The Power Is On

Imagine, if you will, that Snoopy and the rest of the cast of Peanuts were moved from their idyllic home of Anytown, USA, and dropped into an 1970s New York Project. Sally and Linus playing double-dutch next to a fire-hydrant, Charlie Brown and Lucy in a game of basketball, and Schroeder’s piano replaced by a set of turntables in the park. And the music produced would sound like The Go! Team, a UK band that borrows from Glen Miller as much as Grandmaster Flash.

The Go! Team — Bottle Rocket

How to explain? A song jam-packed with joy and excitement, mixing a bubble-gum rap with a homage to children's TV themes that brings to mind the Children's Foundation Films of the 1970s; all oversaturated film stock and riding on the sidewalks (hey, it is New York), mowing past girls playing hopscotch and four squares on an endless summer day. It's the childhood we secretly wished for while watching rain pounding on the windows on a cold August afternoon, wrapped up in three minutes and forty-two seconds of glee. Listen and smile.

The Go! Team's debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike is out next week, drawing influences from Bollywood, 1940s swing, and rap. By the end of Junior Kickstart, you will be bouncing around the room…

currently playing: Low — Last Breath