Entertaining the cool kids, and their parents, too

Posted on December 25, 2006 by

Merry Christmas. Here’s some happy entertainment for you on Christmas Day: Dan Zanes, the coolest family entertainer I’ve come across. He’s sort of got the Nick Lowe, power-pop, rockabilly thing going on, matching his grey hair on top of a long, gangly frame. I had no idea Zanes (formerly of the Del Fuegos) was out there  pushing pure-pop for hip families until I spotted his CD in Starbucks. And this is big time stuff — he’s with Disney.

Check out House Party Time and All Around the Kitchen. It’s cool to see all the parents rocking with their kids in this live performance of Polly Wally Doodle. So often, music is segmented between kids and adults, but Zanes has hit on formula for entertaining the whole family.

Just think, there’s a whole segment of the youngest generation getting turned onto rockabilly and roots rock. That’s like a bonus Christmas present for me.

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  • http://daddyinastrangeland.com daddy in a strange land

    Howard, Dan Zanes is sort of the “godfather” of a whole scene out there now, sometimes annoyingly called things like “kindie rock,” made mostly by indie rockers who had kids and then both didn’t want to give up the music and didn’t want to let their kids listen to the Wiggles, et al either. Been a ton of coverage of it lately, I can send you links if you want. :)

    BTW, you may not remember me, but I e-mailed back and forth with you a few times last winter/spring when you were still at TBC and I had just started 2 blogs–one about being a stay-at-home-dad of a toddler, the other about being a leftwinger in Bakersfield. The latter’s long been defunct, but the former’s still going, and blogging’s actually led me to become a “former SAHD”–I’m working at your old shop now. “Community Content Coordinator” on the UGC blogs, etc. :) Small world, huh?

  • http://www.howardowens.com/ Howard Owens

    Feel free to post links here … you can use HREF tags in comments.

    Of course I remember you … too bad you’re doing doing the political blog now … it was good (not that I often agreed).

    I saw you got that gig at TBC. Congratulations. It’s nice to see my plan coming together. And you’re doing a good job.

  • http://daddyinastrangeland.com daddy in a strange land

    Just saw a link to this article from the Village Voice on one of my regular reads, DaddyTypes. :)

    Anyway, thanks for the compliment. It’s interesting work. You wanna see what I’m dealing with today? Check out the 3 posts I’ve highlighted in the “Blog Bytes” box on the People page right now. :)

    As for the political blog–it just got too tiring to be so mad all the time. :) I have daddy in a strange land, Rice Daddies (my Asian American dad group blog), and I’m a columnist for Anti-Racist Parent. But re: politics, it’s funny, the extreme left bloggers think I’m a fascist, the extreme right bloggers think I’m a commie, and one dude who finally realized I wasn’t a white Republican decided I was an Uncle Tom. Heh.

  • http://oilfieldtrash.wordpress.com john jones

    that figures.