Bring on the kids

Accordions, chick keyboard players, and ironic-mustached men move over. Incorporating children’s choirs into the mix seem to be the thing to do now. The Decemberists (listen), Karen O. (listen) and Dead Man’s Bones are just a few of the bands that exhibit this trend.

And as far as I’m concerned, kids singing along to ‘adult’ music seems to be such a better idea than adults singing songs meant for kids a la Kidz Bop or something of that nature. (I am still scarred by Kathie Lee Gifford’s painful rendition of a song on a Winnie the Pooh soundtrack my brother used to listen to as a toddler.)

In particular, I’ve been listening a lot to the Dead Man’s Bones album lately, which features the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children’s Choir on many of the songs. Now, I realize these children’s choirs may seem gimmicky, annoying, or just plain out weird for some, but unlike Karen O’s Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack (which I discussed recently here), the Dead Man’s Bones album manages to avoid falling into the trap of being overly whimsical, and the adult vocals are nowhere near as jarring as Karen O’s shrill singing. Instead, we are left with a delightfully ghoulish and creative group of songs highlighting heartbreak and the day-to-day concerns of the dead and the dying.

I was just lucky enough to witness Dead Man’s Bones live at Le Poisson Rouge in New York, and let’s just say it was an interesting show. They didn’t book a normal opening act such as a band that compliments their music style. Nope, that would be too obvious; too routine. Instead, the band allegedly put the word out that they were looking to showcase local talent, so when I arrived, I witnessed quite a few strange acts that included, juggling with swords, time traveling, ghoulish behavior, strange contortion, and exotic dancing.

Dead Man's Bones posing with a Children's Choir

For the show itself, the beautiful people of Dead Man’s Bones (which features Zach Shields and actor Ryan Gosling) were joined on stage by no less than seventeen kids from St. Peter’s church choir in Philadelphia. Each wore a white robe with a hood and had his or her face painted to make them look like skeletons. In the low light and black light… let’s just say, the effect was creepy… but in a delightful way. The kids were adorable and their vocal contribution was quite compelling.

One of the high points came near the end of the show when a young girl of maybe 12 or 13 stepped forward to enact her own death as a drum beat simulated a gun shot. Gosling and Shields then held up a white sheet in front of her as images of her memories and ‘afterlife’ were projected onto it. Then, the sheet dropped down and the girl came back to life to sing a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” as the crowd went wild with applause.

Sure, the show wasn’t perfect. It seems like Gosling and Shields are still working on how to translate their music into a live, theatrical setting, but even though the band’s live sound wasn’t quite on par with the album version of their songs just yet, both the children’s choir and Ryan Gosling himself, sure helped make it a memorable evening. Gosling looked so excited and proud during the show as he paced the stage and directed the choir. It was pretty adorable–even the part where I got pelted in the neck by a Snickers thrown by a twelve-year-old in the choir who was violently reverse trick-or-treating. So worth it.

**See my original assessment of Dead Man’s Bones here.

It’s getting wild in here

Like countless other folk, I find myself on the edge of my seat, waiting for the release date of Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. Take a look at the trailer (if you’ve somehow missed it), and I think you’ll see why.

As the daughter of a librarian, I grew up on a heavy diet of Maurice Sendak’s book. But my desire to see the movie stems from more than just nostalgia. It looks absolutely beautiful. It would have been really easy to make a poor film from this book. After all, it’s not long and the creatures are wildly imaginative. But Jonze seems to have done the book justice. (He even got Sendak’s blessing). The little kid, Max, looks absolutely adorable, the artistic direction – amazing, and the soundtrack – excellent.

I picked up the soundrack by Karen O and the Kids yesterday, and I’ve since listened to it, oh, three times. I never really got into the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen’s other music project, but I confess I am pretty delighted with what she has done with the Where the Wild Things Soundtrack. I fell in love with the very first song, “Igloo.”  Though it is one of the shortest tracks on the album, it’s sheer simplicity and innocence are compelling. Take a listen for yourself.

The tracks are by turn quirky, lovely, and well… a bit wild. Sure, some of the shrieking and chanting may be a bit off putting or cloying, but it seems to be done in such good fun, that even I let it slide. Joining Karen on the album are a handful of talented characters – or Kids – including: Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox, The Dead Weather/The Raconteurs Dean Fertita and Jack Lawrence, Liars’ Aaron Hemphill, The Bird and the Bee’s Greg Kurstin… oh yeah, and actual children.

All this begs the question… is Grizzly Bear’s signing onto the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack any different than Karen O’s signing onto the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack? (See my recent post about this topic here.) Do we excuse and even congratulate the latter due to the artistic merit of the film and label the former a ‘sell out?’ Does the value of the project affect how we judge their actions? Because let’s be honest here – it’s not as if Where the Wild Things Are is smalltime. This film is going to be seen by millions – probably even more people will see it than Twilight.