(Click on the picture to enlarge)
Yep, that's Weird Al Yankovic with m'self and Charlotte. This was taken last night at the launch party for Sandra Boynton's new project, Dog Train: A Wild Ride on the Rock-and-Roll Side, a new book/audio CD of children's music by folks like the Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler, Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees and the excellently named O.K. Chorale. While I'm normally neither a fan of most of the bands on the disc (no jam rock fan, I) nor usually of children's music (though with Charlotte now nineteen months old, I'm enduring a steady diet of it), I have to say that Dog Train is pretty great (and mercifully not comprised of the normal, insufferably twee fare that blights many a children's record). To launch the book, Workman Publishing threw a big ol' bash at the B.B. King Blues Bar on 42nd Street, open to little kids.
The last time I'd been in the B.B. King Blues Bar, I was in a state of highly advanced refreshment after several exorbitantly priced beers, wading through a sweaty sea of ripped fishnet stockings, black leather bondage gear and crushed velvet as Siouxsie Sioux was busy disembowling Banshees classics onstage criminally without Steve Severin (but I'm digressing). To be in the same space surrounded by publishing folks and little kids was initially disconcerting, but the familial vibe -- and open bar -- quickly helped me adapt. The evening's entertainment came courtesy of the hugely entertaining local act, the Phenomenauts (sort've a goofier version of the already dangerously goofy Man or Astroman) and the Spin Doctors. Playing at volumes friendly to toddler ears, the `Nauts delivered a spiritedly silly set, the highlight for me being the frantic wielding of the toilet paper gun.
Anyway, it was great fun. I got to meet Weird Al Yankovic (who also appears on the album....dueting incongruously with Kate Winslet), who was perfectly cool and friendly (as you'd probably expect him to be). Peg and I spotted NY1 anchor, Pat Kiernan, amidst the throng, but weren't able to corner him, alas. In any case, a fine time was had by all. If you have little people in your house, and the sickly sounds of Elmo, Barney and Free To Be You And Me set your teeth on edge (as they do mine), I heartily recommend Dog Train.
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