Talking with Tim

A major way that my son, Colin, and I have always bonded has been through music. So last year, when I discovered the podcast of Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child (a show from Valley Free Radio [103.3 FM, Northampton, Massachusetts]) both Colin and I were pretty darn happy. The show, recently also picked up by 93.9 The River, is hosted by Bill Childs along with Ella, his daughter, and (sometimes) Liam, his son. As detailed at the show’s MySpace page: “We play both music that’s officially for kids (e.g., Dan Zanes, Frances England, CandyBand, Lunch Money, Asylum Street Spankers) and a lot that’s not (e.g., Pixies, fIREHOSE, Beatles, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, and again the Spankers). And we start and end every darn show with They Might Be Giants [TMBG].” I recently caught up with Bill for an email interview.

Tim O’Shea: How did you first come up with the idea of Spare the Rock, and was it hard to get Ella to speak on air?

Bill Childs: We had moved to Northampton in the summer of 2004 for me to take a job teaching law school. At a local cafe, I came across a flyer for Valley Free Radio seeking programmers and people to help get the station started up. I had done radio in college (WMCN, 10 blazing watts of power) and was looking for a community-related activity, so I decided to apply for a show. I rapidly got involved on the policy side as well; I have dropped out of that role for the most part for quite a while, as there was some unpleasant infighting that seemed unproductive to me.

As a family, we’d been finding good kids’ music for a while, starting, as I suspect many did, with a NYT Magazine article about Dan Zanes. When we went to Amazon for that, it did the “you might also like…” thing for Justin Roberts, so we got that too. (Didn’t hurt that I’d seen Justin play in his grownup band Pimentos for Gus back in the early ’90s in Minneapolis.) That started us buying a fair amount of stuff. And in the DC area (where we moved from), we’d seen at least Dan Zanes and Justin Roberts at Iota Club & Cafe in Arlington. (Justin even sang happy birthday to Ella on her fourth birthday.)

As for Ella: Ella recently reminded me that she said exactly two things in our first show, and it took quite a while for her to really get into it. From the start, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a show with both of us (now all three of us) or a show that I did while they hung out. It frankly still varies some; some weeks she wants to read and Liam wants to play, and that’s cool too. Mostly it’s a time to hang out. She’s a pretty outgoing kid — as she said yesterday, perhaps evidencing some parental failings, “I like to talk to strangers!” — so it didn’t take a lot for her to decide it was fun.

O’Shea: Do you see ways that their co-hosting experience has indirectly helped Ella and Liam in school?

Childs: That’s an interesting question. They’ve got no fear of talking in front of their classmates, though I don’t think either of them would anyway. I asked Ella, and she says it’s helped her not be shy and that she was more shy in kindergarten than she was in first grade. I never perceived her as shy, but if it’s changed her self-perception, that’s to the good.

Liam is taking longer to get involved in the show in a big way, and he may never decide it’s really for him, which is cool too. We’ll see.

O’Shea: What’s the biggest challenge in doing a weekly show? Has your wife ever been concerned the show demands too much of your time?

Childs: Second question first: Not really; we both think of it as kid-time more than me-time. And even if you add up everything that I’m doing with that and my day job, it’s still less time than I was spending in (law) practice, so that’s good. Some of the peripheral stuff — writing columns, putting together shows — sometimes gets a little overwhelming, but we’re budgeting time better now.

As for the first question: The biggest challenge in doing a weekly show is that you have to do it even if you’re cranky or tired or sick. Pre-recording (as we are now doing) makes it easier to choose times to do it to avoid those times, but it’s still demanding.

O’Shea: When you first started the show, did you ever envision becoming in essence a concert promoter to some degree as well?

Childs: Not at all. But as we moved along and started to get to know some of the artists, I realized there was a gap that we could help fill, and, working with folks like Sienna (from HilltownFamilies.org) and local venues, we’ve had a lot of fun shows. (And we’ve got more coming up, if you’ll permit the plug – watch the calendar at our website.)

O’Shea: You frequently have guest DJs. Once Ella and Liam get older could you see turning the show over to other folks?

Childs: Possibly. On the new station, it’s not as much purely up to me, but we’ll see. Both kids seem to be interested in sticking around with it for a while yet, so I have not had to worry a ton about it. I could also envision continuing even without kids in the relevant age range.

