Are You Dave?

Like Simon and Garfunkle before them, Erin Lee and Marci have finally split up (but they’re still doing concerts together). Now Erin Lee is touring with her new combo, the Up Past Bedtime Band, and in keeping with tradition she asked me to sit in with them for their Shipyard concert!

Fortunately, though the band has changed the songs remained the same, so rehearsing for the show was simply a matter of remembering what I did last year! (Erin Lee’s songs are really catchy and not too difficult to learn.) I like these sets because I get to break out the banjo and mandolin and challenge myself a little. Thanks, Erin Lee… all these years later she’s still pushing me musically!

I loved the Up Past Bedtime Band. They put on a great show, very entertaining, very silly, very musical. Learn more about Erin Lee’s new direction here.

Last year the town threw a magical birthday celebration for a true Hudson River hero, Pete Seeger. I was honored to be a part of it. Even better, Geri Fallo asked me back to join everyone in a reprise this year!

The amazing members of the Demolition String Band (Boo Reiners, Elena Skye, Clarence Ferrari and Skip on bass) put the show together and served as the MCs and “house band” for the night. Just as last year, rehearsing with Elena and Boo was a treat and a half. Even better, as we were running through “Turn, Turn, Turn,” local guitarist Julio Fernandez (you may know him from a little jazz combo called Spiro Gyra) was hanging around, and accepted our invitation to join in. He harmonized and we even threw in an extra slot for a guitar solo for him. All of a sudden I was a member of a supergroup!

I tried to remain cool on the outside, but I gotta say I was positively giddy inside. I was so cool I even offered to buy a round for everyone (rehearsal was at the Shannon Lounge, a classic pub in the true Hoboken tradition). No one took me up on it, but Julio did let me buy him a bottle of water and we sat and gabbed for a bit at the bar, where we were soon joined by Abbe Rivers on her way to rehearse her numbers. I love Hoboken, have I mentioned this lately?

Last year’s event was marred by drizzle, and the weather threatened to turn ugly again this year, but as of this writing we still haven’t seen a drop of the predicted downpour. Sinatra Park was bathed in a gorgeous sunset as we all gathered to perform.

Here’s the line-up from this year’s event:

1. The Hoboken Youth Choir did “If I Had A Hammer,” “This Little Light of Mine” and “This Land is Your Land.” Kate Jacobs, youth wrangler, asked me to stand by and play some guitar chords to keep everyone in the same key, which I was happy to do. Little did I know that Boo would join in on mandolin, along with Skip, the Demolition String Band’s stand-up bass player. It was a regular hootenanny.
2. Then it was my turn! I did “The Garden Song (Inch by Inch),” throwing in a little talkin’ blues cribbed from some classic Arlo Guthrie bits but also containing some of my own original insights. If Pete Seeger can make a speech during a song, the by gum so can I. Then the rest of the band came up, along with Julio, for “Turn, Turn, Turn.” The extra guitar and fiddle solos made the song last longer, but it was still over far too quickly for me.
3. Jon & Deena of The Cucumbers did “Kisses Sweeter than Wine.” I cornered them later and invited them to the Gordys show on June 24 (we’re covering one of their songs!)
4. Boo Reiners and the Demolition String Band led the crowd in singing “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore.”
5. Abbe Rivers melted some faces with her powerhouse renditions of “Mary Don’t You Weep” and “Jacob’s Ladder.”
6. Kate Jacobs, again in delightful counterpoint to Abbe, led the crowd in “Goodnight Irene,” one of my favorites.
7. Elena Skye told us about the times she’d met Pete Seeger, then picked up her banjo and did “Union Maid” and “Little Boxes” with the Demolition String Band.
8. Tom Vincent, former mayoral candidate, did a jazzy “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.”
9. Eddie Fogerty ripped into “John Henry.”
10. Martha Fraiser played dulcimer and harmonized with her dad on the country classic “Get Along Cindy.”
11. I finally got to hear Annalee Van Kleeck sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” and WOW.
12. Gene D. Plumber did his classic rendition of “Joe Hill” and gave a shout out to union workers who gave us the greatest gifts of all: the 8-hour work day and the weekend!
13. Julio Fernandez led the crowd in a soulful “Guantanamera.” Earlier that day, talking with Julio, I found out he’d been born in Cuba and was sent to live with an aunt in Hoboken when he was 6. The man should write a book. I’d read it.
14. Dave Calamoneri channeled his inner Steve Earle for a sweltering “Bring ‘em Home.”
15. The it was time for the big “This Land is Your Land” ensemble number. There were plenty of singers and guitarists on stage, so I grabbed my harmonica and threw that in instead, which was kinda cool, I thought.

