From Robbert Bobbert &The Bubble Machine to the Langley Schools Music Project: Children's music for the 21st century

Far from having to sing He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands in school assemblies, a whole new generation is being brought up in the right direction by increasingly imaginative children’s songs.

Nowadays, they get them early - The Shins, Wilco and Motorhead all appear on the Spongebob Squarepants movie soundtrack, and Dressy Bessy, Devo and Frank Black (of all people!) feature in Powerpuff Girls.

Robert Schneider, front man of cult American indie band the Apples in Stereo, is no stranger to children’s music, having composed songs for Powerpuff Girls and the Adventures of Pete and Pete as well as lending an Apples in Stereo song to the Spongebob soundtrack.

From the mid 90s, The Apples in Stereo have been part of the Elephant 6 collective of bands such as Neutral Milk Hotel, Of Montreal, Elf Power and the Olivia Tremor Control, who are known for marrying inventiveness and sonic experimentation to the classic pop sound of bands like the Beatles.

Schneider certainly knows how to write a catchy hook, which is why so many Apples in Stereo songs are used in adverts.

Now, with Robbert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine, he’s been reinvented as a ‘mad professor’ of pop - a Phil Spector for the pre-teens - on the soundtrack to a forthcoming children’s TV series, introducing characters like The Little Duck in polka dot pyjamas and the stomping Mighty Mighty Elephant.

Like children’s meals, Robbert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine offers a mini dose of the full Apples in Stereo experience. The album packs all the necessary goodness into manageable portions, none of the tracks lasting much over two minutes in consideration of children’s attentions spans. We R Superheroes, for example, is essentially an Apples in Stereo song, inspired by the same Beach Boys harmonies that characterise their summer pop.

All the squelchy synths and sound effects you’d expect are there, including the boing-boing of a ball on Gravity, but Robbert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine stays just the right side of cute. Only on Fee Fi Fo, Fee Fo Fum, a faux rap, does the album hit a wrong note.

It’s easy to imagine a pre-school singalong: on Gravity, echoing backing vocals and simple rising melodies explore seasons and the planets. The sleigh bells and wistful female backing vocals of I Love the Animals gently warn against “filling up with hate”, and the album's highlight, Laughing, celebrates the joys of having “found me a friend” over a classic rock riff.

Robbert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine also functions as a beginner’s guide to American popular music: Hey Little Puppy is a brilliant pastiche of teenage rock n roll that condenses the sounds of the West Coast into just under two minutes. Schneider sings “Hey little puppy, do you wanna come home with me?” over a driving, chug chug guitar rhythm and clamouring surf guitar.

The album swells to its conclusion with the lovely lullaby The Tiny Sheep, which isn’t far removed from The Magnetic Fields’ more contemplative moments. Tremolo picking gently buoys Tiny Sheep over a sea of silvery synthesisers like sails sending a great ship slowly into the calm sea of sleep.

www.robbertbobbert.com
http://www.myspace.com/robbertbobbert

While we're on the subject of children's music...


Innocence & Despair by the Langley Schools Music Project

Innocence & Despair is a children’s album in that it was performed by rural Canadian schoolchildren, but its appeal and reach far outweighs that of mere children’s music.

Robbert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine is children’s music pure and simple, written for children and based around children’s concerns, redolent of the golden days of childhood.

Innocence & Despair, on the other hand, has become an enduring cult classic since it was rereleased on CD in 2001, after initially being intended for the ears only of friends and family of the children involved. Made in a school gymnasium between 1976 - 1977 under the supervision of teacher Hans Fenger, a choir of 60 children reinterpret popular hits - with an emphasis on those of the Beach Boys - accompanied by guitar and bass, basic percussion, gamelan instruments, xylophone, bells and chimes.

The album is pervaded by a sense of melancholy and eeriness - particularly during its take on David Bowie’s A Space Oddity, which is overhung by otherworldly sound effects and a creepy bassline - brought about by school days that go by too fast.

The choir of childen, singing all at once, still sound lonely - in that gymnasium, they’re as far away from the outside world as Major Tom on his spaceship.

The songs are sparse, reduced down to their bare essence, and it's because of that I prefer these versions to many of the originals - especially A Space Oddity, which is far more interesting than Bowie’s staid performance.

If there’s a wrong note or something falls out of time it doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of things - life is like that - it has its blips and ups and downs.

