Saturday April 20, 2013, 10:00am Super Stolie (solo performance) Warren-Newport Public Library 224 N O’Plaine Rd, Gurnee, IL 60031 847-244-5150 Free! Register Now Sunday April 21, 2013, 12:00pm Super Stolie and The Rockstars (band performance) Beat Kitchen 2100 W Belmont [...]
Saturday April 20, 2013, 10:00am
Super Stolie (solo performance)
Warren-Newport Public Library
224 N O’Plaine Rd, Gurnee, IL 60031
847-244-5150
Free! Register Now
Sunday April 21, 2013, 12:00pm
Super Stolie and The Rockstars (band performance)
Beat Kitchen
2100 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL 60618
773-281-4444
$6/person. RSVP Now
Since most tots aren’t digging the classic rock blaring from the radio as you drop them off at school, maybe it’s time to listen to something you both will find yourself singing along to. Chicago native Rebecca Stoelinga, or Super Stolie as her young fans know her, will be releasing her new CD Press Play! on November 6. Stolie sat down with us to discuss her second venture into kids music, which features 14 self-recorded songs in a variety of lively genres that will keep you listening even after the kids are dropped off.
How did you first become interested in music?
It goes all the way back to when I was six and saw a piano and started plucking it, so my mom signed me up for piano lessons. Eight years later, I started teaching myself guitar. Since then it’s always been natural for me to write songs, record them, have a product, and play shows.
How did you get the stage name Super Stolie?
Stolie is a nickname I’ve been going by since high school. When I started doing kids music, I wanted to keep the recognition with my name. Super Stolie was never meant to be a cape-wearing superhero. It’s just an alliteration that sounded fun and uplifting.
You recently switched to a whole new demographic. Why kids music?
I’ve been working as a musician for 15 years. I love playing for an enthusiastic audience, whoever that may be, and kids are so enthusiastic. They’re my favorite audience, because it’s just so fun. Kids music was the perfect transition out of nightlife performing.
What was one of your most memorable shows?
Recently, I played for a fall fest. I played the last set and by then a lot of people had left. A handful of families came that knew all of the words. The kids were requesting my songs, and it was the biggest compliment. They made it a blast.
How is it making kids music if you don’t have kids?
Sometimes I think that if I had kids it would help the songwriting ,because I would be pulling from direct experience. Other times, I think I’m writing in a different way because I don’t have to deal with the dirty diapers and the tantrums, so everything is funny to me.
What’s your recording process like since you do all of it yourself?
I record at home on my computer with Garage Band. I play most of the instruments used on the CD, like guitar, piano, bass, djembe, ukulele, banjo, tin whistle, tambourine, harmonica and drum sticks on a laundry basket. Drums, synth sounds or violins are programmed where I can then tweak each track. After fixing errors, I export the track. The track gets sent off to the company that prints it off.
What can we expect to hear in this album?
This album seems geared more towards three to seven year-olds. My song writing sensibility is pop rock. I like to write in a lot of genres, and that’s educational for kids because it exposes them to different styles.
How does your music compare to the songs kids hear on the radio?
My music has to be something that I would want kids to repeat. It’s funny how my music-listening has shifted since I started playing for kids. I’m constantly offended by music that’s being released today on the radio. There are no bad words, but innuendo is just as bad.
What are your musical aspirations now that you’ve just released a CD?
I can’t wait for people to learn all the words and come to the shows and request songs. Hopefully more people have heard about my music, where more moms are saying to their friends You got to hear this album. Go to her website and buy it.”
What upcoming gigs can families look forward to?
The big one is Friday, November 9, at Little Beans café (1809 West Webster). So that show is the CD release show.
What’s your advice for young musicians?
I think if you like music, you have to be involved with music. If you want to be a rock star when you grow up, you have to start right now. Anytime you have a chance to be on stage do it, and don’t be afraid because everyone’s rooting for you.
Welcome to the brand new Super Stolie website!
In the coming months I’ll be adding more fun things, so please visit often! In the meantime, please subscribe to the mailing list for email updates and like me on Facebook!
Join Super Stolie at the Press Play! CD Release Party!
Friday November 9th, 6:00pm
@ Little Beans Cafe, 1809 W. Webster, Chicago
Phone: 773-251-1025
Super Stolie’s new album, Press Play!, will be released to the world on 11/6/12 and she is very excited to host the Chicago CD release party at Little Beans Cafe! Join us for a live music show, playtime in the playroom, pizza dinner, snacks, and cookies – “Chocolate Chip Cookies” in honor of Super Stolie’s new song by the same name — to celebrate her brand new CD for children! The first 10 families to register for this event will get a FREE autographed copy of Press Play! Plus, we’ll raffle a few different prizes including the chance to have Super Stolie perform a free show at your next Little Beans birthday party! Register your family now! $10/person
MacaroniKid.com Press Play! CD Review by Sara Youngblood
Remember before you had kids and you controlled the car radio? Now you drive around listening to Barney and other kid-friendly fare and just waiting to switch the music as soon as your kiddos fall asleep in the back seat.
