You like me, you really like me!

Hey! I’ve been meaning to write you for a few weeks now. I hope I can speak freely and honestly here. First of all let me say that I absolutely do not want you to feel under-appreciated. I think you’re great! Really. And I know you cost a lot of money, which I do not resent at all and which I know is going toward awesome teachers, top class facilities – like a student café that serves pesto paninis – a multicultural environment and really fantastic opportunities that are going to inform my EO’s learning in more ways than I can even articulate at this point. She loooooves school, seriously, and we really love the fact that it’s so easy to get her out of bed in the morning.

But, to be honest, it’s only been a few months – in a relationship that I’m hoping will last many years – and I think things are moving way too fast. In fact, I think we need to take a little break from each other. I know, I know, please don’t be offended. It was really great being able to take that tour last Spring and chat with students and attend an assembly where the orchestra played like professionals and the choir sang ‘Ave Maria’ and a young girl received an award for placing in the top five in the entire world in a literacy exam. You were super impressive. I also liked the snacks.

But then came the request to attend the afternoon ‘Laptop Induction’ which I found to be not only an obsequious thank you for the big commitment of purchasing an expensive but required laptop for my EO but also some kind of cheesy justification for spending all this money in the first place. EO enjoyed it (don’t we all love Power Point after all?), but for me it was like being invited over for dinner after I’ve pulled a back muscle helping you move house. And finding out that in fact you’ve just ordered take-out and the wine isn’t great. I’d rather be home watching Game of Thrones and actually spending time with my children.

Then we had to go to ‘Curriculum’ night where we got to see our EO’s tutor but not officially talk to him/her, and we were told that things are going great with those laptops (your money’s not going to waste, they’re not spending their computer time on House of Anubis and Angry Birds, honestly!). We learned how our children are going to be assessed and found out that eventually we’ll be able to follow their progress online, almost in real time, like tracking a hurricane or Angelina Jolie’s whereabouts. We were given full-colour brochures and more snacks, but by the end of the evening I felt that if I had to hear the phrase ‘learning in context’ one more time I was going to scream.

It’s not you, really. It’s me.

Next on the calendar was the actual ‘Meet the Tutor’ night, in which we sat around enjoying more snacks, sidestepping the responsibility of being Parent Rep and trying to think of incisive questions to ask our child’s tutor. But seeing as the kids had only been in school for four weeks we were kind of stumped. My EO’s very organized and enthusiastic. Her only issue has been the fact that her bus gets her to school very early, which we’ve solved by packing extra snacks (yogurt drinks!) for a sort of second breakfast. I thought I should have mentioned this to her tutor as a shining example of our adaptability, resourcefulness and affinity for healthy snacks, but quickly realized: I’m reaching here!

I have plenty of friends who are teachers, and I’ve heard that, more often than not, the kids they teach are great. It’s the parents who are the bears to deal with. So I’m wondering, and please don’t take this personally or anything but: are you trying to make us helicopter parents?

We receive weekly bulletins plus additional emails on specific topics or invitations to interactive talks like ‘Approaches to Learning Global Humanities for Years 7, 8, 9’. We’re invited to check the school website daily for an up-to-date briefing (I’m waiting for that link to Jolie’s Louis Vuitton blog btw). We’re welcome at swim galas and cross country meets and netball games. And we’ve got upcoming teacher conferences and monthly parent forums and seminars, where no doubt we’ll discover even more ways to obsess about our child’s progress and to help them learn in context. Go ahead, ask me what I know about Computer Based Adaptive Online testing, I dare ya!

Whew! Sweetheart, I love you, my child loves you, but frankly, you’re exhausting and if I can say so, kind of needy, kind of Sally Field here. If we’re going to have any future with this relationship, we’re going to need a little space. You should know that I’m part of a generation borne to parents with a high divorce rate, who couldn’t commit to much more than Friday night football and the Spring talent show. Trust me when I say I’m not going to get offended if I don’t hear from you in a while.

I appreciate you letting me speak freely here. I feel like I’m being completely insensitive, when in fact I really trust you and I do want this to work out! But I think I should also come clean and admit that I’ve come under the influence of a New York Times op-ed called “Super Person” about the rise of the over-overachievers and how we’re all sacrificing our children’s souls and our own identities as moms for the sake of Harvard admission. After spending time with this article, I’ve started having visions of destroying my daughter’s laptop, moving us all to Maine and teaching my children carpentry.

That would certainly inform their learning.

*This blog and the contents therein do not constitute any endorsement or overt (or covert) support of Angelina Jolie, Louis Vuitton and/or Johnny Depp’s dubious haircut in The Tourist.

