In Concert: Symphony Space's Just Kidding

Full disclosure: I grew up a half-mile from Symphony Space on Manhattan's Upper West Side (I recall going to some of the very earliest Selected Shorts readings in high school, back before they'd become an institution all unto themselves), and it will always hold a special place in my heart. (I was very sad to see last week the news of the recent death of one of the venue's founders, Isaiah Sheffer, a man who epitomized the vibe of the Upper West Side of my childhood.)

But it had been a long time since I'd set foot inside the place—enough time for it to undergo a massive renovation, in fact—until I had kids and learned about the Just Kidding series there. Turns out the series features concerts by, oh, pretty much all the children's musicians I write about on this blog: Remaining on the schedule for this season are the likes of Justin Roberts, Gustafer Yellowgold, Elizabeth Mitchell, Uncle Rock, and Frances England, and past seasons have included all our family's favorites that aren't mentioned in that list (Recess Monkey, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, Lunch Money...).

There are also several other cultural shows for kids in the series, from ballet (a performance of The Nutcracker coming up in early December) to percussive dance to acrobatics; my older son and I just saw and thoroughly enjoyed philharMONSTER, an orchestral performance of Halloween-themed music by a pair of local NYC student orchestras (which was no less enjoyable for having had to be postponed until well after Halloween, thanks to Hurricane Sandy). Ticket prices are in the $15 to $25 range generally, and all of it is well worth checking out if you're a parent anywhere in the New York area.

[Image courtesy of Symphony Space]

New Music: In Tents

I sometimes worry that my enthusiasm for Recess Monkey has reached a point of absurdity, but I come by it honestly: The Seattle "teacher-rockers" (as they are now both truthfully and marvelously billed) have long been our family's favorite kid-music band, one of the few that gets my wife as excited about a new release as the two boys are.

I mentioned a little while back that they had just such a new release coming up soon, and, well, here it is: In Tents, the band's eighth(!) album, this one themed around circuses. It took just one listen at our house to see that it more than meets the high standards set by Recess Monkey's previous seven: Within minutes, both of our sons were hopping around the room to "Popcorn" (still their favorite off the album...though "Human Cannonball" and "Odditorium" are pretty close, come to think of it...and "Bouncy House"...OK, I'll stop).

The band's sound is astonishingly tight, as always, and the trio continues to push at their own musical boundaries, as they've done with each new album, experimenting with new sounds and instruments and even production techniques. (They're helped along this time in that last respect by the producer of In Tents, the ubiquitous Dean Jones.)

In fact, as Stefan Shepherd of the indispensible kids'-music site Zooglobble wrote in his review of the album, it feels absurd to burden any band by calling them the "Beatles of children's music"...and yet, with every one of their albums, it becomes harder and harder to avoid using just that phrase. They are most certainly the Fab...uh, Three of kids' music in our household.

I should also mention once more that they are a great band to see live with your kids, and that there are opportunities on both coasts to do so in the immediate future: In their hometown of Seattle, they're playing a bunch of shows to celebrate the release of In Tents with a real, live circus, Teatro ZinZanni; there are four of those shows left, on June 23 and 24, and July 14 and 15. (The show looks fantastic—for a taste, check out the full-length video below that Recess Monkey has put on YouTube.)

And for those of us on the East Coast, well, we don't get the circus, but we get several shots at Recess Monkey themselves: a free morning show on July 24 at NYC Summerstage in Rufus King Park in Queens; two admission shows on July 24 and 25 at 2 p.m. at the Long Island Children's Museum in Garden City; and another free outdoor morning show on July 26 in Madison Square Park in Manhattan at 10:30 a.m. My boys would be the first to tell you they're well worth the trip!



[Cover image courtesy of Recess Monkey]

Now Playing: Sugar Free Allstars, Recess Monkey, Lucky Diaz...

