boston herald
12/04/00

from rock to rock-a-bye baby: family man dan zanes launches `rocket ship beach' for hip, young crowd

sure, dan zanes has gotten older. but with his boyish grin and unkempt shock of brown hair shooting skyward, he still looks much the same as he did in the '80s when he was leader of boston's roots rocking del fuegos.

zanes is still rocking, too. only now he's playing for a younger audience. a much younger audience.

married, the father of a 6-year-old daughter and living in brooklyn's cobble hill, the ex-hellraiser has become a children's musician.

he couldn't be happier about the change, even if some people think playing kid stuff is uncool.

``my friends understand what i'm doing,'' zanes says, sitting in the middle east in cambridge after a drive from new york with a trunk full of copies of his new cd, ``rocket ship beach,'' to deliver to his newfound national distributor, rounder kids. ``but i'll walk into a record store off the street, a cold call, and say, `hi, i'm dan zanes and i've got this kids record.' i show them the cd with the brightly colored painting on the front and they look at me like, `you pathetic worm out there doing kids records.' ''

zanes laughs. ``but to me it feels like when the del fuegos started out. this morning i played a pre-school in brooklyn heights. i was carrying gear into this place, the snaps on the cases are broken and no one can find their picks. but you pull it all together and you have a show. it's 10 o'clock in the morning and the kids are dancing to `rock island live.' it's not that different than 1982.''

in some ways zanes' music isn't all that different either. the songs on ``rocket ship beach,'' from ``mole in the ground'' and ``over the rainbow'' to one zanes original, are performed with spirit and a total lack of pretense. and zane's contagious exuberance infects the performances of his guest artists, who range from sheryl crow (``polly wolly doodle''), suzanne vega (``erie canal'') and bad company's simon kirke to a group of west indian babysitters zanes befriended in his local playground and organized into the sandy girls.

zanes' zest for children's music arrived, naturally enough, with the birth of his daughter, anna, shortly before the release of his terrific 1995 solo album, ``cool down time.'' despite some glowing reviews, the album was a flop.

``i thought it was a good record,'' zanes says, ``but thank god it didn't do well. nobody was bugging me to tour, so i got to spend a lot of time around the house. when i weigh the opportunity to be a parent against the opportunity to run around the country touring behind a pop record, well, gee, i think i'll try to be a parent. i'm really grateful for the way things worked out.''

zanes looked forward to listening to music with his daughter, but was dismayed when he couldn't find what he was looking for in record stores.

``i remembered listening to leadbelly and pete seeger and ella jenkins and chuck berry when i was a kid in new hampshire,'' zanes says. ``so i thought there would be these records for kids that would be raw and spontaneous, sort of like early rock 'n' roll. and while raffi's ok and i like tom chapin a lot, i just couldn't find anything like what i was imagining in my head. so i decided to record it myself.''

zanes recorded homemade tapes that he gave away free. eventually he decided to start his own children's record label. ``rocket ship beach,'' which comes packaged in a charming, jewel box-sized cardboard picture book (illustrated by zanes' brother-in-law donald saaf) is the first release on his festival five label (www.festivalfive.com). zanes says it won't be the last.

``i'm going all the way into this,'' he says. ``i'm setting up this business to last. i've got two more ideas for children's cds that i plan to have out by the end of next year. it will be the same format, me and my friends just playing. i just talked to roseanne cash about doing something on the next record.

``i've been trying to see if i can somehow be useful on a local level,'' zanes continues. ``doing this is the one thing i have to offer. like with all this election nuttiness going on, no amount of e-mails i could send would make me feel better. so i went down to the day-care center on the corner and told them i'd come in and play.

``i went over the other day and played for about 60 kids. one of my raps is about putting a family band together. the kids are always yelling out about how they've got a guitar at home or how their brother plays trumpet. i say, `you know what? you should put a family band together.' then i'll play a carter family song. i'll say, `that song was by a family band. and maybe sometime instead of watching tv, your family could be a band.' ''

zanes smiles, looking more than a little childlike himself. ``all right,'' he says, ``it may be a bit of a stretch. but it's an idea worth bringing up, don't you think?''

by larry katz