Perry talked of an urgency, of not wasting any more time in order to “define who we are, the music that we make, the show that we produce. If we do that, we’ll set ourselves up to be where we always belonged in the world of music.”

But it’s been eight years since the band’s lackluster album, Strays, and twenty years since their original ‘farewell’ tour. Plenty of alternative rockers have appeared on the scene: bluesy, grungy, political, glam, some channeling Johnny Rotten, some looking to Iggy Pop for inspiration. What could I expect from JA now? I enjoyed the big chorus of the first single, ‘Irresistible Force’ but how would the rest of the album hold out? Have I outgrown them? Perry’s a family man now, and Dave, well, his flirtations with The Red Hot Chili Peppers, porn stars and reality TV just seemed so tawdry, so Kardashian. Do I really need them anymore? And more importantly, how would these old boyfriends compare to my new loves, The Black Keys?

In the late 80s and early 90s, Jane’s Addiction claimed the angry, reckless parts of my heart. They were metal with an edge, best played loud and in the dark. The band members weren’t just posers but real damaged goods. They told of back`stories lurid and heartbreaking, and they made music that seethed with anger, beauty and power. Dave Navarro played some of the finest guitar of the last 25 years (I kid you not – check out ‘Ocean Size’ or ‘Mountain Song’) and Eric Avery’s bass was relentless.

Harder than we look. Photo courtesy of citypages.com

But now he sings that “we’re all hustlers” (on the first single, ‘Underground’), and I wonder if he’s saying he’s not so special anymore. I suppose in the age of 24-7 reality, threesomes and needle marks aren’t such a big deal, so yeah, he’s probably right. We’re all tainted. Nothing’s truly shocking…

Which I think renders Jane’s Addiction’s music that little bit less relevant, less potent than it used to be. The soaring choruses, thick drums and hard and beautiful guitar lines are still there, and I do enjoy the album. It’s smooth and well-crafted. It’s pretty, is what it is. It’s just not as powerful or as angry as I hoped it’d be. Yeah, kind of like meeting that old boyfriend who’s balding and a little paunchy now, but comfortable in a khaki’s-and-polo-shirt kind of way.

What’s ironic is that The Black Keys look like khaki and polo shirt wearing guys but make music that sweats Robert Plant’s sex appeal and drives you on to the dance floor with the super force of guitars and drums. Outside the roadhouse, Otis Redding met Frank Black and when they jammed, El Camino was born.

I know it’s clichéd but The Black Keys sound both retro and brand new. El Camino only came out earlier this month but it’s quickly showed up on plenty of Best of 2011 lists. It really is a great, driving rock record. All guitars, all heartbreak, all the time. When the opening notes of ‘Gold On The Ceiling’ roll out and then the drums, bass and handclaps kick in, you feel yourself churning and spinning in a blender of five decades of Detroit rock and soul (though The Black Keys are really from Akron, OH). My YO sings along in the car while EO complains about our weird taste in music. (For a great live version of ‘Gold…’ go to their recent appearance on Colbert Nation.

With the help of producer, de facto third band member and all-around 2011 MVP, Danger Mouse, The Black Keys push their sound in to some surprising territory. ‘Little Black Submarines’ begins with an acoustic guitar and Dan Auerbach’s vocals but then explodes in to a mushroom cloud of Patrick Carney’s drums and an electric guitar solo that would make Rik Emmett proud. It’s a taste of heavy metal with mo’ groove, no spandex.

So how do I compare the two? The once wild and woolly Jane’s Addiction sounds slightly neutered now, while the mild-mannered Black Keys attract me with their explosive, gutsy rock. I think I could grow old with these guys…

In honor of this unofficial holiday, NPR music put together a list of the songs they enjoy cranking up to 11. It’s a mix of punk and alternative (Smiths, LCD Soundsystem, Ramones), funk (Outkast), some surprising pop (Kelly Clarkson) and of course heavy metal (Led Zep).

So of course that gave me a great excuse to compile my own Best Heard Loud list. I’ve gone back to some ’80s metal and ’90s grunge favorites as well as a few alternative and funk choices. Who knew Stevie Wonder would sound so good after Tesla? And I put Sleater-Kinney right before Scorpions, because I can! Soundgarden and Wolfmother are our de facto Led Zeps, and the Pearl Jam tune is not classic PJ from something awesome from the last five years. The closing Radiohead tune is included because the chorus, when played loud, lifts you right up in to Pink Floyd land. It’s huge and it’s gorgeous.