Here’s a great site for good old-fashioned music: The Alternate Root.

Go to their poll page and vote for our friend Penny Jo’s song, “I Like Summer” by Greezy Wheels. It’s a free-wheelin’ zydeco rave-up, perfect for a backyard barbeque. (Check out the other tunes, too! But vote for PJ!)

I have to just start by saying WOW, what a talented and diverse field of colleagues I have out there in the world of kid-friendly rock. It can be daunting, sitting at home alone and listening to Laurie Berkner’s 37th super-platinum album and thinking “I’ll never be that good or that famous or that successful.” But to hang out with the amazing musicians who came to KindieFest is inspiring, galvanizing, and a whole lotta fun.

Day 2 was chock full o’panel discussions. My schedule kept me from attending the morning sessions, of which there were four: Marketing, Videos, Recording and Distribution. All very important topics and I’ll be pestering my fellow attendees for their notes in the days ahead. The word I got from the Distribution session was that they didn’t delve into digital distribution at all, which seems odd considering the state of the modern music-distribution model. I may pass a note along to the organizers to suggest that as a panel topic next year.

The panel I did get to sit in on, “Old School Meets New School,” was wonderfully inspiring. Four of the Old Guard sat on the panel: musicians Elizabeth Mitchell, Suni Paz and Bill Harley, and kid-radio personality Kathy O’Connell of WXPN in Philly. They shared their stories of how they got started, and the common thread was: There was ever a huge vacuum in the area of music for kids. In schools, in the media, on the radio, no one seemed to know quite what to do. Conversely, that left these creators and their peers a lot of freedom to explore and try things out. Suni Paz, for example, was told that there weren’t any kids’ songs in Spanish, so she tracked some down and wrote some more when she couldn’t find enough. Elizabeth Mitchell was simply happy singing to her students as she pursued her career in “grown-up” music, until the recordings she made of her classroom songs one afternoon became much more popular than her other stuff (an echo of Dan Zanes’ story fro the night before).

They told stories of their failures: Suni Paz spoke of being rejected by the Folkways people at the Smithsonian (”you’re not Joan Baez,” she was told); now she sits on the board. Kathy O’Connell was fired by WNYC on Christmas, and has hosted Kids’ Corner in Philly for over 20 years since.

I mentioned in the opening paragraph how daunting it can be to face one’s own shortcomings in the face of greatness. Sitting hear listening to Grammy-winning performers tell of their humble beginnings, it was easy to hear the little voice in my head that tells me “it’s all been done, you can’t duplicate what they did and you can’t do anything new either.” But then I thought of the way NJ’s governor has cut education budgets, and I thought of the the Hoboken teacher who e-mailed me about the possibility of the Fuzzy Lemons bringing music into the school system, and I thought about the intense racial issues that are rocking Arizona this week, and I thought “Hell YEAH I can do this. I MUST do this.”

Kids today face the same lack, the same ignorance, that their parents did a generation ago. It’s my duty and my privilege to sing with them the way that Bill and Suni and even Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie did before me. And it’s an exciting time to be doing so because we have so much support and such a growing, vibrant community.

Whew. After that, the panel on Venues seemed like an anticlimax, so I had a Coke on the patio with some folks instead. The Fuzzy Lemons have played some pretty diverse venues, from theaters to bars to outdoor festivals to parking lots to seaweed-strewn beaches, and we’ll even be at a zoo this summer, so I think we’re pretty well covered in that department. I spoke to the guy from ZooGlobble about reviewing our CD, and he said he already had it and did we have anything newer? which is surprising and disappointing because the durn thing just came out 5 months ago. Not sure how to respond to that.

I did slip a CD to Kathy O’Connell for her radio show, then introduced myself to Boogie and Coach from Rocknoceros (finally). They’re just as friendly as my sister described them (they’re from her neighborhood in VA), though we did catch ourselves using some salty language. From there we embarked on a colorful discussion about which band member had the worst mouth, and in fact we think that the way we comport ourselves behind the scenes would make an entertaining panel discussion next year.

