Rub a dub dub, two men in a club. Well, okay, it really looks more like a children's clubhouse rather than the kind of smoky nightclub where one might normally expect to find the Smithereens' Jim Babjak in concert. On this cloudy Saturday afternoon, Danny Adlerman and Jim Babjak are busy putting the "barn" back into "Barnes and Noble" as they conjure imaginary animals, domesticated and otherwise, through the use of song. Their repertoire includes cows that jump over the moon as well as woodchucks that would chuck wood. The stage backdrop in this children's book nook is a large mock-up of Winnie the Pooh's "100 aker wood" (as the A.A. Milne books refer to it). This is appropriate enough considering that one of Danny's songs, "Elliott", actually refers to Mr. Pooh Bear in its lyrics. Pooh himself sits up in a nearby tree eating honey and peering down lazily at the proceedings.

The large turnout is a mixture of adults and enthralled children. Some of the parents appear to be fans of Jim's band, The Smithereens, and have brought along their little Smither-"weans" to share this musical experience with them. Kids can be a tough crowd to please, but many of those children who aren't busy singing along to the music can be seen dancing in a kind of makeshift "moppet mosh pit" in front of the stage. Some of them even spill excitedly onto the stage at times. Everyone seems to be having a great time in this loose atmosphere - not to mention these two entertainers who are animatedly strumming guitars, bantering and singing silly songs together onstage.

Danny and Jim are performing tunes from the new children's album they collaborated on called "One Size Fits All". Available now on CD and cassette, the album consists, in part, of music set to tales spun in some of Danny Adlerman's previously published children's books. The good news is that this is one of those rare children's albums that won't drive parents insane after their kids invariably play it a thousand times. In fact, the music often has an infectious underlying rock beat with catchy melodies and clever lyrics that may find some adults becoming big fans of the album themselves.

Admittedly, some of this rocking influence can be attributed to the contributions of longtime rocker Jim Babjak. It's actually not that much of a quantum leap from the song "Elliott" to the Smithereens tune "Elaine" as you might think. On the album, Jim plays acoustic guitar in addition to Danny and he also plays electric and bass guitars plus percussion. (Danny also does lead and backing vocals besides playing keyboards and percussion. He also wrote the majority of the songs.) Jim also added such unusual sonic touches as the electric sitar part on the song "Africa Calling". Part of his musical production guidance included his insistence that there be no drums played on "How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck?" forcing them to be more creative by using other percussion effects like handclaps and clave sticks instead.

Jim also contributed two of his own self-penned songs, "Surfin' the Net" and "School Bus Driver", to the album. The former tune is a rollicking musical homage to the Beach Boys done in true Jan and Dean (Jim and Dan?) surf music production style. "School Bus Driver" was originally inspired, Jim related from the stage, from a time when his own son expressed some trepidation about the school bus experience. It's a straightforward "pedal to the metal" rocker or lead foot to the gas pedal song - as he so describes the song's "really cool" bus driver who bops to tunes while she drives.

This is Danny Adlerman's album overall, though, and he had even been playing solo for five years before Jim, as Babjak himself puts it, "joined in". The album is credited to "Danny Adlerman and friends", but during this particular concert, Danny introduced Jim as the sole "and friends" onstage. On the album itself, however, Jim brought along some of his musical friends including Kurt Reil from Jim's other band, "Buzzed Meg" and "The Gripweeds". Kurt also helped to produce the album along with Danny & Jim at the "House of Vibes" recording studio. Other members of those two bands contributing to the album include Vince Grogan (Buzzed Meg) on some bass parts and Mike Nattaboy and Kristen Pinell (The Gripweeds) also on "bass" and "flute, mandolin" respectively.

Jim, who was once too easily stereotyped as a "hip Mr. Mom" on a VH-1 program, obviously has a strong connection with kids. It was at an elementary school's "Read Across America" function, in fact, that he and Danny first met. They soon developed a friendship that led them to collaborate on such musical ventures as this album and a forthcoming children's book entitled "The Cool Black Pool".

