Daddy a Go Go's cool sounds make dull tunes a no-no

By Gene Triplett

Published: May 5, 2006

When John Boydston's little boys asked to be rocked, they weren't talking about a cradle ride to dreamland.

Jacob was 5 and Max wasn't quite 3 when they started growing bored with the baby ballads cooed by Barney and Big Bird. They preferred Dad's old Beatles records to that nursery noise.

So Boydston, a University of Oklahoma grad turned stay-at-home dad, pulled out the old Stratocaster he'd played during his college band days and started writing and recording cool songs for his kids.

"There was nobody out there making original rock 'n' roll beat music for kids, so I thought it'd be fun to try," he said from his Atlanta home this week. "There comes a time when kids don't want to hear Barney and the Wiggles. Or Raffi. Barney is for babies. That's the word on the playground.

"When that gets out, they just come home and say, 'That's it. Don't wanna hear it.' 'Cause they don't wanna get caught watching Barney or listening to it."

For a while, it was just a way to keep himself and his boys entertained during the day while wife Cory did the breadwinning at a big home-building company. Then a teacher friend heard Boydston's poppy, '60s-influenced songs with their funny lyrics about the trials of being a tyke (lost shoes, yucky vegetables, etc.) and encouraged him to write more, maybe even record a CD.

So Boydston developed a repertoire aimed at pleasing "people under 10 and over 30," incorporating jangly Byrds- and R.E.M.-style folk-rock guitar embellishments. Then he dubbed himself Daddy a Go Go and self-released his debut album -- aptly titled "Cool Songs for Cool Kids" -- in 1999.

That album and the subsequent "Monkey in the Middle," "Big Rock Rooster" and "Mojo a Go Go" have since caught on with critics and kids alike, not to mention hip parents who catch the pop-culture references that zing right over the cowlicks of the little ones.

With the release this week of his fifth album -- "Eat Every Bean and Pea on Your Plate" -- Boydston's home-recording hobby now looks like a well-established second career. And it's no matter that Jake is now 14 and Max is 11. Some of the songs grow with his kids, while speaking to Mom and Dad as well.

Take "Cryin' in the Dugout" for example:

"There's no cryin' in the dugout / That's what my coach said / But last time I looked up at my coach / His eyes were getting pretty red / It's no fun when it's 20 to none / And the game has just begun ..."

"I don't care if you're a kid on a bad team or a coach on a bad team or a parent on a bad team, you're gonna hear yourself on that song," Boydston said. "And I have been at least a parent and a coach on a team that's in a rebuilding season. So it's just a lighter look at stuff like that."

His kids even get into the musical act on Boydston's rewrite of the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop (Kids' Beat Bop)," with Jake on bass and Max on drums and rhythm guitar.

"Well, you know why that's on there," the proud daddy said. "'Cause my kids like that song, and they're old enough. I've kind of come full circle with this thing. I started off doing this for them, and now they're just throwing it right back at me, with all the influences and stuff."

Max is showing signs of musical ambition, too, but will Boydston encourage him?

"I would after they got their master's degree at Harvard," he said. "I tell (Max) there's several levels of guitar player. There's 'OK,' the guy who practices a little. And then there's 'pretty good,' the guy who practices a lot. And then there's the guy who's 'really good,' and who's good enough to get a job at McDonald's if he keeps goin'."

A Tulsa native, Boydston earned his master's in journalism at OU, then put away his guitar and became a program director at a "big hotshot Fox affiliate station in Miami (Florida)." He liked his job, his wife liked her job, and then they had Jacob and found themselves watching a live-in nanny raise their son. When Cory Boydston was offered a career advancement in Atlanta, John Boydston decided to try his hand at being a full-time dad.

"Her job increasingly enabled us to do that if we wanted to, and I did like it, and the next thing I know, we have two kids, and the next thing you know, it's 13 years later, and I'm still doin' it," says Boydston, now 47. "Fortunately, I came up with a pretty good hobby to do in the meantime."

Which is writing and recording three-chord songs about what he calls "the three C's" in his life -- carpooling, coaching and cleaning. His advice to other kids whose dads don't rock: "You gotta give him the news / Tell him he can't wear black socks / With shorts and tennis shoes / He'll be a dad who rocks / And you'll know he's not dumb / When he goes out and gets himself / A brand new set of drums."

Kids of all ages can check out this and other helpful and hilarious songs, plus surf-guitar instrumentals such as "To Sir With Love" and "I Never Twang for My Father," and surrealistic storybook cover art by fellow Tulsan, actor/artist Gailard Sartain, by going online to www.daddyagogo.com.