The last panel was about PR and it was another daunting one, as Beth Blenz-Lucas, a high-powered PR agent from Sugar Mountain PR, listed her amazing clients and described how awesome they are and how incredible anyone has to be to even make her interested in representing them. It was a bit of a turn-off, honestly, and quite a reversal from the experience we’ve had with the good people at Pressler Collaborative, who are excited and eager to help us BECOME the kind of clients that Ms. Blenz-Lucas would deign to notice. Also, I happen to think that we’re that amazing already, and anyone who disagrees with me is obviously a philistine.

But that panel closed on a high note as Mr. Ray reminded us all that we’re in a diverse and supportive community. Someone asked the panel “What should we be called?” As in, Children’s Music? Family Music? Clearly a genre title that includes the Sippy Cups, Uncle Rock and Sugar-Free Allstars is going to have to be pretty encompassing. Mr. Ray suggested “Kindie Rock,” which is kinda cool. Then he admitted that he has owned the kindierock.com domain for two years now.

I wasn’t able to stick around for the performances after the last panel, sadly. It’d been a long day and I really wanted to get home to my wife, who was under the weather, and my adorable child–who has since come down with a fever also. Next year the Fuzzy Lemons are going to buck for a slot in the showcase.

I think KindieFest was a vital event and a huge success and I look forward to seeing what comes out of it, and to going back next year!

~ Dave

Kindiefest is a huge three-day conference in Brooklyn for folks like me: musicians with a family-oriented groove. Last night was the kickoff reception and keynote; I’m trying to read my scribbled notes from the night to see if I can make sense of them.

I rolled into Littlefield in Brooklyn at about 7:00 (after some frantic photocopying of the Fuzzy Lemons’ press material). The party had already spilled out onto the patio! It was a gorgeous evening to be sharing a beer with two hundred of your colleagues and peers.

I squeezed through to the registration table and immediately struck up a conversation with Ashley Albert of The Jimmies, who was in line right behind me. I’ve been hearing about The Jimmies for a couple of years and we just checked out their videos on WiggleNation last week–I congratulated her on how amazing they looked.

Then I made my way to the bar and met some members of a band called The Not-Its, from Seattle. About that time, Dan Zanes wandered in off the street, with his unmistakeable suit and hair. Not long after, the organizers called everyone in for some opening speeches, followed by the Keynote. I found my friend Erin Lee Kelly and followed her into the conference hall (actually a nightclub).

Dan Zanes gave a quietly inspiring speech. He started by admonishing everyone in the room to check out Pete Seeger’s “Incomplete Folksinger,” which lays a clear foundation for everything we do as family musicians. He described an experience I’m sure most of us share: going to the record store and being horribly disappointed by the Children’s selections, which mainly consisted of cartoon tie-ins. He compared that to his own childhood experience of growing up listening to those classic Folkways recordings of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, et al.

He spoke of his surprise upon learning that people were much more interested in the tape of songs he made for his new daughter that they were in his latest album of pop songs about drinking and old girlfriends. And he described hanging out on the playground with West Indian nannies and sharing music with them (in my own career I’ve been blessed with a similar crowd) and how things just sort of grew from there. The importance of finding other musicians, diverse musicians with different backgrounds and influences, cannot be overstated. He spoke of the vital questions to ask people: “Where are you from?” and “What did you grow up singing?”

The diversity is important because kids and families want to be able to relate to what’s up on stage; kids of all backgrounds want to be able to look at the musicians and hear their music and find a piece of themselves. Further, he spoke of his goals: “My goal is to build bridges, it doesn’t matter if I know how or not.” And, just as those old Folkways records came with all the lyrics and chords printed in the liner notes, he reminded us all that that the music we make should inspire people to make music themselves.

It was a lovely speech and he closed by encouraging us all to keep building this community. Sure, we could all view it as a competition for market share, but the best music comes from the heart and encourages folks, rather than showing off.

After that, two hundred eager community builders headed for the bar. A side note, there’s a lovely little microbrew called SouthHampton that I quite enjoyed over the course of the evening.

From then on it was schmooze-o-rama time. I brought a dozen Fuzzy Lemons press kits with me and handed eight of them out to various bloggers, labels (including Putamayo!), a radio show or two, and even a reporter from Time. I plan to hand out the rest today. In return I came home with a goodie bag full of postcards, CDs and stickers from a bunch of other artists.

