AND THAT’S HOW THE STORY WOULD HAVE ENDED, WERE IT NOT FOR something called the Kidology Conference—or KidCon—at which I found myself one morning four years ago.
The venue was a grim, satanically black Brooklyn concert hall that reeked of beer and disinfectant. The stage was lit, an expectant crowd loitered, but there’d be no live music until the evening. The barman would have served you booze, but most of those milling around happily stuck to coffee. Not me, of course. I had a Diet Coke, like when I choose wheat over white, or low-fat cream cheese: very grown-up.
People were politely advertising their bands (in one case, by means of attention-grabbing propeller hats) and unself-consciously glad-handing sampler CDs and stickers. Others idly swung swag bags from their fingers as they took advantage of the “unique networking opportunities.” I happened to be talking to a guy called Niall. He was in charge—I could tell by the two gold stars on his nametag.
KidCon existed, he explained, because there were now so many people making Family Music—that was the preferred designation—and such a bewildering array of outlets for its distribution that it was easy to get lost. At KidCon, registrants got a chance to hear from successful artists, publicists, agents, and other “industry insiders”: the conference’s mission, to embrace today’s market in all its diversity, to offer a blueprint for success. “It’s a place to see and be seen,” Niall said. It was, in other words, South by Southwest for people who write hello songs, goodbye songs, and when-do-we-get-there songs.
My initial silent thought was “if only there’d been a blueprint for the Wonderkids . . . ” swiftly followed by: “If only they’d had any guidance at all . . .” But, I equally swiftly concluded, even if both those things, the outcome wouldn’t have been any different: they’d still have fucked it up. They’d have found a way.
“Are you making music yourself?” asked Niall, bracing himself to give the keynote.
“No,” I said, hoping it hadn’t come out dismissive.
“Oh, you have that look in your eye.”
“I do? No, I’m behind-the-scenes. You don’t want to let me too near a stage. Actually, I was asked to write about the conference.”
“A journalist?” He sized up my usefulness.
“Not so much,” I admitted. “Well, if you like. I mean, put it this way: I’m not about to write a song about socks.”
Why had I agreed to write the stupid article? Mostly because a friend, drunk backstage, desperate for copy, offered money and a plane ticket after he read a thing I wrote about some of the weirder Wonderkids concerts. Blake’s old apartment, which was still how everyone referred to it, was making me antsy. Might as well get back on the road.
The story of Family Music is basically this: the children of rock ’n’ roll grew up, had their own children, and needed options other than crappy Raffi. They wanted their kids to listen to music they could stand to listen to themselves, because, unlike their parents, who thought it was all rubbish anyway, they actually liked pop music, and could tell the difference between good and bad. They didn’t want to pollute their own kids’ minds with crap and certainly didn’t want to contaminate the stereos in their cars and kitchens. (I went to a three-year-old’s party the other day—the bespoke mixtape was Pixies, the Clash, and Ramones. I was actually aching for someone to sing a song about going to a zoo, zoo, zoo, and I bet the kids were, too.)
Then some of these parents, musicians who were themselves in rock ’n’ roll bands, found they couldn’t make a living—it’s not uncommon—and decided to take matters into their own hands, to provide music for their own kids, music that they, and other parents like them, wouldn’t mind listening to: music that was anti-Raffi, anti-Barney, not the Wiggles. And this music, some of it, totally reinvigorated the children’s music scene. Think punk, alternative comedy, that kind of thing.
Crucially, it was music for kids and adults alike—that was the trick—but when you sliced it right down, it had to be palatable to adults, at least initially, because they were the ones with the money. Disney worked this out years ago, but kindie (indie music for kids, right?) worked it out for rock ’n’ rollers. The secret is that rock ’n’ roll has always been for kids. A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom. This music just made that slightly more explicit.
Now these guys had their own conference. And I was the ideal person to cover it.