Here, the children sing about adult concerns with a world weariness and jadedness that’s beyond their years - from one night stands to the bittersweet love affairs of the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows (read Laura Barton's article about this song from the Guardian Film & Music section), which is sung with resignedness at the end of the phrases like a musical turning down of the mouth.

The children sing with great conviction, crescendoing in and out of the music, breathing life into the real emotions and real life experiences they're still on the cusp of experiencing, that they’re going to find out about sooner or later.

There is despair in the record, but also a purity and it’s a remarkable triumph. They’re not musicians, but you want the children to succeed - when they scramble to hit the high notes on a version of Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run, you really feel their achievement.

Innocence & Despair is exhilarating and desperate, ramshackle as if it’s about to fall apart any second.

A reinterpretation of You’re So Good To Me by the Beach Boys is almost earthshaking - you can imagine a performance rattling the school gym as much as the physical activity for which it was originally intended.

The record leaves the listener with a sense of hope that transcends the time and place in which it was made, though; Innocence & Despair is underpinned by a robust heart, and a clomping, footstamping beat, from the whistling abandon of I’m Into Something Good and scattered handclaps and cheerleader esque chanting of Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers to the cymbal crashes of I Get Around by the Beach Boys.

The Langley Schools Music Project
http://www.myspace.com/langschool

Also listen to:

Pete Seeger: Folk Songs for Young People (1959)

The grandfather of American protest music teaches the origins of the country’s folk traditions - including sailor, cowboy and factory songs - claiming ‘the songs of ordinary people like you or me are better than a whole shelf full of history books’. Gentle melodies belie the darker side of American history, from poverty to slavery.

Woody Guthrie: Nursery Days (1958)

He wrote scores of children’s songs during his career, but it’s Riding in My Car, which appears on Nursery Days (or, Songs to Grow On), for which Guthrie is possibly most loved. The skipping rhythm and Guthrie’s brr brr engine and yodelling horn impressions imitate a car better than any other record, children’s or otherwise.

All My Heroes Are Weirdos - bedroom disco themed night starts at Retro Bar this Thursday

A new night is starting at Retro Bar on Thursday. Leaning towards the more alternative side of independent music, All My Heroes Are Weirdos, which will take place on the third Thursday of every month, takes its inspiration from bedroom discos and looks set to fill the vacuum left by much missed nights like Dot Dash/ I Could Care Less and previous Retro Bar nights like Killing Fantasy and Fight Club.

The organisers aim to counter what they see as the 'apathy' of Manchester's clubbing scene, and the night will complement the good work of existing discos like Panda Panda (currently sharing a night with Underachievers Please Try Harder at Saki in Rusholme), Underachievers Please Try Harder and Asparagus Next Left (Star and Garter).

All My Heroes Are Weirdos is the brainchild of four disillusioned Manchester clubbers, including Phill Daker who puts gigs on under the name Mushaboom Folk. He's joined by Emma Tillyer, Sean McGurdy and Heather Hewitt.

How are you going to be different to any other indie disco?

We’re all quite bored with the current crop of indie nights going on in Manchester. Most of them seem too concerned with playing what’s ‘fashionable’ … so we decided to start our own night and see how people respond. There are four of us involved in the night, each with our own music tastes, so hopefully we’ll strike a chord with other frustrated clubbers.

Do you think indie discos are generally too 'apathetic'/ 'vacuous', as you say on the All My Heroes Are Weidos facebook page?

I guess we were sick of spending our money on nights that only play new new music, where people go to them to pose and pretend to know all the words to the latest remix of the latest electro band. So yes … We do.

Is there enough diversity in Manchester clubnights?

A little, but not enough. Great clubnights will always exist here. We just want to be part of it…and not sit at home complaining. The DIY ethic is something we all believe in.

You describe a disaffection with 'fashionable clubs' on the facebook page - are you anti-fashion?

We’re definitely anti fashion within music. We’re not influenced by charts or who’s in the NME cool list, we’re just going to play the records we listen to in our own bedrooms.

Why should people venture out on a Thursday night rather then stay at home?

Thursdays are the new Fridays! And Retro Bar is a great venue, supporting Manchester music rather than harming it with high entrance prices… Plus it has drinks offers every night of the week!

You promise mixtapes at the launch - will they be monthly? Will people be encouraged to take their own and swap them?

The mixtapes are just for the launch at the moment, but if they get a good reception we may consider making them a feature of the night.

Will there really be cake and biscuits too? Homemade?

