Cookin' W/ Sharon' : Sharon and her Dap Kings on IFC's Cooking with the Band

So being related to both food, one of my very first blog posts, and one of my favorite bands I was super excited to hear that Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings would be making an appearance on IFC's new show with LES tattooed hipster chef Sam Mason  called "Cooking with the Band".  Food and music, together? Like that would ever be interesting... What type of twisted individual would ever think of syndicating a show focusing on two such disparate topics?  Well the Village Voice didn't much care for the new show, calling it "the end of reality cooking shows or the death of indie rock or both".   Really Village Voice? I mean really?  Frankly I would expect more from the Voice.  Indie rock has clearly been dead for at least a year.  And who ever said they had enough of Padma Lakshmi?

Well anyway, being a fan of the band (I know admittedly little about the guy they are cooking with, besides that I always go running past his restaurant, W-50,  on Clinton St.), I certainly enjoyed the episode although I would have preferred that Sharon or some other members of the band had shared their own recipes instead of just kinda awkwardly standing around.  I learned a few things too from the show.  For starters I never knew that drummer Homer Steinweiss has a food blog and I am definitely going to use my food processor to make a marinade out of cilantro at some point in the near future.  Anyways, my business is not in TV reviews, so my advice is to check out the article and video preview on the New York Times website.

For your enjoyment I am going to put up the song that got me hooked on Sharon Jones oh about two and a half years ago.  This song is, in my opinion the best protest song I have ever heard from this past (understatement) tumultuous decade entitled What if We Stopped Paying Taxes?  Also coincidentally I ran into my friend Evelyn who works at Human Rights Watch and gave me their new fundraising cd entitled Causes 2 produced by the record company Waxploitation (of Danger Mouse and Gnarls Barkley fame) which includes a new track by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, covering Bob Marley's tune It Hurts to Be Alone.  This is a great new little number.  I don't think that Sharon has the best vocal performance on this one but there is most definitely something about those horns. The thing about the Dap Kings, being a great band, is that they always pull through.  Yes, something about those horns indeed...