Country Music People (UK)
April 2007
Janet Aspley

A couple of years ago, the editor of this magazine sent me off on an unusual assignment: I was to take my two little darlings and attend a gig that Jason Ringenberg, alt.country hero and father of cowpunk, was playing as his alter ego Farmer Jason, and to record their reactions.
 
Farmer Jason knows his audience – preschool, and early years primary – and my two felt they were, at 8 and 11, just way-too-sophisticated for A Day on the Farm with Farmer Jason and I seem to remember that the Simpsons-inspired adjective “craptacular” crept into their assessment . Two years on, and the levels of pre-teen cynicism in our house are now so high that, in psychological tests, the person who records the highest levels of childlike innocence and enthusiasm is me. And so I shall be the sole reviewer of Farmer Jason’s new concept album, Rockin’ in the Forest.
 
Which is good, because I love it. Jason has an educational impetus – he often takes his show into primary schools – but that doesn’t stop his Farmer Jason songs being great fun. Along the way, he has history to teach as he finds an arrow in the forest and explains how the Shawnee might have used the arrow to “feed a family/ Or keep them safe from danger or keep them proud and free.” He tackles environmental issues as well, reminding his young audience that throwing rubbish into the river might harm the “pretty slimy, but really rather nice” catfish, Bud. But most of all, he conveys his enthusiasm for songwriting - leading a songwriting session is a feature of Farmer Jason performances. So there’s a song here that extols the joys of rhyming as well as visits to a range of musical styles from rockabilly to folk.
 
Along the way, there are glorious inventions like the punk rock skunk with ambitions to be a star – “If I smell a little, just get over it / Lots of singers smell and they end up with a hit.”
 
I seem to remember that in his 1994 song Alright Guy, Todd Snider admitted something similar – “Maybe I’m dirty, and sometimes I smoke a little dope” - and it’s Snider’s surprise guest appearance that provides this album’s highpoint. Breaking off from his usual occupation of writing songs expressing witty political and social angst, he bumps into Jason while wandering in the forest, searching for his pet moose (called Bruce, obviously), who is, rather inconveniently, on the loose. There follows a dialogue in which Farmer Jason’s enthusiasm is matched only by Snider’s wooden discomfort. It was this exchange that reduced even the coolest member of my family to helpless laughter (though of course, she later denied that this reflected any sense of enjoyment…)
 
So if you are the parent or grandparent of anyone under, say seven, you would do well to invest in Rockin’ in the Forest. It’s got a lot more laughs than “The Wheels on the Bus”.