 Fans of John Carlin & the Kids Music Underground may have seen the occasional fairy princess or dinosaur grooving onstage with the band. At the group’s next Joe’s Pub gig, Carlin will share the spotlight again—this time, with puppets.
There’s Yuki, a green-haired, tech-savvy cat-girl; Desmond, a purple koala who obsesses over organic food; and Pablo, a sensitive bull.
The characters feature prominently in a children’s TV series that Carlin is shopping around. His years of touring with grown-up band 700 Miles, plus the sophistication of today’s kids, eventually percolated into the idea of a globally minded show. “For the kids I know, the world is shrinking,” he says. “It’s available to them at the click of a mouse.”
Inspired by the music of Brazil and his 14-year-old daughter’s half-Brazilian heritage, the Brooklyn-based Carlin shot the pilot in Rio de Janeiro: “We weren’t faking it with a blue screen,” he says. “It was the sights and smells and the rhythms of the place, and the people and the faces.”
 In the show, Carlin’s character works in an NYC music store and travels the world via his magical guitar. (Fun fact: His real-life mom, Tony Award–winning actress Frances Sternhagen, plays the shopkeeper). He helps a young girl named Julia feel less “different” at her new school by showing her a locale with lots of diversity: Rio. He stops in at a children’s samba school, parties at carnival and checks out the multitude of eats at the local market. The point: Being different can be cool.
The Joe’s Pub show will closely mimic the TV pilot, with the actress who plays Julia making an appearance, and puppeteers from the Story Pirates mastering Yuki, Desmond and Pablo.
If the pilot gets picked up, Carlin has a wish list of countries he’d like to highlight: “Japan, Senegal or Mali would be amazing. Who knows, maybe Spain.” But for now, the East Village is calling.
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