Here’s the list, to be played in order. I welcome any and all comments and contributions, the heavier the better!

1. Powderfinger, “Waiting for the Sun”
2. Jane’s Addiction, “Had A Dad”
3. Wolfmother, “New Moon Rising”
4. The White Stripes, “Fell In Love With A Girl”
5. Van Halen, “Unchained”
6. Tesla, “Modern Day Cowboy”
7. Stevie Wonder, “I Was Made To Love Her”
8. Sleater-Kinney, “Rollercoaster”
9. Scorpions, “No One Like You”
10. Pearl Jam, “World Wide Suicide”
11. Gnarls Barkley, “Run (I’m A Natural Disaster)”
12. The Pretenders, “Precious”
13. Queensryche, “Walk In The Shadows”
14. Soundgarden, “Hands All Over”
15. Radiohead, “Lucky”

I leave you with Wolfmother’s “New Moon Rising” – crank it to 11:

Their debut album is called "Passive Me Aggressive You"

I won’t say much about the All Blacks as such (my Australian husband wouldn’t take too kindly to any gushing), other than I missed watching Dan (sigh) Carter play once he got injured. What I will do is chat a bit about my current favorite Kiwi band – The Naked and Famous.

Most of the time when you hear ‘New Zealand’ and ‘pop music’ you can’t think of much beyond Crowded House and that guy who sang “How Bizarre”. That’s why The Naked and Famous are so refreshing; they don’t wear their Kiwi-ness on their sleeves. I love, love, love Neil Finn but with him you know you’re always going to get sturdy pop, nature images and the odd Maori phrases in the mix. Like a Peter Jackson musical but taller and without the pointy ears.

The other All Blacks

“The Sun” certainly ranks in my top five singles of 2011 so far. To get the full effect of this mesmerizing song, start with the previous track – a solo piano piece called “The Source” – which segues in to the insidious, hypnotic beat of “The Sun”. The layers of beats and vocals build and swirl as Ms Xayalith breathes a litany of regret, memory loss and bad behaviour. It’s a perfect late-night, neon-lit, head-spinning track. You can check out the video here, but be warned that, like the band’s name, it does contain nudity. For gratuitous Kiwi boobies, press play.

They’re a young band and sometimes it shows in their ‘moody girl writes bad poetry’ lyrics – “Jilted Lovers” is a particularly ponderous example. I’m hoping the combination of travel and more exposure will infuse their writing with a bit more depth and courage. They’re on tour in Europe right now, making some inroads in the States, but completely under the radar here in Asia.

Fortunately, for those of us living in pop music backwaters, we have plenty of ways to explore new music. Start with The Naked and Famous official website, where you can watch/listen to not one, not two but SEVEN of their music videos plus a short ‘in the studio’ vid. They’re also a BBC Sound of 2011 Artist – find that here.

Happy Listening!

I’m now rooting for the Houston Texans to make the Super Bowl.

The show is for an English-speaking Asian audience, aged 7-12, and airs in three-minute bursts on Cartoon Network Asia. Each episode is built around a song about say, how to be an entrepreneur or where money comes from. The kicker here is that it was created and produced by Prudential Corporation Asia after the company surveyed parents around Asia about their children’s perceived ‘money management skills’ (from the official website). Prudential found parents were quite concerned about how little their kids knew about managing money (surprise, surprise!) and decided they’d bring in an educational expert to create a platform for teaching money smarts i.e. ‘financial literacy’ in corporate-speak. Here’s a sample:

So right away you know that this show is really for parents, not kids, which is a huge strike against it from the get-go. You can see it in the show’s earnestness, complexity and utter lack of zaniness and a good groove. Makes me want to ask if any insurance folk have ever heard of Phineas and Ferb and The Backyard Beach. Profit and loss for seven-year-olds? What’s next: dealing with small-business regulations? I also wonder if Prudential’s survey uncovered what expenses our children are actually responsible for? YO earns a bit of pocket money each month and we do encourage her to divide it in to three sections: savings, spending and charity. But all she needs to worry about is donating money on school dress casual days and saving for books or sweets. In that respect, the Family Budget Manager, which I downloaded, is just too complex – a waste of time quite honestly – for children in this age group. EO is in her first year of secondary school and she’s just now learning how to manage a small budget we give her each week for school lunches, public transport and the occasional frozen yogurt.

The next drawback to the whole premise is that the cast of characters are in a band called ‘Cha-Ching’ (get it?) and, I quote again from the official website: “Originally friends from music class at their school, the group’s passion for music sees the band growing in popularity, quickly attracting a loyal fan-base around town.”

