Chelsea Kaplan’s Musings About Life... After Birth

Kids music that doesn’t suck is right up there with painless bikini waxes and enjoyable visits with your in-laws: purely oxymoronic in nature. It’s usually either too saccharine (Raffi) or just too plain lame (anything from Barney or Disney), which sucks, because your kid is gonna want to listen to that stuff every time you get in the car regardless. You wonder which drivers on the road are filled with the most road rage? It’s moms, because they’re the ones who have to drive around with kids begging for “The Wheels on the Bus” 8 million times over. Can you blame them for wanting to flip other drivers off?

When my son turned 1, Momtourage member Lauren gave him the “We are the Laurie Berkner Band” DVD, explaining that her daughter was obsessed with it. My kid had never been particularly interested in watching t.v., but on one particularly whiny afternoon, my husband popped in Lauren’s gift, hoping it would work its magic on our kid. Well, work its magic it did; not only was my son totally mesmerized by it, but my husband and I were also. The video itself was fun to watch, the songs were completely catchy in a really clever, unique way and the acoustic guitar/keyboard music itself was seriously good; Laurie and her 2 bandmates are skilled musicians who genuinely seem like they’re enjoying what they’re doing.

I’ve since acquired all of Laurie’s other CDs and they rule just as much as the DVD does. My kid loves them, and my husband and I do too. When I catch myself singing the songs in my head or my kid begs me to repeat the words to some of the songs, it doesn’t annoy me in the slightest. Lauren also tipped me off to the fact that Laurie and her band are often on “Jack’s Big Music Show” which can be seen on Noggin and Noggin on Demand. Let’s just say that occasionally Mommy breaks the no t.v. rule to watch this show in hopes of catching a Laurie performance.

The other night when Lauren and other Momtourage members Linda and Melissa and I were all out together celebrating Melissa’s birthday, the subject of Laurie came up. Linda, strangely, had never heard of her. “WHAAAAAAAAT?” Melissa, Lauren and I gasped, incredulous. We then launched into “Victor Vito”, one of Laurie’s classic tunes, right there in the middle of Rosa Mexicano, much to Linda’s horror. I’d love to blame our spirited performance on the pomegranate margaritas, but the truth is that we all just love ourselves some Laurie Berkner Band. The other day Lauren mentioned that a friend of hers saw Laurie at a concert in NYC.

“Noooooooo! Really?” I asked, insanely jealous.

“I know, right? The next time she’s playing, we totally need to make a road trip to go see her, right? I mean, seriously, how awesome would that be?” Lauren asked. You would have thought we were talking about The Beatles.

“Um, totally! We are so there!” I replied with the obsessive enthusiasm most college-aged stoners exhibit for a Phish show or teenyboppers (okay, and me too) feel for Justin Timberlake.

So seriously, go and buy yourself a Laurie Berkner Band CD (“Buzz Buzz” and “Victor Vito” are my faves, but they’re all great) and/or the DVD; I promise you’ll love them just as much as I do. And when you, say, catch yourself driving around solo in your car and you get a hankering to listen to “Victor Vito”, don’t fight that feelin’.