Ben's Playlist - Tuesday, March 1, 2022

I Spy – Ants Ants Ants
Fanga Alafia – Aaron Nigel Smith
Who, What, When, Where, Why – The Bazillions
Anything Can Be A Hat – Ratboy Jr.
Doppelganger – Dog On Fleas
car with the lights left on – Caspar Babypants
Go – The Black Keys

Ben's Playlist - Thursday, February 24, 2022

weird weird dream – Caspar Babypants
Leave The Door Open – Silk Sonic
Taco Tuesday – The Lucky Band
Beautiful Mistakes – Maroon 5 Feat. Megan Thee Stallion
It's A Mistake – Men At Work
One More Hour – Tame Impala

Trauma Response Through Music Therapy

Some children's music is uplifting. Some children's music is educational. Another important component is healing, especially after (or sometimes during, in relation to a pandemic) a traumatic event. President of the New York Art Therapy Association Nicole Porter created a series of everyday tools that could be used outside a clinician's office, and directed her attention to assembling You and Us, a band featuring these concepts with the assistance of instrumentalist and producer Wyndham Garrett (known for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Lola Kirke, among others). Their collaboration, FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES, is a song cycle through the stages of art therapy trauma response – a technique Porter developed after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. 

The Newtown strategies inspired Porter to establish Emerald Sketch, a mental health therapy trauma  response team that circles the wagons around traumatized children and families. She has subsequently led trauma response projects at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, the March for Our Lives in Washington, DC, and others.

FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES is not meant as casual "trip to Grandma's" music, unless Grandma has also suffered PTSD from lack of direct access to her family. The album shifts from country ("Nowhere Now Here") to 60s British pop ("Mary Faery"). Ironically, "Soul Survivor" is not a beat-heavy blues tune, instead a dreamlike feel-good anthem about making through a tough situation and "facing inward to win."  Then there's the "Raw Emotional Power" that can make us shake, but that we can control and shake in a positive way.

You and Us is seeking to make a statement to children – terrible experiences do not necessarily need to define us. As long as our community bands together and shares its strengths, children of all ages are resilient enough to get over seemingly unsurmountable ordeals.

FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES is available from Nicole Porter's website, Apple Music, and Spotify.

Winter Songs About Valentines and Mermaids

The legendary singer Nat King Cole released "L-O-V-E" two months before his death in February 1965. The song has been covered before, however children's musicians Uncle Dox and Vivi Melody have chosen to take the key elements of the chorus and mash it into "Four Letter Word," a hummable ditty, just in time for Valentines' Day:

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can

The original ballad by Cole is a smoky, wistful affair. Dox and Vivi break down the four-letter nature of how love can make you feel silly, empowered, and generally at peace. "Love is part of the master plan," Dox informs listeners. "The sweetest [four letter word] you've ever heard," Vivi chimes in. "This word letter word describes you and me." Who couldn't use a dose of affections this mid-pandemic February?

You can listen to and purchase "Four Letter Word" from Uncle Dox and Vivi Melody on Soundcloud, Amazon, Spotify, and Apple Music. 

If you're sick of winter and looking forward to post-pandemic life this summer, New Zealand's Itty Bitty Beats, have a hallucination for you. Lucy Hiku and Jenny Payne have released "Mermaids," a fanciful song about the mythical creatures who swim and frolic in the green, blue ocean waves. Since forming in 2014, the award-winning Christchurch children’s music duo celebrated four years in a row of being nominated for New Zealand children’s music awards, winning once for Best Children's Song and Best Children's Album. Jenny’s husband Rob Payne produces all of their music. "Mermaids" features the Beats' harmonies over slide guitar, ukulele, and drums, sending out Hawaiian beach vibes. Keep that in mind while you're busy shoveling out your car.

You can listen to and purchase "Mermaids" on February 11 from the Itty Bitty Beats' website, Spotify, Amazon, and Apple Music.

