Menahan Street Band is a collaborative effort from musicians in the Dap-Kings, El Michels Affair, Antibalas, and The Budos Band. Brought together in Bushwick, they have created an easy-going, likable, and totally unrevolutionary instrumental soul sound.
Environments where you may overhear Menahan Street Band’s new album include:
- Hipster dressmaking shops
- Vintage boutiques
- Bars that open at noon
- Parties where all the young professionals read The Believer and have newborn babies
- College radio stations across the nation
- Your head as you walk down the street
- An escalator in a commercial for some new Apple invention
- The coolest Boys & Girls club ever
- Summer block party barbecue where the DJ sets up on the porch
- Jukeboxes that keep it fresh and real
It’s good, no doubt, but nothing to get excited about. Play it in your car for your friends while you drive around, and you will feel a little bit cooler. By cooler, I mean you might not notice any of your exposed skin sticking to the flaming hot upholstery in your hot glass-and-steel oven on wheels. You’d have to have a heart of ice to not want to hear this. I suppose some sociopathic jerks out there might think only yuppies listen to music like this, but besides the most elitist punks, everyone else will probably think this is pretty good. But you can only get so far listening to instrumental soul music before you wish a Mary Wells or Ronettes or Otis Redding or, hell, Sharon Jones herself would step up and make some shit happen.
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