That story is another example of Jim drawing inspiration from a son (in this case it was supposedly based partly on one of his boys' drawings.) The book basically tells a tale of bigotry and the need for individuality and mutual cooperation as told through the imaginative use of different colored crayons that emerge as its characters. It will be published sometime next year. (Clearly inspired, Jim previously mentioned two other manuscripts still waiting to be published during his appearance with the Smithereens on Vin Scelsa's NYC WNEW-FM "Idiot's Delight" radio program in October of 1999). Two out of three of Danny's own kids (and one of their friends) also help out the families in the musical scheme of things. They appear on the album's "Humpty Dumpty" track singing background vocals (and, one assumes, also supply the giggling that closes out the track). This is not to exclude Danny's wife, Kim, who is doing the illustrations for the "Cool Black Pool" by employing a three dimensional collage effect that she created and has already been used to great effect in Danny and her previous book "Africa Calling". She also helped write some of the album's song lyrics.

After several months of shows together, Jim and Danny have already become old pros on the children's circuit and, as it turns out, they played three shows at Midstreams School in the same town just the day before. Rather than finding such multiple performances rigorous or viewing children as a potentially difficult audience, Jim genuinely appears sincere when he calls such shows a lot of fun.

At this particular Barnes and Noble performance, the two of them comfortably trade quips with the kids. When the singing duo calls a musician friend, Michael Dalton, up onto the stage to play a rendition of the Beatles' song "Yellow Submarine" with them, Jim asks the kids if any of them are familiar with this British band that were famous long before any of them were even born. As it turns out, some are indeed aware of the group. Thanks to the recent release of the Beatles' "1" album, it is gratifying to learn that there is apparently another generation of musically educated fab four, three and two year olds out there in the world who are becoming Beatles fans. Following this revelation, Danny tells the audience that one of his kids' favorite tunes from roughly the same era is the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man" to which Jim replies that that was at least better than William Shatner's version.

The kids seem to especially respond to the album's "Africa Calling" tune in concert with great enthusiasm. Danny reveals to the crowd that the song was actually influenced by Paul Simon's "Graceland" period. During this song, one boy uses his arm to spontaneously improvise a trumpeting elephant's trunk over his mouth while others are soon prompted to join in on the eminently hummable "ah-ooma" chorus. Jim sings lead on "School Bus Driver" and urges Danny to "do that Beach Boys thing" whereby Danny obliges him by singing in a suitably boyish alto mode during the chorus. The "How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck?" song (Jim and Danny's first song collaboration) adds such probingly clever questions as "How much man could a mandrill drill?" to the familiar children's poem. Just like the album version, Jim Babjak ends "The Library Song" by screaming out "Quiet!" not unlike his raucous rebel yells at the end of some Smithereens concert songs. The thin line dividing the boundaries between tunes for kids and of rock anthems remains pleasingly blurred.

Danny and Jim said that they are already halfway finished with a second album of children's songs since this one has proved to be so successful. They would both seem to view writing children's songs as being a different, rather than a difficult, process compared to writing songs for adults. "I have written a good many more songs for big people," says Danny, "and for me, it's just different, not harder, easier, or better". Danny is also working on an album of his own with grown-up songs that he describes as a mixture of "rock and roll, folk, and retro all rolled into one." It's going to be in his own style and both Jim Babjak and Kurt Reil, among others, will again be involved in that project. Right now, Danny and Jim are keeping busy with future children's books, among other enterprises, and they will continue to perform shows together. And, of course, Jim has some band you may have heard of called the Smithereens that are still successfully making the rounds these days.

As Danny writes in the lyrics to "Africa Calling": "Through marshes and grasslands rhinos roam, this is the place they feel at home." Danny and Jim apparently seemed to "feel at home" themselves in Barnes and Noble's simulated forest setting as they entertained an audience of captivated youngsters and parents. If these traveling troubadours roll into your town someday, you'll definitely enjoy the concert and will undoubtedly want to purchase their cleverly melodic album. Someday you may even find a whole section in bookstores devoted to this team's children's books. So go ahead. Bring a kid along with you to an Adlerman & Babjak show as an excuse if you want. You'll both have a good time and you might even sing along in spite of yourself. Ah-ooma. Ah-ooma...

If your local independent bookstore does not have "One Size Fits All", they can order it for you through the Booksense database. Or you can check out the following links below for further info and places to purchase Jim and/or Danny's works online.