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Last Updated: Jul 19th, 2008 - 05:32:38 |
Imagination Movers CAN YOU DO IT? video | Juice Box Heroes in stores now!
By
Apr 30, 2008, 12:20
The popular Imagination Movers "Can You Do It?" song has a video! You, or your little one(s) may have already seen it on Playhouse Disney.
 First, the announcer's voice: "Live, from the Idea Warehouse, it's the
Imagination Movers!" A funk groove sets the tempo and, in a blur of blue
jumpsuits, the musicians bound onto the stage. The crowd quickly answers the
call to "Jump up!" The music is a swirl of catchy, hook-burnished pop; 1980s-era
alt rock; and call-and-response hip hop. The lyrics are about bedtime, healthy
snacks and chasing down a soccer ball. And the vibe is like nothing that’s ever
hit children's music before.
For young fans of the Imagination Movers'
music videos currently airing on Disney Channel's Playhouse Disney – who are now
eagerly awaiting the debut of Disney Channel's IMAGINATION MOVERS television
series later this year – Walt Disney Records is now releasing JUICE BOX HEROES,
a generous kids' menu of seventeen of the Movers' most popular hits, including
satellite radio chart-toppers such as "I Want My Mommy" and "Farm." But for
long-time Mover fans – the growing legion of devoted "Gearheads" – this national
debut is just the latest chapter in a remarkable story that started when a group
of friends came together five years ago in a New Orleans living room with one
big idea: make music for their kids that they liked, too.
It was 2003
when the Imagination Movers' Rich, Scott, Dave and Smitty – full names: Rich
Collins, Dave Poche, Scott Durbin and Scott "Smitty" Smith – started assembling
in the evenings after their own kids' bedtimes to brainstorm both tunes and
ideas for a television show. In short time, the songs developed a life of their
own: home-studio versions of Movers tunes began blasting from playroom boomboxes
and mini-vans across New Orleans. Their sound garnered the unlikely tag "Beastie
Boys meets Mr. Rogers" and the Movers secured that reputation with live shows
that, as Collins once reported, were intended to "capture the spirit and
excitement of Van Halen's 1979 arena rock world tour and make it age appropriate
for a 5-year-old."
From the start, they drew from diverse musical
tastes. "We were all teenagers in the 1980s," Smith says. "Old funk, new wave,
cool grooves, a little bit of punky stuff, Big Country. You listen to our music
and you can pull a lot of that out."
They also turned to their
experiences on the front line of fatherhood. "You can glean ten songs a day just
from watching your kids," says Poche. The resulting sound, Poche adds with a
laugh, impressed even his toughest critics. "My son is 8 and my daughter is 5.
Of course, they know what is hip and cool – and they didn’t expect it from
Dad."
The Movers did other research, adds Scott Durbin, a schoolteacher
with a decade of classroom experience. When writing their first songs about
healthy snacks, taking medicine and saying "please" and "thank you," the band
consulted parenting centers and psychologists for guidance. Durbin says they
found out how kids learn and discover the world in different ways, so they set
out to do much more than set lessons to melodies. "You realize that part of the
teaching experience is entertaining kids," Durbin says. "You have to. That’s
part of it. If you have a kid who hates math, you come up with a way to engage
them."
It soon became apparent that something new was happening in town.
The daily Times-Picayune newspaper announced that the Movers
were "New Orleans' Next Big Thing in Music." Lines for shows at the local
children's museum extended down the block. Performances in the Kids' Tent at the
renowned New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival were so crowded that the
Movers were switched to the festival’'s main stages – a first for a kids' band at
Jazz Fest. And a gig at the city's popular alt-rock festival
Voodoo Music Experience proved something the band always
suspected: the songs might be written with pre-schoolers in mind, but the Mover
sound crosses all age boundaries. "There were tweens and teenagers and
grown-ups," says Collins with a laugh. Poche adds that he sees the same effect
at the Movers' other shows: "The older kids might start out with their arms
folded, but by the end of the show, they're juking around like everyone
else."
Despite their local success and a rapidly growing national fan
base, the Movers' dreams were almost vanquished with so much else in the
floodwaters that covered their city after Hurricane Katrina. Three Movers lost
their houses in the flood; the fourth, Scott "Smitty" Smith, stayed in New
Orleans through the flood to work his day job as a firefighter. When the band
members finally reached a computer, they found their inbox overflowing with
messages from frantic fans who were trying to contact them via the Movers' Web
site, www.imaginationmovers.com. Within a couple short months, the band emerged
with one of the city's most heartfelt post-Katrina anthems – "We Got Each Other"
– and a renewed commitment to keep making music.
"It was one of the
crossroads of our lives," Durbin says. "Katrina could have stopped the project.
What got us going were the emails we got from fans that told us that what we
were doing was important to their families. As it turned out, we signed with
Disney shortly after that."
Now, the Movers acknowledge, they are on a
bit of a civic mission. The band raises money for local kids' charities and is
proud to be filming their Disney Channel series in New Orleans. "It means a
whole lot to be part of the musical flavor of New Orleans, to be part of the
music community in the greatest music city in the world," Smith says. In the
tradition of Crescent City funkmasters such as the Meters and Galactic, the
Movers hope to dispel any lingering notion that New Orleans is now just a
tableau of destruction. "We’re out to put a new face on the city," Smith says
frankly.
Along the way, the band is earning numerous national music
awards and media raves such as a "Parenting Pick" from Parenting
Magazine, which enthused about the Mover sound: "A dash of rebellion
spices up these catchy rock songs and astute lyrics. Fresh and treacle-free."
Now, JUICE BOX HEROES brings that fresh sound and slyly educational lyricism to
a wider audience. The album features re-mixed and re-mastered versions of tunes
from the Movers’ three self-produced albums, along with debut songs "Can You Do
It?" and "Mover Music." Other projects in the works include an extended dance
mix – "On vinyl!" Smith enthuses – along with a cover of the Jungle Book classic
"I Wanna Be Like You," originally recorded by fellow New Orleanian Louis Prima,
for inclusion in Walt Disney Records' PLAYHOUSE DISNEYMANIA slated for release
on May 20.
With Scott's visionary "Wobble Goggles," Dave's orange
baseball cap of surprises, Smitty at the wheel of the Movermobile and Rich's
Scribble Sticks drawing in the air and pounding away behind the trashcan drum
set (a nod to the go-go music of his former home in Washington, D.C.), the
Movers are regular JUICE BOX HEROES for a new generation of music fans. Through
it all, they are clearly staying true to their joyful mission statement from
"Calling All Movers": "Reach high! Think big! Work hard! Have fun!"
AUDIO: "Can You Do
It?"
Click
here to order "Can You Do It" on iTunes
http://wdig.vo.llnwd.net/d1/walt_disney_records/i_movers/imaginationmovers_014_can-you-do-it_128.mov
http://wdig.vo.llnwd.net/d1/walt_disney_records/i_movers/imaginationmovers_014_can-you-do-it_128.rm.ram
http://wdig.vo.llnwd.net/d1/walt_disney_records/i_movers/imaginationmovers_014_can-you-do-it_128.wmv
IMAGINATION
MOVERS
Juice Box Heroes CD
available now
Walt Disney Records
Official
Imagination Movers Web Site
Order
at Amazon.com
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