“ASTROGRASS gets kids and their parents dancing and singing together, with a unique blend of bluegrass, old time, and folk music. Astrograss concerts feature sing-a-longs, dance contests, and high-energy fiddle hoedowns. Their original songs cover topics like spelling, whether Pluto is a planet, bedtime and the many neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Astrograss features traditional bluegrass instrumentation, consisting of Jordan Shapiro on guitar, Sarah Alden on fiddle, Dennis Lichtman on mandolin, Jonah Bruno on banjo and Tim Kiah on bass. In response to the local Brooklyn parents’ search of live musical entertainment for the whole family, Astrograss began playing its family shows in 2004. “
Astrograss’s The Colored Pencil Factory is clearly a children’s album, but one like I’ve never heard before. It’s a blend of old-time Appalachian mountain music, traditional bluegrass, progressive bluegrass/newgrass, and even a bit of Eastern European folk music. Though I am far from being in the targeted demographic, I am a huge bluegrass fan and have never heard children’s music in this genre before, I had to have a listen.
The playing is incredible and mixture of all these different cultures of music is wonderful. The songs are cute and are both new originals from the band and older folk songs, which I absolutely loved. One of my favorite of their originals is Grave Diagnosis, it took me back to when my kids were in elementary school and tried (unsuccessfully) to play sick to stay home from school.
If you want to introduce, your child to a wonderfully and whimsically different kind of child’s song, I highly suggest The Colored Pencil Factory by Astrograss. Its lively beat will have little feet dancing and parents’ toes tapping.
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Buy It! The Colored Pencil Factory will be released October 16.
