Category Archives: Music

I didn’t have much use for Ziggy Marley when he was riding high (ahem) on the charts 20 years ago, with the hacky sack anthem “Tomorrow People,” and nothing I’ve heard from him since then has changed my mind — until now, that is: for his new children’s album, Family Time, Marley has pulled out all the stops, assembling an Ocean’s Eleven-style dream team including some major names both within kids’ entertainment (Elizabeth Mitchell, Jamie Lee Curtis, the dreaded Laurie Berkner) and without (Jack Johnson, Toots Hibbert, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon). The result is a wonderfully easy listen that’s a lot more cohesive than you might think, given the succession of cameos — and if you, like me, have never given Marley much thought, it proves unexpectedly entertaining as well.

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The record strikes a sunny, bucolic vibe right off the bat — the title track, which opens the album, begins with the words “Lift up your hearts with a smile / Life up your feet with a dance / Lift up your spirits with a song” — and holds it steady throughout the first 11 songs. (The last two tracks, brief spoken word snippets narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis, aren’t awful, but neither do they seem terribly necessary.

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) Taken together, the songs form something like a set of training wheels for young would-be reggae fans — not only simply by virtue of Marley’s presence (and those of family members Judah, Rita, and Cedella), but through some savvy choices of material to cover (“Hold ‘Em Low,” “This Train”) or reinterpret (“Wings of an Eagle” spins “If I Had the Wings of a Dove”; “ABC” does the same for “Bend Down Low”), mixed in with some thoroughly enjoyable originals. The guests generally tend to fade sensibly into the framework of whichever songs they appear on, too, with the possible exception of Willie Nelson, who sounds like he thought his bus pass was taking him to a different studio. (Best guest appearance: Paul Simon proving he hasn’t lost his affinity for reggae phrasing on “Walk Tall,” where he trades lines seamlessly with Marley.

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)

Ultimately, the album is a rather slight affair, but then, you get the feeling that’s exactly what Marley was aiming for — an amiable, uncomplicated good time for children of all ages. Call it an unqualified success, then, and prepare for Family Time to last a good, long while in your household.

CD Review: Recess Monkey, “Field Trip”

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Recess Monkey – Field Trip (2009, Recess Monkey)
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When I was a kid, Seattle was the place with nifty architecture where the SuperSonics and the Seahawks played (no reason to care about the Mariners, as ours was a Yankees household). When a got a little older, it was the place where flannel-clad heroin addicts made sad, loud music that the world went crazy for. These days, folks my age tend to think of coffee and economic summits when they think of Seattle — but for my daughter, and a not-inconsiderable number of her peers, it’s the place Recess Monkey comes from.

The band — made up of teachers Drew Holloway, Jack Forman, and Daron Henry — returns in June with its fifth album, Field Trip, fittingly recorded in the music room of the school where they met (and where two of them still teach). Trip continues the absurd one-record-a-year pace Recess Monkey has maintained since debuting with Welcome to Monkey Town in 2005, a work ethic made even more impressive by the fact that each of these songs is a delicious nugget of kidpop goodness that sounds nothing like the work of a group of insanely prolific part-time moonlighters. The album is, in other words, just the right kind of awesome for little ears — as my wife recently discovered, much to her eventual chagrin, during a three-hour drive in which Field Trip, per my daughter’s repeated requests, played on an endless loop.

Still, even after experiencing drivetime burnout, my wife has to admit this is one of the best records we’ve heard all year; she’s particularly enthusiastic about the clever, poppy “L.

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I.C.E.” (it stands for “little insects crawling everywhere”) and the cleverly arranged backing vocals on “Sack Lunch” the lilting “Tiny Telephone.” As for me? Well, I wasn’t on that drive, so I’ve got nothing but love for these songs, especially after blasting them all morning and watching my kids dance and sing along.

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They’re a pleasantly eclectic bunch, with room for everything from the new wave groove of “Hot Chocolate” to the Latin flair of “Ice Pack,” and they’re filled with an infectious sense of fun (example: the velcro solo during “New Shoes”). Whether you’re already a Recess Monkey fan, or just a parent in need of some great new family music, you’ll want to pre-order your copy of Field Trip today.

CD Review: “Robert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine”

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Robert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine – Robert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine (2009, Little Monster)
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There’s a track on the Lonely Island’s Incredibad called “Shrooms” that consists of a guy repeatedly screaming “I’m on shrooms!” over what sounds like a backing track made entirely of eight-bit synths, and while I hasten to point out that there’s no direct correlation between the two, every time I listen to Robert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine, I can’t help hearing “Shrooms” in my head when it’s over. Robert Bobbert — the kids’ rock alter ego of the Apples in Stereo’s Robert Schneider — doesn’t get high at any point during this album, but its blend of chunky, analog-sounding synths and bright, bouncy vocals is cut from similar musical cloth.

Of course, this is probably not the sort of comparison Schneider was hoping for — and actually, Robert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine takes some pretty obvious cues from more kid-friendly sources, such as the Beach Boys, Barnes & Barnes, and They Might Be Giants. It’s an album as brightly colored as its artwork — which, as you can see, is pretty darn bright.

Things start off with “I Am a Clock,” a wonderfully bouncy introduction filled with ticks, tocks, dings, and dongs — get your mind out of the gutter — that sets the Day-Glo tone for the rest of the record. Schneider keeps things moving with “We R Super Heroes,” all buzzy synths, cartoony vocals, and beautiful harmonies, and “Hey Little Puppy,” an uptempo tip of the hat to early Beach Boys with some cool surf guitar that gets in and out under two minutes. In fact, the album doesn’t hit its first bum note until its fourth track, “Fee Fi Fo, Fee Fi Fum,” an annoyingly cute kiddie rap number that sounds like something Dr. Demento might play on an off night.

Fortunately, things get back on track quickly: “Gravity” is a fun two-minute pop song about physics, “Little Duck” combines another perky arrangement with layered vocals and cool synths, and “Boom Boom” is a TMBG-style instrumental; the toy stomp of “Mighty Mighty Elephant” and the slightly punky “Laughing” (both under two minutes in length) are also a lot of fun. “I Love the Animals” is rather grating, but “A Tiny Sheep” closes out the album with a sweet, slightly wobbly lullaby.

As you may have noticed, many of The Bubble Machine‘s tracks are pretty short — the longest one clocks in at 2:35, and quite a few of them are less than two minutes, with the shortest one only a minute and 13 secconds long. For grown-up pop fans, that kind of brevity smacks of laziness, but for younger ears, it’s pretty perfect; rather than trying to make kids’ music that parents will enjoy, Schneider builds this album around what his target audience will enjoy, and makes only slight concessions for older listeners. Don’t buy it if you’re looking for something you can rock in the van while the little ones are at school, but for a brief, fun interlude the whole family can enjoy together, you could certainly do much worse than Robert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine

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Category Archives: Music

CD Review: Ziggy Marley, “Family Time”

CD Review: Recess Monkey, “Field Trip”

CD Review: “Robert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine”