11/14/12

crossing the thin line of 'retro influence'




The Menahan Street Band is a Brooklyn, New York-based instrumental band formed in 2007, that plays funk and soul music. The band features musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and the Budos Band.

http://menahanstreetband.com/

“Originally MSB was just about us wanting to make some music for ourselves that was outside of the tight-knit formula of the music we were playing in the Dap-Kings and Antibalas, and wanting to embrace the fact that we grew up on hip-hop and classic rock,” adds Brenneck. “There’s a discipline that goes into playing Fela’s music, and that goes into playing James Brown music; we love that to death, and we studied it hard in order to be able to play it with any sort of authenticity. But I love Neil Young, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, and we all love Wu-Tang and the early RZA productions as much as we all love Stax and Motown. With MSB, we can really let all these influences show.”