Ralph's World 'Green Gorilla Monster & Me' album

Finally a musician superhero for parents bent on banishing bad music, at least in their own households: Ralph’s World. As a one-man musical universe Ralph’s World (nee Ralph Covert) has flicked a feel-good switch for more than 100,000 families via his releases on independent label Mini Fresh, the latest of which is the superheroic ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kid Astro,’ due to hit stores October 5. And as the leader of the long-running rock outfit the Bad Examples, whose early-90s heyday many grownup Ralph's World groupies remember, he continues to wear the king of the clubs crown around his Chicago hometown.

Whatever crowd he's making music for, from Ralph's vantage point, process counts most. "When I went into this I said, I'm not going to make a kids' record. I wanted to make a great record kids will love," he says -- a mission not lost on legions of 2- to 8-year-olds who recognize the good stuff and reflexively answer the call to rock out when they hear it.

GPS points along the Ralph's World journey -- now poised to launch a mini, if mighty, revolution -- have plopped listeners everywhere from the bottom of the sea to the driver's seat of a big rig (courtesy of ‘Kid Astro's’ Crescent City-style "Dumptruck"). But wherever they surface, Ralph's citizens emerge energized.

How it happened owes much to organic groundswell. A songwriter since age eight, Ralph never saw the kid connection coming. "I always had a vivid imagination," he concedes, but "I grew up listening to the Beatles, like a million other kids. When I first started playing guitar in high school, my dad gave me money to go to the store and buy an instruction book," he explained on a walk through his Chicago neighborhood weeks prior to a cross-country tour behind "Kid Astro," his fifth Ralph's World disc (Ralph also scored with the DVD "Say Hello," Parenting Magazine's 2003 video of the year). "Dad had this vision of me playing 'Turkey in the Straw,' but I came back with Alice Cooper. I wanted to learn 'I'm 18.'

"A boy's gotta rock," he maintains, still ready to play the rebel despite his winning way with classics like "Mr. Rabbit."

The spirit is there on ‘Kid Astro,’ from “Fee Fi Fo Fum,” a sunny but muscular slice of melodic garage rock, to the bright California melodies of "Sun in My Eyes," to the hooky "Treehouse Orchestra," whose infectious "la di da di da" chorus sticks tighter than Velcro sneaker straps. Not a lot of performers would be willing to admit they found their calling at a class called Wiggleworms, but Ralph is not the kind of guy who lets self-consciousness cloud his musical vision. (If he were, the world might never know the joy that is "We Are Ants," a thumping, mandatory hand-clapper from the new disc that plays switcheroo with family ties among a confused colony.) Ralph was teaching a songwriting course at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music in the mid 90s when Mini Fresh approached him about making a record.

With its ready-to-rock, Beatles-and-Buddy-Holly vibe, "Ralph's World" wiped out memories of what, to then, had passed for family music. Ralph’s refusal to cave, for even a single song, to sleepy strumming and syrupy singing kicks in on ‘Kid Astro,’ whose sublime melodies stand a chance at rocketing it from the kids' to the pop charts as a crossover hit.

The keep-it-lively, keep-it-real, but keep-it-clean MO also follows Ralph to concerts. "We do some shows at bars and clubs, the same sort of places we would do Bad Examples shows," said Ralph, who is an avid reader and award-winning playwright when he's not immersed in the music. "Except instead of at night we do them in the afternoon. It's a great image -- you see 100 kids pressed up in front of the stage holding their juice boxes, and behind them are 200 parents grinning ear to ear holding pints of beer or mugs of coffee. That's what it's all about, sharing that vibe," he said, the humor humming beneath the surface of all his CDs poking through.

It's there in "Old Man Dan," the mean old man who lives inside a garbage can on ‘Kid Astro’; in the amazing adventures of the superkid of the title track (whose exploits are reinforced with far-out sound effects and guitar work that recalls Brian May and classic early Queen); and in nearly every song, be it a cover -- the cheerful traditional "Sucking Cider Through a Straw" -- or an original like "Who's the Winner," on which the senselessness of being a sourpuss goes under the microscope.

Musicians, Ralph recognizes, are "a bunch of big kids anyway," which makes diving into the kind of material he's come to recognize "crackles" for him that much easier. Pitch-ins from musician friends help too. Bassist Pickles Piekarski (Bad Examples, John Prine), harmonica player Corky Siegel (Siegel-Schwall Blues Band), electric guitarist Steve Gerlach (Tommy Keene, Bad Examples), and drummer Matt Walker (Smashing Pumpkins, Filter) have become Ralph's World regulars, and each record brings its own burst of star energy; engineer Brad Wood (Pete Yorn, Liz Phair) and Mars Williams (Liquid Soul, Psychodelic Furs), lend a hand on ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kid Astro.’ Ralph reflects gratefully on all his collaborators, but singles out Siegel as special. "I remember hearing Corky on the radio when I was a kid, maybe 11 or 12, and now he plays on 'Old Man Dan,' which was the first song I ever wrote, when I was 8," he says. "I mostly performed that song for an audience of four -- my parents and two sisters -- from the back seat of our car," he adds. "But it was also a staple of my first-grade band The Purple Termites. We played that and the Banana Splits theme."

For all his loopy lightheartedness, Ralph is not beyond fishing around for a philosophical explanation of how he makes the music that breaks the mold. "Me having fun, the kids having fun, parents having fun, none of it dumbed-down pablum -- that's really my mojo," he says.

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Ralph's World - Green Gorilla Monster & Me