Indian Thriller

Giant 123s Arrive

The kids album of the year is already here and it was not conceived by those fabulously flamboyant Wiggles, lost-indigo-girl Laurie Berkner or that sickenly-cute-little-red menace, Elmo. Ironically, the same band that once wrote such lyrics as “someday mother will die and I’ll get the money” and “minimum wage (yaaaah!)” has put together (yet another) incredibly listenable collection of songs about numbers that kids and parents can enjoy together. And the kicker is that it’s actually educational.

One great thing about 123s is that is a full media experience. The 1 CD 1 DVD set has 27 songs and 24 videos. The puppets of John and John are also pure genius and hearken “back” to when they collaborated with the homestarrunner.com gang.

The music is fun. In typical TMBG fashion, it’s not possible to classify the album as anything but an eclectic mix of genres. The sort of thing that would kill just about any other band is gold for them. The song Zeroes has my three year old singing about millions and millionths. High Five is our family favorite, particularly because my daughter thinks “down-low-too-slow” is the greatest since the finger in warm water to pee the bed trick. I could go one and explain how Seven is mixed by the Dust Brothers or that there are some weird Disney tracks at the end due to a much deserved Disney sponsorship, but you get the picture. Now go forth and buy it, put it in your car CD player and enjoy the fact that you’re listening to TMBG with your kids and not Raffi. Just be careful because you might find yourself singing “On Mondays, I never go to work…”

Sesame Street Introduced Me to Music

When I was a kid growing up in the 70s, the songs on Sesame Street were extremely awesome. Today’s are good too, but it’s just not the same as these:

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Coming Soon - Here Come the 123s

Any of you who resisted the garbage on commercial radio during your formative and college years probably grew up listening to the thoughtful and wacky tracks from John Flansburgh and John Linnel, better known as They Might Be Giants. Noodad and I both agree that their best collective effort is Flood which contained favorites such as “Birdhouse in Your Soul”, “Particle Man” and their classic cover of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”.

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The New King of Kid Rock

No bawida baw here! Music is important at Castle Fooskull. If you’re like foodad, you find yourself battling with a vast armada of kid’s music. In our house, we are bombarded by Disney princess music bombs, Sesame Street mortars, and Wiggles “friendly” fire. Not that they are bad, but at the end of the day still very juvenile and repetitive.

I ask “Where is the music that speaks to the kids, but doesn’t grate on the mind of a noodad after the 4 millionth listen?” Enter the new King of Kids Music, Justin Roberts. Roberts’s clever and hilarious lyrics and James-Taylor-like soothing and easy to understand voice and nifty guitar licks are like bandages for my musical wounds. His songs are about topics that kids can relate to like riding in the car, waiting for the bus, being bullied, funny animals and blaming your siblings. When I am listening and paying attention to the lyrics, I can see myself involved in the hilarious situations for example: in One Little Cookie he sings about stealing cookies before dinner “One Eye watching the kitchen door, one hand reaching for the cookie jar”. Basically he hears the voice of his mother in his head telling him that he should not be eating cookies before dinner “Mama always said no treats before. Mama always said no sweets before, yeah but one little cookie wouldn’t spoil my dinner now would it?”. He goes on to eat about 10 cookies and then his mother calls him for dinner “And when I heard her, I did a double take and grabbed a cookie, just for old time’s sake!”.
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