Kid Kaleidoscope

Hey kids, grab your scopes...point them toooowards the light......and let's goooooooo!!!  

Before there was Octopretzel, there was another Kid and Family band,  Kid Kaleidoscope.  Sarita, Melita, Jen Miriam, and many other incredible Bay Area musicians toured up and down the California and Oregon Coast bringing their soon-to-be classic kid's songs (like ONE IS THE SUN, and THE BELLY BUTTON SONG) to festivals and gatherings.  

10 years later, we are almost finished with an anniversary album of all new tracks.  Most of the original members of the band have contributed (some sending their audio files from as far away as Bali).  Our CD release will be May 7th at the Freight and Salvage as the third show of the venue's new Patchwork Series of family entertainment.  

Though Kid Kaleidoscope shares many band members and songwritiers with Octopretzel, the instrumentation is quite different.  We will feature a 12 year old (INCREDIBLE) drummer on traps, Vir McCOy on electric guitar, John Schroeder on flute, sax and Bass and our regular acoustic guitars and hand percussion.  For such a rock and roll set-up, our music is actually quite gentle and full of magic.  We can't wait for you to come see something familiar...but new :)

Adopt an Octopus?

Looking for a unique holiday gift to give?  How about adopting an octopus in someone's name? This site has some very intriguing GREEN gifting ideas!  Happy Holidays!
http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/alternative-christmas-gifts/

Yonder Come Day

We did a version of this song on the new album. This video inspired the clapping pattern that we used. Check it out:

Our CD's are here!!!

We spent a whole day making little CD bundles to send to all of our wonderful kickstarter supporters.  We are so excited to share our new music with you all.  Please write to us and let us know what you think.  Here is the title track of the album performed recently at the Freight and Salvage:

Happy Channukah from Octopretzel!

Happy festival of lights everyone!  Octopretzel has a wonderful "Channukah set" of music that we only get to perform 8 nights out of the year!  This year, we have added a new Channukah reggae song written by Sarita.  We will be performing at a really fun family event this Sunday, December 5th, at Chocmat Halev in Berkeley.  The show begins at 5:30 and there is a potluck meal afterwards.  There will be candle-lighting, dreidles and many more delights including  the youngest performers of Vaudevillians Stage Troupe who will be joining us on a few numbers.  Click here for more info:  Channukah Party We hope to see you there!

If I Were a Song...

 We are SO very excited for our new album to arrive.  We spent months recording it and we are so happy to finally be able to share it with you!  You can hear some tracks and read more about it here:  http://www.octopretzel.com/ournewcd.cfm

Here are some facts about the new work:

Sarita's mom, Naomi Pockell, created the original quilt for the cover of the album. She also designs our appliquéd tee-shirts. 

There are 15 tracks, half of which are originals, and half are our unique versions of classic folk songs.

Melita and David's daughter and Sarita's daughter add their lovely voices to several tracks.

One song, Yonder Come Day, features a primitive banjo from Morocco which has strings made of goat gut!!

There is a magical moment on the album where an animal from outside of the studio sings just as the song is mentioning one of its prominent features.  It was so extraordinary that we decided to leave the sound on the album.  Can you find it?

For you grammar freaks, you can read here about the impossibility clause used in the title track of our album.  We have had much discussion about the importance of proper grammer in our songs.  
Read section two entitled "Function" here.

We really hope you enjoy the album as much as we loved making it!  Let us know what you think when you hear it!  You can send us a message hear: Contact

Our Kickstarter Campaign

Octopretzel used an incredible grassroots fundraising platform to raise the money we needed to produce our new album, "If I Were a Song...".  We highly recommend www.kickstarter.com to anyone with a dream to manifest a creative project. It is so meaningful for us to know that we literally could not have created our music without our fans...what a beautiful, symbiotic relationship! If you are interested to see how it all came together, check out our campaign page at Octopretzel on Kickstarter

On that note, once more, we would like to thank the 109 supporters of our pre-sale event who helped us raise over 4,800 dollars!  Here are their names in lights (well, you have to use your imagination for the lights):

Shirley Svihra, Jenna Lewis, John Sloan, Julie Wolk, Marcelo Valansi, Eitan Saenger, Judith Rosenthal, Magic Steve, Courtney Lennard, Jenny Margolis, Laurel Bray-Hanin, Michael Franklin, Scott Henderson, Carol Kiecker, Janie Riley, Dominique Lando, Ann Katz, Ruth Ann Binder, Deborah Fink, Lori Hess, megatsunami, Melissa Connelly, Jenny Overman, Reuvain Bacal, Alice King, Elise Paisley, Erika Shanik, Jill Yegian, Andrew Tertes, Shawn Berry, Rebecca Highland, Leslie Firestone,Yael Galinson, Abby Sue, Ellen Rigsby, Rachael Freidman, Jenny Owsley, Johanna Afshani, Rebecca Brams, Rose Lynn Abesamis-Bell, Jason Lau, Joel Maimon, Michal Oshman, Rachel Kaplan, Jenni Silberstein, Abby Friedman, Andrea Scher, Dara Merin, Shoshana Uribe, Carol Edlinger, Brad Wells, Kim Hoffman, Joelle Tollinsky Yavin, Douglas Chermak, Lauren Boucek, W. W. Alberts, Judy Ranieri, JK Lallier, Karen Lewandowski, Paul West, Galila, Dixie Love, Andrew Stoloff, Juliana Birnbaum Fox, Marla Kolman, Inca Arechiga, Beth Wagland, Paul Sas, Elizheva Hurvich, Felicia Sloin, Marcelle Cady, Zatkin, Sandy Joyner, Mallory Rome, Susan Weber, Robyn Holt, Chana Hinda Frazin, Chaim Mahgell, Dave Barry, Stephanie Green Tramel, Norman Brooks, Vivian Rittenhouse, Marsha Wilson, Leigh Judson, Jodie, Shulamit Wise Fairman, Emily Lloyd, Lisa Rogovin, Angela Bausch, Jessica Kaufman, Leah Santi, Jacqueline Regev, Christer Fagersten, Caroline McCall, Michael Silberstein, Lisa Schachter-Brooks, Shantam Zohar, Sonia Kantor, Bob Hugli, Kimberly White, Tim Quinn, Mike Terry, Nancy Federman Kaplan, Dimitri Sherev, Laraine Silberstein, Steve White, David and Naomi Pockell & Christine Tachner
We couldn't have done it without you!!!