CD Release Party: Rolie Polie Guacamole’s Third Album, “Houses of Moly”

Get ready to hop!

Rolie Polie Guacamole, the Park Slope-based children's music band, will celebrate the release of their third album at , on Degraw Street on Sunday, Feb. 26 at 2 p.m.

The “kindie” band (the term is a combination of kid and indie), is composed of frontman Frank Gallo, who lives in Windsor Terrace, and bassist Andrew Tuzhilin, who lives in Red Hook. The name of their third album, “Houses of the Moly,” is a pun on Led Zeppelin’s “Houses of the Holy.”

Gallo recorded, tracked and arranged the entire album using synthesizers, distortion pedals and computer programs in his Windsor Terrace apartment. The album has a funky sound made up of gnarly guitar strumming, banging drums by Christian McCarthy and psychedelic synthesized sounds. 

The album is mostly composed of cover songs and is a compilation of “fan and band favorites,” Gallo told Patch in an interview. 

The songs are all about movement and try to engage listeners with songs like “Hop With Me,” which asks its fans to, wait for it, “Hop with me, singing la, la, la, la, la…” and “Swim with me, singing la, la, la, la, la…”

Another song, “Fire Truck,” is one of Ivan Ulz's songs, a family friend and kindie musician. It brings the kids through a day at the fire station, putting out “hot, hot fires” and “drinking hot, hot chocolate,” and then to eat some “cold, cold, ice cold, ice cream.” 

Gallo said that during shows he has the kids eat imaginary ice cream and dance. The whole show is “controlled chaos,” he said.

Two of Gallo’s neighbors, a six-year-old named Ben and his sister, Lilly, 2, do voiceovers on the album. In “Fire Truck,” Ben says, “I like Chocolate!” and Lilly says, “Strawberry.” 

His audience is anywhere from "zero to 100," he said. "So long as you are young at heart."

“Dragon Hunt,” which is his father’s song, Lou, who is also a kindie musician and is based off a well known children's story “Bear Hunt,” is probably one of the most engaging songs.

“We’re going on a dragon hunt, we’re going on a dragon hunt, let’s go! Let’s go!" On the journey they have to climb a tree, cross a swamp, cross a bride and eventually they arrive at the dragon’s cave where they have to “walk on their tippy toes” and whisper, so they don’t wake the dragon.

But of course, the dragon, who has “really bad breath," Gallo sings, wakes up. He starts to chase after the group of kids as they run “one foot after another,” back across the bridge and swamp, until they climb the tree to safety.  

In addition to his father's work, RPG also covers favorites like Joni Mitchell's "Circle Game," and Woody Guthrie’s “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Ya.” 

Gallo said that Mitchell influenced the album's “1960’s organic sound,” which was recorded at his house. “Joni sang beautifully and how she arranged her albums was perfect,” Gallo said, whose mother would sing Mitchell songs to him as a kid. “Mitchell really helped my ear on this record.” 

But, the group's most notable cover song is The Beatles’s “Octopus’s Garden.”

Gallo, in his “epic" British accent, starts the song by singing, “100,00 leagues beneath the sea there was a gaaar-den where many fish ventured there for excitement and relaxation, little did they know it was no ordinary garden…”

So, kids and parents, make sure to come, relax and venture for excitement in the shade at Littlefield with Rolie Polie Guacamole and Lou Gallo on Sunday. RPG will also play songs off their forthcoming album, “Triathlon,” and premiere two never-before-seen music videos.

For more information about the CD release party, .