The first folks I bumped into at the bar were familiar faces: Paul Helou, whom we’d met at Great South Bay last summer, and Mark Lipsitz of Bar None Records. I introduced them to each other and we all swapped ideas for venues and such.

I tagged along with Erin Lee off and on over the course of the night, meeting a bunch of folks in her (not inconsiderable) circle. I jotted down some notes: I met and/or schmoozed Recess Monkey (very cool guys from Seattle), Jessie Atwell, the creator of Wigglenation, musician/videomaker Michael Rachad, Bill Childs of Spare The Rock (a radio show!), and members of Justin Roberts’ band, the Not Ready for Bedtime Players.

Members of Brooklyn-based King Pajama shared a laugh with members of Philly-based The Cat’s Pajamas, while Sara Hickman, State Musician of Texas, laughed at just about anything that moved.

Mr. Ray held forth on the advantages of creating your own music program as a source of ongoing revenue; Patricia Shih held court in a comfy chair, surrounded by fellow musicians (she claimed she was only sitting because her feet hurt but she sure looked like the queen bee); and I negotiated World Peace by pointing out that Putamayo’s Mona Kayhan, of Iranian descent, was engaged in a warm conversation with Israeli horn player Oran Etkin.

My work thus complete, I went home.

~ Dave

I had such a blast last night at my friend Howard’s, I just had to write about it a little. Every year for his birthday Howard throws my favorite kind of party: a jam session! Musicians of all stripes gather in his comfy living room to caterwaul into the wee hours.

This year was no exception. I got to the party at 9:00 p.m. and the first “set” was already winding down! I had time to grab a beer and say hi to some folks, but Howard was already itching to get back to the music — he’d specifically waited to play “Mystery Train” until I got there. It’s one of our old favorites.

I had a ball. it was 1:00 a.m. before I knew it. I got to lead the crew in some of my favorite jam tunes, including “Riot In Cell Block Number 9″ and “The Road Goes On Forever.” I also did some wandering, musically — the amp I was using was misbehaving, so I set my guitar down and did some percussion, eventually sitting behind the drum kit for a song or three. I noodled on the bass and even banged on the keyboard a little for “Johnny B. Good.”  Not that I can PLAY the keyboard, mind you…

It was a great night and reminder of everything I love about Hoboken.  Happy Birthday, Howie!

And now for something completely different…

Fellow Hobokenite Bruce Ornstein, who knows me from his little boy’s Music Together days, approached me at the Hoboken St. Patrick’s Day parade and asked me to help him out with a film project he’s working on. It’s about a gay vampire and it has a musical number, and would I help him record the demo to help the actor learn the song?

How could I say no?

The song, “Ha Bloody Ha,” was penned by the incomparable Enid Levine, seen here as she appeared some 27 years ago in the early days of nu-wave pop…

I’m pleased to say that she’s lost none of her verve and her hair is still an impressive mop, though the tassles seem to be long gone.

At Bruce’s urging, I took the bus to NYC last week to meet Enid and hear the song (I’d seen and heard a version captured on a cell-phone camera but that wasn’t going to be enough to go on). She and her dapper husband (also named Bruce) met me on west 51st street, an address that housed, according to Enid, a little club where we could use the piano and work out the tune.

Well, the “little club” turned out to be The Lambs, “America’s first professional theatrical club, established in New York in 1874. The Lambs was named after a club by the same name in London, England, which flourished between 1869-1879. The club’s name honors the essayist Charles Lamb, and his sister Mary, who — during the early 1800’s — played host to actors and literati at their famed salon in London.” [from the Lambs website]

So suddenly I’m standing on the same ground once trod by W.C. Fields, Lerner and Loewe, Fred Astaire and Irving Berlin, hanging out with this luminary songwriter and her husband, the club’s former president. And I’m there to learn a gay vampire anthem. I’m not making any of this up.

Needless to say, I was slightly intimidated. I’m a children’s entertainer from Hoboken who burnt out his vocal chords in college singing in a frat-rock band. What the hell was I doing here?

Bruce put me at ease a little by announcing that he was headed down to the bar to see if there were any drunken actors hanging out. At the time I thought that was a no-brainer — try to find a bar in NYC that DOESN’T have drunken actors hanging out. But looking back now I think he actually meant Drunken Actors, like Peter O’Toole maybe.