O’Shea: What changes have been made to the show since it started also airing on The River? How did this new arrangement come about?

Childs:The only major changes have been pre-recording and having a little more structure in terms of sets — we have to deliver six segments of a set range of times. The latter has made it so we’re now planning the show in advance. That removes a little bit of spontaneity, but I also think it sometimes ends up with better and more interesting sets.

The other thing it’s added is access to WRSI’s huge music library and recording equipment. The in-studio performances, I think you’ll find, sound better than ever, the equipment just doesn’t crash, and we suddenly have access to thousands of songs we never had before. All of the music we played on the show while at VFR either came in as submissions from kids’ artists or were from our personal library. We have a good library, but nothing like a real AAA radio station that’s been around for 25 years. I’m just starting to really explore it.

Most other changes are fairly minor. I’ve gone along on one sales call for someone who’s considering sponsoring our show; that was more fun than I expected. I’ve probably tweaked our playlists a little to fit the station’s roots emphasis, but that wasn’t at the station’s request and may just be from listening to the station more.

Basically, I contacted the station (WSRI 93.9 The River) about potentially sponsoring a pretty big kids’ concert (still hoping that comes together; we’ll see), not at all about doing the show there. They were enthused about the concert possibility and also asked if we wanted to discuss doing the show there. They’d been thinking about adding a kids’ show for a while and we happened along at the right time.

O’Shea: In terms of WRSI’s huge music library, can you mention any musical holy grails you have found so far?

Childs: It’s not so much holy grails as basic catalog stuff and some new things. An example of each — for the former, Rolling Stones. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that our Stones collection is all on vinyl; the station has a bunch digitally, so we could finally play She’s a Rainbow. For the latter, I heard Richard Julian’s great Springtime is Coming on the station a few weeks ago and realized it would fit perfectly — Lyle Lovettish in sound, good theme — so we played it. I’ve got an ever-growing list of tracks I hear on the station during the week to think about playing on the show.

O’Shea: What is it about TMBG’s music (each show begins and ends with a TMBG song) that you think allows it to equally appeal to adults and children?

Childs: It’s smart, funny, accessible, and sometimes weird. That sense of goofiness and deadpan humor resonates at least with my kids, and I expect others.

Little-known fact: Ella originally wanted to start and end the show not just with TMBG songs, but with Dr. Worm every single show, start and end. Took a while to convince her that it was better to vary it some.

O’Shea: While the show is predominantly children’s music, you frequently play mainstream music in the show. How do you go about verifying there are no inappropriate lyrics in the song?

Childs: Mostly online searches, but I try to listen in advance too to any to make sure we don’t get burned. Early on I made a couple of (minor) mistakes with an Asylum Street Spankers song and a Gear Daddies song, so I’ve been more careful since then.

O’Shea: Do you have a favorite show (be it musically or be it in terms of the positive impact on you and your family) or a favorite set list from your time so far?

Childs: Well, we’re well over 100 shows now, so it’s hard to narrow it down. I would say there are three categories of shows that I like a lot:

- one type would be a fairly straightforward show where things just go well — Ella’s running the board and doing great at it and feeling good about it, Liam’s engaged, the music is good, and we all have fun. Nothing specific, just a good show.

- the second would be when we have really fun guests who aren’t thrown by things like a history quiz and who seem to be genuinely into it. Every time we have the Deedle Deedle Dees, or Keith Munslow, or a bunch of other guests, that’s the case. Those are the shows that really feel like we’re adding something to the community and the music scene.

- the third type of show I love is when we’re the first people anywhere to play a particular artist. I think we were first to air Frances England, for example, and there are a lot of examples of that. Getting to find terrific independent artists is great fun for me. I actually owned a record store in Minneapolis for a year back in the early ’90s, and similarly, I liked getting people to buy independent or minor label releases (we sold a ton of Green Day when they were still on Lookout! Records, for instance, and they actually did an acoustic in-store for us).

O’Shea: How on earth did you end up owning a record store and other than Green Day, were there any other in-store appearances that you had (really it’s hard to top Green Day, don’t get me wrong).

Childs: A friend of mine and I thought the west bank of Minneapolis needed one. We had some money saved up and opened one, about 300 square feet inside another store. It went well – we were more or less breaking even – but she decided she wanted to do something different and I decided to return to college, so we sold it to folks who didn’t do as well and closed rapidly.