'Shooting Star' Highlights New Zealand Youth

The distance between Nashville, Tennessee and Arrowtown, New Zealand is thousands of miles and takes more than a day of flying (Don't even try to Google Map the mileage). Originally from Gore, New Zealand, singer-songwriter Jackie Bristow decamped to the United States to pursue her musical career. She returned to her homeland in 2000 as coronavirus put the country into lockdown.

As Bristow's touring plans were put on hold, she created SongCatcher, a music education program to teach self-expression through songwriting to 7-10 year old kids in the local Wakatipu basin. The resulting, intensive 19-week workshop for seven youngsters turned into a group dubbed Jackie B and The Mini Band. The resulting five-track EP, SHOOTING STAR, documents their recordings, courtesy of 8 Pound Gorilla Records. 

The vocals for SHOOTING STAR were recorded in St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Arrowtown, the backing music was recorded and produced by Bristow's long-term musical partner Mark Punch in Nashville, and the entire track was mastered at Studios 301 in Sydney, Australia (Their first song, "It's Christmas," was released in December and is not on the EP, but it still available on Amazon and Youtube). 

While it's not addressed directly, the pandemic certainly has made children seek answers from all corners about returning the world to normalcy. "Shooting Star" tackles the topic in an oblique manner:

I see a shooting star

It's flying very fast

To make my wishes come true

For me and you

Climate change and the planet's future is addressed on "Earth Guardian," with a smidgen of New Zealand flavor when the kids sing "Every day is a little scarier like a wild boar trying to knock your door down." But they come full-circle and rejoice in having too much fun on "It's A Beautiful Day." Bristow is planning to take SongCatcher nationwide across New Zealand in 2022. It will be fun to chart her progress and what her charges produce on their own in the future.

Download SHOOTING STAR from Jackie Bristow's website, Amazon, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, or Spotify.

Here is the music video for the title track, "Shooting Star":

New Kids Videos from Claudia Gunn, Todd'n'Tina, and Daria

Television had Game of Thrones. Film had The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Kids music has Claudia Robin Gunn's series of songs about the seasons. The latest, "Winter Snow" showcases two blue penguins frolicking in the middle of winter. They look at snowflakes, go ice fishing, shovel out their car, and have a snowball fight. Don't worry for these critters – they were blue in the previous videos, so the extreme cold didn't turn them blue. You can find more of Claudia's music on her Soundcloud page, including her "Sing Through the Year" collection of tunes. Here is the debut video for "Winter Snow":

Minneapolis-based Todd'n'Tina (songwriter Todd Millenacker and educator Krissy Mondelli) have released a new video for their song, "Silly String," featuring a classroom of kids with containers of the multi-colored string spray. What could possibly go wrong?

Bilingual folk singer Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou celebrates first responders with her pandemic kids song, "Thanks to the Doctors and Nurses." The tireless, thankless work done to protect families in the world community motivated Daria to write an inspirational anthem, in the tradition of her idols such as Ella Jenkins, Raffi, and Pete Seeger. 

Daria spent her pandemic running virtual workshops with children around the world. While working with a group of immigrant children in Australia learning English as a second language, Daria was galvanized to compose “Thanks To The Doctors And Nurses,” based on those kids' sincere expressions of gratitude for the professionals who had “saved their lives.”

Ancillary materials for "Thanks to the Doctors and Nurses" are available for families and educational programs on the Teachers Pay Teachers website. You can download lyric sheets, a karaoke version, posters, and thank you cards for classroom use that can be personalized to thank specific doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals.

Hear "Thanks to the Doctors and Nurses" at Spotify, Amazon, and Apple Music.

