If kids music is changing — and it is; getting better, more sophisticated, yet just as much fun — then it’s probably because musicians have decided to stop pandering to children and simply start including them.
“Kids are totally cool,” Dan Zanes said earlier this week. “They’re the most open-minded people a musician could ever perform in front of.”
That said, Zanes doesn’t classify his songs as children’s music. The celebrated New York-based artist prefers the “family music” or “all-ages music” tags because “there are already plenty of people playing songs that are particular to the experiences of a child, but not enough of these artists were giving the adults something to grab on to.
“You can have songs about learning to eat with a fork and tying a shoe, and you can have songs about drinking and old girlfriends,” said Zanes, who brings his show to the Boulder Theater on April 25, “and somewhere in between is where we live. My songs aren’t going to leave anybody behind, and that’s where I’m happiest because it’s all about inclusion and the idea that everybody is welcome.”
Zanes, with his wild hair and colorful suits, is the most recognizable face in a growing collective of musicians who are playing hip family music. His shows pack theaters and auditoriums and draw children of all ages — along with their parents and grandparents, who are oftentimes more excited about seeing him than the wee set.
Music like this is often called indie family music — implying that it’s the smarter, more discerning side of children’s music, in the same way that indie rock compares with mainstream rock. Still, it’s fun stuff. It’s not uncommon for dance parties to erupt at a Dan Zanes and Friends show. And the same thing happens at Justin Roberts’ gigs.
“Children will jump up and dance with wild abandon when they hear the music, and that feels good,” said Roberts, who brings his band, the Not Ready for Naptime Players, to the Boulder Theater on Saturday for an 11 a.m. show. “And then out in the audience, you’ll have mothers and fathers singing along with the songs, and the combination of those things is amazing. There’s something immensely satisfying about bringing families together and having them enjoy the same music.”
Both Zanes and Roberts have histories in more traditional rock ‘n’ roll. Zanes fronted the roots-rocking Del Fuegos in the ’80s. Roberts was a preschool teacher by day and a rocker by night when he started writing music for children simply to entertain himself. It wasn’t long before he quit his job and took to the road — just him, his guitar and his Volkswagen.
“I was playing solo kids shows in church basements and maternity shops and vegetarian restaurants,” Roberts said. “The word got around, and eventually I was playing with a bigger band and traveling to more places and flying and touring throughout the year.”
Roberts is making a living as a musician catering to families — something he was never able to do with his previous band. Another key component to his current musical life: “I get to go to bed earlier now, and that’s great.”
Musician Morgan Taylor understands the virtue of early to bed, early to rise. The indie-rocker- turned-family-music-man is on the road plenty with his show, which focuses on a character named Gustafer Yellowgold. (Taylor has Colorado dates coming this summer. Yellowgold’s musical DVDs always are widely available.)
“Most of the shows are finished and we’re packed up and driving away from the venue at 3 in the afternoon,” Taylor said earlier this week from a tour stop in Tucson. “It makes touring easier because you can get the driving done the night before and then wake up in the city you’re performing in. Plus I always work better on a fresh morning brain. And it’s fun to drink coffee instead of beer.”
Taylor, like Zanes and Roberts, has a rock ‘n’ roll past. He sang and played with Dayton, Ohio, pop outfit Mink, but when his wife, Rachel, encouraged him to start a children’s project — an illustrated storybook with a CD in the back — he plucked some fantasy-based songs from his existing repertoire and fashioned them around a cartoon character he’d drawn for a number of years, a cone-headed alien who came to Earth from the sun.
And so “I Am From the Sun” became Gustafer Yellowgold’s song, and “Pterodactyl Tuxedo” became a tune about Gustafer’s friend, Forrest Applecrumbie, a flightless pterodactyl. Taylor found somebody to animate his stories, and now his shows are multimedia journeys that include the visuals and a full band coming together to tell a story.
“The transition (from indie pop to family music) made sense because of my sense of humor and where my imagination naturally goes — which is to this cartoony world,” Taylor said. “It’s the most true to my creative essence, and it’s coming out of a part of me that’s not worried about what’s popular on the radio or what Radiohead is doing.”
It helps now that Taylor and his wife are raising their first child, 11-month-old Harvey. Traveling the country with his young son informs his ability to relate to children — not that having kids is necessary. Zanes tries all of his material out on his his 14-year-old daughter, who has also appeared on all of his releases. She also helped her dad sequence his most recent record, “The Welcome Table: Songs of Mystery, Hope and Good Times.”
“It’s important to try it out on her,” Zanes said, “and it’s important to try it out on adults, too.”
Roberts is married to a seventh- grade teacher, but their only dependent is a very large dog.
“People often ask how I write songs from a kid’s perspective when I don’t have them myself,” Roberts said, “and I think that’s funny. It has nothing to do with having kids, because we were all children once, and we can remember was that was like.”
Sometimes his fans give him ideas for songs.
“I had a mother e-mail me saying that she had two daughters who hated having their hair brushed, and I took that idea and wrote ‘Henrietta’s Hair,’ ” Roberts said. “Henrietta hates having her hair brushed, and so her mom stops brushing it completely — and then some animals move into her hair and it’s a big party. It’s very Dylan-influenced, a talking- blues kinda thing.”
If only Dylan taught children to brush their hair.
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com
