Ayun's Picks—Dare To Be Heinie!

Okay, granted I just came off both sides of Alvin and the Chipmunks 20 Golden Greats! ... and the first record I purchased with my own money was Daybreak by Barry Manilow ... and as long as it doesn't involve the television set (see, I'm hardcore after all!), if I think it'll buy me ten minutes of peace, I'll play it over and over and over and I'm not finished yet over, yes, even that damn peanut butter & jelly song. SO MAYBE I'M NOT THE MOST CLUED-IN OR CUTTING-EDGED MUSIC REVIEWER but I've recently had the pleasure of spinning some CDs aimed at the kiddie set that didn't send me screeching as if from a rainbow-colored, baby-talking, cuddlicious unicorn who's hellbent on unleashing his message of friendship, sharing, giggles 'n' hugs!

Greasy Kid Stuff: Songs from Inside the Radio
Maybe you can't pick up this fine program for nasty little children on Jersey City's legendary WFMU-91.1FM. Maybe, like me, you're a cavedweller in the house of technology who stands about as much of chance of getting the sound to work on Greasy Kid Stuff's Web page as you do of building a styrofoam cup from scratch. Relax. Now, you can get the wee ones (and their teenage siblings and quite possibly their teenage mothers or their teenage-at-heart mothers) all jacked up at bedtime with this compilation CD. The theme to Mission: Impossible performed by chickens and the presence of someone who sounds like Tiny Tim with a lot of street drugs in him screaming "Aba-Daba-daba-do" are breaths of fresh air in a genre choking on treacle. My highest praise is reserved for the incomparable Hockey Monkey by James Kochalka Superstar, who I applaud for such clear-eyed lyrics as:

It's 1-2-3
The kids love the monkey
And it's 4-5-6
The monkey's got a hockey stick
7-8-9
Having a good time, yeah.

In lesser hands the monkey might love the kids back. That song is the best remedy when I feel Bitchmother stirring in her lair. This CD is just way too hip to be ghetto-ized in children's releases.

Laura Freeman: A Bakers Dozen
Inky, Milo and I were in the small crowd that caught Laura's show at Superfine, a loading-dock-cum-bar-and-restaurant down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass. (That's D.U.M.B.O. for all of you keeping track of the latest real estate acronyms.) The joint didn't officially open for business for a couple of hours, which dashed my hopes of getting a Bloody Mary and most of the kids in attendance were, like Milo, too little to march around banging spoons in the parade Laura gamely tried to drum up. Spirits remained high all the same. As unabashed four-year-olds, Inky and her friend Chloe were crowned Queens of Audience Participation. Chloe particularly liked a rollicking number titled Creepy Crawly Stew and when her own mother heckled from the audience that the little blonde one probably would eat a bug, she did a little hornpipe and sassed, "No, I'd just lick the chocolate off." Eventually, Chloe resumed her seat, but Inky refused to leave the stage. Even if Laura's funny roll-up-yer-overalls-coz-I-ain't-too-cool-to-impersonate-a-mule persona wasn't right up my alley to begin with, she'd have won my heart by nonchalantly finishing the set with Inky wrapped around her denim-and-bedraggled-petticoat-wrapped thigh. Hey, why aren't there more women in this kids' CD racket? Laura's a homemade-instrument, rag-bag-costume, independent-label-starting Do-It-Yourselfer! Maybe you'd like to be one too...

Dan Zanes and Friends: Night Time!
Lucky for those of us who spent our college years too enmeshed in our Joni Mitchell/Holly Near period to catch Dan Zanes in the Del Fuegos: he's morphed into Brooklyn's hippest Daddy act. His grass is pretty blue these days and I'm always a sucker for that, but of almost greater appeal is the company he keeps. He's gigged with a 17-year-old bass player who couldn't go on tour during exams. My children's father voices his hardwon approval for the improvised chatter between Dan and Jamaican dancehall vet Father Goose (a.k.a Rankin' Don) as they are purportedly led by fireflies to a party (or as the fireflies prefer, to the humans' great, underplayed confusion, a "bashment.") He duets with Lou Reed on "What a Wonderful World." Best of all is when he shares the mike with the gospel group, The Sandy Girls, who the legend goes, he met on the playground, when they were working as nannies. The whole thing really thumps my tub.

The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs for Bumpy Wagon Rides
If you want to judge a book by its cover, you can't do better than this Bloodshot Records anthology, which features a disgruntled baby looking for all the world like some pissed-off roadhouse regular superimposed against such timeless icons as a headless doll and a red toy accordion just like the one that makes such a racket around our digs. I was glad too that some of my old cohorts from Chicago, like The Handsome Family and Jane Baxter Miller are still up to ear-pleasing no good. This CD's also populated by people I only wish I knew. Any band named The Asylum Street Spankers that entertains the troops by galloping lickety-split through a little ditty called "I Am My Own Grandpa" is okey-doke with me! In a recording chock-a-block with revivified children's standards like "It's Not Easy Being Green" and "On Top of Spaghetti," "Godfrey," a novelty song by Robbie Fulks about a "sickly, unemployed amateur children's magician" insinuates itself among the heavy hitters and never wears out its welcome, no matter how often the youngsters return to the well. Warning: therešs a lot of snot here, so donšt let the kids bully you into listening during the dinner hour.

Ralph's World: At the Bottom of the Sea
I was really into this when we first got it, but then it disappeared behind our bed for a few months and when we finally fished it out, "Hockey Monkey" had stolen our hearts with his harder-edged antics. Although no one would mistake this for a recording intended for adult listeners, there's a definite smart-assed smirk beneath the bouncy cuteness on display. When Ralph counts the wheels on a big rig (18 FYI), then counts only the odd numbered ones, then counts them in Roman numerals, then multiplies them by pi, I am powerless not to attempt to sing along. Thanks to Ralph, Inky seems a bit knowing in that precocious sitcom-brat way when she breaks into her favorite At The Bottom of the Sea cut in public:

M-O-M-M-Y
Needs
C-O-F-F-E-E

God help us all, it's true! Finally, as a child of the 70s, I'd like to send a big thank you to Ralph for offering a refresher course in the lyrics of The Banana Splits TV show's theme song! In an age where the inane Dragon Tales is a hit on public television, I'm happy that there are artists who recognize the value of true anarchic pleasure.