LUCKY DIAZ AND THE FAMILY JAM BAND “A POTLUCK” Like a well stocked jukebox being funneled (somehow) through a Lite Brite, Lucky Diaz’ music is colorful and childlike. But not at all square. Although maybe slightly cubist. The nine songs and spoken word bookends of “A Potluck” pair a mid-western […]
RENEE & JEREMY “A LITTLE LOVE” A covers album. Yeah, I know. I feel pretty much the same way. Seems like tiptoeing through the tulips for wrinkled dudes like Manilow, Stewart, and Sir Paul – a way to keep one hand inside the wallets of their, um, more mature audiences […]
THE POP UPS “RADIO JUNGLE” It is awfully tempting to, when hearing a new album from a band you already have an affinity for, and hearing it as both fan and critic, to judge it solely or at least most prominently and immediately on a single, very rudimentary criteria: is […]
BILL HARLEY “HIGH DIVE” In this house, it is always a special occasion when Bill Harley releases a new album. His stories and songs are as cherished by my kids as their cuddliest stuffed animals and most well-thumbed books. Harley’s latest, “High Dive”, starts strong with the title track story-song […]
THE HAPPY RACERS “READY SET GO” An opening guitar lick borrowed from one of John Mayer’s palaces of seduction turns an endearing, no-more-monsters-at-bedtime tune into the most Triple A-commercial-radio ready kindie song to come along in ages. “Lovabye Dragon” is the kind of hit that, had “Ready Set Go” been […]
THE BISCUIT BROTHERS “GET UP & GO” The album starts out, it would have seemed, as the funniest stuff my girls have ever heard in all their lives. The Bear & Mouse were both bonkers as my jumbled up “Get Up & Go” iTunes playlist began, confusingly, with a rousing […]
LORI HENRIQUES “OUTSIDE MY DOOR” Way way back in time, in 2004, when we had our first child, the Mrs. and I didn’t know of Dan Zanes, of They Might Be Giants (children’s division), or of any acts in the since-coined micro-genre of kindie music. I also didn’t know, at […]
THE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEES “STRANGE DEES, INDEED” A vaudevillian Twilight Zone of a CD that’s at times barbershop quartet smooth, Elmo’s World silly & interactive, and just plain odd. “Strange Dees, Indeed” is undeniably the Brooklyn band’s most sonically consistent work (hat tip to Dean Jones wonderful production) but don’t […]