Watch the video for the song here:

Ben's Playlist - Thursday, February 10, 2022

Summer's Here – The Bazillions
Lo/Hi – The Black Keys
14 sour sweetheart – Caspar Babypants
Seasons – Maroon 5
Where We Are – The Lumineers
Word is Love – Alphabet Rockers
It Might Be Time – Tame Impala

Songs of Love from Sonia De Los Santos, Alphabet Rockers & Mista Cookie Jar

A trio of children's music performers are releasing a pair of tunes celebrating tenderness and affection, just time for Valentines' Day. On the East Coast, bilingual songstress Sonia De Los Santos has released a new song, “All I Need Is Your Smile.” On the West coast, the Alphabet Rockers and Mista Cookie Jar have teamed up for "The Word Is Love."

De Los Santos's third CD, ESPERANZA ("hope" in Spanish) still qualifies as "new," since its release last May. However the genre is transitioning as individual songs (don't call them singles anymore) and videos are becoming the industry norm. "All I Need Is Your Smile" demonstrates that her time performing with Dan Zanes flavored her songwriting and delivery, right down to the choral refrain "When everything is not quite fine/my sweet little Valentine."  The song is an easy-to-learn ballad about how the simplest human gesture can lighten a person's spirit, with some Spanish phrasing that highlights the universal appeal of a sunny disposition.

Listen to and download "All I Need Is Your Smile" from Spotify, Amazon, and Apple Music.

The Alphabet Rockers are once again in the running for a Grammy for Best Children's Album through their participation on ALL ONE TRIBE from the One Tribe Collective. They've teamed with a master of kindie collaboration, Mista Cookie Jar (C.J. Pizarro) on "The Word Is Love." CJ and Kaitlin McGaw and Tommy Shepherd (the Rockers) deliver a fresh slice of kid-hop with a message of the power of positivity:

Love is way more than the fabric we fit in
We rep these colors every shade of our melanin
We say what’s not fair without fear of tellin em
(that’s love) It’s not a secret that we’re keeping
It’s the password that keeps mean words from creeping

Grab "The Word Is Love" from Spotify, Amazon, or Apple Music.

Ben's Playlist - Monday, February 7, 2022

Helicopter Leaves – Ants Ants Ants
Winter Bird / When Winter Comes – Paul McCartney
Is It True – Tame Impala
Shine A Little Light – The Black Keys
two is one more than one – Caspar Babypants
Prosthetic Head – Green Day
Village d'Ãtoile – Dog On Fleas

Bears & Lions Totally Not Ready for Bed

Bears and Lions, the country's best children's music group featuring grownups wearing animal costumes is back with a new EP, WILD AND FREE from 8 Pound Gorilla Records. The pandemic could make kids feel like caged beasts, especially during lockdowns and remote learning. B&L sympathize (it's tough to get those outfits dry-cleaned if you're in quarantine) and share some rocking tunes with an ecological messages, to boot.

Stage gear does not translate through your sound system. However Bears and Lions pass the authenticity test through the strength of their material. "Porcupine" is a story of camaraderie told through the perspective of getting past differences and seeing how everyone looks the same (from a hot air balloon). Relationships are also the theme of "Friendship Song," using the simple concept of music bonding people and critters. "The Wagon" aromatically narrates the kind of things that families encounter when they go on vacations, but points out "At the end of the day, we're far away, but we're okay." Tykes who get amped when the sun goes down will enjoy "Go To Bed," billed as the world's first anti-bedtime anthem. It's a raver in the style of the group's massive breakfast rocker, "Pancakes!"

Speaking of the ecological message, that gets addressed on "Wild and Free," the kid-hop title track, where Bears and Lions advocate for their um...humane rights on this shared planet:

One hundred million years we've been on this Earth

Man, we deserve a place, deserve to be heard

So listen to our words, we have things to say

Like don't you want to be wild and free

Bears and Lions look forward to seeing your kids when the childrens' music live performances are safe and vaccines are available for the under-five set. Prepare to answer your daughter when she asks, "Why does the lion have a better six-pack set of abs than you, daddy?" My suggested reply, "That's what happens when you get to roam wild and free, and don't work remote."

WILD AND FREE is available on January 28 from Bears and Lions website, Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon.

Here is the video for the band's song, "Go To Bed!":