[Dixielandjazz] OKOM Training for the young?

[Steve Barbone]

Maybe some entrepreneurial OKOMer will jump on this idea.

Cheers,
Steve barbone


Market for Hipsters-in-Training

NY TIMES - By TAMMY LA GORCE - November 26, 2006

CASEY BONHAM LETO, age 5 months, wasn¹t to blame. Neither were his parents.
Right down to his rock ¹n¹ roll middle name ‹ a tribute to Led Zeppelin¹s
drummer, John Bonham ‹ everything had been done to bestow him with rock-kid
credibility at the earliest possible age: On the floor of the puff-cheeked
baby¹s living room in Jersey City were toy guitars and a set of Metallica
nesting dolls. On his powder-blue onesie pajamas, in gothic script, were the
words ³My crib rocks.²

Yet when his father recently unwrapped a new CD of ¹80s British alternative
rock reimagined expressly for babies, Casey was indifferent. As ³Rockabye
Baby! Lullaby Renditions of the Cure² played on the stereo, he kicked
fitfully in his bouncy seat. He appeared not to recognize the wordless
glockenspiel-and-vibraphone rendition of the Cure¹s ³Boys Don¹t Cry.² Within
seconds he spit up.

His parents, though, liked what they heard.

³This is hilarious,² said his mother, Pam Leto, a music publicist who works
with bands like My Morning Jacket and Eagles of Death Metal.

³It¹s actually really soothing,² said her husband, Dave Leto, the tattooed
drummer for the indie rock band Rye Coalition.

It was the kind of reaction ‹ hook the parents, never mind the kid ‹ that
Lisa Roth was looking for when she founded Baby Rock, the Los Angeles label
behind the kiddie Cure album and lullaby tributes to Metallica, Radiohead,
Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, the Beach Boys, Tool and Coldplay
released this year.

Almost the reaction, anyway.

³I¹d love for the parents to say, ŒWow, this is really funny,¹ and for the
baby to fall asleep,² said Ms. Roth, 48. ³It would also be great if it was
like Rock 101 between parent and baby. A steppingstone.²

To be a parent in 2006 ‹ especially a coastal, well-heeled,
contemporary-minded one ‹ is to be blasted by possibilities for nurturing
impeccable musical taste in one¹s offspring. The commercial successes, like
Disney¹s ³Baby Einstein² series of albums, have been widely noted on the
Billboard charts and in Wal-Mart shopping carts. But they overshadow a
hipper niche of kid music that is encouraging a curious form of parental
connoisseurship, where ³High Fidelity² meets high chairs.

That this ballooning genre is meant as much for the parents as the children,
and probably more, is readily acknowledged by some of those producing and
buying it.

³Parents are looking at music as a gift you give your children, as something
you discover with them,² said Kevin Salem, a rock record producer in
Woodstock, N.Y. ³Sharing it is a way of making sure music stays in good
hands.² 

With his wife, Kate Hyman, Mr. Salem formed Little Monster Records in part
to guarantee that their 4-year-old daughter, Emily, is exposed to what her
parents consider to be good music, like the label¹s ³All Together Now,² a
Beatles tribute featuring Steve Conte of the New York Dolls, the Bangles and
others that is being sold exclusively through Barnes & Noble. Its placement
in time for the holidays is so far paying off: ³All Together Now² landed at
No. 84 on Barnes & Noble¹s list of top sellers the day of its release.

³Sesame Street² can probably be credited with (or blamed for) helping to
create the modern idea of kids¹ music as a socially loaded part of a
parent¹s developmental tool kit. Pop science too. ³Baby Einstein,² begun in
1997, prompted new parents to engage infants musically in the name of
healthy brain building; based largely on word of mouth, sales figures
reached the multimillions by 2001, when Disney bought the company. Fueling
the trend are mass-media tie-ins like this year¹s ³Sing-A-Longs and
Lullabies for the Film ŒCurious George¹ ² (Brushfire/Universal), the Jack
Johnson project that made its debut at the top of the Billboard album chart.

According to executives with a rash of new indie labels and children¹s music
blogs like the Lovely Mrs. Davis (lovelydavis.blogspot.com), this kind of
music really took off in 2002, when Dan Zanes, formerly of the roots-rock
band the Del Fuegos, reimagined what worthwhile children¹s music could sound
like. His CD ³Rocket Ship Beach² (Festival Five), recorded in his Brooklyn
basement with friends like Suzanne Vega, sneaked up on parents with likable,
sharable songs and a homespun sensibility. Mr. Zanes clearly struck the
right chord, and has created a kiddie-entertainment empire that includes
videos, concerts and even a partnership with Starbucks for this year¹s
³Catch That Train!² (Festival Five).

Mr. Zanes has a lot of company these days. Ralph Covert, of the grown-up
band Bad Examples and the family-friendly Ralph¹s World, has built a cottage
industry to rival that of Mr. Zanes. Other artists who have dipped into
kiddie rock include the country-punk singer Jason Ringenberg, the all-girl
band Luscious Jackson and members of the Mekons, who tried on alter egos in
the band Wee Hairy Beasties, whose album ³Animal Crackers² (Bloodshot
Records) came out in October.

It is doubtful that they will all equal the success of Mr. Zanes, whose
grass-roots Internet marketing and local parental support have helped ³Catch
That Train!² sell 125,000 copies. But their market sense isn¹t unfounded.

