Tiny Masters of Today

Tiny Masters of Today took their name from a band in the Blake Nelson book Rockstar Superstar, a young adult novel about the trials and tribulations of being in a rock band. The Tiny Masters -- Ivan, 13, guitar and vocals, and his sister Ada, 11, bass and vocals -- have had far fewer troubles than Nelson did in his fictional band. The duo began writing songs before they had any idea of starting a band. Ivan (no last names, a wise parental decision, one thinks) was jamming with some friends when Ada started singing about how much she disliked George W. Bush. The result was "Bushy," which appears on their debut album Bang Bang Boom Cake. They're not expert musicians, but not being competent musically has never been an issue in rock & roll. They make up for their lack of chops with an exhilarating power and their innocent impudence. Singing may be beyond them yet, but again, it never stopped Johnny Rotten or Handsome Dick Manitoba. Ivan and Ada are fairly normal kids. You don't get the feeling that they have overbearing parents egging them on, and their music isn't cutesy, it's real punk rock, if a bit derivative. Their parents curtailed their TV watching on school nights, so the duo and a few of Ivan's friends took refuge in the family basement where their parents supplied then with a cheap drum kit and a few old amps. Ivan was ten when he picked up the guitar and Ada followed him on bass at 8-years-old. They created a MySpace site and started putting up demos they made using the drum programs on Garageband, the user-friendly MacIntosh program. Andrew Romano, a reporter for Newsweek magazine, found them on MySpace where they'd racked up 13,000 spins in a little more than seven months, with no promo or marketing plan. He wrote them up in a piece called "Middle School of...