Niall gave his introductory speech, the climax of which was the announcement of the first annual Jim-Jammies Awards, to be held later that year. It made sense: everyone’s got his own awards show—why not these guys? Why not us? Children’s literature, Kid Lit: the reverence with which memory turns those yellowed pages, the Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature, with its hearty essays on Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carroll, and Dr. Seuss. Think of those bookshelves of hallowed first editions of J. K. Rowling, Joan Aiken, and even Judith Esther. But children’s music? Carnival of the Animals, Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra or bust, innit?
And as for modern children’s music, consider the Grammys—where and when are the Family Music awards in that overstuffed celebration of entropy? Long before you tune in, is the answer. They’re somewhere between Best Historical Album, Worst Album Notes (Gospel), and whatever category it is in which Aerosmith still triumph. Sure you wouldn’t turn down a Grammy, but you’d be home in time to give Granny her medicine. The indie kids’ musicians deserved their own awards show. Of course they did, and the conference crowd agreed. Wholeheartedly.
The name of the first panel was tailor-made for the article I was destined not to write: “How to Succeed While Really Really Trying” (others, later on, would be franker: “Money: Where Is It?”). The first moderator, perhaps a children’s entertainer herself, could have done the panel all on her own; she opened by serenading the attendees to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel” (“Let’s all get out of the lobby / And come on into the panel . . . you’ve got three more minutes, then mercifully I’ll stop singing”) before coaxing answers from her panelists like a kindergarten teacher. Behind her, the KidCon banner peeled partway from the wall, an inexorable descent that looked likely to accelerate towards a tragic conclusion threatening to upstage the unwitting panelists, until Niall shuffled up to throw some gaffer tape about; everyone “Ah!”ed like when the couple kiss at the end of a romantic comedy.
I had wanted to explode the myth that family music was made by failed rock musicians. Sadly this would not be possible. It was the truth, confirmed by almost every speaker, the only exception to this being the family music made by already successful rock musicians, who had decided not only that the kids were alright, but that the toddlers were alright, too, a move known, among cynics, as “last chance for a Grammy.” One notable success story summed it up on the second panel: “Well, I’m singing the same stuff I sang before when no one listened, except now the songs are accompanied by cartoons of a talking strip of bacon. Otherwise, no change.” The differences between playing for kids and adults boiled down to a few good jokes: “you get a different sort of bottle thrown at you.” Much of the overall message was: “Work every day, work really hard,” and it all turned out to be very American—“This is a wonderful country,” someone said, earning a round of applause, “You can fake your way through anything.” There was no sign of modesty among the panelists, but they weren’t here to hide their lights. They were here to blind you in their glare.
I felt sorry for the people with questions, but most of my sympathy was reserved for anyone trying to come up with a name for his kid-friendly band. Honestly, have a go. Then Google it: it’s taken. As my mind wandered—it’s hard to be in a rock club all day, and I should know; you become inured to the smell, but the chemicals in the cleaning fluids are working on you just the same—I toyed with the idea, a possible hook for the article, of making up a fake Kindie band. So I began to play a parlor game, and here’s the list: the Cribs, Spitrag, the Blankies, TANTRUM, the Meltdowns, Booster Shot, the Swing Set, Potty Mouth, the Mad Hatters, the Magic Words, the Bad Words, the Balloons, the Pop-Tarts, the Pull-Ups, the Dr. Spocks—oh, there were hundreds more. My iPhone corroborated that every single one of them was taken. And not all by bands playing for kids, mind you.
By the next panel (“Social Networking and Fan Development When Your Audience Can’t Type Yet”), my article had written itself, though I never bothered to transcribe it. In fact, I was about ready to call it a day when one of the moderators treated us to a bit of a history lesson, addressing the changes in the industry over the last twenty-five years. The smooth narrative laid before us told itself so neatly that it struck me something, something, must be missing: from Mister Rogers to Raffi, from Simeon to Sesame Street, and then to the alternative bands making their children’s albums, and finally to the real stars of today, some of whom were in the house at that moment: Dan Zanes—who’s really making “Everyone Music,” these days if anybody is—and Laurie Berkner, “the Sheryl Crow of the diaper set,” who once successfully rhymed “aunts” with “grandpar-ants.” This story brought us up to date, but there was an absence that felt—to me—quite conspicuous. I’m not saying that it was a conscious whitewash, I’m just saying something was missing. I knew the reasons, and they offended me.
