Category Archives: Featured

Summer Reading Recommendations from the Deedle Deedle Dees

Exiles in Eden by Paul Reyes

I’ve recommended this book many times on my blog and elsewhere, but I bring it up again because now I’m writing a musical movie based on it with my friend Roy Nathanson. In September, he and the Jazz Passengers — with me playing a small guest vocalist role — will debut some songs from the project at the Stone, a club in Manhattan for which John Zorn serves as artistic director. Then, if we can raise the money, we’re actually going to make the movie and shop it around.

I’m currently re-reading this book as I work on the script and am again incredibly moved by it — and upset that more people haven’t read it. Exiles tells the story of the housing collapse in Florida with Paul’s family story as its through line. It’s easiest to say it’s literary nonfiction in the John McPhee mold but that doesn’t give you a real sense of just how mighty this book is. It almost reads like one long prose poem, one that clarifies the confusing mortgage crisis for people (like myself) who are in need of a remedial economics class, but simultaneously waxes large and profound on the ephemeral nature of human effort and our place in the ever-powerful and changing natural world.

Woody Guthrie: A Life by Joe Klein

This is the book Springsteen mentions on the live album before he plays “This Land is Your Land.” And this is the author who also gave us Primary Colors (a book I enjoyed at the time). It really is the best one-volume treatment of an icon whose life was long and full of contradictions. Necessary reading, I think, if you want to know more about the man who wrote all those songs you’ll hear on Keep Hoping Machine Running, the new digital Woody tribute album featuring the Dees and many other artists.

This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie, illustrated by Kathy Jakobsen

The complete original lyrics of the tune (including my favorite “no trespassing” verse) paired with cool paintings that depict the world Woody wandered in the 20s and 30s.

Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

My family is slowly making our way through the Little House books, a series I never appreciated as a child but have really grown to admire as an adult. As a boy, I only wanted books about war and sports so a tale of frontier life focused primarily on girls was something I just dismissed without even trying to give it a fair read.

Now that I’m the father of a little girl who’s obsessed with how things work — and a little boy who’s obsessed with anything that hints at being dangerous — I find these stories to be among the few pieces of literature that everyone in my family actually enjoys. My wife read and loved them as a kid and is excited to read them again. I’m getting into all the minute descriptions of hog slaughtering, cheese making, and other farm tasks — they’re fascinating in and of themselves, but they’re also giving me ideas for another project in its very beginning stages: a collection of songs about work that may become a Dees album, themed show, or some multi-media hybrid.

Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne

Mary Pope Osborne’s historical fiction has been just as important for fueling my kids’ interest in stories from the past as Laura Ingalls Wilder’s memoirs, but the two series couldn’t possibly be more different. The Magic Tree House books have simple fantasy-mystery narratives adorned with the historical types of which kids never seem to tire: mummies, knights, Vikings, ninjas, etc. I was initially skeptical of these books and only brought them into their house as audiobooks to help my kids — who always seem to get a powerful second wind at bedtime — relax and fall asleep. Now, after these books have prompted not a few historical fact-finding missions for our family, I consider myself a big fan.

Tales from the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne

Myths have taken a prominent position in our household discussions after my wife and I created an original musical of the Aeneid with her second-grade class. Mary Pope Osborne retells Homer’s epic in a simple chapter book format. Right now we’re working on Book Three: Sirens and Sea Monsters.

D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d’Aulaire and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire

Although the language may seem archaic to kids used to the conversational style of many new books , this is still the best version of the Greek myths for young readers. Plus, it’s got those awesome pictures (my son can’t get over the picture of Cronus with the babies in his belly) that many parents still remember in great detail from their own childhoods.

The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro

I came late to this series. It’s been on my to-read list for many years but it wasn’t until I read the excerpt from the fourth book, The Passage of Power, in the New Yorker, an account of JFK”s assassination focused on LBJ’s experiences of the event, that I felt an intense need to read all the books immediately. I bought volumes 1-3 a couple of months ago and, after devoting a good amount of my life to Mr. Caro’s prose, am cruising through volume 3 (I’m going to pick it back up right after I finish writing this). These books live up to all the hype and then some.

Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr

David, the poetry critic for the New York Times, is collaborating with me and Roy on another project that will debut at the Stone in September: a set of music and poetry and musings on both. We invited David to join us after reading his fantastic book on what poetry is and isn’t. The books is also about how poetry — an art form that many view as intimidating, confusing, and best left to high school English classes — can become part of one’s life as a reader and human being in simple and powerful ways.

Here’s a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry, edited by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, illustrated by Polly Dunbar

Speaking of poetry, the last book I’d like to recommend your family check out this summer is this wonderful anthology our school librarians gave my daughter as a gift a few years ago. I’m not a big fan of “children’s poetry” in general so I was pleasantly surprised by this gathering of newer and classic verses curated by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters that includes people who write specifically for children as well as people — like Gertrude Stein and Langston Hughes — who don’t.

My First Record with Molly Ledford of Lunch Money: ‘Meet the Beatles!’

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One night, when I was seven years old, my father blasted Meet the Beatles! from his stereo. I think it was some kind of mistake. Maybe he thought he had his fancy, chunky headphones plugged in. We were in bed and it was LOUD. And irresistible. “I want to hold your ha-a-a-a-and!” I ran to the living room, unknowingly joining that classic mob. Yet another girl completely, almost tearfully, enthralled by the early Beatles.

