Imagine a Play Date With Play Date

The concept is simple – take one grown-up punk rocker (in this case, Greg Attonio from the Bouncing Souls). Add a musical spouse/authoress (Shanti Wintergate). Mix well and taste the results.

Again, the concept is not new – Renee and Jeremy have derived a level of success with their California sound. Luckily, the market is far from bottlenecked by these duos. Greg and Shanti are not copies or imitators; they bring a sense of inclusion and happiness to IMAGINATION, their debut CD.

Who says the Internet killed the brick and mortar music biz?

Mike Park (late of Skankin' Pickle) runs the mailorder label Asian Man Records and its new subsidiary, Fun Fun Records. Mike hit the ground running with his first kids CD, SMILE. Now he's putting out two more releases - KEPI FOR KIDS (see my review here) and IMAGINATION from Play Date.

Play Date's sweet spot is the preschool set. Logically, very few XBOX players are going to want their friends to hear them humming "Sunshine Through My Window," one of the sunnier tracks here. Now that Play Date has gotten songs like "Anyone Can Sing," "The Number Song," and "Days of the Week" out of their system, it will be interesting to hear them develop some deeper material (deeper, not darker – I'm not expecting anything invoking Breaking Bad).

My company did a "Flat Stanley"-esque video campaign earlier this year and it was nice to hear an original song about the character. Play Date endorses self-esteem with "Rad," although that term may already seem outdated to the youngest in their audience.

IMAGINATION is a promising start for Play Date. And as every child knows, you're never too young for a play date.

IMAGINATION is available for pre-order from Fun Fun Records and will be released October 9.