All Grown-Up

Peter Alsop has recorded six albums for children, each of which earned a seal of approval from parents’ groups. He performs kids concerts all over the country, singing lesson-filled songs with titles like “Yeech!” and “I Am a Pizza.”

But don’t bring the little ones to his show at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum on Friday.

Alsop’s “Adults Only” concert--part of the Theatricum’s Alfresco Music Series--is tailored for those old enough to have children of their own.

“It’s just a night out without the kids so we can talk about anything,” Alsop said.

Talking--or singing--about anything has been Alsop’s shtick for 25 years. His name is probably most familiar to parents and teachers who play his recordings--from 1983’s “Wha’ D’ya Wanna Do?” to 1995’s “Chris Moose Holidays.” But he’s spent equal time writing songs for and about grown-ups. He released five albums of folk music between 1975 and 1985 and performs at dozens of professional conferences each year.

His conference schedule and the sale of his CDs and videos are organized out of a rustic hillside office trailer in Topanga. It’s a short walk up from the house where Alsop and wife Ellen Geer live with their two daughters. Down Topanga Canyon a few miles is the Theatricum Botanicum, where Geer is the artistic director.

Born and raised in Connecticut, Alsop joined his first band, as a bassist, while at Trinity College. Eventually, he started writing his own songs, and while in graduate school at Columbia University Teacher’s College he honed his performing skills in Central Park. “I learned pretty quickly how humor gathers a crowd and how humor works between songs,” he said.

In particular, Alsop makes sure his humor never comes at anyone’s expense. “If I want to do a song about small people, I want five dwarfs to be able to sit in the front row and be laughing like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard,” he said.

Among the laughs in his children’s songs are lessons about the dangers of watching too much TV, or of always asking parents to “Buy me something!” His “Chris Moose” CD is hardly typical holiday fare. “The Gift” is about a kid asking for his mother to quit smoking. “Christmas Cheer” is about excessive holiday drinking.

“The comment I get from parents is that they don’t get tired of listening to my stuff. There are some things that go over kids’ head but that the parents get,” he said.

His songs for adults hold similarly potent messages, but about grief, addiction, relationships and sexuality. “My Secret,” for instance, makes light work of individual sexual inclinations. “Let’s Trade Butts,” to a disco beat, deals with body image. The title of “Don’t Put Your Hand in My Pants, Just ‘Cause We’re in Love” is fairly self-explanatory, but it’s made funnier by Alsop’s treatment: The tune sounds like a light ballad from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

Even songs framed like children’s ditties are deceptively subtle in their message to adults. In “It’s Only a Wee-Wee,” Alsop sings:

*

As soon as you’re born, grown-ups check where you pee,

Then they decide just how you’re s’posed to be.

Girls pink and quiet; boys noisy and blue.

Seems like a dumb way to choose what you’ll do.

It’s only a wee-wee, so what’s the big deal?

It’s only a wee-wee, so what’s all the fuss?

It’s only a wee-wee, and everyone’s got one.

There’s better things to discuss.

*

Silly? You bet. But it also pointedly unmasks the assumptions everyone--including parents--makes about boys and girls, and how early such gender conditioning starts.

Still, “It’s Only a Wee-Wee” is the kind of song that Alsop can’t do for kids. Too young, and they don’t get it. Too old, and they giggle too much to hear it. Besides, he said, imagine if the tykes came home from school telling Mom and Dad, “We sang about wee-wees today!” He also reserves his more serious songs, such as “Look at the Ceiling” about how a girl tries to take her mind away while being molested, for adult audiences.

Alsop got introduced to the conference circuit in the mid-’70s when he was asked to play music at a Masters and Johnson conference on sex and sexuality. When conference-goers rated the programs they attended, his was among the favorites--even though he was just the cocktail hour entertainer.

Now, with a doctorate in educational psychology, Alsop is more often a keynote act, or at least integrated into the day’s program. He calls his presentations--a mix of music and discussion--”a break from all that left-brain activity.”

But when it works, it works. Like the time a few years back at a conference in Texas, when Alsop managed to get a group of hundreds of CIA, FBI and other law enforcement officers to sing along with “It’s Only a Wee-Wee” at the top of their lungs.

Says Alsop, “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

BE THERE

Peter Alsop “Adults Only” Concert at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. Friday, 8 p.m. $10. (310) 455-3723.