew this stuff. And here I point to Eric's comment about the commercialization of it: these CDs, every last one of them, were not put out because of talent or a love of music or anything resembling art. They were put out to sell t-shirts and make-up and fake hair and yes, toothbrushes. I was mad there too, and wanted to take her out of there. But I didn't want to be rude or offend any other parents and I know better than to make a big deal out of not liking something in front of my daughter. It would have hurt her at that point and caused some major backlash, surely.

Now, let me skip and hop over to another disheartening experience I have been having for some time now. One of my for a living jobs is a weekly advice column I write for a girl's website. I get mostly 9-12 year olds writing in with their problems, wishes and dreams. And this week's topic, although it's a constant theme really, revolved around "careers." These nine-year olds that are fed a constant diet of Disney marketing and beyond have one dream. It ain't to be a musician, or to be an actress like it was when I was younger. It's to be "famous." They just want the fame part, the empty part. They don't care about music or art. They'll take whatever gets tossed down their throats and gobble it up and want to be it but "it" isn't a musician or singer. It's just famous. And that is so freaking depressing.

I love what Jeff said about pursuing things made with passion, in all parts of his life, and that has been a constant in the hubby and mine's discourse about parenting. And as a side benefit I believe it diffuses the idol worship a little. That's why we started taking her to see shows when we could, that's why I cried when we saw Barabra Brousal with her guitar, with Dan Zanes and my then two year old daughter stood under her so close she could see up her skirt because Tuesday was so enamored with this real-life person in front of her playing wonderful music. That's why I started this blog, because when I spoke to some of my parent friends they were also looking for something that was real. Not just something, but somethings as in lotsa, as in a smorgasbord of different music that had passion and life and fun and emotion behind it. Played and performed by real musicians who did it because they loved it in a truly accesible way. She loves Pancake Mountain because it's inspiring, she feels like she could make that. And she's tried. She's gotten Dad to film her in crazy skits and she isn't the least bit disapointed when she watched them and their less than perfect. They're real and she's proud.

So, I still feel stupid. Jeff said it all way better than I could. And we still have the fake hair piece, hanging on a hook in her room. And she really liked the Glam Girlz experience unfortunately. But she didn't like the music and asked for one of her CDs in the car on the way home and I'm grateful for that much. She'll have to make her own way, but at least we're offering up options.

I'll try and put some music up later tonight. Thanks for listening to me rant on and on.

Merry Chanukah

Hey, they're the premier Jew band of the season-- the LeeVees. They are Adam Gardner (Guster) and Dave Schneider (the Zambonis) and they put out an indie rock record last year called Hanukkah Rocks.

There is also an iTunes exclusive EP which I will not post for you here but you can go get for pennies.

On their website you can get ringtone and ringback tones of their mini-songs, "I Want an iPod (and By The Way, Happy Hanukkah") and "Little Jewish Friend."

There is an e-Card too. And live shows? Yep, they're even playing a temple in Connecticut. Here are the dates:

Dec 16th - Bridgeport, CT @ Temple B'nai Israel
Dec 17th - Chicago, IL @ Kinetic Playground - Dave and Adam acoustic
Dec 21st - Boston, MA @ TT The Bears - Dave and Adam acoustic
Dec 23rd - Brooklyn, NY @ Southpaw Jewltide w/ Corn Mo & Tim Fite

Hey, they're fun. And pretty damn funny, too.

The LeeVees, "Nun Gimmel"
The LeeVees, "Applesauce vs. Sour Cream"

Visit their site.

Who likes owls? Best of 06, Vol. 2

One of my favorite CDs for the whole family this year was a release that until oh, this morning, wasn't available for sale. I'm talking of the Terrible Twos, "If You Ever See An Owl." The Cd has been complete for some time but the band was looking for a label to put it out. Now they've gone and put up a little impromptu eBay store and I like because this is a great holiday gift for your children and those children of people you like.

The Terrible Twos are led by Matt Pryor (formally of the Get-Up Kids and currently of The New Amsterdams) and the music is just good. The lyrics range from simple and silly to junior indie rock stuff. It's played so well and it doesn't sound like any other music made for kids really and yet it's wholly appropriate.

