Vvids
Vvids is a small home studio.
Vocals for our music videos are provided by Dan and the Dannettes and the Danster Quartet Minus One.
It started when I worked for AOL and they asked me to come up with a video in one day for a Valentine’s Day feature. You can’t get actors in that short a time period, so a puppet was enlisted to recite a ‘Roses are red, violets are blue’ poem. They liked it and wanted more, but asked for people instead of puppets. Our family made four more videos for AOL, including takeoffs of the popular TV shows, 'The Apprentice’ and ‘Dragnet’.
But there is something about singing (or joke telling) puppets that is just plain silly. So we started making more of those as a family. And once you have a frog band it stands to reason they’d be in more videos.
One of them was made for Conan O’Brien’s ‘Blow Up My Car’ contest when he hosted ‘The Tonight Show’. The owner of worst hulk of a car in America would win a new car. Our car wasn’t in bad shape, but the chance to show a frog driving it was a powerful draw, and to our delight Conan chose to show a clip from it one night along with some of the other entries. Freddie and the Frogs was famous!
These were great family projects to do as our kids were growing up, and I have to admit that Henny cracks me up every time I watch him.
The Dannettes
Some years ago I wrote a musical review, called, "Speak First, It's Your Dime, a musical adaptation of the Saint Louis Telephone book with excerpts from the Boston directory, in one act." While figuring out the music I taped all the harmonies for the show-stopper, "Broken up, Me and Ma Bell," on my dual cassette recorder. Thus was born the "Dannettes."
In 1987, after making my first harp album, the engineer offered me free studio time if he could use the results to make a Christmas tape to give his friends. The Dannettes resurfaced for this adventure, thanks to his amazing 32 track capabilities (I think we used four or five).
Here's that 1987 recording of "Glocestershire Wassail" plus another recorded at home, a 2003 redo of "Broken Up." The 2006 recording of "Twa Corbies" is a bit gross -- it's about two crows that eat a dead knight. Delicious! And some others.
The newest is Flies, another song for the frogs that is now a video.
Dan and the Dannettes provide the vocals. Accompaniment by the Danster Quartet Minus One includes piano, Celtic harp, guitar, banjo, penny whistle, bowed psaltry, and other odd instruments. Ben Veaner sits in on the drums in The Dentist and Ooooh!
The songs are divided into two albums. "Video Songs " provide the music for videos on our silly video site, Vvids.com . "The Dannettes Sing" is a collection on un-videoed songs.
These tunes are meant to be silly, puppet-voiced songs. Enjoy!.