And I felt it well up inside me, like if I didn’t ask the question, I’d explode or vomit: that huge Dr. Seuss print presented itself right in front of my eyes. It was all very unlike me, because I was never one to put my hand up at school and was criticized for hiding in the back row. But suddenly there it was, my arm, shooting up above me like a periscope, giving away my position in the anonymous sea of faces, waving, drawing attention to both of us. I felt immediate sympathy for those other people with their daft questions: they couldn’t help themselves either. And when the charming moderator picked me out, I stood up and waited for the microphone to bob over.
“Yeah, thanks. Ed Sweet, er, writer. I heard what you said about Raffi all the way up to They Might Be Giants and Mr. Zanes, up there on the panel, and I just wondered . . .” A few people in front craned their necks to see. Other people were talking among themselves, but I seemed to have the undivided attention of the panelists, who nodded like dashboard dachshunds. “. . . Yeah, I just wondered if anyone remembered the Wonderkids and where they fit into all this.”
For a millisecond, it was like that bit in the pub in American Werewolf in London. Then the moderator started to cough, as though to preempt choking, perhaps due to the unexpectedness of the reference; everybody else looked dumbfounded. And someone behind me started to giggle.
“The Wonderkids?” asked the moderator, clearing his throat, wearing the forlorn, pensive look of a baby taking a crap.
“Where are they now?” asked someone else on the panel.
“Anyone want to run with this? The Wonderkids—remember those guys?” I didn’t like the stress on those. No one took up the moderator’s baton, until Roger Wrong, a middle-aged, baseball-capped Midwesterner, the comedian on the panel, came to his rescue.
“I’ve got a Wonderkids story.” It was going to be a good one; you could see it in his eyes. He considerately motioned for me to sit down. “I guess they were kinda inspiring to me, although I know that wasn’t always a cool thing to say, but you know credit where it’s due, and there was one time I went to see them in Boston, and it was just after that big hit they had . . . er . . .”
“Life, As It Is Lived,” someone shouted out from the audience. Like the peeling banner, we were gathering momentum.
“No, no, maybe “Rock Around the Bed,” and I guess I’d made my first demos right then, and someone showed me back into their dressing room, and I had this little cassette I was clutching, Maxwell ferric oxide C-30, of three demos . . .”—he was laughing just thinking about it—“and the first person I ran into was this kid who was running around like he was in charge, and I suddenly realized it was a kinda real weird, slightly heavy, scene; there was the girl from the band—Simeon’s daughter—in a tie-dye leotard, doing tai chi, the guitar player looked like he was passed out on the couch, and a couple of mothers, not the Mothers of Invention or heavy mother you-know-whats, just actual mothers, who were back there, lots of cigarette smoke, definitely a bunch of bottles, I’d say some weed . . . yeah, weed . . . and you think about these days, I mean I wouldn’t even carry my merch in a cardboard box with the name of a brewery on it, right? No one wants anyone putting that picture up online. Anyway, it was a weird scene, like a real band, and then the next thing I see is Blake Lear . . .”
At this point, the audience let out a collective “ooh!,” like at one of Blake’s beloved pantomimes. And then someone actually hissed in a kind of affectionate way, as though he was a cartoon villain you wanted to warn the hero about. It was a great moment, really.