Wanted to do a quick roundup of some upcoming shows by some of the scene's top children's musicians for my readers in the NYC area. Given the near-overlap of a few of these shows, making all of them is probably not possible, but each is worth the trip (and the various new songs and albums they're releasing are all worth a look or a download):

•The ever-prolific Recess Monkey (shown above) are coming east again as part of a "sneak preview" of the June release of FLYING!, their latest studio album. They'll be playing a free show at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library on Saturday, April 30, at 1 p.m., and then another as part of the 92YTribeca's B.Y.O.K series (tickets $15, with kids under 2 free) on Sunday, May 1, at 11 a.m. As I can testify firsthand, parents and kids alike should jump at any chance they get to see these guys whenever they're on our coast!

•Oklahoma City's soul-and-funk-tinged duo Sugar Free Allstars will be at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side on April 30 at 11 a.m. (tickets $11 to $20). They, too, have a new release—a fun single recorded with my personal hero of kid music, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, titled "Cooperate."

•Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band are celebrating the release of their second album, Oh Lucky Day!, with a show at the Knitting Factory ($10) in Brooklyn on Sunday, May 1 at 12:30 p.m.

•And Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could will be promoting their new album, Love Me for Who I Am, with a show at Brooklyn's Southpaw on May 14 at 1 p.m. (tickets $12 in advance, $15 at the door).

 [Photo courtesy of Recess Monkey.]

In Concert: Recess Monkey

It's a bit embarrassing how few live kids'-music shows my family has been to, given that I spend this much time writing about the subject. I always intend to bring the boys to see the acts we enjoy most, but something else always comes up on the weekend or day in question—a visiting relative, a nasty cold. And so a bunch of perfect opportunities have passed us by: Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, Lunch Money, They Might Be Giants. Lame, I know.

Well, not this time. Recess Monkey's much acclaimed The Final Funktier has been in permanent heavy rotation at our house since last summer, so when we saw they were coming east as part of the Just Kidding series at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side of NYC, I knew my six-year-old and I had to be there. (Plus, the hall they were playing there is the site of the old Thalia movie theater, where I spent many an idle weekend afternoon watching old movies as a kid myself. And now it's called the Leonard Nimoy Thalia! It was all meant to be, clearly.)

The band, three working grade-school teachers who were able to tour last week only because they were off for winter break(!), had already played an early show the same day. But you'd never have known that from their energy when they took the stage, grabbing the audience with their catchy uptempo numbers that got the little ones up and dancing. Dash was psyched to hear live versions of tracks he knows from the recent album ("Jet Pack," "Moon Boots," "Booster Seat"). But he was soon singing along with lead singer/guitarist Drew Holloway on tunes he was hearing for the first time as well; thanks in part to the engaging introductions by bassist Jack Forman, it hardly mattered whether you knew the material before you came or not.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that Recess Monkey is better than just about anyone out there at writing these fun, clever, very danceable songs. Dash had a blast, though by about two thirds of the way through the hour-or-so-long show he'd danced and spun himself into near exhaustion. (He was also briefly surprised to discover that the band's "manager," a plush simian named Mayor Monkey, did not move and talk by himself, but was assisted in both tasks by drummer Darin Henry.)

As for me, I was marveling at how these guys, at the top of their game and their field, were making a full NYC house of about a hundred kids and parents feel intimate, like a show played for a group of friends. I suppose being full-time schoolteachers probably helps there; as I asked Dash on the way home, "How cool would it be to have these guys as your teacher?"

After the show ended, the band ran to the back of the house to wish their enthusiastic fan base farewell. We bought a copy of the band's album-before-last, Field Trip, from them, and when the guys offered to sign it for Dash, he was thrilled to near speechlessness. I also confirmed a rumor I'd heard that Recess Monkey has a new album due out in June—their seventh!—continuing to uphold their reputation as the most prolific of today's great kids' musicians. (It's about superheroes, they said.)

