Super Mash Bros. Display Another Side of Mash-Up At Irving Plaza

Like all others within the ever-expanding genre of mash-up, Super Mash Bros. are a music lover’s paradise. While mash-up artists all strive to serve a healthy dose of rock, pop and hip-hop on a plate, these guys garnish it with a whole lot of party and dance. And yes, it’s as crazy as it sounds. On Saturday night, Irving Plaza was a super secret house party that originally including your closest friends, but somehow spilled into your garage.

I spoke with two-thirds of the collective known as Super Mash Bros. Nicolas Fenmore and Ethan Dawes (Dick Fink does not travel with them) before their sold-out show that night. The mellow guys greeted me with handshakes and conversations about New York’s frigid weather before spilling the details about their next mixtape, the extent of their musicianship, having a back up plan and the records they can’t live without.




Paired with Anamanguchi, which could be described as what would happen if your 8-bit Nintendo ate the Top 40 chart. They kept the crowd energized, swaying and interested, which is the best you could hope for when the headliner comes on stage at 11:45PM. But the main course did not disappoint and the audience, who all looked very much under the age of 22, were ready to party. Increasingly, mash-up does seem to please that demographic, as it’s a combination of all of the music they really like and still enables them to experience it in a live concert setting. SMB and their crowd were intensely linked the entire night, music lovers to DJ’s.

Overall, there are a lot of mash-up artists to choose from, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses, and they’re definitely not for everyone, but the SMB and their brand of merging classics or current hits with songs that you would suspect are borderline impossible to dance to, are going to be around for a very long time. You can catch their next live show at the three-day electronic Ultra Music Festival in Miami this Spring.