For a Rompin' Good Time!

RECORDINGS

Frog songs are simply r-r-ribbeting
By Mary Campbell
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK - Tired of raunch'n'roll, angry rap and music of serious striving, attitude and angst?
Some happy-go-lucky frogs are here to take you away from all that as they ribbit along with easy-listening rock, country, Latin and surfing songs on a new CD. They're delivering novelty, fun and danceable beats, without a hint of message, not a word about ecology.
While the people who put THE FROGS OF SUMMER together would like to sell a million copies, they don't expect their amphibians to jump ahead of hip-hop with teen listeners.

Whole lotta croakin' goin' on
Real frogs are heard here, insists Guy Maeda, who had the idea. He and his co-producer, Robert Irving, took recording equipment to a lake in Malibu, Calif., and waited for the frogs to tune up.
"If you're standing 20 feet away from a bunch of frogs, their ribbiting noise is really loud," Maeda says.
Some of the taping was done in-house. Maeda owns two female frogs, bought from a pet store --lead croaker Froggus "Bud" Lewis, an African pixie bullfrog who weighs about 7 pounds, and a tomato frog who weighs ledd than a pound and has a deep voice. She was named Whizzer by Maeda's son Adam, because of what she does in his hand when he picks her up.
Adam was Whizzer's handler in the studio, rubbing her back to inspire her vocalizing.
Maeda also got some frog tapes from friends who specialize in recording nature sounds in the wild.
Often the froggy chorus is used as back-up to human voices. Sometimes the frogs carry the tune, as in their version of In the Good Old Summertime.
Maeda admits that he and Irving didn't hang around the Malibu lake until they heard frogs really croaking a melody.
"We put the records of the frogs into a computer, then get it translated to a keyboard, over a certain amount of notes," Maeda explains. "You can play that note on the computer and it registers to the frogs.
"You can control the timing and the pitch pretty well. Certain sounds are better for certain notes, depending on the length of the ribbit and the other weird sounds frogs make. It all depends on the length of that sound as to where we can fill it in."
Radio stations have been sent a single from the CD, the Village Frogs covering a 1978 Village People disco hit, Y.M.C.A. Another cut, Do the Froggus Lewis, which has been developed as a dance by Incahoots, the country line-dance troupe, was sent to country line-dance clubs.
Other songs on the CD include She ain't Your Ordinary Frog, by Amphibiama. When Alabama had it's hit, they sang it She Ain't Your Ordinary Girl.
Elvis Frogsley, who has been sighted at different ponds, sings Don't Be Cruel. "One little, two little, Macarena" is attributed to Los Leap Froggos.

CHRISTMAS FROGS
Usually, Maeda records solo piano albums of romantic music with names such as Dining by Pianolight for Macola Records Group. Last fall, when he was thinking what to record next, somebody brought in a stuffed frog which croaked Jingle Bells when you pressed its foot, suggesting that for the next album.
Maeda laughed, decided it wasn't a bad idea, and set out for the lake with recording equipment. A FROGGY CHRISTMAS hit stores late but sold well. So, Maeda thought there should be a follow-up.

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