Koo Koo Kanga Roo vs. crossed-arms dance music
The duo's blingin' yet breathable stage wear.
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Getting caught up at a Koo Koo Kanga Roo show can be a liberating experience, even for those who weren't planning on it. The local duo has increasingly aimed its synth-hop beats and raps about the alphabet ("LMNOP") and cruising ("Rollin' In The Minivan") at an audience of kids, but they do pretty much the exact same act for the Midwest's legions of stoic, grown-up show-goers. Neil Olstad and Bryan Atchison try not to leave anyone an excuse not to participate, teaching the crowd simple dance moves and shout-along choruses for each song. Though the project's less than two years old, Olstad and Atchison are already working on developing a web series for kids, in addition to the sketches on their YouTube page. Tonight's show at The Beat Coffeehouse marks the release of their second album, The Everlasting Slumber Party, which they'll release via their website two free MP3s every Thursday in October. Olstad spoke with The A.V. Club about developing an act he and Atchison aptly describe as a kid's birthday party headlined by the Beastie Boys.
The A.V. Club: You give the impression of being kid-friendly. Do you do actual shows for kids?
Neil Olstad: We've had a wide range of different shows over the past six months. Bryan works at a day camp over the summer, so we've played a bunch of different camps, and this fall we played the Minnesota Special Olympics. Bryan's sister has juvenile arthritis, so we play a lot of juvenile arthritis events. We really like playing clubs and doing Midwest tours, but when we're home it's fun to do as many crazy shows as possible.
AVC: Is it harder to get adults moving?
NO: It is pretty tough. We saw that there were a lot of cool dance acts happening, and we wanted to be a part of that too. But it was dance music, and people weren't really moving around. We'd go check out Of Montreal, or MGMT, and it's dance music, but people just kind of have their arms crossed and they're just kind of swaying a bit. We wanted to have a full-on dance thing. We decided the only way to do that was to create dance music, but then teach you how to move to these songs. We're gonna have specific ways for you to move to these songs. There's really no way for you to go, "Well, I don't dance." Here's the move, it's super-easy, anyone can do it.
AVC: It's like learning the Electric Slide in gym class.
NO: As far as playing for adults goes, it's kind of a toss-up. Usually adults are a little more self-conscious about how they look, and kids don't care. We have played for elementary-school kids, but mainly I'm talking middle school and high school. Adults to me means you've gotten to the point where you're too self-conscious about how other people perceive you. Our goal is to create music and put on shows that blur that boundary where it doesn't matter how old you are or what kind of stuff you're into, you're still gonna dance because we make it easy to do stuff.
AVC: You've said that you try to do the same show for adults that you'd do for kids.
NO: When we first started, we had no idea how the music was gonna go. We talk about killing animals and stuff like that. It was all goofy, but we figured out, parents with kids are getting into this, kids might be listening to this, so we're gonna make this totally clean. We just played a house party last week, there was tons of alcohol everywhere, but we said, no matter where we are, we're not gonna curse. If we're playing a show and we can't do it for kids, then we're not doing the show. Everything has to be able to be kid-friendly. It sounds kind of goofy, but I don't think there are many adults or older people who will look down on us because of that. As long as people are having a good time anyway, they don't say, "Oh, these guys aren't edgy enough."
AVC: If you don't rap a lot about sex and other adult subjects, does that make it harder for people to peg you as "another ironic hip-hop act"?
NO: Yeah, that's true. We are kind of tongue-in-cheek, but we're kind of coming out of that now and trying to play more all-ages shows. People think all-ages means just younger kids, but we mean that literally anyone can get in. We've played bars, and then we've also played summer camps.
AVC: What made you want to develop a kids' show?
NO: Brian and I were doing research the other day, and we're watching an episode of The Wiggles, and we're like, "This is the stupidest thing we've ever seen, and we're not enjoying ourselves at all." Television programming shouldn't be like that. Kids should be able to freak out and parents should be able to enjoy themselves too on some level.
AVC: In one of your video sketches, you're auditioning for an "indie label," and they ask you to make all these changes to your act, including having a live sculptor on stage. Was that a dig at Cloud Cult?
NO: Oh, we love Cloud Cult, and that's kind of just a wink to them. I actually do merch for Cloud Cult, I've been on the road with them. That's a really cool thing, but I also feel like no one else has a live painter onstage, and that's exactly what we were shooting for. We hope people don't like Cloud Cult just because they have a live painter onstage. Hopefully that just enhances their live show.