Yes! We like baking…

How did you come up with the idea of an anti-heroes disco?

We’re all fans of outsider music - oddballs, weirdos, geeks, punks, romantics. These are the people we love!

Will you be playing more obscure tracks by bands than might normally be heard at a club - ie. not necessarily the hits?

We can’t deny that the ‘hits’ will get people up and dancing, and singing along with each other, so we’re not going to be all snobby and not play them - we want people to have fun!
But we will be playing obscure tracks, and playing songs by bands you may not have heard of before, because we’re all proud geeks.

The music you're going to play is a lot different to the music you put on with Mushaboom - are you trying to deliberately do something that’s the opposite to your usual folkiness? / Are you hoping to attract the same crowd as at your Mushaboom gigs?

To make the distinction, Mushaboom and All My Heroes are unrelated...
Mushaboom is just me, whereas three other people are doing All My Heroes, each with their own input and music tastes. That’s why our night will stand out from the crowd.

Is your target market disaffected youth - people who might normally be a bit shy at a disco?

Not really thinking market wise: we are friends who are trying to make a night we would all enjoy and hope other people will too. Although we do want people of all dispositions to feel comfortable at our night and not feel like they can’t come and ask us to play a song!

You mention ‘secondhand records’ in the blurb to the night-are you going to be playing vinyl?

There maybe vinyl, CDs, laptops we are taking a DIY approach to the night, learning as we go along not promising the tightest DJ set, just the music we love.

Why did you decide to name your night after the !!! [genre defying California party band] song?

Without looking too deep into it, we all came up with some ideas and agreed on 'All my Heroes'. The name just seemed to represent what we wanted our night to be about. Its a great tune too!

http://www.myspace.com/amaw

All My Heroes are Weirdos launches at Retro Bar, Sackville Street, on Thursday April 30 at 9pm, with drinks offers and cheap doubles all night.

Expect to hear: Radiohead, Blood on the Wall, Sleater Kinney, Wire, Bratmobile, The Thermals, Patti Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, Pavement, The Fall, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Alaska in Winter, The Knife, Sufjan Stevens, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, The Teardrop Explodes, Deerhoof, Deathcab For Cutie, The Magnetic Fields, Vivian Girls, Daniel Johnston, Deerhunter, Neutral Milk Hotel, Scott Walker, Wolf Parade, The Pastels, Talking Heads, The National, The Modern Lovers, The Cramps, Jeffrey Lewis, No Age, The Slits, Cut Copy, My Bloody Valentine, TV on the Radio, The Mae Shi, Electrelane, David Bowie, Kate Bush, Devo, Bikini Kill, Pains of Being Pure at heart, Animal Collective, The Sugercubes, Of Montreal, Can, The Organ, (We Are Performance), Patrick Wolf

"I think it's only fair to tell you I'm absolutely cuckoo"

An additional spring was put in my step yesterday during an already pleasant sun-inflected wander through the back streets of the Northern Quarter. These anonymous, unattributed, words, taken of course from the Magnetic Fields song Absolutely Cuckoo, leapt from a wall in cursive white on black. What better affirmation of the dawn of spring than this sprightly country lament, guitars like new green shoots and electronic effects a-burble over the teasing strums of a ukulele? Absolutely Cuckoo is the opening track on the Magnetic Fields' majestic three album box set 69 Love Songs, an ambitious concept album full of short, sweet, perfectly formed songs of love turned on its head, which is ten years old this year. Stephin Merritt's one-step-away-from-laughing baritone dances through skipping ropes of repeated rhyming couplets, which chase each other round and round like the words to a nursery rhyme. Absolutely Cuckoo also manages to sum up my entire relationship history in one minute and thirty five seconds.

Don't fall in love with me yet
we only recently met
true i'm in love with you but
you might decide i'm a nut
give me a week or two to
go absolutely cuckoo
and when you see your error
then you can flee in terror
like everybody else does
i only tell you this 'cause
i'm easy to get rid of
but not if you fall in love
know now that i'm on the make
and if you make a mistake
my heart wil certainly break
i'll have to jump in a lake
and all my friends will blame you
there's no telling what they'll do
it's only fair to tell you
i'm absolutely cuckoo.

Update: April 27

I've noticed that the graffiti has still been there every time I've been to my favourite fruit and vegetable stall (possibly called Fresh is Best, in the shacks opposite the Arndale Market). I saw today that it finally seems to have been painted over, but it lasted for over a month!