“. . . and, man, he’s larger than life. And he’d just got off the stage, playing to, what, I don’t know, maybe 600 kids between the ages of four and ten and he’s sweating and he looks kinda like he might be dying. Like, if you saw him beforehand, he’d be all dandy and dapper but you see him afterwards and he’s like a ghost, a little, and there’s sweat running through his makeup on the side of his face, and he’s got peanut butter smeared all over his jacket, and he looks at me and says: ‘What do you want?’ It wasn’t unfriendly, but it was a little intense, at least I felt that way until he ‘Quack!’s right in my face. And I remember he was waving around a bottle of bourbon. Anyway, so I say, ’cause I was just a young kid come to give the great man some of my songs—this was before they got into any big trouble—and so I say: ‘Well, Mr. Lear, I don’t want to bother you, but I made some demos and I thought you might like to hear them.’ And I handed him this cassette and, man, I’d slaved over that thing, great artwork, ’cause first impressions are everything, all that bullshit . . .” And that was the first time anyone had sworn onstage all day, as though the spirit of the Wonderkids had suddenly possessed KidCon. “And, long story short, Blake Lear takes it off me real friendly, and smiles at me, and he doesn’t take one look at it, not even a glance, and in the blink of an eye, he says ‘thank you, thank you,’ and he hurls that cassette over his shoulder.”
He burst out laughing again, and, really, he’s telling the story so well that everyone is laughing with him now.
“And that thing flew, it flew through the air—I mean . . .” he made the Superman flying gesture with both arms, “And Blake didn’t even look around, but the cassette sailed straight through an open window. He couldn’t have executed it any better if he’d tried. You could hear it skittering on some gravel outside, maybe along the road, and then hitting someone, and a polite little scream. And I just looked at him, and he looked at me. And he made this kinda funny cross-eyed face like Eddie Cantor or someone, and he looks around and says ‘Where the fuck did that go?’ And I said ‘Right out the window.’ And we both just started laughing. And we couldn’t stop.
“And the kid I saw first runs by me and before I know what’s happened, he’s gone outside and he’s handing me back the cassette and says: ‘Blake, you want to try that again?’ And Blake says: ‘I’ll never get it through the window again!’ and we’re still laughing and the kid says ‘No, receiving the cassette from the nice man.’ And I say: ‘Forget about the cassette, man, but I’ll have some of that bourbon.’
“And Blake put his big arm around me and he said: ‘You’re alright, whatever-your-name-is,’ and he empties out a plastic cup, rinses it in the sink, and pours me a drink.
“And that’s my Wonderkids story.”
And everybody applauded. But Mr. Wrong wasn’t quite done, and he said: “You know sometimes when I tell that story, people think I’m telling it to say what a . . .”—now he’d closed the backstage door on the world of the Wonderkids, handed in his laminate, he couldn’t quite utter the word, so he just left a blank for us to fill as we pleased—“. . . Blake Lear was. But that’s not the reason. That was a real funny thing to do, and I got it. And so if I do that to your CD, don’t be offended.”
And the moderator, trying to get everything back on track, as though the Wonderkids were outside the purview of KidCon, asked: “But you listen to everything, right—every single thing they send you?”
“Yessir!” said Roger Wrong. “But the thing with that band was, the music was great, no question, but there weren’t any rules back then, and they were too crazy. Nowadays we know the boundaries, but the Wonderkids were making it up as they went along. I read an interview with someone about the Wiggles, maybe their manager or lawyer, and they asked him why the Wiggles always did the Wiggle dance with their hands in the air when they met the kids for photos. And he said, quite frankly I thought, that it protected them from possible litigation; he said something like ‘that way you know where the hands are.’ Smart, I guess. And, looking back, that was the thing with the Wonderkids: you never really knew where the hands were, and they wouldn’t show you. I’m not talking about anything weird. I’m just saying that they could have made things less . . . well, maybe it didn’t occur to them, but they paid for that, I think.”
“Well,” said the moderator, pointing at me, “I guess that didn’t really answer your question. But it certainly got a good story. If you don’t mind my asking, why did you think of the Wonderkids?”
