Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5pGdWJIkt47ovJcBOKHl2S?si=37b1eea995ea47c9

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlR8JwdB8Qk

You've got to listen to the whole thing. While you're doing something else, distracted. So you can suddenly turn your head and say to yourself WHAT IS THIS?

I don't want to oversell "Sushi and Coca-Cola," that would do the track a disservice. Keep your expectations low and let your mind drift. When done right music penetrates you in a way nothing else does. Sure, there are some great in your face numbers that demand your attention, but what you really want is something to ride shotgun, something personal that can lift your mood and make you think you can conquer the world...or at least survive!

I know St. Paul & The Broken Bones had their moment a few years back, when that video from Letterman was ping-ponging around the internet. I didn't get it, I liked the emotion, but I didn't find the song to be that good. But this, THIS I LIKE!

I spent hours today trying to penetrate new music. Got to say the new Justin Bieber album is listenable, but do I want to listen to it? Unnecessary. It scares me that Olivia Rodrigo is a respected act. Have we sunk so low that we're kissing up to this two-dimensional stuff? This is paint by numbers, commerce. As for Chappell Roan...good for her that she's got success but do I think her music is for the ages, do I think it truly adds something to the canon? No.

Needless to say I burned out on the Spotify Top 50.

So then I started checking out Americana playlists. The best one was the best from 2024, but this is 2025, and I wanted something more current. And I heard a bunch of tracks that I understood, but didn't move me. And now I'm thinking of why "Sushi and Coca-Cola" moves me.

It's certainly not the lyrics. This is not Bob Dylan, this is simple, serviceable.

But there's no 808, THANK GOD! It's kind of like tattoos...if you want one, cool, but don't think you're rebelling.

And then there's the piano bed. Underpinning the entire thing.

And let's be clear, the vocal is EXQUISITE! Hearkens back to the days of yore, fifty plus years ago, before everybody thought they could sing and deserved Spotify royalties and you'd go to the local bar and there'd be a soul singer...

But then soul was eclipsed by hip-hop.

But really, what puts "Sushi and Coca-Cola" over the top is the HORNS! Do you know why we don't have more horns in today's music? IT'S TOO EXPENSIVE! That's one of the reasons we've got solo acts, not bands...no one wants to split the money that many ways. A drummer is necessary. A bassist. But can't you just hire horns when you need them? But the budgets of yore are out the window. Who is sitting in their home studio saying they're going to call in the horns?

Now this sounds nothing like Chicago. But once upon a time, there were horn bands...really started with Al Kooper and the initial iteration of Blood, Sweat & Tears. But that sound went out of favor...

Now if you were in the venue and St. Paul & The Broken Bones started to play "Sushi and Coca-Cola," you'd find it impossible to stay in your chair, you'd stand up and start to groove, and you wouldn't even need a partner, even though one would be fine. When the music penetrates you this way you put your phone down, you stop shooting selfies, you don't want to impinge upon the experience, you just want to revel in the mood.

Not that a major label is interested in a band like this. They don't want music, they want hits, they want instant commerciality. Something that just feels right, that might infect the populace and grow upon people...there's no room for that. And this isn't smooth, like the Average White Band, but that was fifty years ago itself. This is not a soul revue, this is too many musicians on a small stage playing for the love of it, because believe me, they can't be making much money.

Maybe you don't like this. You've got to know there are so many people immersed in the punk sound that if there's more than a couple of guitars and if the singer is not shouting they're out. Good for them, but most people have broader tastes.

Then again, the world is so broad that most music doesn't reach most people.

This is the kind of music you want at your Bar Mitzvah party, at your corporate retreat, the kind that makes people move and just feel good.

Once again, "Sushi and Coca-Cola" is not classic, but we haven't really had this sound since the Commitments thirty plus years ago, and St. Paul & The Broken Bones are more authentic.

So what we've got here is a journeyman band. Spreading their sound around the globe. You don't go to the show to hear the hits, you go to enter a trance, to levitate from this everyday world in a way that music used to specialize in but is hard to find today.

This is basic, this is human. It evidences talent. It's not about the looks, but the music. Do I expect everybody to glom on on instantly? Hell, this song has been out for a month and doesn't have significant traction, that's how hard it is to break through. You're on your own.

The record business is run by lemmings, but not all the acts are such.

We're looking for something authentic, that doesn't say BRAND in bright lights. Something that is basic, that is just music.

Like "Sushi and Coca-Cola."


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