Dash was beaming all the way home, looking over his signed CD sleeve, and I vowed that I'd do better at getting us out to more shows in the coming months. With spring approaching, there's no shortage of opportunities in the NYC area; the Just Kidding series itself has an upcoming Justin Roberts show on March 26, for instance. And every major U.S. city seems to have at least one series like this in town, but an even better way to find shows to attend is just to check out your favorite musicians' own websites and see if they might be heading your way anytime soon.

There's even another chance for New Yorkers to see Recess Monkey soon—they'll be playing the 92nd Street YTribeca on May 1. (Is school out that week too, or are they flying cross-country for the weekend?) Any fans who haven't seen them live yet should jump at the chance; we very well may go for seconds ourselves!

[Photo: Myles McDonnell]

Now Playing: Recess Monkey

Just found out that one of our family's fave kids'-music groups is playing live in our area, and I wanted to make sure to get a blast out about it to those of you who live in or around NYC. Seattle's Recess Monkey, whose album The Final Funktier was on my and a lot of other smart people's best-of-2010 lists, is coming to Symphony Space on 95th Street & Broadway, as part of the venue's Just Kidding series, for two shows on Saturday, February 26: one at 11 A.M., the other at 2 P.M.

(For those in the D.C. area, the band will be hitting Jammin Java in Vienna, Virginia, on Sunday, February 27, at 10:30 A.M. as well.)

I've gone on and on about Recess Monkey in this space a few separate times now, so suffice it to say they're three supertight musicians whose songs are catchy, often surprisingly complex, and always incredibly fun. I've heard they also put on a heck of a live show, and I intend to be at the second show with my older son to find out for myself. Look for me there!

And in the meantime, here's one of the band's videos, "Jet Pack," off The Final Funktier:



[Photo: Kevin Fry, courtesy of Recess Monkey.]

Upcoming Concert in NYC: Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

I was just preparing a new book post when some pre-emptive news hit my e-mail inbox: Secret Agent 23 Skidoo will be playing three venues in New York, for the City Parks Foundation, on July 7, 8, and 9. Parents and kids familiar with the artist’s 2008 debut CD, Easy, will know why this is so exciting: Secret Agent 23 Skidoo is the first real success story among the many attempts at “kid hop”—hip-hop for kids. The guy is a revelation, and I’d been interested in seeing a live performance by him since I first heard the album.

He’ll be playing three free concerts in two NYC boroughs on those dates: Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx on July 7 at 11 A.M.; Morningside Park in uptown Manhattan on July 8 at 10:30 A.M.; and Sara D. Roosevelt Park on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on July 9 at 10:30 A.M. Maybe I’ll see you at one of them! (For those not in the New York area, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo will also be making stops this summer in Colorado, North Carolina, Illinois, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., this summer, among other places—check out his website for details.)

And to whet your appetite, here’s a couple of videos of tracks from Easy, one of which demonstrates that his daughter, Saki, can bust some rhymes herself:

[Image courtesy of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo]

Kindiependence Day

Seattle, known since my own youth for its independent music scene, now also has a thriving music scene for youths. Now, I don’t really know that I have a huge audience in the Pacific Northwest at this point in my blogging career, but I have some news that any parents in the vicinity, whether visiting or native, should know about.

Several of the city’s leading kids’ bands recently joined forces in a collective known, fittingly enough, as Kindiependent. And four of them will be performing together in a free family concert, the Share the Music Festival, in Seattle’s Freeway Park (700 Seneca Street, corner of 7th and Stewart) on Sunday, June 13, from 12 to 2 p.m. 

I’m most familiar with the work of two of the bands in Kindiependent that will be playing the festival, Recess Monkey and the Not-Its, and I’d include both among the highest echelon of today’s makers of music for children. A free concert featuring both, as well as more of Seattle’s leading lights of the genre, is well worth parents’ attention. The concert will also celebrate the release of Recess Monkey’s sixth CD, The Final Funktier—and watch this space in the coming weeks for more on that album, by the way.

[Image courtesy of Kindiependent]