Tag Archives: “Got a Minute?”

Rumpus Room Fun at SiriusXM Radio’s Kids Place Live

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We’ve performed at the Rumpus Room at SiriusXM Radio four times, now, and every time it’s a memorable and joyously messy experience.  Live radio is usually an anything-can-happen idea in the first place, but radio in front of a live audience is something a bit more open to a find-a-balance stress, especially since our audience is so young and loves when we dance with them. Unfortunately, that’s hard to do connected to head phones and wired for recording, and kids wonder why we have big things covering our ears and don’t seem to play with them as much. It’s a fine line between doing a great performance for this audience, and trying to get a stellar recording. Inevitably, the star rating for each song will vary depending on the perspective. But what I love best besides the incredible SiriusXM recording studio and the warm, friendly people behind the Kids Place Channel is that we are encouraged to try new things we might not do live.

For this Rumpus Room Concert, we thought we’d be more radio-focused and created a couple skits purposely for the show. Nodding to the beginning of the new Got a Minute? CD, we started the show with a skit, inviting bandmates to come on down to the SiriusXM Studio. Each one had something else they were doing – Cord, for instance, was still cleaning up after a Super Bowl Party, trying to get bean dip out of the X Box, and Tom discovered he was just outside, standing on the corner of Florida Avenue in DC. Tom created a sarcastic question and answer with me we fondly titled Yep. In between these bits, we played mostly songs from the new CD, and it felt good. Got a Minute? is full of variety and I can’t wait to play the songs at our CD Release Party at Rams Head Live April 14. It was wonderful to see Program Director Mindy Thomas and Kenny Curtis again, and we hope SiriusXM Radio listeners enjoy the concert if they catch it on the channel. Our concert airs March 22, 23 and 24.  Check the radio website for exact times.  Special thanks to good friend and photographer Bill Auth for capturing the event in pictures.

Finally Finished!

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FINALCOVERcolored4x4It took more than just a minute, in fact a bit longer than we anticipated, but the new CD, Got a Minute?, is finally finished.  We have a lot of people to thank: All the Kickstarter friends who pledged to help us make the CD, artist/teacher Danamarie Hosler who did the cover and inside poster, Steve Parke for taking new band pics and putting the CD cover together, Bill Auth for documenting our time in the studio in pictures, Dave Nachodsky for co-producing and continuing to be our favorite studio dude, the kids who suggested song topics: Ethan & Sara Scally, Savannah Radz, Addy Velasquez and Luca Zamero, and of course the many fine musicians who joined us on some of these new songs. Previous posts have mentioned some of them: Adrian Cox played tuba on “Fish,” Willem Elsevier added violin and viola to “Starry, Starry Night,” and “Anyday Waltz,” Dave Hadley played incredible pedal steel on “Looking Out the Window,” Howard Markman added some great guitar playing to “Workin’ Kid Blues,” ” Seabreeze,” and “Anyday Waltz,”  Duncan Parke played upright bass on “Seabreeze,” Kyf Brewer sang on “Starry, Starry Night,” and “We Just Wanna Have Fun,” adding bagpipes to that last one, Cathy Fink added banjo and sang on “Snowy” and Marcy Marxer played mandolin and sang on “Snowy,” and added ukulele to “Tiptoe Thru the Tulips,” Alex Handy rapped on “More Than Me,” and Vance Thomas did the same on “Baltimore,” and sang in the kid chorus of “Workin’ Kid Blues” and “Hiccup,” Lauren Reilly sang on the kid chorus of “Workin’ Kid Blues,” and “Hiccup.”

And then there’s our kids: my daughter Jesse played and sang her original song “One Day,” and Mikel’s son Eric played drums on “One of a Kind,” and both of them sang for the kid chorus.  Remembering back to our first CD (Happy Songs, 2002), when Jesse’s baby gurgling was heard at the beginning of “When You Were Born,” this is full-circle in a way, as our kids have made guest appearances on our discs through the last 10 years, but now are so very grown-up.  I can’t help but feel the Milkshake project of reflecting our kids growth and adventures through childhood has been a worthwhile and beautiful one. In some ways Got a Minute? is almost a retrospective of this because of the combination of simple songs we wrote for PBS KIDS in 2006, and the newer, more musically and thematically complex songs, both found on this new disc.  I look back fondly over the 10 years doing this project, and each CD takes me back to that certain place and time.  We learned how to count with “Fingers & Toes” (Happy Songs, 2002), signed and sang our ABC’s with “ABC of Me” (Bottle of Sunshine, 2004), played and pretended with “Superhero” (Play! 2007), learned about friendship with “Enemies” (Great Day, 2009) and found strength in ourselves in “Let ‘Em Know”and “More Than Me” (Got a Minute? 2013).

Got a Minute? will be released worldwide March 26, 2013, and we’re excited to share this new disc with you.  Advance copies will be available via our website beginning in January, and we’ll be having an official CD Release Party at Rams Head Live in Baltimore Sunday, April 14.  More on that later 🙂