—Mr. David

What’s even better, is this Jumping Monkeys podcast we found where Stefan Shepard of Zooglobble, Amy Davis of The Lovely Mrs. Davis Tells You What to Think and Bill Childs of Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child talk about the winners. There’s a funny bit in here when Stefan talks about Mr. David "as close as kids music gets to Bob Dylan." (Hey, we definitely agree. And, of course we’ll take our publicity anywhere we can get it!)

 You can listen to the podcast by clicking here: Jumping Monkeys

So why is it that we can’t seem to get any mainstream media to pay attention to him? We’ve sent countless numbers of CDs to reporters, editors and writers at newspapers, magazines, television programs, blogs and other forms of internet media. We’ve contacted just about every person we know who deals with family/chldren’s music. We’ve called. We’ve mailed. We’ve emailed. We’ve entered all the major children’s music awards—NAPPA and The Parent’s Choice Awards just to name a few. But the only people—and thank goodness for them—who’ve given us any kind of attention are the bloggers. It’s because of them that we’ve made it this far and Mr. David is as recognized as he is.

Take for example, Mr. David’s second album, released in 2006: The Great Adventures of Mr. David. It won plenty of praise within the blogging community. In fact, it was even named one of the top 10 albums for kids and families in 2006 by the Fids & Kamily Poll. This is important because the judges on this poll are made up of music writers (bloggers), radio people and more, who see a lot of children’s music throughout the year. (Not to mention that it doesn’t cost anything to enter. In fact, you can’t enter. The judges simply name their top picks and their lists are compiled). Now compare this to our experience in mainstream media. Despite submitting (and paying) to enter several awards hosted by the major children’s media groups, The Great Adventrues never got so much as a mention—not even a brief review!

This happened to us once again this fall. We submitted Mr. David’s new album, Jump in the Jumpy House, to the NAPPA awards for music. And once again, Mr. David was snubbed. I can understand that NAPPA gets a lot of submissions and not all albums are good enough to be on that list, but it’s hard to believe that Jump in the Jumpy House is not deserving enough to even be mentioned. We’ve aleady received amazing reviews on the CD from the people at CD baby who said:

We love your "MR. DAVID: Jump in the Jumpy House" CD so much I’m
going to feature it on the FRONT PAGE of CD Baby for a few days.

We’re *really* picky about what goes on the front page.  We get about
200-250 new albums a DAY coming in here now, (about 190,000 total),
and yours is one of the best we’ve ever heard.

Also, people like Warren Truitt of Children’s Music That Rocks (and of the Children’s Room at The New York Public Library) are saying:

"Another awesome CD from a kids’ performer who’s not afraid to stretch out in the words and music departments, and one can only imagine what’s in the future for this guy if his albums keep getting this much better every time out. John, Paul, George, and Ringo would be proud."

We’ve also seen the reaction of the kids and families. At the CD release party for Jump in the Jumpy House, we had more than 300 kids and families rocking out to Mr. David’s music. It looked like a full–blown rock festival. And who do you think was enjoying themselves the most, singing the words to each and every song? THE KIDS!!

You see, this is the problem. The kids love Mr. David’s music, but in order to get it out to the kids, we have to break through the wall that mainstream media seems to be putting in front of us. Even our own local, Bay Area press has never once reviewed any of Mr. David’s albums, despite him being a native to this area—but you can be sure that they’ve talked a lot about Dan Zanes and Laurie Berkner.  (By the way, we love Dan Zanes.) One caveat here: Yoshi Kato of the San Jose Mercury News "Baby Beats" has briefly written about Mr. David’s shows several times in his column (thanks, Yoshi).

So last night Mr. David and I sat down, and I bemoaned the fact that once again we were snubbed. Here’s the kicker though, Mr. David couldn’t have cared less. He looked me right in the eye and said, "I’m not here for awards. I’m here for the kids."

Now, I know how this game works. You either get publicity through advertising (advertising and PR go hand in hand these days more than ever before) or you get publicity through awards which give you expsoure that extends to coverage that will let people know about who you are. Publicity is everything. If nobody knows about you, no matter how good the music is, you’re continue to stand in oblivion. And conversely, you can play music that’s "okay," but still be a star because you are connected to a name or have strong advertising/PR and a lot of financial backing. The sad thing is that a lot of great kids music is being lost because people don’t even know we’re out here. Publicity is even more important in children’s music, because there isn’t a ready-made circuit where a family musician can out out and play and tour regularly, as in mainstream music.

Yes, publiclity is king in this digital age. Even saying that, I have to agree with Mr. David. We’re here to create music for kids. And some kids (not as many as we’d like) are getting to enjoy that. I guess that we’ll just have to do this thing slowly, one family at a time. We’ll build a following, and then, people won’t be able to ignore us. And we’ll build that following because the kids LOVE THIS MUSIC—not because we’ve won an award.

Mr. David is right. Why waste more money on awards that think we’re too off-center or simply don’t want to pay attention to us; awards that are given out to compilation albums before they’re given to original artists? So, that’s it. No more awards for us. No more submissions. No more rejection. We’ll just keep making the music, giving it to the kids we can reach, and hope for the best.

(Maybe we’ll also head out to foreign markets. After all, if the American media won’t pay attention to us, maybe the Europeans will?)