Tag Archives: Dog on Fleas

A Dadnabbit Concert Event!

I realize posts have been lighter than normal around here lately, but summertime isn’t just for taking vacations and soaking up the sun — it’s for doing things with your family, and that’s what I’ve been up to for the last couple of months. We’ll get back to business as usual as the temperatures drop, but in the meantime, here’s some exciting news for readers in the northeast: Dadnabbit’s first foray into concert promotion!

Dog on Fleas is one of our favorite bands, and when they let us know they were looking for a place to play in the area, we immediately thought of The Orchard School, a beautiful children’s enclave in rural Alstead, NH. A few phone calls later, we were counting down the days to August 20th, when the band will arrive for an evening of food (dinner is included in the ticket price) and family entertainment.

If you’re anywhere in the area, we’d love it if you could make it out to the show. Get directions here, and if you have any questions, send me an e-mail and I’ll be happy to help!

CD Review: Dog on Fleas, “Beautiful World”

Beautiful World – Dog on Fleas (2008, Dog on Fleas)
purchase this CD (Amazon)

Until I listened to Beautiful World, I’d never heard of Dog on Fleas, but now that I’ve let the album play on repeat a few dozen times — and I know it’s the band’s fifth kids’ collection — I’m making it my mission to find out where they’ve been all my life.

I have to be honest and tell you that Beautiful World failed the Sophie Test — despite my enthusiasm for Dog on Fleas, my three-year-old has never shown much of an interest in these songs — but I don’t care, because this is one of the smartest, most adventurous children’s album’s I’ve had the pleasure of listening to. The band is known for its freewheeling experimental approach to record-making — their debut was apprently recorded around a single microphone, and 2006’s When I Get Little adopted a world-music feel — and Beautiful World reflects this, making room for everything from gently loping ballads to falsetto funk workouts, and utilizing everything from kazoos to electronic flourishes in the process.

It’s a lot of fun, no matter how old you are, but since this is a kids’ record, Beautiful World also comes packed with an assortment of positive messages about self (“Star Tonight”), family (“Crawl to Your Mother”), people in general (“I Love Your Accent”), and the world (“Water Planet”), with all the pure silliness you’d expect, too (“Do You Wanna Know My New Dance Step?,” “Balloon Man”).

Beautiful World is obviously targeted toward a youthful audience, but it’s an album I wouldn’t mind listening to even when the kids aren’t around — and I just might toss a track or two into future editions of the Popdose Friday Mixtape, just to see if anyone picks up on their tunes-for-tots origins. Great, great stuff.