Chicago Sun Times
January 23, 2004
by Jeff Wisser

A scorching good time with children's music

By the time a rocker is making a children's record, conventional wisdom says, that performer's career has bought the farm.

That axiom is a bit off-kilter in the case of Jason Ringenberg.

The front man for the legendary cowpunk group Jason and the Scorchers is instead plowing the back 40 of his musical career, trading in guitar overdrive for overalls in his new guise as wizened, witty Farmer Jason on the kid-targeted but adult-friendly "A Day at the Farm With Farmer Jason."

Ringenberg, who grew up on a hog farm in Sheffield, Ill., and now tends a "hobby farm" outside Nashville, Tenn., will perform songs from the album at a WXRT-FM Kids' Concert on Sunday at the Old Town School of Folk Music.

Originally, the Farmer Jason material, a foot-stomping salute to all things agrarian ranging from "A Guitar Pickin' Chicken" to "He's a Hog Hog Hog" and "Corny Corn," was a private matter.

"It was totally for fun, and to give my daughters something to listen to while I was on the road so much."

Recording "Farmer Jason" was equally a treat.

"Usually, I figure on a record, if you get two or three gifts, I call them - that's when the song sort of falls out of the sky and you can write it on the spot and in three minutes, it's done - you're doing well. The rest of 'em you have to work for. This record, almost all of them just kind of happened."

Performing before a young audience is not quite so easy.

"The adrenaline rush of a Farmer Jason show is quite intense, actually, for me. Because you can't relax for even a second. 'Cause if you do, pandemonium, anarchy will ensue."