I stood up again and addressed the microphone: “Well, I’m interested partly for personal reasons, because, for example, I actually remember that story very well. I was the kid who went to get the cassette, and Blake Lear was, and still is, my father.”
There was silence, then a very strange thing happened: someone started to applaud. And the whole room began to applaud, as did the panelists. It certainly took the moderator by surprise: the band really didn’t quite fit into The Gospel According to KidCon. But, you know, there are other Gospels too: they’re real—they just didn’t make the final edit. And that’s what everyone was applauding: the Secret History of Kids’ Music, the one where the Wonderkids weren’t disgraced and forgotten.
“Man, nice to meet you again,” said Mr. Wrong. “Did you ever listen to that cassette? We’ll talk about it afterwards.”
“The Wonderkids!” said the moderator. “And where is Blake Lear now? What’s he doing?”
I was keen to relinquish the microphone.
“Oh,” I said, “he’s fine. He’s fine. Still writing.”
In the bar, two or three of the performers made a beeline, and I suddenly found myself the center of a little scrimmage. They were all full of praise for the band. Roger Wrong couldn’t have been friendlier. I was able to bring them up to date about Becca, who I knew to be newly divorced and running a yoga retreat in Northern California (not ten miles from the nerve center of her father’s Empowering the Child empire); and Curtis, who had gone back to acting and just landed a minor speaking role as an alien in the latest incarnation of Star Trek; and Jack, of course. But I managed to avoid talking about Blake, though it was all they wanted to know.
“Are you really his son?” asked one of the female performers, whose name I didn’t catch. She was about my age, attractive; the kind of woman you see and immediately think: “I wish I was a little less like me and a bit more like whatever it is that she likes.”
“Yeah, though I was actually only ten years younger than him.”
She offered me beer—it was that time of day, and there weren’t any cameras or kids around. I opted for a Sprite. There was an ice-cream van outside, and I asked her if she’d like anything: “You could make, like, a beer float, or something.”
“Would that be good?” She was definitely flirting.
“Maybe?”
“As in ‘maybe yes’ or as in ‘Hell, no?’”
“What’s your name?” I asked. “In case I have to page you on the white courtesy phone.”
She had a beer in one hand and a Sprite in the other, and she gesticulated at her right breast, where long brown hair obscured a nametag. It was left to me to brush her hair aside so I could read “Joni Johnson.” Even I’d heard of her. I must have been the only one who didn’t recognize her. That can be flattering, right?
“You’re a journalist?” she asked.
“Not really. Well, more on the side.” I leaned towards her as though it was a confidence: “I’m a road manager.”
“A romancer?” She asked nonplussed, having totally misheard me. Perhaps my accent was the problem; perhaps the volume in the club. Under any circumstances, it was a great mishearing.
“No,” I said, laughing, “a road manager.”
She seemed suspicious. It was as much fun as I’d had in ages. “You don’t seem like the type.”
“I don’t?” It’s because I’m urbane, isn’t it? It’s because I’m a bit of a gentleman. I didn’t say this out loud. I’d wait for her. She was going to like the name of my company too.
“You don’t drink. You don’t smoke. I bet you don’t do drugs.”
“All assets in a tour manager, I believe.”
“You seem too baby-faced,” she said. Hmm. “Do you win them over with your British accent? You’re squeaky clean.” I liked her honey voice. You just wanted it to drip all over you. “Do people take you seriously?”
“Yes!” I said, immediately regretting my defensive tone. “I was voted “Most Seriously Taken Road Manager” in Touring Monthly only last year.”
“We need a new road manager,” she said nonchalantly, as she fished in her inside pocket for a business card. I immediately began to reconsider my golden rule: never date someone you’re looking after. Of course, the money would have to be right too. “Our last road manager left.”
“Oh, why?” I asked, purely out of professional curiosity.
She laughed gaily: “Oh, I broke up with him! It got awkward.”
Poor bastard. Lucky Bastard.
“Well, I’m in the book,” I said casually.
