Farmer Jason sings for kids (and parents) at the Red Light Café

As a music geek parent, one of the greatest moments is when your child discovers music. The first time I’d ever seen one of my daughters sit still for three minutes was when she became enraptured by Paul Simon performing “That Was Your Mother” on the Ellen Degeneres show. You could almost see a whole new world open up to her.

The downside to discovering music, of course, is that your child may discover a lot of crap along the way. It’s probably not crap to them, but if the kids want to hear the same CD on a car trip 15 times in a row the parents are stuck listening to it, too. And it’s a guarantee the parents will get sick of it way before the kids will.

Some kids music is outright malevolent (that damned purple dinosaur), and the wise parent will avoid it at all costs. Other music is seemingly innocent at first, but it’s actually a dangerous and unrelenting ear worm that will burrow into your brain, and you, the formerly cool parent who knew about Uncle Tupelo way before anyone else did, will find yourself humming “Fruit Salad” by the Wiggles while at work.

That’s why children’s music that sounds good to parents is a godsend, and Farmer Jason is among the best at it. He’s released two CDs, “A Day at the Farm” and “Rockin’ in the Forest,” filled with songs about animals, tractors and trees. Simple ideas, yes, but Farmer Jason is Jason Ringenberg, lead singer of Jason and the Scorchers and an alt-country icon for more than 25 years. He doesn’t just sing about a skunk. He sings about a “Punk Rock Skunk” and throws some Ramones-style “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!” chanting into the mix. And his concert at the Red Light Café in Atlanta last Sunday wasn’t just a kid’s show. It was a one-man rock concert with songs that just happened to be about toads and doggies.

The audience was filled with hipster parents (old concert T-shirts fitting snugly around expanding waistlines, graying hair underneath cowboy hats) and their kids, and it was actually hard to say which group was most excited to see Farmer Jason perform. There were also a few childless couples who were probably amused to see their cowpunk hero instructing the kiddies on how to do the Doggie Dance.

Ringenberg, clad in his Farmer Jason uniform of bib overalls, straw hat and checked blue shirt, went through all the hits: “The Tractor Goes Chug Chug Chug,” “Get Up Up Up!,” “Catfish Song” and more. For the benefit of the parents, he also did a sing-along version of “Help There’s A Fire,” originally recorded by his “brother’s band,” Jason & The Scorchers.

The adults had a great time, but this wasn’t about the adults. What did the kids think? At first, they all sat with their folks, clapped, cheered and wondered why their parents were laughing at Farmer Jason’s drummer missing the show because he locked his keys in his convertible. Being a veteran entertainer, Ringenberg encouraged them to come forward, getting them into conversations about their own pets. He took suggestions from them and came up with several off-the-cuff verses for his “Forest Rhymes” song (impressing everyone by quickly coming up with a few lines about a polar bear that included the phrase “solar flare”). By the end of the show, the kids had commandeered the front of the room and eventually turned the stage into a mini-mosh pit. The parents were content to sit, smile and take pictures, enjoying this rare moment to expose their children to good music before Radio Disney swoops down and snatches them away for the next decade or so.