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Playing pop music used to be a respectable profession.  Artists like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and the Motown acts had great voices and great songs to go with them.  Then somewhere along the line pop music turned into a seemingly endless procession of generic boy bands and talentless teen sexpots like Christina Aguilera  Luckily there are still a few bands like Cleveland’s own Kiddo (Christian Doble – guitar and vocals, Liz Wittman – bass and vocals, and Greg Hyland – drums) around.  Drummer Greg Hyland says the foundation for Kiddo was laid down when, “Liz and Christian met about 3 years ago.  He moved here from Detroit and Liz was playing in a band called Tender Blindspot at the time.  Christian’s ex girlfriend knew Liz somehow and they met up and decided to play some music together, just writing songs in her basement.  Christian and I worked at the same company in different departments and we wound up on a committee together.   I found out he played guitar and sang and he found out I played drums, so he asked me to help them out in the studio a little bit.  I was in another band at the time, but eventually my other band fell apart and I just decided to stay with them.  That was August of 2001.”  Although Greg had played mostly with metal bands in the past, his powerful drumming turned out to be a great fit for Kiddo’s sound. 

Recently Kiddo’s self titled debut album was released on Drive-In Records, a label based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.  It’s a great collection of catchy up-tempo numbers that many have compared to The Blake Babies.  Greg says, “They’ve helped more than we could ever do on our own.  As far as distribution goes its mainly through their website.  They have a reputation throughout Australia, Japan and Canada among people who like that indie pop sound.  Kids that are really into this stuff see the label put out a new band and they go out and buy it right away from the website.  As far as radio, it’s been on college radio.  We went through a promotional company in New York who do that for us.  The label turned us on to all of that.”  Greg says the band also plans to get the disc to local record stores, although at the time I spoke with him he said, “I haven’t gotten my lazy ass out to any of the local stores to do that yet.  Between work and travel and plain laziness I haven’t had a chance but I plan to.  So for now people can just go to our website or the Drive-In Records website.”

Although Kiddo has been around for a while now, Greg says he still has a tough time describing his band’s sound to the uninitiated.  He says, “If we say we’re an indie pop band some people don’t know what indie pop is.  If we say pop they ask if we’re like Britney Spears or N’Sync or something like that.  We just say pop rock, fun little songs.  I have a hard time pinning it down.”  Maybe the best way to describe Kiddo would be the old Monty Python sketch set in a very unusual candy shop.  The shop specialized in chocolates that were sweet on the outside but were filled with nasty surprises on the inside and had names like “crunchy frog”.  Or maybe I should just let Greg explain it.  He says, “As far the lyrics and the music being a little happier, the lyrics really aren’t that happy.  When Christian moved here from Detroit his girlfriend left him.  So he was pretty miserable and had nothing to do but write songs.  They may sound happy because they have a happy beat or a happy melody, but if you listen to the lyrics some of them can be downright mean.  But we do this for fun.  I don’t want to go play a show where I’m going to be miserable.  We just want to play fun music and have fun playing it.” 

One way in which the band has fun while playing is with their stage set up which includes enough props that the band could open up their own small thrift store.  Greg says, “That just sort of came together, there was no real plan.  Our first show we were loading up the van and Christian grabbed a lamp and said, “I’m going to take a lamp with me so I can see on stage.”  We had these mannequin heads that Liz used to use when she was in beauty school just sitting on shelves in the basement and we decided to bring those, too.  We just started bringing things.  We brought a chair, eventually we brought out a bean-bag chair.  But it serves a purpose, it holds Christian’s guitar.  The lamps are so we can see better.  It’s all practical stuff for the most part but it kind of looks cool.”  Practical or not it certainly makes an impression on the band’s audience and costs a lot less than hydraulic drum risers and pyrotechnics.   

While Kiddo’s stage set is certainly fun and something most music fans who catch the band live aren’t likely to forget, Greg says, “First and foremost are the songs.  Christian and Liz come up with great songs, they’re unique.   They don’t follow any structural rules.  I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who was such a natural at writing songs as Christian. Plus we have not just one great singers, but two.  They both have unique voices.  Greg thinks part of why Kiddo’s sound is so distinctive is the wide range of influences its members draw from.  He says, “We’ll drive in the van and go from listening to Aretha Franklin to Jawbreaker.  We all have diverse tastes.” 

So far things seem to be working out pretty well for Kiddo.  Greg says, “In the city we’ve had a lot of attention.  Scene magazine gave us a really good review.  And there are little pockets of indie pop fans all over the world.  We get emails from people in Belgium and England, weird places where you would never think people would hear our music.  There’s a college station in California that plays us all the time.  It’s amazing to see that someone all the way out there is listening to songs we wrote in the basement.” What would Greg consider success for Kiddo?  He says, “As long as we’re progressing and having fun at the same time.  It’s not about making money, we spend more than we make.  But so far we’ve accomplished everything we’ve tried.  To tell you the truth, it’s been almost too easy this time.  With every other band it’s been a constant struggle.  But we’re three motivated people who want to see how far we can take it.”

Visit the Kiddo website.

*My apologies to WCSB DJ Sergio Van Lukenstein for stealing his tagline.  I know he loves Kiddo, though, so hopefully he won’t be too mad.  While I'm at it, I might as well tell you to listen to Sergio on WCSB 89.3 FM in Cleveland every Thursday morning from 7am to 9am.