Mario Galaxy Orchestra "Overture"

My mother-in-law bought Wii a few years ago as a fun Christmas present for me and my wife.

But honestly, having little kids, it was pretty rare that we took the time to play it ourselves.

Feeling bad about it gathering dust, I did some research last winter on good Wii games for kids 3 to 5.  Santa delivered a copy of "Ready, Set, Grover" to our house.

The game is cute, and very, very basic.  It's also, secretly, a way to get the kids to exercise.  Because Elmo and Grover are doing things like jumping over mailboxes and touching their toes and running in place and such.

The kids liked it.  But it did make them curious about the other games on the shelf.

I set them up to play "Epic Mickey" but they quickly got frustrated, as the motor skills necessary are way above a small kid's level.

"You do it, Daddy."

In short order, watching Daddy or Mommy play Wii became more popular than episodes of "Curious George."  The kids will literally sit for an hour and watch one of us play a game, offering helpful back-seat-Wii-ing instructions like, "You shouldn't have let that bad guy get you, Daddy."

"Epic Mickey" actually became kinda stressful in the later stages of the game, and that's when Mario returned to my life.

The first real arcade game I ever played was a knock-off version of Donkey Kong called "Crazy Kong."  When I was 11, my friend Jay Armstrong and I would ride our bikes all the way down to the D.A.V Hall---because it was one of the few places in town with an arcade game---with a few quarters, to play.  Years later, I got Donkey Kong for Atari, and played it endlessly.

For that last month or so, my son wakes up and the first thing he says is "Daddy, can you play Super Mario Galaxy?"

Mario is now in space and there is some complicated back-story about a princess and Luma creatures and the universe and I don't worry too much about that.  I just run around and collect coins and jump on the heads of bad guys.  And whenever I complete a level, my boy does his "we completed a level!" dance.  To some typically ear-wormy Mario music.

How ear-wormy?  Even at the dinner table, my boy is humming it.  Me too.

So it wasn't a big surprise that when we asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween, he said "Super Mario!"

My wife made the costume---it came out pretty darn good.

And (now that the Sox have won the World Series) there will be two of us losing a mustache tomorrow.

Hear the song on Youtube.

Jack Johnson "Friends"

There is no hard and fast rule about what makes a song appropriate to add, and what makes it inappropriate to add to rotation at MVY.

And that makes it hard to win an argument with my wife.

When she hears a song that she really likes, and finds out the MVY isn't playing it for one reason or another, she'll ask "Why?" then "WHY?" then "WHY?!?!" followed by, "That doesn't make any sense."

There is no hard and fast rule . . . there are a hundreds small and somewhat malleable rules.

The latest one we bumped up against had to do with Jack White.

The song "Friends" is a popular one around our house, in part because it plays in a promo during PBS' Kids programming, so my 5- and 3-year olds think its super-cool.

I love Jack White.  My wife loves Jack White.

Why doesn't mvyradio play Jack White?

Well, I think most listeners, and my wife, would agree that texturally and tonally, songs like "I'm Shakin'" or "Icky Thump" are just too rockin' and raucous for what we do.  A little too raw, a little too rackety, compared to the rest of the station's sound.

Okay.

"But what about songs like 'Friends'?  That's not loud.  It sounds just like other songs you play."

Recently, one of the independent promoters who calls me, said something really insightful about the station:

"You're really brand conscious."

At first, I thought she meant that we were careful about the mvyradio brand.  But no.  She was talking about the brand of a band.

"Even if it's a good song, if it's the kind of band you wouldn't play, you won't play it."

There are lots of band who are not "MVY" type bands, who do record songs that wouldn't sound out of place on the station.  But if most of the time, the band's sound is outside of the station's scope, we won't play them.

The theory is this:  If we throw the station behind an artist, isn't not just because they have one good song.  It's that we believe that our listeners will like the band in general (not just one song), and that we'll be following this band for years to come.

Sometimes that theory works out.  Sometimes it doesn't.  Bands that you think are going to be good, or make records our audience will like, don't. 

We try to avoid one-hit-wonders, and really commercial artists who try one stripped down folk song, and hard-rocking bands that pull out a great acoustic number.

So yes, I went through this whole explanation with my wife and still got, "That doesn't make any sense."

There are plenty of examples of mvy-exceptions to the rule, inconsistencies she could point out.  But in the end, as much as I love him, we're unlikely to play Jack White regularly, even though "Friends" is a great song.

"Then why don't you play the Jack Johnson version?"

Well.  I couldn't argue with that.

We play load of Jack Johnson songs and his take would fit in nicely to the mvyradio mix.

So expect to hear this one on mvyradio . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Taj Mahal "She Caught The Katy"

It's going to be weird, when my kid grows up. At some point, hopefully, she's going to hear "She Caught The Katy" and say, "Hey, that's the guy that sings the Peep theme song!"

What a strange thing, to come into an artists career, late, when they've delved into the world of kids music.

Dr. John won't be the "Right Place Wrong Time" hoodoo voodoo New Orleans man. He'll be the guy who sings the "Curious George" theme song.

A generation before, little kids around the country knew him as the Narrator to Thomas The Tank Engine, without any clue that he was part of some important band. And parents would turn on the TV and wonder "Why is Ringo in a conductor's cap?"

And a decade before that, I, yes I, knew Dr. Teeth, before I'd ever heard to Dr. John.

By the way, while they may not be as hip as their hits, the two theme songs are pretty damn good, and having these veterans sing the openings, beats the Hell out of having Barney do it, any day of the week.