The Hudson Valley and Catskills region is a bastion for musicians that specialize in children’s music.
These performers include Robert Burke Warren, known as Uncle Rock; Tim Sutton and Matt Senzatimore of Rat Boy Jr.; Dean Jones’ Dog on Fleas and Morgan Taylor’s Gustafer Yellowgold.
PHOTOS: Rat Boy Jr.
Rat Boy Jr.
Tim Sutton, a Woodstock native, who now lives in Highland, is Rat Boy Jr.’s guitarist and vocalist; he said the Hudson Valley is a great place for children’s artists because kids and parents in the area are so open to live music.
“Sometimes we’ll travel, and kids don’t respond to live music,” he said. “It takes them a long time to warm up.”
The Hudson Valley is second only to Seattle or Portland for kid’s musicians, Sutton said.
A love for music is by the water, he said, noting that the Hudson Valley has been home to Bob Dylan, The Band, and Pete Seeger.
“Pete Seeger was the ultimate kid’s musician,” he said.
Rat Boy Jr.’s music is made to appeal to the whole family and it’s not dumbed down, Sutton said. “We’re not afraid to be absurd, wacky and sentimental,” he said. “It’s music for the kids and the kids who drive them there.
“I’m always looking for the word to describe what we do,” he said.
The songwriting process for a Rat Boy Jr. Song begins by having fun, thinking about childhood imagination and memories, like playing in the woods or getting a stick and pretending to be a knight, Sutton said.
The innocence of childhood lies right below the surface of an adult, he said.
“I think we all have it in us,” he said. “We get nostalgic about things.”
In the early years of Rat Boy Jr., Sutton didn’t have kids. Now he has two sons, Eliot, 4, and Otis, one-month-old, giving him more inspiration for songs.
Between his day job teaching media arts at Woodstock Day School and caring for his sons with his wife Cat Sutton, who lends her vocals to some songs, he said he never runs out of ideas.
He said half the songs in the band’s new album, “Hamster Pants,” are based on stuff his son said. The album is being released with a party at Rock and Rye Tavern in New Paltz on May 30.
One song comes from an instance where his son told him “the wind wants your hat,” he said. “I wrote a song about what the wind wants – my kite, my tent,” he said.
“He asked me if the waves sleep,” Sutton said. “I wrote a lullaby based on that.”
“Mary and the Barbarian librarian” tells of dealing with a mean librarian, he said.
But he said Rat Boy Jr. songs are never preachy.
“We’re just trying to entertain, be fun, inspiring kids to be creative and trying to find magic in everyday,” he said.
Rat Boy Jr. draws musical influence from everything from Bob Dylan to Cat Stevens to Frank Zappa to heavy metal, he said.
And Sutton said he loves playing to a family audience.
“Kids get it,” he said. “If they’re loving it, they’re bouncing off the walls.”
If they’re not liking it, they’re sitting down,” he said.
“It’s like an honor when a kid asks you to sign their CD.”
Sutton said he toured the South with the Ramones when he was 20-years-old, but now he enjoys traveling and making memories with his family just as much.
Locally, his gigs have included the O+ Festival and the Chronogram Block Party in Kingston, Hopped Up Cafe in High Falls and countless local libraries.
Farther away, he said the band has played World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, Symphony Space in New York City and gigs in North Carolina and Michigan.
But he said he enjoys playing a gig in a Farmer’s Market or a parking lot just as much as a big theater.
Sutton said he started Rat Boy Jr. with Senzatimore, who is on drums and keyboard, about seven years ago with an invitation to open for Uncle Rock.
He said he had known Senzatimore since they were in a band together in college at SUNY New Paltz.
Over the years they collaborated closely with Dean Jones of “Dog on Fleas,” who recorded most of Rat Boy Jr’s last album “Champions of the Universe,” at his No Parking Studio in Rosendale, he said.
They were a major inspiration on us,” he said. “We saw Dog on Fleas before we had kids.”
“They’re one of best bands around for anyone, not just kid’s music, awesome music,” he said.
Uncle Rock
Robert Burke Warren, known as “Uncle Rock” has also found a niche in playing his brand of children’s music that appeals to the whole family.
Burke Warren’s career included a stint in the 1980s garage band “the Fleshtones” and a lead role in “Buddy: The Buddy Holiday Story” a London theater production about early rocker Billy Holiday. He started as Uncle Rock in 2004 when he was working as teaching assistant at a preschool in Mount Tremper.
Uncle Rock’s songs run the gamut from ones that celebrate dinosaurs and butterflies to more serious topics, like in “There Is No Away,” which deals with litter and landfills, he said.
He said kids are his favorite audience and he always looks forward to bringing his guitar to the next gig, whether it’s the Bearsville Theater, a library or the First Steps Day Care in Woodstock, where he was recently playing for a couple of classes at Overlook United Methodist Church.
“The kids were so uninhibited,” he said. “They’re the best audience; they sing, dance and sing really loudly.”
He said his favorite ages are preschoolers to 8-year-olds, who are too young to know what’s considered cool and what’s not cool, he said.
“Kids don’t know the difference between a folk song and “Let it Go” from “Frozen,” he said. “All they know is whether or not they like it.”
He seeks to create something unique in an industry where so much music is made specifically to appeal to certain ages, he said.
There is a brief window where parents and kids can enjoy listening to music together, he said. “Enjoying music with your kids, that’s a real special experience.”
He said he’s drawn influences from a wide range of genres ranging from folk to rock to funk.
Burke-Warren recalled memories when he recorded the first Uncle Rock album in his bedroom while his son, Jack, then 7, was at his side. He said he remembered times they traveled to shows together. Now Jack is getting ready to graduate from Onteora High School and has his own band, Burke-Warren said, acknowledging he missed the time spent with his son.
Over the years, Uncle Rock grew more popular, and eventually his songs landed on satellite radio.
“It sort of just snowballed,” he said.
He said one of his biggest missions is introducing kids to live music along with their parents.
He said he moved to the Hudson Valley with his wife, Holly George-Warren, from New York City to Phoenicia after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He said he had been coming to a cabin in Chichester for years, and they just fell in love with a house in Phoenicia.
And he said in that time he’s really taken to living in the area.
As for what the makes the region such a great place for artists and musicians, he said it’s a combination of a rich arts tradition that reaches back to the Byrdcliffe Art Colony a century ago, the area’s natural beauty, and its proximity to the multi-cultural pulse of New York City.
Music in the Catskills, Music in the valley
This is the third part in an occasional series exploring the musical strengths, traditions and influences of the area and those who make it happen. “Music in the Catskills, Music in the Valley” is set to run the last Sunday of every month in 2015.