Let’s be honest here, we don’t need another kids’ show about being in a band! This whole notion of striving for celebrity – whether it be on Victorious or Big Time Rush or JONAS – is just toxic and tiresome. Maybe I’m getting off base a little here, but judging from the name and the quality of the tunes, I’d say Cha-Ching’s passion lies with making money not, in the immortal words of Jack Black, ‘sticking it to the man’. Because in reality, if Cha-Ching were an actual tween band in a ‘medium-sized town in Asia’, they’d have to be completely subversive. At that age, and with the expectations facing today’s kids, you’d better believe it. What do you mean you’re performing in a show instead of going to Kumon class! You rebel!

I just don’t know if the band concept works in Asia that’s all. So why not make them regular kids who deal with regular things, like wants v. needs, and who want to learn about how they can make more money or how much a new pair of Crocs cost or why their friend gets more money than they do when the tooth fairy visits.

Some final comments:
1. THANK YOU for not rapping.
2. YO thought the episodes were boring but did enjoy the games (which is probably where the future of Cha-Ching lies).
3. The official website is surprisingly slow, videos are much easier to watch on YouTube.
4. I’m sorry but Zul cannot sing. “It’s Got To Be Earned” is more like “It’s Got To Be Excruciating”.

In all things educational and musical, I must now defer to the gold standard of kids’ music. For quality, melody and pure catchiness you can’t get any better than Schoolhouse Rock. From the early ’70s all the way to 2009, musical director and jazz musician Bob Dorough led a Schoolhouse team that crafted some of the best, most informative songs for kids, ever. I played some for YO and EO last night and already had YO going off to bed singing, ‘Lolly, lolly, lolly’.

So check out Cha-Ching and let me know what you think, but have a look at Schoolhouse Rock for the real deal.

Bill Berry always looked good in a vest. All photos on this post are from the official R.E.M. website.

We define parts of ourselves – we build our selves – with the bricks and mortar of music, movies, labels and gadgets. They shade our personality and accessorize our history, like grade school ornaments on a Christmas tree. The first time I used a tiny-screened boxy Apple was in a friend’s dorm room. What was the movie you-popped-in-to-the-VCR-with-microwave-popcorn-after-a-late-night-out? I had two: Valley Girl and The Sure Thing. “Something light!” Which band have you seen in concert the most?

That would be R.E.M.

If ever there was a band that wove itself in to the fabric of my life, it was R.E.M. Still is. And not just in a nostalgic, wasn’t-it-great-to-be-young kind of way (I leave that to Duran Duran and Depeche Mode), but in a living, breathing infusing-my-life-with-deeper-meaning kind of way.

Now, as a group, the boys from Athens are no more.

Jefferson I think we’re lost!

My oldest brother, on holiday from university, brought home Reckoning when I was seventeen. I put the album on my Magnavox stereo, which I’d inherited from my other brother, and tried to make sense of a sound I’d never heard before. So different, so new, so absolutely, completely different from anything out there. Then I went off to college and my sister and I, now roommates, listened over and over to the earthy dreams of Fables of the Reconstruction. We went back to discover Murmur and Chronic Town and marveled at a band that used words like ‘Moral Kiosk’ and made music as shy and beautiful as ‘Perfect Circle’.

It’s these little things they can pull you under
Live your life filled with joy and thunder

My first R.E.M. concert was on the Life’s Rich Pageant tour. Appropriately enough my oldest brother and sister were there too, all of us on that night right where we needed to be, dancing to the driving guitars and pounding hope of songs about man’s demands and burdens, desires and destiny. Even now, when I hear ‘These Days’, I have to stop and let its brilliance wash over me, Bill Berry’s drumming and Mike Mills’ harmony cutting right to the core of what it means to be alive.

Leo-nard Bern-stein!

A couple years later, R.E.M. returned to Austin, bigger now, supporting the Green album. We got floor seats with friends – my sister with me again – and spent two hours in ecstasy, turned on by ‘Orange Crush’ and a shirtless, long-haired Michael Stipe.

I want to figure you out

I know it might sound strange
But I believe you’ll be coming back before too long

Here I found a tree with similar trimmings – a girl in grad school who wanted to go to the R.E.M. concert too. We swapped music stories and cemented a lifelong friendship while standing in line for tickets too early on a drizzly Saturday morning. We were in to stadium territory now, but the band thrilled us all the same, covering the old and the new and previewing songs from New Adventures in Hi-Fi.

