Remember how freaky children's entertainment used to be?

Just think of those Blue Meanies in the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, or Maurice Sednak's hallucinatory masterpiece, Where the Wild Things Are, not to mention some pretty twisted Bugs Bunny cartoons - all of which could've been written under the influence of heavy drugs. In the case of Alice in Wonderland, it probably was.

This may explain something about the mindset of many adults today.

Things are not the same. Consider the Teletubbies, Raffi and all those lame cartoons that are really 20-minute toy commercials. Let's not even discuss Pokemon.

Canadian musician Dave Bidini, for one, is a bit fed up with it.

Along with his band, the fantastically underrated Rheostatics, he's tried his hand at a children's album, The Story of Harmelodia. The band will play selections from it tomorrow night in the Sidetrack Cafe. It's an astounding new album, but it's certainly not surprising coming from a band that once toured a show playing music to the paintings of the Group of Seven.

"I thought there was a little bit of a dumbing down of kids' music," Bidini says. "When I was growing up, the stuff that I listened to was almost psychedelic: Alice Cooper on The Muppets, Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street, Harry Nilsson's The Point, Schoolhouse Rock and The Wizard of Oz. And now we got Barney! My God, man ...

"Obviously that stuff stayed with me. And I don't know whether it directly resulted in me playing music, but I'm sure it must've. It just seemed like that kids' musical culture was really rich back then. So I thought it was an opportunity to infuse a bit of life into that genre."

Described as Through the Looking Glass meets Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with a touch of Dr. Seuss, Harmelodia certainly has life.

It's loaded with guest performers, a string section and includes one song co-written by the Tragically Hip's Gordon Downie. Bound in a picture book beautifully illustrated by the Rheos' Martin Tielli, it tells a vivid, surreal tale of an underworld realm called Popopolis, a magical place inhabited by singing monkeybirds, the Rockery Orchestra and the musical ringmaster, Dr. Drumstein. The story revolves around two kids, Dot and Bug, who discover the power of their imaginations and that there's more to music than the stale conventions taught by the fussy concert master of Harmelodia.

There's an obvious metaphor here. This is the band's story. Despite being so widely respected in the Canadian music scene - even being asked to open the Hip's '96 tour - the Rheostatics have never earned the fame they deserved. Nearly two decades in the business and the band's hit singles number zero.

"Hey, it's not like we haven't tried," Bidini says. "But I don't think we're entirely alone. If radio was a little more elastic and if MuchMusic didn't just play the same seven videos, if there were a few more windows for us to float through, that would be part of our identity, I think.

"But I think we're doing our job. I just think the industry doesn't do their job half the time."

If marketed properly, Harmelodia could change that. An animated film, radio shows and a stage production are all in the planning stages. Be on the lookout for puppet creatures demonstrating a strange musical instrument called a "wingophone" at a Chapters store near you.

The best thing about this record is that it doesn't appeal just to children. It's also aimed at adults - as long as one is in the right mood.

Says Bidini: "The whole concept was created with the idea of sitting around with the bong at night. There's so many colours on the record. Get stoned and listen to it. Kids' music is stoner music, in a lot of ways. It's psychedelic. The first Pink Floyd album, to me, is totally fantastical, like all that Lewis Carroll and C.S. Lewis stuff. That's what I always thought the best kids' music should be like."