We only had one other in-store by a band called No Apparent Reason from River Falls, Wisconsin. I still like them — kind of melodic punk with almost a prog-rock tinge to it — but no idea what happened to them.

O’Shea: A great many of musical acts you play are folks that also have once been or continue to do “adult” acts for lack of a better term. For the adults, could you offer some musical acts (formerly or still ongoing) that you wish people would check out in addition to enjoying their family music efforts?

Childs: I really like Justin Roberts’s non-kids’ stuff, both with Pimentos for Gus and solo; his drummer and producer, Liam Davis, has a good project called Frisbie as well. ScribbleJim’s grown-up band the ShysterS (capitalization intended) is really pretty great poppy punk. Liz Mitchell’s other work with Ida is beautiful.

O’Shea: When you have in-studio guests, they always seem to flourish–even the time (can’t remember the band) when one of the members had an upset child to (understandably) tend to in mid-show. Would you agree it’s pretty hard to rattle musicians who play for children, given that at any moment a toddler can unintentionally become a pseudo-heckler.

Childs: That was the Deedle Deedle Dees. Poor little Hazel had problems (again understandable) during the show they played later that day, and Lloyd ended up with her in a front carrier while he was singing and playing bass.

In any event, yes, I think family musicians are probably more inured to interruption and the like than the average twenty-something rocker. Perhaps that’s why they’re also not thrown so much by Ella’s history quiz.

O’Shea: Here’s what really blows me away (about you). The same guy that digs up an old John Cale/Brian Eno tune is also the law professor who once specialized in amusement ride safety. Out of curiosity, when the state fair or something of that ilk comes to town, can you ride the rides–or do you know too much about risks to be able to enjoy the rides?

Childs: I actually still specialize in amusement ride safety. And yes, I absolutely ride the rides; while the cases are interesting for a variety of reasons, the absolute risks are very small and largely avoidable. If it looks genuinely sketchy, don’t ride it; if the ride operator seems drunk or confused or inattentive, don’t ride it; and so on. A great resource for parents about that subject is Kathy Fackler’s www.saferparks.org.

(An aside, showing how the worlds occasionally intermingle: Through an exchange of e-mails, I recently figured out that Sippy Paul of the Sippy Cups was once roommates with a guy, Shaun Sutner, who has interviewed me for the Worcester paper’s excellent coverage of a ride fatality in that area of the state.)

O’Shea: After I first contacted you about an interview, it came up that both of us share an appreciation of Tony Kornheiser’s radio work. I was wondering if there are folks that you respect in radio, or in other words, you consider to be your radio heroes.

Childs: I think he (Kornheiser) does talk radio about as well as anyone I can think of. My music radio heroes are mostly from Minnesota — Mary Lucia (on MPR’s The Current [thecurrent.org], formerly of a bunch of stations going back to Rev-105) programs and hosts as well as anyone, ever; I also really like Barb Abney (now on The Current, formerly at WOXY.com). Farther back, Kevin Cole, now at KEXP in Seattle but previously at KJJO and Rev-105 in the Cities, is brilliant. And, not to be too obnoxious, I think the folks at WRSI are doing really creative work making what is obviously a commercial station also be a genuine community station.

O’Shea: What is it about your radio heroes that you admire and try to emulate?

Childs: That they are people rather than just personalities. You know who Tony is, you know who Lucia is, you know who Barb is, etc., etc. A big part of why those folks (and others I mentioned) are successful in that regard is that they more or less program their own shows — the Current’s DJs pick the songs they play, Tony talks about what he wants to talk about, etc. And they’re really good at choosing songs/ subjects in terms of pacing, structure, etc. That’s what I’ve always wanted our show to feel like — us listening to some fun music and having our sometimes-weird conversations between.

O’Shea: One more follow-up–in what ways is WRSI becoming a genuine community station?

Childs: Their promotional events have been a lot more about local community things rather than, for example, giving away trips. So this week, for instance, the morning guy (and PD) Monte is camping on the courthouse lawn until they raise $10,000 for a local cancer support organization. While there’s promotional value to the station to that too, they could have chosen something much more traditional that probably would be less work for them, but they went with the thing that actually adds value to the community. It’s part of this series of events they call “The Riverlution.”