New Adventures… was the last album I coveted. Years passed and R.E.M. released records that I’d hear about months after the fact. I bought them and listened a few times, and then tucked them away. It was an inevitable but sad separation, the friend you lose touch with save for a Christmas e-card.

Well, everybody is young forever
There’s so much to tell you, so little time

A few years ago, R.E.M. came to Hong Kong – the one and only time they’ve stopped by in all my years living here. I bought tickets straight away, and went along with my husband and my close friend, whose children played with my children. In my third decade of R.E.M. fandom, I was now a wife and mom, but dying to rush the stage and bounce my way through the entire show. I sang all the songs (except for some of the new ones ☺) and basked in the glow of their exceptional talent.

I believe in what you do
I believe in watching you

When YO has trouble falling asleep, she listens to a playlist of soft songs I compiled to help her relax and drift off. Between Eric Johnson and Dolly Parton is ‘Find The River’ – one of her favorites. The acoustic guitar, piano and a strange instrument called a melodica pair with Stipe’s dreamy lyrics to lull her to sleep like a lazy train rolling over afternoon hills and warm meadows. I hope that she’ll want to hear more as she grows up.

All of this is coming your way…

If you knew nothing about R.E.M., had never heard their music, and someone played ‘Finest Worksong’ or ‘I Am Superman’ or, better still, ‘Pilgrimage’, you’d be hard pressed to pin down a time and place for those songs. You could easily imagine them as part of today’s sound, somewhere between the shy intellectual pop of The Shins and the southern gothic rock of My Morning Jacket, yet R.E.M. have been around for 30 years. They reached out to us from deep inside the poorly-lit cinderblock structure of college radio, with their indecipherable lyrics, earnest longings and jangly-Byrds’ guitars. From the piney woods and deep red clay of Georgia, they called out to us: we believe in this music, please listen! From the past, present and future, they conquered us.

No one sounds quite like them. Still. Always.

Oh life...

In case you didn’t recognize them:
1. ‘These Days’ – Life’s Rich Pageant
2. ‘Little America’ – Reckoning
3. ‘Sweetness Follows’ – Automatic for the People
4. ‘It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ – Document
5. ‘Don’t Go Back to Rockville’ – Reckoning
6. ‘Departure’ – Murmur
7. ‘Turn You Inside-Out’ – Green
8. ‘Find the River’ – Automatic for the People
All lyrics © R.E.M.

Well, aside from entertaining the girls these eight weeks of school holiday, I’ve mainly been paralyzed with fear at the prospect of Rick Perry becoming the next President of the U.S.

Don’t laugh! And don’t underestimate this guy. He’s currently the longest continuously-serving governor around (of my home state, Texas). He can boast, fairly legitimately, of state job growth and low taxes. He’s never lost an election, going 10 for 10 since the mid-‘80s, and he has great hair.

That's a 10-4 good buddy on my scorched earth policy and the benefits of Aqua Net.

But he’s no powder-puff. If you don’t believe me, then take a look at ‘Dear Yankee’, by Paul Burka. That’ll clear things up for you.

So in the midst of all of this Perry-Bachmann anti-evolution, anti-climate change, anti-intellectual regression, thank God I’ve got another West Texas son to lift my spirits.

“Rave On” is the new Buddy Holly tribute album, and what a comfort it has been. Released this year in honor of what would be Holly’s 75th birthday (September 9), it’s chock full of Holly songs covered by some of my favorite musicians: Cee Lo Green, Fiona Apple (where have you been?), The Black Keys, My Morning Jacket, etc.

The album is a mixture of traditional and revisionist takes on Holly’s work. On the traditional side, Fiona Apple’s sweet duet with Jon Brion on ‘Everyday’, Karen Elson’s modest ‘Crying, Waiting, Hoping’ (is she singing about her ex, Jack White?) and She & Him’s (aka Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward) ‘All My Loving’ sound like you’re sitting in a malt shop in your poodle skirt and letter sweater. On the revisionist side, I can totally do without Lou Reed’s grungy, feedback-heavy ‘Peggy Sue’. Man, this guy could bring down a Doris Day song! To that weirdness I’d also add Paul McCartney’s version of ‘It’s So Easy’, which sounds promising enough but then deteriorates in the last 20 seconds as McCartney blabbers on free form about a juke joint or some such nonsense. He’s so square.

Amidst the senior citizen rockers (John Doe, Graham Nash, Patti Smith) and hipster representatives (Modest Mouse, The Detroit Cobras, Julian Casablancas), the biggest surprise on the album – prepare yourself for this – is Kid Rock. With hand claps and horns, his version of ‘Well All Right’ strikes a groovy balance between ‘50s soul and meat-and-potatoes rock. Just like what John Mellancamp used to do.

