School Library Journal kvells over Outside Voices!

PreS-Gr3–Brooklyn-based indie kid rockers Jacob Stein and Jason Rabinowitz have responded to a personal challenge to create a very grown-up, mature sound suitable for families. Calling themselves The Pop Ups, their debut effort succeeds magnificently with ten well-produced tracks that showcase a wide range of musical styles, catchy tunes, clever lyrics, and tight arrangements with harmonies. Opening with a sweeping Moody Blues-like sound, “Outside/Inside” teaches when to use loud and soft voices. Other highlights include the electro-acoustic “Subway Train” (details many animals riding on trains in the city), “Balloon” (a reggae lament sung as it flies away), “Apes in Capes” (a middle-of-the-road pop song that channels Fleetwood Mac harmonies about using shapes to draw apes), and the technopop “Big Wheel” (about the freedom experienced riding on a big wheel bike). Also included is “Pasta,” a driving rock song that details the many shapes of pasta (the basis of The Pop Ups’ traveling puppet show), and two songs that feature guest vocalists Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer: the funky, Sesame Street-inspired “Up and Down” and the Jerry Lee Lewis/rockabilly inspired “Airband,”–Stephanie Bange, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 

full review here: http://www.libraryjournal.com/slj/printissuecurrentissue/890033-427/multimedia_review.html.csp

CNN Money features the Pop Ups!

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/smallbusiness/1104/gallery.cool_profitable_kids_bands/2.html

"quite possibly the greatest live kid’s concert we’ve seen" OWTK reviews PASTA!

direct link here to Out With the Kids

Kid’s Theater Review: Pasta! A Pop Ups Puppet Musical

Half rock show, half puppet show, half off-Broadway musical.  PASTA! A Pops Ups Puppet Musical is WAY more than the sum of it’s outrageously fun parts.

OWTK caught the end of PASTA’s last run at the Soho Playhouse, in late-December ’10.  What we witnessed was quite possibly the greatest live kid’s concert we’ve seen (and we’ve seen a lot).  The energy Jacob Stein and Jason Rabinowitz exert as apprentice chefs during the 1-hour production is breathtaking (literally, I was winded by the end from laughing so hard!).  The pair are positively delightful to watch and listen to, and that sentiment holds whether you’re 5, 35, or 65 years of age as evidenced by my mom, who was in tow with the girls and I.  She too found PASTA! to be an enjoyable romp across, above and beneath the streets of Brooklyn.  She, like the girls and I, also thought PASTA! was just about as much fun as one can have at a kiddie event.

The grand finale of the puppet musical, which is the culmination of the two young aspiring cook’s journey to product the best, locally-sourced tomato sauce ever, is a riot and an epic use of giant foam noodles.

Some other essential details ’bout PASTA!: The puppets are the over-sized professional type, from artists who’ve worked on Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Dinosaur Rock, and the Muppet Show.  The 6 songs you’ll hear during the musical come from The Pop Ups glorious kid’s debut “Outside Voices”.  And one more thing, you and your family WILL NOT have a bad time at this show.  It is a physically impossibility.

PASTA! A Pop Ups Puppet Musical runs every Saturday @ 11 a.m. in March and April (starting 3/5/11) at the Soho Playhouse on Vandam Street.  Buy your tickets now.

Washington Post digs Outside Voices

Kid-friendly music adults will like

These CDs are great for kids and parents! (Deb Lindsey For The Washington Post)

Tuesday, December 7, 2010; 6:16 PM

The Pop Ups, "Outside Voices." Many of these songs sound like what your parents may have listened to in the '80s: big, echoing music with an electronic piano. But these cool musicians from New York don't limit their sound. Sway like you're on the beach in Jamaica to the reggae beat on "Balloon," slow it down with the soothing and simple "I'm Tired" or dance it up to the funky bass line and popping horn section on "Pasta." This album will not leave you hanging!

full article here

Time Out New York Kids Best Albums of 2010

The Pop Ups 
Outside Voices
Created by a Brooklyn duo, the whimsical romp pays homage to '80s modern rock (as in synth-heavy "Big Wheel") and '70s-era Sesame Street (the song "F & G" contemplates those letters of the alphabet). thepopups.com

direct link here

MOMTRENDS GRAND PRIZE WINNER

direct link

Grand Prize Winner:
The Pop-Ups--Outside Voices

Alternative rock fans will adore this.

