Eric Herman - Travelblogue: 2008 Spring/Summer Tour

We drove into San Francisco (flat roads all the way!), where I had a gig at the Richmond Recreation Center. The show was on behalf of the Interactive Learning Theater of San Francisco, which produces regular events with specific themes for toddlers and preschoolers. I was asked if I could do a show with the subject of manners. I was a little hesitant to take the gig initially, as it wasn't my usual age range for a show that would involve a theme of any kind. My themed school assembly programs are meant specifically for elementary kids and work great in that context, but the attention span of a toddler is quite different than even a kindergartener's, much less a fourth or fifth grader's. But in talking with my contact from the event, Rebecca, who was really nice and very eager to have me there, we decided that it might work out if I did a few songs from my usual kind of fun concert show, then did a few songs to address the theme, then ended with a few more songs outside of the theme. I agreed to try that, and we came up with the plan of using Becca's Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down game to introduce a manners topic before each of the songs that related in some way to a manners issue (interrupting, asking nicely for things, etc.).

I used "The Elephant Song" for the interrupting thing, and the kids obliged by saying "excuse me" when interrupting each time. It was nice, but I'm not expecting that to happen ever again when I perform that song. I had been trying to come up with some other song ideas that might work for this show and finally realized just the other day that one of my new songs, "How to Move a Monster", would be a perfect fit for the idea of asking nicely for things, so I added that, too. Anyhow, Rebecca said she was very happy with how it went, but I still felt a little out of my element with such a young group (it ended up being mostly toddlers), and had a difficult time keeping their full attention during some of the talking points and story songs. But it was a good experience and was definitely worth trying.

We were met at the show by Frances England, the fabulous singer/songwriter who I covered previously on my blog. I wanted to do an interview with her while we were in the area. Becca and Evee, upon learning that the "Tricycle" and "Daddy-O" and "Who-Waa" lady was in their midst, eagerly regaled her with their entire life stories... with complete descriptions of their toys, computers, bedrooms, cat, etc. We walked to a nearby park and the girls played while Frances and I chatted for quite a while. She is about to release her second album, Family Tree, and unfortunately, having only just received it from her, I couldn't really ask her too much about that, but she relayed some cool stories about the songs and some great insight into how she makes her music.

We headed over to Berkeley to meet up with Gunnar Madsen. Gunnar is an incredibly versatile artist, musician, actor, writer and composer, and his new album, Growing Up, is one of the most unique and entertaining kids' music albums I've ever heard. I felt bad that Roseann and I miscommunicated, thinking the other had called Gunnar while we were with Frances, and we didn't have the other cell phone where Gunnar had called wondering where we were... so we ended up being over an hour later than he was expecting. But thankfully he was still available and we had an interview and some great conversation in his studio while our girls played with his son, Quinn. It was a particularly hot day, and the kids decided to play with the hose, getting each other pretty wet.

The interviews will be posted to my blog at some point in the coming weeks. It was an interesting one-two between Frances England and Gunnar, because I might describe Frances' style as being an excellent example of "less is more", in terms of the approach of the songs and arrangements and production, and Gunnar is an excellent example of "more is more". Both are absolutely top notch in their own respect, though, and while they probably appeal to different ages and musical tastes among the kid music spectrum, I'm really glad that they are both part of the overreaching genre of "children's music". I really enjoyed talking with them both, and would have liked to have spent a lot more time discussing music, life, the universe and everything.

From Berkeley, we drove back to the KOA, after taking a wrong route for a while... whoops... and all went to bed pretty early.