Mercifully, Enid was able to shift the song down a few steps into a key that my worn-out pipes can handle. And when I tried a few bars she was full of praise and enthusiasm. And the song is actually fun to sing, it has some dirty words and innuendo and I could hear someone like Freddie Mercury doing it justice (as opposed to li’l ol’ me, who’ll just be doing it).

I met with Enid again this week to make a usable recording of the song, using Garageband. I now am using a Mac laptop, and so I packed it up and trundled it into the city along with my MIDI keyboard. I met Enid in the lobby of the Hyatt next to Grand Central Station, and we found a table in a ballroom where we could set up. So much for security in post-9/11 Manhattan.

So now I have a MIDI recording of Enid’s piano part. With a few clicks I can drag the lower notes out to make a bass part, and a few more clicks turns the piano into an electric guitar, and whammo, a rock song. Doing the vocals will be the hardest part. I’ll post more about the finished product and the movie it’ll appear in, watch this space….

My annual set with Howie at the Museum is always a nice change of pace from the rock-n-roll lifestyle I normally lead. We get to kick back and play winter favorites, from Hanukah songs to “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.” We’ve done the show a few times now, and we’re at the point where we slip easily into the pocket and have a good time jamming. This year featured an exciting new addition to our set: Howard’s son Avery got up and played and sang on two songs! It made me itch for the day when my own offspring is old enough to shove me out of the way and grab the mic.

The Fuzzy Lemons have booked a BUNCHA gigs in the last few days, which is nice. I hope it keeps up! Here’s my music schedule (not counting all the private birthdays and Music Together classes I’ll be doing):

• July 12: The Fuzzy Lemons at the Great South Bay Music Festival in Patchogue, NY, 1:45 p.m. Also appearing: Paul Helou, Dr. Planet and Marla Lewis
• Week of July 27: Recording the Fuzzy Lemons at Garden Street Music
• July 28: Music Together at the Shipyard, 7:00 p.m.
• August 4: TFL at the Shipyard,  7:00 p.m.
• August 6: The Gordys at Sinatra Park,  7:00 p.m.
• August 11: Sitting in with Erin Lee and Marci at the Shipyard,  7:00 p.m.
• August 12: TFL at Church Square Park,  7:00 p.m.
• September 13: TFL at Union County MusicFest, Clark, NJ, 3:00 and 4:00
• September or October: TFL unplugged at the Harlem Flea Market (tentative)
• October 10: TFL at a private event in either Hoboken or Spring Lake, NJ
• October 18: TFL at Jubilee Day (Jubilee Center Benefit), time and location TBD
• December 6: Dave’s Annual Holiday Show with Howard Olah-Reiken at the Hoboken Historical Museum, 3:00

Finally, outdoor concert season begins! The Fuzzy Lemons kicked off the summer with a (short) road trip to Jersey City, for the Learning Community Charter School’s June-A-Palooza Street Fair at the Boys & Girls Club. It was a huge event, sprawling the entire length of the club’s block-long parking lot. The J.C. fire department was helping folks beat the heat by pumping a spray of water over shrieking kids; there was a long, long line of tables groaning with delicious ethnic foods; and music filled the air!

When I arrived via Light Rail, the awesome percussion group Marafanyi was putting on a spectacular display of drumming from around the world. After that, a favorite local band took the stage: The Black Pearls, a winsome foursome of hard-rockin’ 12-year-old girls. They closed with a smokin’ version of Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” (which I’m sure they’ll drop from their set when they realize that the song is almost as old as their moms).

Kudos to the organizers for putting up a tent to provide shade for the band. Next year some shade for the audience would be awesome—standing around in a hot parking lot is usually what you do before you see a band.

Anyway, it was a fun set and a fun day. Dave Entwistle worked his usual magic, and I had a nice ride back to Hoboken with him on the Light Rail, chatting about life, the universe and everything.

A note about transportation: I’ve got a folding grocery cart—which I normally use for grocery runs since I don’t have a car—but I need it to haul my gear when the Lemons load Kipley and Dana’s vehicles up with the P.A. and drums and such. So if you see a musical hobo trundling his guitars in a pushcart through the streets of Hoboken, it’s just me on the way to a gig. I’m looking forward to the shows that the town runs (Kiddiepalooza, Shipyard Park) because we can use the town’s P.A. and I can fit my junk in Dana’s car!