Kindie Land-Who's Doing What With Whom

Mr. Singer & The Sharp Cookies-Beat Kitchen-5-22-11

Welcome to Kindie Land.    Mmmmm.....sorry.   Got distracted there reminiscing about floating Neapolitan ice cream squares from back in the board game days.    Now that school's out, i scream...you scream...we all scream for the kindie scene.

**TONIGHT:   Mr. Singer & The Sharp Cookies play their first all acoustic set ever at Chicago Botanic Gardens at 5:30pm.   FREE.   Earlier today Mr. Singer was rockin' the Lincoln Park Zoo, as he does every Wednesday and Friday.    Click the link for their full summer calendar and check 'em out on FB, too.   


*In the near future, we'll be posting an awesome video interview with Mr. Singer and the whole band.   We have loads of great live show footage from their big rock finish to the Beat Kitchen Concerts for kids series May 22nd.    Good stuff! 
   





Lots more of ChiIL Mama's featured artists from Free Ticket Tuesdays and Win A Disc Wednesdays are playing the Dancin' Sprouts series at the gorgeous Botanic Gardens.   Check out their summer schedule.   


There are loads of familiar faces like Super Stolie, July 6th, and Laura Doherty, July 27th.   Laura's got an exciting new album in the works.   


*ChiIL Mama has an excellent video interview, live footage and stills from Laura's show at Schubas to share.    The Dreamtree Shakers, August 24th, and Mindy Hester & The Time Outs, August 31st, are more of our favorites, finishing off the Dancin' Sprouts Series.    


*Our interviews with both of them are published and can be seen on ChiIL Mama's Vimeo and YouTube Channels  in the sidebar and bottom green link on the blog.

Miss Ann & daughter, Olivia

photo by ChiIL Mama, ©2011

Little Miss Ann has been busy this spring.   She coined the term Windy Kindie for our local Windy City alt and indie kids entertainers.   She also had the genius idea of a gathering space and brought the industry together with a super useful FB group, The Windy Kindie Chicago Cooperative.
    
    *Her two interviews with ChiIL Mama this year can be seen on our site.   Coming soon, we still have loads of fun, live Beat Kitchen footage, stills and her fabulous photos and recap of Kindie Fest in Brooklyn for us. 
   
    *Also, enter HERE to win a FREE FAMILY 4 PACK of tickets to see Little Miss Ann play a benefit for Intonation Music Workshop at Chief O' Neil's July 2nd at 11am-The 2nd Annual Great Midwest Uke Fest .


Here's a link to Miss Ann's gig filled calendar!    Speaking of kindie land....she's even playing the DETROIT ZOO with you know who.   


*Our two interviews with Candy Band are up on Vimeo and YouTube, too, along with 2 live songs from their Beat Kitchen dbl bill with Miss Ann.   And we have so much more great live stuff of theirs to come!

Detroit's punk rock mamas-Candy Band & Miss Ann at Beat Kitchen

photo by ChiIL Mama, ©2011

I try to check in and feature everyone often, but my in box is already overflowing with great summer shows.    So, I'm going to end with this quick list of links for some of our favorite, prolific kindie bands, and encourage everyone to mark their calendars.   We'll continue to add to the list, give away tickets and highlight shows throughout the summer, but we can't cover everyone all the time, so here's ChiIL Mama's handy kindie cheat sheet of links.   I'm sure it's just the first of many.   So, hopefully this is helpful.   Now get out and see stuff.

1.  The Verve Pipe (These guys are currently writing new material for a 2nd kids' CD, and working toward a fall release.   We caught up with Brian Vander Ark, lead singer-guitar player

and Donnie Brown, drummer-song writer for the band (funny lookin' drum, Donnie)




They played an intimate concert in Chicago two days ago, for Verve Life's  launch of Rhymba Kid and Rhymba Tween.   We'll have a full feature up soon.


Sagezilla, fresh from her first day of Girls Rock Camp, was eager to demonstrate the chords she'd learned.   The guys were great about sharing their instruments and she got to rock out on Brian's guitar.   He started playing when he was 8, just like Sage!

The Verve Pipe isn't a Chicago band, although they did headline Kidzapalooza last year.  But as our neighbors to the north east in Michigan, they're still in the region, and well worth a road trip to see.   These guys are coincidentally playing The Detroit Zoo, too.   Man those are some lucky animals.   

*ChiIL Mama interviewed the band and we've got some great, live footage and stills from their show at SPACE in Evanston coming soon. 

2.   Candy Band (A tasty treat for your ears, these Detroit punk Mamas will rock your world.   We saw them play Kidzapalooza two different years and they've become one of our all time favs.   Check out It's Raining Green-their melding of the kids classic about the old man snoring and Green Day!   We also adore their Godzilla cover.)


Windy Kindie:

1. Mr. Singer & The Sharp Cookies (Mr. Singer's also working on new material with a CD coming)
2. Little Miss Ann (Miss Ann's got a new CD coming, too!)
3. Super Stolie (It's a bird...it's a plane...it's super Stolie.   She's everywhere with adult and kids shows all over the city.)
4. Laura Doherty (Laura's new CD, Shining Like a Star, is in progress.)   
5. Mindy Hester (Our ticket winners wrote to me after her Heartland Cafe show to tell me she came over to sign CDs for them and hang out and that she was super nice.   She's a pretty funny song writer, too.)
6. The Boogers (These old school punk dads are so much fun.   ChiIL Mama's quoted right on the front page of their site.   "The hardest rockin' kids band around." ChiIL Mama, Chicago Parent )
7. Poochamungas (They're firemen by day...hilarious pup lovin' song makers on their off days.)