The Official Blog of Bobs & LoLo

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you all had a lovely holiday filled with festive family fun and seasonal celebrations. A special thanks to all of the super fans who trekked out in the snowy weather to sing and dance with us in the final weeks of 2008 at both the Vancouver Aquarium and the New Year’s parties at the Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co.! 

We are excited about all of the musical adventures that 2009 is sure to have in store, and we’ll be “singing” in the New Year with lots of upcoming community shows. Please keep an eye on our event calendar for the details! 

We also wanted to send out a thank you to all of the kids who took the time to make our 2008 a little extra special with some amazing fanmail! From the bracelets to the holiday cards to the tasty snappy snacks and all of the other amazing artwork, we really appreciate it! The Bobs & Lolo headquarters are officially ”Action Packed” with all of your wonderful creations!   

Another exciting thing for us in the wrap-up to 2008 was the steady growth of our blog subscriber list. Our warmest thanks to all of the regular readers for your ongoing interest in our music and programming - your support means everything to us!

For those of you that are feeling like you just can’t get enough B&L love in your life, please be sure to find us on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter too! J

Cheers to the start of a fantastic New Year and all of the adventures that lie ahead!

Bobs & Lolo

‘Tis the season to celebrate family and friends and reflect on a year past while at the same time beginning to dream about the start of a new one. As we look back on all of our musical adventures throughout 2008, we want to thank all of you - our friends and family - for your amazing support and encouragement. You have played a huge part in giving us the opportunity to do what we love and allowing us to make a positive impact with music, movement and make-believe for the kids that have loved us in return.

Thank you for giving us the best present ever! We are excited about what 2009 may hold and look forward to sharing in the adventures with all of you.

Happy holidays and best wishes to all of you for the New Year!

xoxo
Bobs & Lolo

Nothing takes the chill off some wintry weather like a little dancing. Join us at one or more of our upcoming shows to dance your way through December! We’ll be introducing a few tunes from our new album, Action Packed and mixing in some classic B&L songs as well as everyone’s favourite holiday hits. Click here to view our upcoming events calendar.

The Action Packed CD has been in stores for just over three weeks now and the rave reviews keep rolling in…

“…these tunes are super fun and inventive and, best for parents, really well played. From the “get your heart pumpin’” chorus of the title track to the importance of warming-up (”Muscles”) and the blues rockin’ “The Right Track,” this is tuneage for toddlers that can’t miss.” - Stuart Derdeyn, The Vancouver Province

“It’s here!  Our beloved Bobs & Lolo never cease to amaze us parents.  Action Packed features upbeat songs with many teaching opportunities that we actually want to play in the car (without the kids…).” - Urbanmommies.com, Your Online Baby Resource 

We’ve received a lot of community support recently in light of our new album release, particularly from families, media and a number of our favourite mommy blog sites. There’s a lot of information out there and sites like savvymom.com, babyvibe.ca and yoyomama.ca are great at filtering out what’s really important for kids and parents. We recently discovered a new fav when we met JB – mom and founder of Soapbox Mama.  Soapbox Mama is a place for moms to share their knowledge, list their opinions and express their ideas – be sure to check it out!

Finally, with holiday shopping high on the radar these days, we wanted to drop a not so subtle hint about how great our CDs are as stocking stuffers (insert shameless plug!), and we also wanted to recognize a few of our new retail partners! Congratulations to Hippy Grandma – BC’s newest online eco-tique – for their recent launch, and special thanks to Fresh! Baby for introducing our music to the Penticton community. For a full list of our supporting retail partners, please click here.

Thanks again to everyone who’s joined us at our recent shows. We’ve had an exciting few weeks serving as the “opening act” for the seasonal VIP himself, Santa, and we look forward to continuing the celebrations over the next month. Hope to see you soon!

Bobs & Lolo

This post is long overdue and so much has happened since our trip through Alberta and some interior regions of BC that we were almost inclined to skip writing this. But, we had such an amazing time in Calgary and Cranbrook that we just couldn’t bring ourselves to not share some stories and pics!

First off, a huge thank you to everyone in Calgary who came out to our shows! We had a really great time and were overwhelmed by the warm reception and crowds at the Outdoor Resource Centre, Indigo (Signal Hill) and the Haysboro Community Centre. Speaking of the Haysboro event, we definitely need to send out a huge thank you (as well as some cyber hugs!) to the Tait Family for not only organizing a SOLD OUT concert, but for also opening their home to us during our stay. The topper is that the Tait’s didn’t know us at all other than having seen us perform once at the Vancouver Aquarium last spring. You guys are family now!

We ended up with a little bit of time to explore while in Calgary and took a short nature walk along the Glenmore Reservoir. We definitely enjoyed seeing all of the Canada Geese and did a little impromptu “goose dance” on the path in the spirit of our Honk for Canada song!

While we were sad to leave all of our new friends in Calgary, we were very excited about our first performances in Cranbrook. Our visit was coordinated by two amazing women (Tanis & Bridie) who own a children’s boutique in town called Bumble Tree. We were absolutely blown away by their hospitality. Check out the welcome goodies we discovered after checking into our hotel room!! Our first “swag”!

Thanks again to everyone for all of your support on our crazy musical adventures!

