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Mamapalooza Rocks

If you think the only play date a modern mom would set up is the kind she arranges for her young children, you'd be wrong.

Correspondent Bill Geist reports on CBS News Sunday Morning about moms who have a whole different kind of playing in mind.

One of them is Paula, described by Geist as a typical Midwestern suburban housewife and mother, who spends her days cooking and cleaning, and in the evenings, singing nursery rhymes.

"I had a couple of kids and, being a musician, I wanted them to love music. So, I'm out searching for child-friendly music. It got really old really fast. Barney. Argh!

"I mean, why not take a song like 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and turn it into, like, Led Zeppelin rock 'n' roll?"

But first, Paula needed a band: "I needed to find people that were home during the day, thus the stay-at-home-mom band, made up of typical moms, such as Daniela, Anita and Tammy," whose wood-paneled family room is their practice studio.

Paula's friends had almost no musical experience, though Anita once played the flute.

"The first practice." Paula admits, "I'm, like, 'What have I gotten into? This has to get better quick.' And the mailman even made a few comments like, 'You guys are horrible.' "

Paula's daughter, Rebecca, came up with the name Candy Band, which plays children's songs, if you can still call them that.

They also play songs about the rigors of motherhood, like one about trying to get the kids up and dressed in the morning.

"Our songs are right out of our lives," observes Daniela.

They play everywhere, from bars to birthday parties. Mothers and others flock to see them.

The line was out the door when they played an event called Mamapalooza last week in their hometown of Royal Oak, Mich., a suburb of Detroit.Mamapalooza is an eight-city series of performances by bands of mothers, organized by Joy Rose, a 48-year-old mother from suburban New York, who has her own mom band named Housewives on Prozac. It does songs such as "Eat Your Damned Spaghetti" and "Dishwashing Blues."

Rose is the mother of four and mother of a mom band movement. Since her band started in 1997, an estimated 200 mom bands have popped up all over the place.

"They don't pretend to be no housewives. They are the rockin' Mydols," Rose smiles.

The Candy Band isn't even the only mom band in Royal Oak. There's also one called the Mydols, which played their song, "Oh Baby, Time to Take Out the Trash" at Mamapalooza.

Judy Davids is a soccer mom and mini-van driver in her mid-40s: "We have all the soccer stickers, and this one: 'Your mom rocks.' "

She put together the Mydols, a band of working moms: "Pat and I play soccer together. Paige and I know each other from PTA meetings, and Kara and I have been friends.

"We were having this barbecue I threw. I'd been taking a couple guitar lessons and wanted to start a band."

She had no musical background.

"I played the cello when I was a child," Paige tells Geist.

"Actually," Davids interjects, "the first show we ever played, she'd played the drums six times. We played in a bar."

"It was impressive," Paige says, "because we packed the bar. We got all our PTA friends.

"The Mydol Twist" is their theme song.

"It's just about, every day you're doing the same things," Paige explains "You get up, you start the laundry, you load the dishwasher, give some lunches, drive your kids to school, pick them up, take 'em to soccer practice. That's the 'Mydol Twist.' "

Some of their husbands think they have time for everything but them, Geist notes.

"My husband thinks I have time for everything but him," Davids concedes.

"We have another song called, 'It's One More Nail In The Coffin Of Our Sex Life'," Pat says.

To see the Mydols practicing in Paige's unfinished basement next to the furnace, you'd never suspect they have five CDs out, the latest of which is "Born to Iron."The Candy Band has two CDs, and even has a video.

They say things aren't so glamorous for mom rock stars.

"We have a few preschoolers left over, and we take them to our gigs," Tammy notes.

"They still think we're on duty as moms (while we're performing)," Anita says. "…I used to always have a pack of wipes and a diaper in my guitar case."

And there are a few family matters.

Tammy says her own mother "started thinking this was a mid-life crisis, and then she realized I was the only one in the band without a tattoo, so she was really worried that I was getting the tattoo.

"My husband, you know, thinks that I'm not keeping up with my motherly duties, like cleaning, cooking and grocery shopping. …He hired a maid. That was the best thing to come out of the band!"

Most of their husbands are understanding, Geist observes.

"They're very supportive. They do a lot of babysitting, or we could not do this," Paige points out.

Says Judy's husband: "Judy's a great mom, a wonderful mom. …The kids get a kick out of the band. …I think it's been great for them to see their mom do something a little different and something that she loves a lot."

Kara says her daughter thinks it's downright normal having a mom in a rock band: "Her first day of kindergarten, she was asking what bands their parents were in."

"Is this a movement? Is motherhood as we know it over in America?" Geist asks.

"No, it's changing," Paige responds. "I think the rules have been rewritten. You can pretty much do whatever you want to now. I don't think there's a set way to be a mother anymore."

So, Geist concludes, "To the growing list of ways to be a mother, add rocker soccer mom!"

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