We\u2019ve all heard it said, at some time or another, about a great bar, or a vintage clothing store, or a hole-in-the-wall diner that serves the best nachos in town: \u201cthis city\u2019s best-kept secret.\u201d You might think it’s a good thing in the case of the bar, because you like quiet bars, or the nacho restaurant, if you believe the quality of nachos is inversely proportional to the number of people who eat them. But I\u2019ve come to believe that most of the time, secrets are bad, and people should stop keeping them.<\/p>\n
Especially in the case of Lake Street Dive<\/a>, Boston\u2019s\u2014and now New York\u2019s\u2014most stupidly-kept secret.<\/p>\n I say this not to gripe but to urge you to listen to, to get to know, to learn to love, Lake Street Dive. This is a band with the heart of a poet, a soul full of soul, and a very big vocabulary. They sing songs with lines like \u201cFeels good to be over you\/But it felt good to be under you\/So maybe it\u2019s just you that feels good.\u201d They have a trumpet and<\/em> a double bass. They can write a hook worthy of Michael Jackson\u2019s hiccupping falsetto, the Beatles\u2019 Liverpudlian-tinged harmonies, and Stevie Wonder\u2019s silky wail. They are sexy and a little bit nerdy. They make me want to dance\u2014and I don\u2019t dance.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve also, incidentally, just released Lake Street Dive Live at the Lizard Lounge, <\/em>a live album and concert film (filmed and produced by my buddy Greg Liszt<\/a>). It\u2019s fifty-two minutes and thirty-four seconds of the most exquisite unpopular pop music you\u2019ve ever heard. Lake Street Dive has two previously-released studio albums, and both suffered from a lack of adequate funding and the inevitable problem of not-living-up-to-the-live-shows. Now, finally, there\u2019s Live at the Lizard Lounge, <\/em>which not only captures the raw energy of a Lake Street Dive concert, but sounds phenomenal. Bridget Kearney\u2019s bass comes through full and sonorous, Mike Olson\u2019s trumpet purrs like it\u2019s alive, Mike Calabrese sounds like the ten drummers he always does, and Rachael Price\u2019s voice, powerful and close, will make you wonder why Adele is getting all the attention.<\/p>\n So check out the trailer, and then do yourself a favor and download the real thing<\/a>. (For $9.99 you get the mp3s for your iTunes and videos for your computer and your iPhone.) Trust me, it goes down real smooth.<\/p>\n