“Hey,” she put her hand on my arm as though I’d shown any sign of leaving. It was an exhilarating moment: she didn’t want me to go. It was as though I was playing hard to get.
“How’s Blake?” she asked. She had a look in her eye, and I didn’t like it. I was really trying not to ask: “Oh, did you know him?” but I did anyway.
“Oh, no. I met him. I bought an LP at a gig once, and he signed it for me. I loved the Wonderkids.” We’d met before! At the merch table! I’d leave that little gem in my back pocket. “I’d love to meet him again to thank him for the inspiration.”
“I’m going to get some ice cream.” I looked outside. The line of conference delegates was about twenty deep.
“Aren’t you too old for ice cream, road manager?”
“Aren’t we all just big kids? Isn’t adulthood just a polite fiction?” I asked as I left, hoping these heavy thoughts did a bit of work in my absence.
She’d gone when I came back, and I found myself wondering why I hadn’t gone, too. A band’s soundcheck is not conducive to conversation. Niall materialized by my side.
“That was quite a revelation,” he said in admiration. He had an ice cream too: dipped cherry, rich blood red.
“Are you going to ask if I’m really his son?”
“No, I checked online. So, Sweet,” he’d done his research, calling me by my last name, “what do you think of our little shindig?” He’d been friendly before, and now I realized he wasn’t being quite so friendly. The reason was obvious: we were doing business.
“Yeah . . .” I said, nodding my head.
“And you’re sure you don’t have any ambitions to . . . er . . .”
“Follow in the family business?” The ice cream was fine, though I wished I’d had the cherry. I’d forgotten how ridiculously good that color looked. I shook my head. “It’s not really my scene. I’ll stay for the show though.”
“Well, I was wondering . . .” Here it came. “I was wondering if maybe next year—you know we do this big gig in Prospect Park every year. I was wondering if you thought that the Wonderkids would consider playing it. I mean, it’ll be packed. Have they thought of getting back together?”
“Well, I . . .”
“You probably worry that there’d still be a residual Pee-wee Herman effect, but you know Pee-wee’s having the last laugh now, right?” In his mind, the gig was already happening. I was witnessing a promoter promoting. I hadn’t been thinking anything like that, although perhaps he was right. It was more that I was considering that in order for there to be a reunion, we’d need the lead singer. It’s probably how the Pogues feel every time they play. “I think you’d be surprised,” he continued. “Everyone’s prepared to, well, forgive and forget. I mean, you saw the reaction in there. I think a lot of the parents would feel the same way.”
“You make it sound a lot worse than it was. I love Pee-wee Herman, but he was actually guilty of a sexual offense.”
“Well, the rumors about the Wonderkids were probably worse than the actual events.”
“They were. Considerably.” Niall was beginning to annoy me, but here I was: the band’s representative.
“I mean Peter Yarrow’s still performing to children,” he said by way of comparison.
“I’m not sure that example is really working for you.”
“And anyway,” he was off again, promoting, trying to iron out problems as they presented themselves, “the thing with Peter Yarrow is that it was 1970 and things were very different then. Also Carter gave him a presidential pardon or something.”
“I think this may not be your best argument, Niall, because, without being specific, the Wonderkids weren’t actually or even technically pedophiles and if they were, you presumably wouldn’t be asking them to perform, unless they were Peter Yarrow, with his presidential pardon.”
“Well, sorry, no, perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. But do you think there’s any hope?”
“Of the Wonderkids reforming to play the KidCon Festival in Prospect Park?”
“Yes. A show where we re-present them to America. And we carry the can. And they get paid very well.”
“No, Niall. No. There is absolutely no possibility whatsoever.”
There was absolutely no possibility.
And yet, four years later, it happened.
I watched the show, looking around for Joni Johnson, nowhere to be seen, as I fielded this and that inquiry about the band for which I was now the known earthly representative. And always the same question, like he was a cross between the Waldo and the Thomas Pynchon of Kiddie Rock: “Where’s Blake?”