Save us!

When Buddy Holly died in 1959, Perry was only nine years’ old, living on a vast cotton farm and spending, as he’s described it, “a lot of time just alone with my dog. A lot.”

Unfortunately, Perry’s early isolation didn’t breed a thoughtful, introspective gentleman. He’s more the flip side to Buddy Holly’s tender meditation. While Holly wrote and sang about a romantic world of love and loss – all by the age of 22, mind you – Perry cut $4 billion from Texas public schools.

I know it’s easy for me to look at the U.S. from afar, to read the NY Times online and pass judgment on a whole group of people who don’t believe that dinosaurs existed, or that greenhouse gases are bad for the planet. But, you know, at some point, Perry, Bachmann and those crazy junior Republican reps are going to have to accept that, for the next year or so, Obama is our President and they should just get on with building the healthiest, best-educated country they can – no matter what state you were born in, who your parents are, or what God you believe in.

That’ll be the day!

That's Kevin playing bass - and rocking the dance floor - on the right

How do you think your child’s experience with music will be different from your own?

Bill: They are starting to learn music at an earlier age than I did and have a good chance to become much more accomplished musicians. They both can now read music and they both have exhibited an impressive willingness to slog forward learning piano (Felix) and guitar (Louis). They are getting skills that today’s technology will only amplify.

Bill - the man in black - performing at a cafe in Paris

Kevin: I’m afraid we won’t be sharing as much music, since now my library sits as a four-month long brick of data in my computer and most listening happens with headphones on. No more albums for him to rifle through and sneak out of my room. I look forward to when he can come see me play — the bands I’m in are too loud for him now. But he’ll have much more resources at his command for learning and playing command — watching tutorials on YouTube or doing home recordings on Pro Tools rather than cassettes.

Tyler: Technology will make her music experience much different than mine as a child. Everything is instant nowadays from buying, downloading, fast forward/rewinding, It’s all at the touch of a button. The record stores are all online so she will most likely never save up her allowance and spend the day at the mall at Musicland to spend every penny on a record, cassette or CD then race home to read the liner notes and lyrics. But it’s ever changing so who knows what she’ll experience.

Are there any artists you absolutely love but your kid(s) detest?

Bill: Nothing offhand. They haven’t gotten into jazz yet, but I don’t expect it. I had hoped they would like They Might Be Giants a bit more, but I picked up a copy of their kids’ record and DVD “This is Science” this week in Boston and the boys and I are all over it.

Tyler: This doesn’t really apply to me yet but she definitely does not like the volume in which I listen to music. Neither does her mother for that matter.

Kevin: So far Jonah hasn’t turned his nose up at any of my music. Actually, he’s probably turned me on to more music thanks to Barney, Fireman Sam, and forgotten/never knew nursery rhymes (especially living in Hong Kong, I get a healthy dose of Brit rhymes I’d never heard).

Tyler, imagine that your daughter is 18. If she were to bring home the 19-year old incarnation of one of the following – Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Morrissey, Kanye West or Johnny Cash – which one would you choose/approve of and why?

Tyler: She’s going to bring someone home eventually, isn’t she? Damn. Well, if she brings home any one of those whether it be a guitar guru, master songwriter, rapper or just a badass then he’ll be more of a musician than I’ll ever be so I’ll probably welcome him in to learn some new tricks. That doesn’t mean I have to like him.

Tyler, far right, and San Saba County, a cool Texas band

For Kevin and Bill – when your son(s) is 18, what if he were to bring home the 18-year old incarnation of one of the following – Grace Slick, Olivia Newton-John, Chrissie Hynde, Beyonce or Loretta Lynn – which one would you choose/approve of and why?

Bill: Chrissie Hynde — she’s a nut today but when she hit the scene she was a rock journalist who became a great artist and a truly original female rock icon. Of course, two members of her band died, which is a negative, but I think she (along with Loretta) is genuine in the way the others don’t seem to be.

Kevin: Loretta — although she was married at 13 and had four kids by the time she was 19. But by far the most talented, headstrong and put together of the bunch. Beyonce would break his heart, Grace Slick would weird us out (and “We Built This City (on Rock and Roll)” is unforgivable). Chrissie would be too angry, Olivia Newton-John too forgettable.

Finally, what’s your perfect lullaby?

Tyler: I let Christie handle the lullabys, but I do sing her a song by My Morning Jacket called “Evelyn”.