This from an interview with their local paper, in Lawrence Kansas (the gal quoted is Julia Peterson of the band The Breaks)

Matt: Well, we say 'songs for children.' The idea is to make music that kids would like as much as adults would like. Because Barney and The Wiggles and stuff like that is just incredibly annoying crap. So I'm just trying to write little folky pop songs but have them be about dinosaurs and bugs and stuff like that. We'll say 'kids record' - that's fine. I just kind of want to disassociate myself. I don't want to be a 'kids' artist.'

Julia: You don't wear a costume or anything when you play.

Matt: No, not at all. I mean, definitely you have to engage the kids. I'm figuring it out as I go along. It's different. There's the kind of rock-band way, like: 'Alright, how's everybody doing tonight!?' Kids just go 'eh.' So you gotta be like, 'Alright, who likes owls!?'

"Caroline" is about a girl whose birthday is just 3 days before Christmas and the upside to this apparent downer. Truly, this is my fave CD of the year for families and my daughter's hands-down fave too. No princesses, no Power Rangers, just mighty fine singing and songwriting.

The Terrible Twos, "Caroline"
The Terrible Twos, "When I get To Eleven"

You can now buy this CD. Fantastic. Go here and do just that, while you're there you can pick up a New Amsterdams t-shirt.

And here is their website: theterribletwos.net
And the New Amsterdams are good, too.

)))) (((((

*I don't know these people, I'm not plugging friends, we just like the goods. If you're looking for good baby / kid gifts, my husband's favorite online store is Little Ruler. It's pretty great, chock full of licensed skate designs. My daughter sports her "Skateboarding is not a crime shirt" proudly.

Food Fight!

I know this has been on a zillion blogs already but c'mon, it's quite perfect for my admitedlly tiny audience: the goofiness of it all, the food throwing, the yeah yeahs. It's all so catchy! And the discussion questions you can circulate to the little ones afterward: would you be angered if someone threw food at you in the name of the fun, if it were something you didn't enjoy eating? Or would that make it worse, as in "they wasted a good plate of s'ghetti and meatballs!"?

Matt and Kim, "Yea Yeah" (Video)



And now, the song, for your files.

Matt and Kim, "Yea Yeah"

Check out more songs at their site.

And thanks Heather for the little blue arrow code!! Check it out people, you click de arrow and you can hear the song on. this. page. Yippee! How simple.

***

I'm in a pickle, of sorts. Not a big pickle, one of those teeny gherkins. And I know, all bloggers deal with this. Since I'm blogging about kids and music, I get a lot of kids' music these days. Sent free to my house. Which is swell, I mean, I love mail. But here's the rub: I don't like kids' music. I mean, I started this blog because I like playing my daughter music that ALL of us can enjoy together. Sure, occasionally that means some vague semblence of kids music (Lunch Money, Dan Zanes, The Terrible Twos) but far more often than not, it means music originally intended for bigger people. I know there has been much said about making kids too cool for school and I agree with the statement that I don't have to like all the music she likes. But it sure makes life more fun when I do because we listen to music in this house together. We also watch TV, when we do, together (and that means I've seen every ep of Power Rangers Mystic Force, mind you) but that's what we do. Will there come a time when she does these things on her own? Of course, sooner than later I'm sure. (And she does play alone and draw alone, fyi, I don't shadow her every move!) But music is often on and we really do listen as a family and most of what I get in the mail, 99% actually, while I know the musicians put their heart and soul into it and time and energy and money and all that jazz, I still don't wanna listen to it. I all too often find it seriously hokey, kind of un-clever and mostly poorly executed. Or boring. Was that too harsh? Yikes. So publicists, please, don't send me this stuff because I feel lousy about not liking it, I don't want to be a critic and frankly, I don't know what to do with these disks... can they be recycled? Case in point, and I don't wanna single anyone out, but geez this band has plenty of fans, my handful of readers hearing this ain't gonna be a blow to their sales (I hope!, truly) but I got the recent Milkshake CD. We saw them on the pretty horrible Disney tour that Dan Zanes was on and well we really wanted to see Dan so we went and they were pretty bad. But you know, my kid liked one of the songs live so when we got the CD, I gave it a fair shake and put it on for her. We listened. She dug a song and asked for it to be played again. I cringed but did it, thinking of Christopher Noxon's recent post. I didn't let on that I didn't enjoy it, I didn't. She asked for it again the next day, we put it on, she made it through two songs and said she didn't like it anymore. Amen. If you like kids' music or your kids like kids' music then you could get them this Milkshake CD or Hilary Duff or her sister or some other over-enounciated sunny plastic pop. Or I could send it to you. I've got a copy with no place to go.