Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Regurgitator’s Pogogo Show, Universal Music/ABC Music 2019.
Regurgitator’s founding trio, and longtime mates, Ben Ely, Quan Yeomans and Pete Kostic are all parents and like most parents have spent time entertaining their kids, making up silly rhymes and singing silly songs.
Regurgitator has always come across as a knock about fun band who have never really developed the overblown egos and attitudes of most rock stars.
Although they do take their music seriously they’ve always enjoyed mucking about and having fun.
So, now that they’re parents, it seems a natural progression that they decide to record an album of songs for kids.
The result is an album and show that is anything but boring.
What does it sound like?
Not like the Wiggles. It’s a Regurgitator album that just happens to be written for kids.
There are all the usual Regurgitator elements, a mix of punk, hip hop, pop, and funk but the songs content is squarely aimed at the preoccupations of kids.
I Don’t Wanna Dog (I wanna frog), Pillow Fight, Best Friends Forever, Games On My Computer, and The Robots could all be song titles that you’d come across on a Wiggles CD but I doubt that you’d find Farting Is A Part Of Life or Mr. Butt (a song about a man who needs to pull his pants up).
The band were joined by Ben Ely’s 14-year-old daughter Dee Dee (named after the Ramones bass player) who does backing vocals and tells stories between songs.
The backing tracks to the album were recorded in a single afternoon session and mixed the next day to capture the spontaneity of children.
As Ely says: “Kids don’t really think, they just act.”
They also used kids sized instruments.
Ely’s daughter has been heavily involved in the project, co-writing the material and making props for the children’s shows.
She’s also way ahead of her dad when it comes to marketing the finished product.
She said: “I think with modern technology you’ll want to move it to multiple platforms to really take off, because not everyone’s going to be on ABC.”
This is a great fun album, a sort of musical Sponge Bob Square Pants.
