MP3 AaroChele - ROCK: Folk Rock
Skunks, Bees, Monsters, and lots of quirky sounds: Folk Rock for the young at heart.
13 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Folk Rock, KIDS/FAMILY: Kid Friendly
Details:
Hi, this is AaroChele. We are a husband and wife duo: Aaron and Michele Kaplan. On our self-titled debut CD, Aaron does vocals, guitars, banjo, mandolin, bass, harmonica, shakers, pots and pans, kazoo, lap harp, door stop, socket wrench, microphone stand, sleigh bells, xylophone, pop bottle, slide whistle, bongos, and tambourine. Michele does vocals, keyboard, flute, kalimba, Christmas bows, ocarina, slide whistle, kazoo, car keys, nut rattle, buttons on a string, jar lid, Chinese balls, whistling, and bee buzz. Both of us did the actual writing and arranging of the songs.
We started recording the AaroChele CD in Salem, OR during the winter at the beginning of 2005. Then we found out we were going to have a little baby. This caused us to evaluate our living situation and we decided it would be best for us to move to Wisconsin where the environment was more child-friendly. The reason we chose central Wisconsin was because we have family here. We finally finished recording and mixing our CD in Marshfield, WI in late November, about 2 weeks before the baby (Eleora) came. We did everything ourselves in our apartments in Salem and Marshfield. ‘Everything’ means engineering, producing, mastering, and designing the CD cover (yes the jokes are original as far as we know).
The inspiration for our songs came from many different places. “The Skunk Song” was inspired by a skunk that was dead on the side of the road. Michele told Aaron “I bet that skunk will stay there forever because no one will want to touch it.” Both of us felt sorry for skunks and their bad rap in that moment and Aaron decided we should write a song about it. We got the title for “Dance You Monster to my Soft Song” from a painting by Paul Klee, a very talented but underappreciated artist. I (Michele) was inspired to write “The Colors” because I moved from Oregon to Maryland and back to Oregon for reasons of trying to do what I believed to be right. When I went back to OR, I did it only to be with Aaron and I was scared I would lose him anyway especially because everyone said it was a bad reason to move back across the country. They were wrong! The inspiration for “You’re Gonna Be Our Baby” was because (you guessed it) we found out we were going to have one. We would sing this one to our daughter when she was in the womb. I (Aaron) used to work at a job where I would get bored and start acting goofy. One of the women there told me to ‘act my age’! But I thought, what’s so great about being a grown up? Isn’t life meant to be enjoyed, even if you do come off as silly? Well, then I wrote “Act Your Age”. I thought it would be cool to stick an actual kids’ song on the end, and Michele did a great job arranging “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
Our CD can be for children, but we think it is especially for adults who miss the joy and innocence of childhood. The songs are lighthearted and fun, but they all have a message behind them. We really enjoyed making it, we poured a lot of ourselves into these songs. We hope you will like it as much as we do!
Love,
AaroChele