Bobs & Lolo

At the top of our list of newsworthy tidbits to share with you is the upcoming release of our new album, Action Packed – a rather fitting title given the nature of our lives these days! Action Packed features 12 original songs geared at connecting kids to behaviors (i.e. actions!) that positively impact themselves, their friends and the world around them. The songs touch on themes of literacy, healthy eating, fitness, teamwork and more. We really enjoyed writing the new tunes and are excited to share them with all of you. We both feel that the new songs will really complement the music from our first two albums - Sea Notes (2004) and Musical Adventures (2006). Check out a sneak peek of the new album cover below and be sure to keep an eye on our blog (or subscribe to email notifications) for updates on the final release date, as well as a preview of some of the song titles and a chance to get an early listen to one of the new songs!

We also wanted to share some news about an exciting fact we discovered while reading last weekend’s newspaper. Did you know that Sarah McLachlan is a fan of our music?? Apparently, she even quoted some lines from one of our songs during a recent interview with The Vancouver Province’s Arts & Entertainment reporter, Stuart Derdeyn! We’re a little blown away by this one!

Bobs & Lolo

We’re excited to make the first official announcement confirming our contract with Live Nation for the largest music event to hit Western Canada - the Pemberton Festival!

Picture the headlines…

Local children’s music duo Bobs & Lolo shares line-up with Coldplay, Jay-Z, the Tragically Hip, Tom Petty and more!

Well, we won’t really be sharing the stage with any of the big headliners, but we are performing 2 shows daily with our band over the three days of the Festival: July 25-27, 2008

When asked about bringing Bobs & Lolo onboard, Pemberton Festival Kidzone producer, Kim Smythe said:

“After recently hiring Bobs & Lolo for the Vancouver Island International Children’s Festival, I couldn’t think of a more perfect act for this event. With their focus on connecting kids to nature and their interactive and energetic shows, they are an ideal fit for families at the Festival. It also doesn’t hurt that they are both born and raised on the west coast and that their award-winning songs are guaranteed to get kids of all ages singing and dancing along! The Festival is really trying to celebrate families and make this a memorable music event for children as well as adults. Bringing Bobs & Lolo to the stage is just one of the great features being offered for the kids.”

The Kidzone is FREE with admission to the Festival which is already FREE for kids 7 years and under. Other highlights in the Kidzone include performing artists Rick Scott, Norman Foote, Robin Chestnut, Vietnamese musical act Khac Chi and ongoing features by the Vancouver Circus School, facepainting by Magical Faces and other activity stations hosted by the Pemberton Arts Council.

Yip yip yippeeeeeeeee!!!

Parents choose Bobs & Lolo! We are thrilled to announce that our new DVD, On Your Feet, has just received a 2008 Parents’ Choice Award. The Parents’ Choice Awards committees look for products that entertain and teach with flair, stimulate imagination and inspire creativity. Roughly 20% of the products entered for consideration receive an award. We’re SO excited to be honoured in this year’s talented group of winners! To view the full list of winners please click here.

Bobs & Lolo - On Your Feet

Spring 2008 DVD Ages: 2 & Up
Producer: Playground Media Inc.
Review: Bobs and Lolo won a Parents’ Choice Silver Honor in spring 2007 for their “Musical Adventures” CD. Now they have ten music videos from that disc and from their previous CD, “Sea Notes.” Children and parents can watch the singers’ infectious energy as they dance around to their upbeat tunes like “Recycle With Me,” “My Bike, “I Love Bugs!” “Raindrop Pop,” and the title song, “On Your Feet.”  Read more here!

 

If you’re interested in picking up a copy of our new DVD, please ask for it at your favourite children’s store or grab a copy from one of our supporting retailers. We’re thrilled to acknowledge the Natural Baby Shop (Kelowna), BC Playthings (North Van) and Organically Hatched (online) on our growing list of retail partners. If you have retail space and would like to support our music and programming, please contact Janelle O’Donnell at www.gingerbaby.com. We’re also offering 20% off on all merchandise sales at select live shows for anyone with a Bobs & Lolo coupon from the Tiny Tots Coupon Book. Look for the “Tiny Tots” tag on our list of upcoming shows for eligible concerts! 

In the meantime, spring on down to the Vancouver Aquarium for lots of singing and dancing over Spring Break! We’ll be performing three shows daily in the underwater beluga gallery from March 15 – 25, 29 & 30.  

Our 2008 musical adventures have definitely started on a high note, and we wanted to take a moment to share a few of the highlights with you!

Super Fun Fans!
Thanks to all of you who have joined us at our January concerts - from the Vancouver Aquarium to the Telus World of Science to the O.W.L. Fundraiser and most recently, the festivities at the Dunbar Community Centre. We loved singing and dancing with all of you! Much appreciation to those of you that took the time to send us your comments, emails, photos and videos - keep them coming! Be sure to visit and join the Official Bobs & Lolo Facebook Group for a peek at some of the comments and pics posted there. Join the group now by clicking here!

Dunbar Community Centre - January 27, 2008

Exciting Press Coverage!
We were thrilled to have received some great press coverage around the release of our first DVD, On Your Feet. We’ve posted a few of the features on our website including a video clip from Global TV, an editorial piece by Stuart Derdeyn (The Vancouver Province) and an article from the Vancouver Courier. Visit the “press and pics” section at www.bobsandlolo.com to read through the articles or click here to watch the video!

Lots More to Come…
We’ve got lots of great shows coming up this year, so be sure to keep an eye on the event calendar for something in your neighbourhood. We’d love to see you there! Next up is the Green Living Show at BC Place Feb 29 - Mar 2), followed by the Family Fair in Coquitlam (Mar 9) and then our highly anticipated return to the Vancouver Aquarium for Spring Break (Mar 15 - 25).

Bobs & Lolo