Fave track: Subway Train

Out With The Kids Top 10 of 2010 List

http://owtk.com/2010/11/owtk-2010-kindie-top-ten/

Zooglobble names us one of the Top 10 debuts of 2010 and Top 20 Songs

Top 10 Debuts of 2010

The Pop Ups - Outside Voices: I don't think there was anything approaching the collective pitter-pat of the hearts of kindie bloggers when they started hearing the disk from the New York duo. Review after review seemed to be written in which folks knew before the album was done, heck, before the first song was done, that this was something special. All this, and they have a puppet show, too.

and F & G on his list of Top 20 Songs from 2010

and mentions us in his Top 10 Cover Art but we didnt quite make the list!

"I love that Pop Ups cover art, but there's not much to the packaging beyond that. (Except, of course, for the music itself, which is awesome.)"

LA WEEKLY TOP PICK, PASTA ON NEW STANDS!

HEY KIDS, CAN YOU SPELL PARENTHESES?

By Todd David Schwartz

This item is being written only for young kids, ages 2 and up. If you are a parent or adult guardian with young children, go and get them and read this to them now. Well, go ahead! What are you waiting for? Ready? OK. Now listen up, kids. I want to tell you all about a show called PASTA! A Pop Ups Puppet Musical . I think you'll love it! It's an educational (that means you can learn stuff) and comic (that means funny) musical (that means there's music) adventure through the magical land of Brooklyn! The Pop Ups are these two crazy guys, and you're supposed to help them find ingredients (that's the stuff that food is made of) to make the best pasta sauce ever! (Pasta are noodles, like spaghetti is a kind of pasta.) The show involves live drawing, dance beats (those are beats that make you wanna dance), colorful puppets, animals, trains, guitar riffs (that means stuff that's played on a guitar), mermaids, gardens, instruments, vegetables, sparkles and dancing (I think that's when they use the dance beats). These are the last three shows before it goes away (at least for this year), and the whole thing is only 45 minutes long, so you won't get bored (y'know, tired or cranky). Even though a lot of grown-ups have been saying that they really, really love the music, it's a show for you! Doesn't it sound like fun? (OK, now you can let your children go back to whatever it was they were doing; here's the date and time and ticket information that you, as a parent, need to know): 

direct link

You look in the back seat, you quietly acknowledge that, in fact, there are no small children in the car, but then, quite deliberately, you decide to turn the music up, and groove away because you actually really like the song. So what that you are singing a song whose lyrics are about “Apes in Capes”…You’re still cool.

PASTA! a POP UPS Musical for kids, in LA Thanksgiving week

by LEEROSEEMERY on NOVEMBER 12, 2010

Here’s how I judge the quality of kids’ music, it’s really very simple. Would you listen to said music without being in the company of small children? Imagine this: you accidentally find yourself listening to a kids’ CD in the car while you are driving with NO KIDS in the car. There are really only two ways to react. You are either:

A)  Horrified that you are grooving along, by yourself, to “Wimba Way,” and you immediately eject the CD and swear to spend some quality time and money at Amoeba Music and buy some new ADULT music by recording artists that are not contemporaries of Joan Armatrading.*

OR -

B)  You catch yourself, by yourself, listening. You look in the back seat, you quietly acknowledge that, in fact, there are no small children in the car, but then, quite deliberately, you decide to turn the music up, and groove away because you actually really like the song. So what that you are singing a song whose lyrics are about “Apes in Capes”…You’re still cool.

I just finished listening to a disk by a kids’ band called the Pops Ups, and in fact they do have a song about “Apes in Capes.” I loved it. I turned it up, I started singing it. I was alone. I admit it. The music is unlike any other kids’ music I have heard, with a kind of techno, garage band, hip sound, nodding to many different musical genres: techo, ragae, funk. The good news is that you don’t have to take my word about The Pop Ups, because they very kindly sent LACityMom a CD to give away to the first reader to write in. But the even better news is that “Pasta” a Pop Ups Puppet Musical, is going to be in LA Thanksgiving week. So if you are among the wise non-traveling Los Angelinos, it would be a great outing for the whole family. Taking the kids to live performances, particularly when so much of their entertainment is delivered through a screen, is always a huge thrill for us all.“Time Out New York” called The Pop Ups one of the most entertaining kids’ acts in the city.

direct link here