Christopher Noxon, author of ³Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and
the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up² (Crown), identifies an emerging
demographic of 30-plus, forever-young-minded Lucky Charms eaters aiming to
reset the boundaries of adulthood. He says it¹s little wonder their children
are being turned into rock fans, at least in their parents¹ eyes.

³Their parents encourage it,² Mr. Noxon said. ³They think it¹s funny and
that it sets them apart. Plus, if you listen to that music now, like I do
way too often, you realize it¹s kids¹ music: three chords dressed up with
all this distortion.²

Such parents can take credit for the success of this summer¹s Kidzapalooza,
the two-year-old arm of the Chicago-based rock festival Lollapalooza, which
lured a crowd of 160,000, up from 2,000 in 2005. The attractions included a
³rock ¹n¹ roll petting zoo,² where children could get behind a professional
drum kit while parents rocked out on guitar or bass, and a hip-hop workshop
where children still in strollers burned rap CDs with professional disc
jockeys. Among the performers were Patti Smith and Perry Farrell, the former
frontman of Jane¹s Addiction and the founder of Lollapalooza.

³People in their 30s and 40s aren¹t really grown up, and they don¹t want to
grow up,² said David Agnew, a vice president of the Buena Vista Music Group
and the force behind this year¹s ³Devo 2.0,² which repurposed old Devo songs
for 4- to 10-year-olds and their parents. (Next year Mr. Agnew and the
Disney Sound label plan to introduce the Po-Go¹s, a kiddie tribute to the
girl band the Go-Go¹s.)

³Because parents can now listen to 30 seconds of every recording on earth at
iTunes, they get turned on to more music,² he added.

That helps explain why parents ‹ including the 3,000 who monitor the poll of
children¹s music at the Lovely Mrs. Davis site each week ‹ expect something
like an intergenerational custom fit from the music they buy for their
offspring. Little Monster¹s Ms. Hyman, a flop-haired, youngish 49-year-old,
said she recognized a need ³to be catered to musically² among fellow
parents. 

³I wouldn¹t feed my daughter McDonald¹s every day,² she said. ³Why would I
want her listening to something of that same standard?²

But taken too far, such catering can raise complicated issues. For one
thing, some acts that appeal to both parents and children, like Jack Black¹s
Tenacious D, do so more slyly and can present a special challenge. ³That¹s
an incredibly good record,² Mr. Noxon said, but it ³spews² profanity on
nearly every track.

Hip earnestness is another problem. Many new discs lack the irony-free
goofiness that made classics out of the ³Sesame Street² song ³Rubber Duckie²
and Raffi¹s ³Bananaphone.²

The producers of hipster baby discs seem aware that they may be a mere
toddler step away from heavy-handedness. ³We¹re undergoing a change in what
it means to be a traditional parent,² said Mr. Salem. ³But I read somewhere
that the fastest way to turn your kid into a Republican is to dress him up
in a Sex Pistols T-shirt. That¹s probably true.²

That last aphorism actually belongs to Mr. Noxon, and its message about
musical backfires is probably not lost on the generation of parents who
insisted in the 1980s, despite the fierce protestations of their children,
that hip-hop was a fad.

Hip-hop, of course, has evolved far beyond the expectations of even the most
broad-minded parents of the ¹80s. And then some. This month Mathew Knowles,
father of Beyoncé, released the CD ³Kid¹s Rap Radio² (Music World
Entertainment), featuring 8-year-olds behind the mike rapping deraunchified
hits like Busta Rhymes¹s ³Touch It.² ³Because it¹s been such an important
part of their lives, parents have a need for their kids to experience
hip-hop,² said Mr. Knowles, who explained that he was inspired by his
2-year-old grandson, Jewlz.

Field observations confirm that the new breed of coolness-bestowing parent
takes its music seriously. At an all-ages ³Baby Loves Jazz² concert at Joe¹s
Pub in Manhattan in September, the air was thick with grown-up longing.
Parents swayed, clapped and whistled, while their 2-year-olds fidgeted with
the salt shakers on the tables.

³You could just see that parents are dying to get that awe back, the
childlike awe you lose when you start forming opinions about what¹s cool,²
said John Medeski, of Medeski Martin and Wood, who played keyboards
alongside the soul singer Sharon Jones at the show, and whose trio recently
recorded a Little Monster disc for release in 2007.

³There¹s been a void,² Mr. Medeski added, referring to parents. ³The music
becomes like medicine.²

If so, the market may be headed for an overdose. The sales gap between the
kind of CDs many hip-minded parents consider pablum ‹ the consistently
chart-topping ³Kidz Bop² series especially ‹ and the indie releases they
champion has never been wider. Unless the music gets television exposure or
is associated with a brand like Disney, selling more than 20,000 copies is
rare. 

The wave of music that prompted Amy Davis of Bowling Green, Ohio, to create
the Lovely Mrs. Davis site last year has become barely navigable. She and
her two sons, ages 6 and 19 months, are drowning in it, she said.

³Next year is going to be really telling,² she said. ³We¹ll see whether this
kind of music takes off and people other than hip urban parents or Net-savvy
parents discover it, or if the tide turns and people find something else to
get interested in.²

Count Tor Hyams, Kidzapalooza¹s 37-year-old co-founder and the father of an
infant and a 7-year-old, among the true believers.

³People want to live vicariously through their kids, to rediscover music
with them,² he said. ³They want to be more than a cog in the cultural wheel,
and I salute them for it. If I ever stop being a kid with my kids, you can
shoot me.²