Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child

03/10/2025

Paul, a core part of The Sippy Cups, was a kind and creative and hilarious guy and I’m sad to hear of his passing.

I haven’t seen him in years but every time I play them on the radio I’d think about the delightful and anarchic spirit he and the band brought to family music. I believe they were the first band to play the No Nap Happy Hour at the Iron Horse and gosh, did that set the bar high.

Our love to his family and friends. His memory will, indeed, be a blessing.

We are shocked and saddened to share that our friend Paul Godwin has left this earthly realm. 😔

Paul was larger than life and always brimming with creativity and new ideas. He was an artist, creator, composer, friend and mentor to many.

Paul brought so much love, light, and big energy to our stage and we will miss him dearly.

We are sending our love to Paul, Ameera, Bodhi and our entire musical community as we mourn this sudden tragic loss.

Fly free, sing with the angels, and sleep with the stars friend. ❤️ You will be missed dearly.

02/10/2025

People of Mankato, Albert Lea, and Austin (Minnesota)! Starting I think this weekend, you can hear indie music for indie kids on KMSU—The Maverick every Saturday morning at 7! Let’s gooooooooooooo

89.7 KMSU 'The Maverick' is your local radio station.

30/09/2025

WHAT. A. LINEUP.

Family music friends, Mayers Consulting and I are gonna be back in Brooklyn in just under a month with these fantastic collaborations, celebrating twenty-ish years of working and playing together. This is a show for grown-ups.

Tickets are available now and you should get 'em. We love you.

https://www.viewcy.com/event/hootenanny_family_mus

29/09/2025

The Austin Kiddie Limits stage at Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL) has one of its best lineups in years, and it’s pretty much all killer no filler. But I was asked to pick two acts and so I did! Go see Go Banana Go! (weekend one) and Divinity Roxx (weekend two). And of course go read what all the other nice folks at K*TX 98.9 have to say:

K*TX staff pick their must see and favorite artists performing at ACL festival 2025.

19/09/2025

Hey. What up. We’re on the best radio station in Austin.

The Best of Austin 2025 winners have been revealed!

15/09/2025

As always: if you like what we do, we can do it because of K*TX 98.9, and the best way to show you like what we do is by donating to them, whether you’re local or not and whether it’s a lot or not. Tell them we sent you.

K*T and K*TX are now 100% community supported after the loss of our federal funding. This fall, we’ve set an ambitious goal: 1,000 new members. We cannot reach it without you. Join us today at Donate.K*T.org!

09/09/2025

Here we goooooo!

K*TX Rock the Park returns to Mueller Lake Park this fall with free, family-friendly concerts featuring The Tiarras, Tribe Mafia, Tele Novella, Joe McDermott, and more. Now in its 15th season, the Austin tradition brings neighbors and music lovers together for high-energy live performances under the...

05/09/2025

what a party!

We’re putting on a festival at First Avenue & 7th St Entry in Minneapolis, MN! It’s called Silly Shindig and it takes place on December 28th. Six bands. Two stages.

We’ll be playing alongside five of our favorite kids bands at our favorite venue. You can expect music, games, antics, and nonstop fun!

Featuring sets from:
🍕 Koo Koo (We play last)
🐯 Peelander-Z
📚 Mega Ran
🚀 Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship
🫥 Louis and Dan and the Invisible Band
🍽️ Derry & the Dirty Dishes


Doors are at 11am and the show will wrap at 2pm (just in time for a nap).


Tickets on sale now! https://www.axs.com/events/1116585/koo-koo-tickets?skin=firstavenue

02/09/2025

Let’s gooooooo! Family musicians and others in the scene will want to come to this, presented by us and Mayers Consulting:

Tickets: https://www.viewcy.com/event/hootenanny_family_mus

15/08/2025

Occasionally we’ll get a note that is effectively my mission statement, if I had one. This is one of those:

My son and I started listening to your show in 2022. I was commuting 40 minutes to work each way and my son was in preschool on the campus where I worked. Spending 80 minutes in the car, five times a week with a 3-year-old was NOT one of my best thought-out plans, but it meant that in my desperate s...

13/08/2025

Happy twentieth birthday to us. On this date in 2005—just a few days after Valley Free Radio launched—we went down Pine Street to the dusty basement studios and came on the air, with the first song being Laurie Berkner Band’s “Victor Vito.” We moved over to WRSI - 93.9 The River after a couple of years, and then, for the last ten years, the mighty K*TX 98.9 has been our home. This was back in the days when we didn’t all have cameras (or phones!) in our pockets; this photo is from about a year later, taken by someone from the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

The kids are of course all out of college and out of the house, though they come on any time they’re home. It’s objectively weird to still be doing this. But I’m still having fun. So I dunno if it’ll be another twenty years, but let’s see what we can do.

Put another way: are you prepared to rock?

09/08/2025

Haven’t watched this in forever; what a fun chat with the nice folks from Rockaroni and Cheese!

"Spare the Rock doesn’t, and that’s why everybody loves it."– John Flansburgh, They Might Be GiantsSpare the Rock, Spoil the Child, is a weekly radio show fo...