The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 27

THE SALINA JOURNAL encorel FRIDAY, JANUARY 23. 2003 P3 MUSIC Trout Sounds Concerts by Trout Fishing in America will be whale of a good time for families By DAVID CLOUSTON The Saltna lournat AREA NEWS What would happen on the best day ever? It's a question too tempting for to resist. During a songwrlting worlcshop with a group of children from Olathe, that question arose, and a young girl's hand popped up "My sister has to give me her room." "Their imaginations just went wild," chuckled bassist Keith Grimwood, who at 5 feet 5 inches tall is the diminutive half of the folk-rock duo Trout Fishing in America. His partner, Ezra Idlet, is a towering 6-foot-9. The girl's comment wound up as a line in the song "My Best Day" on the duo's album "InFINity" "I come home to a birthday sister has been evicted and now her room is lucky day, got money In my snowing whipped cream and raining chocolate." "InFINity" was nominated in 2002 for the best musical album for children Grammy It lost to "Elmo and the Orchestra," featuring the Sesame Street character on a classical music CD.

Losing to a Muppet didn't matter. For Trout Fishing in America, whose songs celebrate kid-friendly themes such as the goodness of junk food and dinosaurs sleeping in the bathtub, just being mentioned with Elmo was reward enough. The duo from Prairie Grove and West Fork, their respective one-stoplight towns in Arkansas, will perform Sunday in Concordia and will do songwriting workshops with fifth-graders Monday at Concordia Middle School. A Grammy is about the only award the songwriting and performing team hasn't collected in its 26-year history They have received 20 national awards for recordings and live performances, including the 2002 Notable Children's Recording from the American Library Association for "InFINity" "What we truly prefer is an all-age audience," Grimwood said. "We play shows that are directly for kids and shows at adult-only venues.

And then we do these concerts, where all ages show up." Until the early 1990s, the duo, named for a 1960s novel by Richard Brautigan, played for adult audiences as members of the Houston-based folk-rock band St. Elmo's Fire. Idlet had played with a variety of rock and folk bands, while Grimwood left a promising musical career as bassist with the Houston Symphony In 1990, they formed their own label, Trout Records, and released their first CD, "Truth is Stranger Than Trout Fishing in America The Grammy-nominated (bik-rock duo will perform two family concerts this weekend in central Kansas. At 2 p.m. Saturday, the duo will play the Fox Theatre in Hutchinson.

Tickets cost $10. To order tickets, call 1 877-369-7469. At 2 p.m. Sunday, the duo will play the Brovm Grand Theatre in Concordia. Tickets can be purchased at the door and cost $5 for adults and $3 for students.

Ezra Idlet (the tall one) and Keith Grimwood are Trout Fishing in America. A sample of the duo's songs, can be heard at www.sa/;'ouma/;Com. Fishin'." They've recorded nine albums since, including five for children, and have toured North America and Europe. Grimwood says they never decided to write children's music until they had kids of their Grimwood has a son in college; Idlet has a teenage son and daughter. "It's interesting to watch our children, as well as others.

They come to love (our music), and then the soundtrack shifts as they hit their teens," Idlet said. "Then they hit college, and they tend to look for other music again." The duo's music runs the gamut of styles. There's an African rhythm feel to "My Best Day" and a New Orleans zydeco beat to "It Did It All By Itself." Their lyrics cater to kids' true from the excuses kids use for the everyday miscues of life "There's a nasty pile of unnamed like a tick to the driver's Nobody did it. it did it all by itself" to a sibling's chant that he gets to go to a party when a sibling doesn't because "you didn't do your and you didn't feed the didn't take the garbage it's not my job." "InFINity" also sticks in some socially conscious commentary with tunes like "Everything That's Made of Wood." "It's quirky, it's zany Those are good descriptions for them. Whether you're a kid or a kid at heart, you'll like their music," said Susie Haver, curator for the Brown Grand Theatre in Concordia.

"January can sometimes be a letdown, and they're a great way to make you happy on a gray day," she said. "I guarantee people are going to laugh." 6ei (iUUe utlib SpeUlicg Bee to for our fabulous Custom Frame Salel January 19th 26th moo jpq uotjisodBixnt 'z Paideia study booklets available for $1.50 at the Salina Journal, 333 S. 4th Street, Salina, "-Salina Journal Central Mall, Salina 121S, Santa Fe, Sa 785-823-9200 785-827 mm Salina Journal NTE Connecting communities with information i Newspaper In Education.