Luckily there are some great children’s musicians out there, performers who will keep you listening and singing along even after you’ve dropped the kids off. Super Stolie is one of those musicians!
Super Stolie jumped into the Chicago kids’ music scene in 2006 when a friend asked her to play family-friendly tunes at a fundraiser. In 2009, Super Stolie released her first children’s CD, When I Grow Up, featuring 13 songs to showcase her pop/rock sensibility for this new demographic. The disc proved an exciting kid-rock collection for kids, glittered with Stolie’s lyrical wit, and found high praise from children and parents alike.
After several years gaining momentum on the kids circuit, with performances from Chicago Botanic Gardens to Cantigny Park in support of her first CD, Super Stolie has completed her second stash of memorizable tunes for the kindie crew. Press Play! reaches across musical genres while exploring language, singing without abandon, and bowing in awe to the fearlessness that exists for every child whose prospect of growing up is as bright as the dreams they dream.
Recorded in her home studio, Press Play! showcases Stolie on acoustic guitar, piano, ukulele, bass, banjo, harmonica, djembe, tambourine, tin whistle and drumsticks on a laundry basket.
Super Stolie kindly sent us a copy of Press Play! recently and we love it! My son sings and dances along in his car seat and I have found myself still listening to the CD long after dropping my son off at preschool. And even when we aren’t listening to the CD I’ll hear my son singing Super Stolie songs as he plays. (“Hi, Hello, Hola, Hey” is a big fave! And I love that it introduces other languages to him!)
Super Stolie is a Chicago gal and can often be found performing around town. Now that my son is an official Super Stolie groupie I know we’ll be in the audience of one of her shows SOON!
Learn more about Super Stolie on her website, Facebook and Twitter. You can buy Press Play! here.
Press Play! CD review by Stephen Mulcahy
In addition to being one of the most dynamic performers around, Rebecca “Stolie” Stoelinga sees something that most of us do not; fortunately for the world, she is never reluctant to share her gift.
Stolie brings this clairvoyance to her newest album, Press Play!, which is light, delightful, and surprisingly deep for a supposed kids’ album. Listening to Press Play! has proven to be a truly dichotomous experience. I know it is an album intended for the ears of children, yet I cannot help but notice that the short, poppy tunes also evoke a feeling that resonates on a seriously mature level. The cleverness of Press Play! lies in the duality — these songs are tackling children’s themes, and Stolie does this as well as anyone, but look closer: each song is expansive, varied, and intelligent enough for the adult world.
Press Play! is sequentially logical and melodically diverse, running the gamut of genres from country to hip hop. It is also as catchy as anything I have heard all year; the hook-laden pop songs seem as if they could fit as easily into an elementary school assembly as they could being played full volume at the club on a Friday night (Hear “So Big”).
Stolie is a gifted story teller. She has that rare ability to transport the listener into the picture she is painting. “For dessert it doesn’t hurt to have chocolate chip cookies,” she sings in the endlessly catchy, “Chocolate Chip Cookies.” The picture she paints—the simple joy of baking and being creative in your kitchen—left the distinctive smell of baking cookies in my nose for hours, and the memory of doing such thing as a kid on my brain for days.
Stolie is relentlessly optimistic and attuned to life in a way that makes her songs stretch colorfully and fantastically across the mind of the listener. She brings out the big guns in the poetically-titled “See Saw Seen.” Atop a traditional Irish folk musical landscape (replete with Irish whistle), she croons about the sunset of today and the blue skies of tomorrow in a way that left endless green pastures reeling through my mind and a tear in my eye.
In an age-obsessed culture in which everyone seems terrified of getting older, Stolie’s record serves as a reminder that life is not meant to be spent cowering in fear of the inevitability of aging; rather, she imparts gentle lessons in each track to remind us that life is a celebratory endeavor and that the lessons of our youth should never be forgotten. In “New Clothes” she sings “This is how it goes when you grow,” putting forth an axiom that is as child-themed lesson as it is Kurt Vonnegut prose line. In “You are Getting Older” she places symbolic lyrics atop a Beatles-esque acoustic guitar to perfectly capture the bittersweet feeling that accompanies a birthday. We are all getting older, but there is nothing to fear.
“I Just Wanna Dance” Stolie sings with blunt poetry, hitting this universal feeling as directly as an arrow to the bulls-eye. Certainly dancing is an activity equally enjoyed by the young and the old alike, and Press Play! provides ample opportunity for us to do so. For what is life but a dance to be joyously danced? Stolie understands this more than most and all across the album she sings the secrets of the child heart—the wonder, the awe, the simple pleasure of rising each day to learn anew—imploring us to remember as we go. After all, aren’t we all kids at one time or another?
April 18th, 2013 