Kevin: I whistled “Simple Song” from Bernstein’s “Mass” when he was an infant, which seemed to do the trick. “Brahm’s Lullaby” when he was a toddler (I know, it’s the “Stairway to Heaven” of lullabies. But what can I say — it worked.)

Bill: Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” was the most played and most requested lullaby when they were little. I will always associate this song now with my boys aged three-four.

Thanks again to these Rock Dads for their thoughtful and funny answers. And though I’ve never been a fan of They Might Be Giants (do they have any female fans?), I’ll close, on Bill’s suggestion, with a video from their latest release, Here Comes Science. This clip is called “I Am A Paleontologist”. Gather the kids round the computer screen and enjoy!

San Saba County, a gem of a band from Austin. That's Tyler second from right.

Click here for San Saba County’s website.

Kevin lives in Hong Kong, but is originally from the U.S. His son, Jonah, will be three years old in July. By day, Kevin works as Asia Business Editor for CNN.com International and at night he plays bass in a couple of local bands, including Transnoodle. He describes their music as “original ska, punk, funk, Russian folk music “. For proof, you can check them out on YouTube:

and

Kevin also plays with the trio New Tonic Press, featuring singer-songwriter Sue Shearman. You can listen to New Tonic Press at:

Latest tracks by New Tonic Press

And last but not least is Bill, my brother, who lives in Paris and has twin boys – Felix and Louis – aged eight. Bill works a very white-collar job as a management consultant but also plays guitar in a cover band called The Outliers. He’s as fanatical about music as I am. And he’ll be pleased to know that after many years, I finally have a keen appreciation for Paul Simon.

That's my brother on the right. Kind of a continental T-Bone Burnett, n'est pas?

There were so many interesting and honest answers to my questions that I’m going to post this in two installments. So read on for Part I of my Q&A with some way cool RockDads:

Do you have any specific memories of what music your parents listened to?

Tyler: There are three bands that stand out from my childhood and they all were mostly played on a cassette boombox on the beach during our summer camping trips: ZZ Top, Huey Lewis and The News and John “Cougar” Mellencamp. My parents were always music listeners but not music lovers and I would never say they had a taste of their own. It was always whatever was American Top 40. They divorced when I was around seven, and I remember soon after the divorce my dad buying me John Cougar’s “Scarecrow” album. He looked me in the eye, handed me the cassette and said, “Listen to this, son,” as if it held the answers of the world. I’ll admit that I have tapped my foot to one or two of the ‘Coug’s’ songs.

Kevin: My parents were teenagers on the wrong side of the 50s — Dad listened to classical and Perry Como, Mom liked easy listening, so the radio was often tuned to muzak. That changed for me when John Lennon died when I was 12 and suddenly all the stations were playing The Beatles: I had heard every song before in lame elevator form, but never actually heard them do it. I listened to the Beatles non-stop for a full year. My dad and I connected more on music in high school when I studied music and he was surprised to hear Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” on my stereo.

Bill: I have many, many memories of Dad’s music: Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream and Other Delights” and the other Tijuana Brass LP with the airplane are primal memories because of the A&M Records logo. Dad was keen on the 50′s-60′s white jazz guys like Dave Brubeck, Cal Tjader, Stan Getz and the funky instrumental space age bachelor pad records he had. Later, when I began playing saxophone and got serious about jazz, he would bring home bargain records of these guys that he remembered from his college days. He got me Dave Brubeck’s Greatest Hits (with Dave in the world’s greatest horn-rimmed glasses), which has been a very important record to me. He got me an obscure Bud Shank record that I played to death. All sorts of curious things. He also got me my first Charlie Parker record (a Verve collection), which opened up a world that has been absolutely fundamental to who I am.

What’s funny is that I don’t recall him listening to many of these albums in his free time. I don’t know that he really connected to this music in the way you and I have connected to our music. My memory is of TV at home and talk radio in the car.

Who are the top three artists you want your children to know/listen to?

Kevin: Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane — great composers (though John and Jimi were also virtuosos). Listening to them at 18 is different than listening to them at 42, but somehow the music grows with you. It’s music we could listen to together.

Bill: I am very, very proud that Louis and Felix have a) responded so well to music I love and b) have surprised me by exercising their own judgment on what makes their bedroom playlist. They are huge Beatles fans and love “Help!”, “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver”. They could stop there and I would feel my work is done. But Lo! and Behold! they have jumped on my copy of Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Greatest Hits Vol. 1″, my Buddy Holly collection, Lemonheads “It’s a Shame about Ray”, REM “Green” and all sorts of things. They are only eight years old but they already have their own tastes and their own agendas in terms of why they listen to music. Louis is very rhythm-oriented, likes to dance and wants a physical rush from his music. He instantly connected to the opening riff in The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army”. Felix also likes a good hook, but is more sentimental and lyric driven. He is the frustrated romantic who needs another to sing his heart. He’ll be living with The Beatles all his life and will no doubt be passionate for bands that “stand for something” — a U2 or REM ten years from now.

