Sunday, August 02, 2009

For parents who are really sick of Dora the Explorer or Thomas the Tank Engine ...

I don't have kids, so I don't even know if kids like Dora or Thomas anymore. I do know, however, that when my now-20-year-old nephew was a kid, that my Pink Floyd-loving brother really did his best to be a good sport about listening to Barney songs over, and over, and over again. I imagine it's the same what with today's parents. Whatever it is your kids love, they love the hell out of it. And they will listen to it or watch it day and night. Mommie offers a great solution to harried music-loving parents, and is pretty awesome for us non-breeders too. First off, if you're familiar with local music, you've probably seen all these guys before in a variety of bands (The Connells, Motorolla, Ashley Stove, etc.). They play well-written pop music with a few alt-country tendencies (mostly due to the pedal steel guitar)about cool kid things like dump trucks, cherry pickers and carrots. The genius trick is that they do it without being cloyingly cute. Now, granted, even Mommie will get old when your kids screams "play it again!" for the 50th time in a row, but I do believe you'll enjoy this band at least 48 out of those 50 plays. Despite a pretty relentless early evening rainstorm, Mommie played at Seaboard last Friday night to a pretty packed audience. I'm just calling it Seaboard because I really don't know exactly what this area of Seaboard is called. It's right beside Peace China Restaurant which is pretty good for a walk-up-style Chinese restaurant (I got the Singapore noodles, which were quite tasty). I can say the adults in the audience all seemed to love it. The kids seemed to alternate between listening and splashing each other in the puddles. I guess for Mommie's main demographic, jumping in a mud puddle might be a more entertaining option. However, the little boy pictured above was ENRAPTURED the whole time. I'm thinking he's going to start begging his parents for a guitar before long. Then the fun will REALLY begin for his parents.Here's a photo of Doug McMillan and his daughter, who was holding her ears. I think it was part of a joke, but it does beg the question, if kids traditionally rebel through rock music, what's the child of a genuine rocker to do?

Mommie - "Bubble" from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Here's video of "Bubble" and more photos of the show.

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