Lake Street Dive is a four-piece band comprised of Rachael Price on vocals and sometimes guitar, Bridget Kearney on upright bass, Mike “McDuck” Olson on guitar and trumpet, and Mike Calabrese on drums/percussion. The four met while they were in the jazz studies program at New England Conservatory of Music.

The band has been playing together for 10 years (as of 2014), and came into the public eye (in the national/worldwide sense… they were already a “well-kept secret” sensation in the Cambridge/Boston area) when they posted a video of themselves covering The Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” on a Boston (actually Brookline, but that’s just nitpicking) sidewalk…

This video went viral on Youtube and the next thing you know, TV show hosts were ringing them up; Stephen Colbert absolutely insisted that they make their national television debut on his show, where they played “You Go Down Smooth” from their Bad Self Portraits album. You can view the video of that performance here: Lake Street Dive on Colbert Report (it’s not available on Youtube).

The Bad Self Portraits album was released on February 18th, 2014, and due to the surge from pre-orders generated by the recent buzz surrounding them, it debuted in the Top 10 of Amazon’s best sellers in music for that week.

Shortly thereafter, they also made an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman, where they absolutely killed it with a performance of Bad Self Portraits, the title track from their latest album. When they were finished, both Letterman and Paul Schaeffer went absolutely nuts, asking if they could “come back… every night” and proclaiming “this is what you want” and “that’s the way it’s supposed to be”. Those who are familiar with Letterman know that he’s usually somewhat of a curmudgeonly crabass, and joyful gushing of this sort is quite out of countenance for him.

Here’s the video of the Letterman show performance…

And then their first daytime TV appearance on the Ellen show, where they also did “You Go Down Smooth”…

Next stop, Saturday Night Live (just guessing, there has been no announcement of having been booked for that show).

Gone are the days when you could just stroll on down Mass Ave in Cambridge to see them at cozy little hole-in-the-wall venues like the Lizard Lounge; nowadays it’s pretty hard to get your paws on Lake Street Dive tickets because they sell out so quickly. If you need tickets to a sold out show, there may be some available here for a show in your area: Lake Street Dive Tickets at PurchaseTix

LyzyrdGyzyrd predicts that this band will be collecting Grammy Awards sometime soon.

---

Lake Street Dive Discography (click on title to buy):

Bad Self Portraits – 2014, Signature Sounds Records

Fun Machine EP – 2012, Signature Sounds Records

Lake Street Dive – 2010, Signature Sounds Records

Promises, Promises – 2008, FYO Records (out of print)

In This Episode… – 2006, independently released (out of print)

---

Side notes on singer Rachael Price: She is the daughter of Tom Price, who is fairly well-known as the musical director for The Voices of Bahá. She also has released two solo jazz albums – Dedicated To You and The Good Hours – both of which received rave reviews.

Here is video of Rachael in 2005 with The Voices of Bahá, performing “Falta Amor” ~ a Spanish-language cover of Stevie Wonder’s Love’s In Need Of Love Today…

And the title track from her Dedicated To You album, a cover of a jazz standard…