Author Archives: Jeff Giles

About Jeff Giles

Jeff Giles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Popdose and Dadnabbit, as well as an entertainment writer whose work can be seen at Rotten Tomatoes, Paste Magazine, and a number of other sites.

Say Hello to Pied Piper Radio

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We write a lot here about stuff you can buy for your kids, but this is a consumer and entertainment guide for dads, so we’d be remiss if we didn’t fill you in on an exciting — and totally free! — development in the world of children’s entertainment.

Say hello to Pied Piper Radio!

Developed by Amberly Warnke, the proprietor of Ages 3 and Up!, Pied Piper Radio is a weekly radio show for kids, syndicated through the Public Radio Exchange. What does it all mean to you? That someone has started a kids’ music program for the public radio audience. In other words: No commercials, no singing toys, and none of the corporate tie-ins that tend to bedevil even some of the best in the genre (like those “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” jingles that They Might Be Giants did). Music that matters to kids, not music that’s aimed at them.

And even though you may not have heard of her, or listened to Ages 3 and Up!, Warnke is well qualified for this kind of undertaking, with an ear for fun, honest children’s entertainment. Names like Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke, Dean Jones, Brian Vogan, Ratboy Jr., and Michael Rachap of Readeez popped up on her 3 and Up! playlists, and as you know if you’ve been reading this site for any length of time, we stand firmly in support of those artists getting as much airplay as possible.

But if Pied Piper Radio isn’t available in your market yet — or if you don’t even know how to find the public station on your dial — don’t fret. You can sample the show’s goodness right here. And if you are familiar with your local public station, even better — point them at that link and let them know you’d love to have more high-quality family entertainment on your airwaves.

CD Review: Sugar Free Allstars, “Funky Fresh and Sugar Free”

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My daughter wasn’t much older than three when she strolled down the hallway after a bath one night, turned around, dropped her towel, and instructed me to “look at the rump” while she danced around. Moral of the story: Kids love to dance.

Most kids’ musicians know this, and most albums of kids’ music include at least a song or two about getting up and moving around — but most of them are lacking that crucial groove thang that hits you in your funky bone. The best music made for children is many things — fun, educational, smart, tender, catchy — but generally speaking, it does not bring the funk.

Unless it’s made by the Sugar Free Allstars, that is.

The Allstars (a.k.a. vocalist/Hammond player/saxophonist Chris “Boom!” Wiser and drummer Rob “Dr. Rock” Martin) continue their winning streak with their second album for kids, Funky Fresh and Sugar Free. Not only does the new set expand the band’s spartan aesthetic (one track, “SFA Disco Dance Party,” even includes disco strings), the songs make it clear Wiser and Martin have picked up a few lessons at their gigs, because the album is stuffed with tracks that leave room for audience participation. Right from the start of the first track, “Rock Awesome,” you can tell the Allstars want to get kids on their feet. “How we gonna rock?” shouts Wiser, and a crowd of kids’ voices comes back with the only appropriate response: “We’re gonna rock awesome!”

Also begging for singalong status are “Hey Now, It’s Your Birthday” — which even makes room for your own birthday boy or girl’s name at one point — and “Tiger in My Backyard,” which concludes with a nod to James Brown that will get a grin from funky fresh parents. Other highlights include the strutting “In My Pocket,” the very funny (and inspirational) “6th Grade Band,” and the Allstars’ cover of “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da,” although to only name those three is a little misleading, because there aren’t really any lowlights. It’s fun stuff, all of it — music that not only fills a rump-shaking void in a mostly quite groove-deficient genre, but that families can enjoy with their own SFA dance parties. If you haven’t experienced the Sugar Free Allstars yet, it’s time to get on the good foot.

DVD Review: “Bert & Ernie’s Great Adventures”

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I was born in 1974, and my youngest sibling was born in 1985, which means my Sesame Street viewing was at its peak during what I’ll refer to (totally subjectively and sort of crankily) as the golden age of PBS kids’ programming, and fell off sharply around 1983 or so, when Telly Monster was completing his transition from the googly-eyed Television Monster into the annoying worrywart he is today. I didn’t watch another episode until a few years ago, when I decided to introduce my daughter to the joys of playing where everything’s A-OK and the air is clean, only to discover that the sleepy urban burg I remembered from my youth had been taken over by characters I didn’t recognize. Who cares about Baby Bear? Who’s that little fuzzball speaking Spanish all the time? Why so much Elmo? What happened to Bob, Linda, Gordon, Susan, and David? (Okay, probably best not to ask that last question.)

The point is, I’m one of those people that miss the old Sesame Street, when it felt like a real TV neighborhood, with more of a balance between adorable Muppets and kindly humans — and when it all didn’t feel so…I don’t know, clean. So I’m sort of ambivalent about Bert & Ernie’s Great Adventures — I feel like I should be distrustful of a DVD that sends Claymation versions of Sesame Street’s most famous roommates on fantastical escapades, but on the other hand, I miss those guys, and anything that raises their profile over at the Elmo-obsessed Children’s Television Workshop is all right in my book. Continue reading →