My father did woodworking as a hobby and had built himself a little corner of shelves to house his stereo equipment and records. Receivers glowed with backlit needles dancing in VU meters, and the whole thing looked downright scientific. I knew that records were to be handled reverently by the edges, and, furthermore, that the little, lesser, player in my room was deemed not fit for my parents’ collection. How was I going to get my hands on this record and play it to my heart’s content?

One Saturday morning a few months later, my neighbors had a garage sale and I wandered curiously over with a little change in my pocket. There, in a box of records inexplicably separated from their jackets (who were these barbarians living next door?), I found their copy of Meet the Beatles! Twenty-five cents later, it was mine.

I took that record home and, in the privacy of my room, I could play it over and over. It was terribly scratched, but I could deal with that. To this day, I expect those songs to skip the way I listened to them hundreds of times. “All My Loving.” “Hold Me Tight.” “It Won’t Be Long.” It was the Beatles as America first knew them — all pop perfection, yet raw and rollicking too. It was adult love but fun and vague, and I spent many hours staring at their faces on my parents’ copy, reading the liner notes and listening along to my own scratchy record.

My parents’ Beatles selection bookended the band: they had Meet the Beatles! and Abbey Road. The summer I turned ten, having started guitar lessons, I bought myself a book of Beatles songs with easy chords. I became a one-girl Beatles cover band (again, in the privacy of my room), picking out the melodies of so many unfamiliar-to-me Beatles songs and doing my best to sing them. There I was, guessing at French for “Michelle” or puzzling through the delivery of the verses on “Give Peace a Chance.” A little bittersweet? As the years went by, I would be fascinated each time I finally heard the real recording of one of these songs and got to see how close or far off I had been. Still, that book got me started on something that would become a core part of my identity. I was someone who liked to sing and play.

My parents’ copy of Meet The Beatles! now hangs in a record frame on my own living room wall. It was never really theirs to begin with. My aunt’s name is written in careful cursive in the top left corner. A few years ago at a rare family reunion, I mentioned the record to the original owner, thinking she might like to hear how much it had meant to me. Her face lit up and she looked over at my other aunt. Suddenly they were telling me about how they had watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. How they had taken pictures of the television screen with their camera in excitement. And how they had snuck out of the house that night and walked to the record store to buy that album. It’s kind of a magical record that way.

Lunch Money‘s marvelous new album, Spicy Kid, is out now — sample some tunes at the band’s website!

Desert Island Discs with Recess Monkey

Drew:

Jellyfish, Spilt Milk

Just two records from this amazing Bay Area band. I feel robbed. This collection encapsulates so many different influences and emotions. Like many records, this one is the soundtrack for a certain point in my life. There are layers upon layers, melodically and lyrically. I could listen to “Russian Hill” on repeat forever. Never thought I’d fall so hard for a harmonica solo.

XTC, Skylarking

I was first introduced to XTC by a cassette tape my brother got from a friend. It was a copy of Skylarking. This friend had even reproduced the album art on loose leaf binder paper and cut it to size to fit in the plastic tray. From the opening notes of “Summer’s Cauldron” I was hooked. I wish I could crawl inside this record and live there.

And I might just sneak Pet Sounds and Kid A in my pack back while no one is looking. And I could probably fit Summerteeth in my toiletries bag — can I bring one of those?

Daron:

Pixies, Surfer Rosa/Come On Pilgrim

This is one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite bands — a UK release of the Pixies’ first LP and EP combined. You feel like you’re in the studio with the band…full of energy and saucy banter.

Sigur Ros, Ágætis Byrjun

When I first got this album I listened to it for about a week straight. It is so full of textures and layers that I’m still discovering nuances. Sigur Ros continues to create amazing soundscapes, but I’ll never forget the first time I heard them.

Jack:

Elliott Smith, Figure 8

It’s really a toss-up between Figure 8 and xo, but Eliott Smith is definitely at the top of my desert island list. Where to begin? I think he had an exceptional ear for harmony, and I love how he reinforced melodies with several instruments playing in unison. The guy was a downright prodigy — he played nearly all of the instruments on his albums — and manages to channel the Beatles without simply emulating them. He even recorded a lot of his later work at Abbey Road! He had some real problems in his non-musical life, but musically speaking he’s the musician I most wish I were.

John Vanderslice, Pixel Revolt

It’s no secret to Recess Monkey devotees that we¹re die-hard John Vanderslice fans. He manages to keep cranking out amazing albums that represent real growth each time — what an inspiration to see another artist who never stops growing! Pixel Revolt isn’t his newest album, but it’s the one that sticks with me the most — such a unique blend of acoustic guitar, synth pop and manufactured beats. To top it off, he’s a really nice guy AND runs a great all-analog studio in SF. We keep talking about how we can figure out a way to record there.

A Tribe Called Quest, The Low End Theory

Jazz rap. Such a great album — this is one of the ones that instantly transports me back in time, but it is still remarkably fresh to my ears. I remember seeing the video for “Scenario” on MTV for the first time thinking “what IS this!?” It totally changed hip hop for me. Q-Tip is such a powerful MC! This is my favorite hip hop album of all time.

Steely Dan, Gaucho

This is another real toss-up. I LOVE Steely Dan, and each of their records has a special place in my brain. One would definitely be on the list, and this minute it’d be Gaucho. The utter smoothness of “Babylon Sisters” is what’s ringing in my ears as I type this… But if I think about it too long, I’ll probably change my mind to Can’t Buy a Thrill, and then Aja… It never ends. Such an impressive body of work!

Dadnabbit

Dads writing about kids' culture