So, to answer your question, here is the list:
1) The Beatles — check
2) American R&B and Blues — they’re deep into Motown already and I am optimistic that this will lead to blues and the rest of that wonderful world of black music that I believe is their best anchor to American culture.
3) Miles Davis, specifically “Kind of Blue”.

Tyler: In a perfect world, my little girl will like every band that I push onto her. I do know that this will never be the case. I would hope that she could at least respect bands like Wilco, My Morning Jacket and Neko Case for their classic guitar and vocal-driven song craft.

Performing in bands can offer all kinds of temptations that go hand-in-hand with a late-night lifestyle. Would you encourage your child to pursue rock-n-roll? Why or why not?

Kevin: I’ve gone down that road and did a U-turn. I quit drinking a week before I learned I was going to be a father. For me, the partying part of music just became boring, depressing and dangerous. Still spend time in bars, but it’s Coke (Coca-Cola, that is) for me now. If my son picks up the guitar I’m sure I’ll worry, then remind myself what I was doing when I was his age. Then worry even more.

But I met my wife by playing music — she asked me out after seeing me at a gig. So in a way, Jonah owes his existence to my nightlife pursuits. I suppose I’ll need to give him room to make his own mistakes. I mean, really — do I have a choice? But if he falls into that trap, at least I’m better equipped now to help him get back.

Tyler: If you’re referring to drinking, smoking and the like, I cannot condone it but I know what kids will do. I’m still a kid myself. But playing music is much more than getting loaded and banging on an instrument. It’s the one constant in my life that I will always love and never quit so if my kid can have a focus like that in her life I will never stand in her way.

Bill: I would encourage them to pursue rock-n-roll. Drugs scare me, but they will pass that gauntlet no matter what. What’s important is that they have something meaningful and enriching to their self-esteem. Plus, it may help them get girls to a degree that I could only dream of as an adolescent.

Stay tuned for Part II where we hear the Rock Dads talk about their favorite lullaby’s, how listening to music will be different for their kids, and what they would do if their son brought home the 18-year old incarnation of Chrissie Hynde.

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But RIO I liked. And we’ve found that the soundtrack is equally enjoyable. For where else can you introduce your children to the joys of Sergio Mendes and Jermaine Clement* with the same album?

Mr Mendes and John Powell are the album producers and, as you probably know, the musical numbers are integral to both the story – bird meets bird, bird loses bird, bird learns to fly – and the setting, Brazil.

Btw, does anyone know of a movie set in Brazil that doesn’t include Carnival? Just wondering.

The soundtrack is heavy on the party music with a couple sweet love songs thrown in. One of the things that most impressed me was that out of 14 tunes there is very little soundtrack filler. Okay, my girls got a little bored with the last few numbers, which are all sung in Portuguese. But really, the first eight tunes are stand-alone strong. They’ve even reworked the classic “Mas Que Nada,” and how cool is that to hear YO doing her best Gracinha and singing along in the backseat. Now I know what my Dad felt like when we asked him to play his Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass records.

The big production numbers are sung by voices you know – Will I Am, Anne Hathaway and Jamie Foxx – and voices you don’t, namely Ester Dean who sounds almost exactly like Rihanna. The music will make you move while the lyrics, well, the lyrics are hopelessly silly: “Let me take you to Rio, Rio / Fly on the ocean like an eagle, eagle / Then we can chill in my gazebo” Gazebo? Someone get that writer a rhyming dictionary, stat! And I haven’t even gotten to ‘Funky Monkey’.

But you know it’s kid’s music. It’s clean and it’s fun and of a much higher standard than the tunes in so many of these animated flicks. Why do these producers insist on reworking ‘80s tunes. Is that to amuse us parents – a sign of your ironic sense of humor – or are you just lazy? If I wanted my girls to hear ‘I Want Candy’ I’d play the original Bow Wow Wow version, not a lukewarm rehash by some wannabe Justin Beiber.

But back to RIO. The film’s director, Carlos Saldanha, says the RIO soundtrack “represents a dream come true”. If you’re a fan of Brazilian music – and you like to move your monkey feet – it probably is.

*from Flight of the Conchords! Here’s some more of him: