Hullabaloo Band Is Anything but Blah, Blah, Blah

I never thought I’d say this as an adult, but I have a favorite kids’ music group.

Hullabaloo Band (http://www.hullabalooband.com/) is a self-proclaimed “farm-fresh, free-range, organic kid-folk.” If I had to best describe their style after picking up three of their albums and one of their homemade DVDs, well, it’s a surfer dude from North County San Diego (Steve Denyes) along with his Kindergarten BFF Brendan conjuring up catchy lyrics in front of modern-but-beachy, acoustic guitar-based, country-folk melodies. Their original song titles range from “Polite Pete the Pirate” to “Sippy Cup,” the latter being a tune about how confused kids are as to why adults need their grown-up sippy cups from Starbucks.

Hullabaloo also recorded an album of the children standards – 20 Songs Every Kid Should Know – that covers anything from ABCs to Old MacDonald. As Hullabaloo promises, I concur that these songs are anything but the usual kids’ tooth-achy, ear-piercing, sing-song sweetness. I also can assure you that it’s fairly tolerable to listen to their version of Old MacDonald for an hour straight… please don’t ask how I know this, just trust me.

I first heard of Hullabaloo because of their doing a fundraiser concert for a friend-of-a-friend’s gravely injured child down in San Diego. I think the story was that she was a regular fan of theirs, which just makes their gesture even more awesome than the regular random act of awesome (PS, the child is doing MUCH better now, thank goodness). So when I learned that Hullabaloo Steve was to play a Bella Terra Kids’ Club event about a year-and-a-half ago, we put it on our calendar. I am so glad we decided to catch the concert; T dug it, and truthfully, I did, too. The Sippy Cup song (along with the news of their good fundraising deeds) sucked me into buying a couple of CDs and a DVD at the show that very day. Then T and I turned into low-level groupies of sorts, catching about three more of Steve’s free shows (two public, one private birthday party) within the next few months, over the course in which I purchased another CD and Steve was kind enough to IOU a concert T-shirt for T (IOU still outstanding, my bad). To date, many of the Hullabaloo tunes are still on T’s short play list.

Aside from the fundraising and other for-profit shows Hullabaloo performs, it’s also quite easy to catch a FREE concert, especially during one of their public library shows around Southern California. In fact, Hullabaloo is out on their annual library tour now, and we’re going to catch their show TODAY. So if you’re near Westminster Public Library this morning at 10:30am, put on your Ants-In-Your-Pants dancing shoes, grab your Starbucks sippy cups, and we’ll see you there!

Oh and Steve, please make sure I finally pay you for that T-shirt… I still remember I owe you even though T and I haven’t seen you in a while… and I’ll probably pick up another CD or two, or three….