I've been sitting on this news forever and I've finally been given the greenlight to spill my guts!
About a year ago, I was sharing a beer with an old band mate of mine. Unlike myself, he was able to make a career out of music and is currently an engineer/producer at a local recording studio. I was bragging how ever since my children were wee babies, I've had the ability to soothe them with just a few lines from a song. One beer led to another and the next week I was in his studio with a couple of studio musicians recording a few demos.
My producer friend shopped the demos around for a few months to different record companies and someone finally bit. We all flew to New York in late January and cut an album. It'll be released on June 26, 2007.
We're releasing it as Chag Holland & The Hollandaise (Is that too cheesy? Of course, it's too late to be asking that now. CDs have already been printed.). The album's entitled Music For Hip Kids (And Even Hipper Parents). I wasn't too cool with the title, but I learned very quickly a brand-new children's artist has to bend A LOT.
The record company gave me the go-ahead to give you the track listing (but they drew the line at posting mp3s). It consists of nine originals and three covers. The originals aren't your usual children's fare (or so I like to tell myself). I've always thought that music is a great educational tool. While it might be fun to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat, it can be equally as fun to sing other songs that might contain some sort of message. And that's what I tried to do with my original tunes. I also tried to throw in as many musical genres as I possibly could.
Anyway, here's the track list:
- The Bare Necessities This is the classic from The Jungle Book. We pretty much played this one straight-up; we felt it was too cool to mess around with too much. As an added bonus, Zoey got to sing Mowgli's parts on the track.
- Share Or It's Going In The Trash A punkish number about sharing.
- God Made Dirt So Dirt Won't Hurt An industrial track about kids making messes. This is Zed's favorite song on the disc (probably because he loves to make messes).
- Because I Said So A fast-paced zydeco ditty.
- Wig In A Box This song from Hedwig And The Angry Inch was what I would sing to Zoey when she was a baby. She still loves to hear me sing it four years later. Besides, what kid doesn't love to play dress-up?
- Princesses Don't Eat Their Boogers This is a phrase I often tell Zoey because she's so into princesses. So I decided to write a song about it.
- Please Don't Do It Until You're Thirty This song is about sex. It's also the only song where I get to rap. Pity.
- Do You Know Where That's Been? This is my double-entendre hair band song. It could be interpreted as picking up something off the floor and eating it. Or it could be interpreted as picking up a girl at a bar and…
- Pee In The Toilet, Not In The Tub A retro 80s synth track.
- Big Kid Underwear This is a rah-rah-rah song about potty training (we even have cheerleaders singing the chorus). This will be the first single and first video.
- Daddy Needs A Drink A country ballad about the end of the day, bedtime, and what Daddy does behind closed doors.
- Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life This song by Monty Python was the song I would sing to Zed when he was a baby. I couldn't make it to the chorus before the crying stopped.
Song of the day: Liar by Rollins Band
