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Galactic

On Tour Now!

Galactic

Occupation
Location
Band Members:
Ben Ellman: Saxophones/Harp
Robert Mercurio: Bass
Stanton Moore: Drums
Jeffrey Raines: Guitars
Richard Vogel: Keyboards

Band Website:
www.galacticfunk.com

Download a FREE SONG from Galactic!!! Click Here!

 

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From the Corner to the Block

 

Think Back

 

Hustle Up

 
September 17

GALACTIC LIVE WEBCAST FROM OUTSIDE LANDS

Friday, August 22, 2008

Can't make it to Outside Lands this year? Thanks to AT&T, you can catch GALACTIC's performance Webcast from Outside Lands LIVE on Saturday, August 23rd at 2:50pm Pacific time exclusively at attblueroom.com/music.

Be sure to check out other live performances during the event and exclusive Outside Lands 2008 archived footage after the show.
July 25

GALACTIC FALL TOUR ANNOUNCED

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Galactic is thrilled to announce the band's 2008 Fall Tour! The run will kick off in Athens, Ga. With stops along the east coast including the Fillmore at the TLA on Saturday, October 11th, DC's 9:30 Club on October 12 and two nights in NYC at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza beginning on Friday, October 17th. Galactic's annual Halloween celebration will go down in New Orleans this year with two nights at Tipitinas on October 31st and November 1st.

The second half of the tour will get rolling out West with dates in Vancouver, San Diego and LA among others. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks for further tour updates and west coast show additions.

Tickets for Galactic's fall tour are now available, only through Galactic Ticketing!

Galactic to appear on Late Night with Conan O’Brien!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Galactic is proud to announce their first ever appearance as a musical guest on the Conan O'Brien Show, which will be taped in New York on May 6 on NBC! The show will air that night at 12:35/11:35 central. Galactic will be joined for this appearance by their lyrical comrade Chali 2na. For ticketing information, call the NBC ticket office at (212) 664-3056.

’From the Corner to the Block’ nominated for a Jammy!

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Galactic is honored that their new album 'From the Corner to the Block' has been nominated for a Jammy! The 7th annual awards show takes place on May 7th, 2008. The winners are decided by you guys, so click here to vote!

Galactic will be performing at both the Jammys and the after party at the BB King Blues Club. Get your tickets to both shows now!

EUROPE!

Sunday, March 16, 2008

We have just finished our first proper tour of Europe. The trip on a whole was a success. Chali 2na, Boots Riley and us turned on new fans in every city. We played 8 shows in a row, so we did not get to spend that much time in any one town, but we made the most of it.
The clubs over there greet you with an amazing assortment of cheeses, meats, and pastries, all of which blow away most of anything you see in the states. They really treated us with a lot of respect and appreciation for coming all that way. The shows in England were probably the best attended and the easiest to meet new people (since they happen to speak the same language). We met a lot of really cool new friends and fans that we are very excited to see again soon. Other highlights were our day in Paris, where the band ate and ate and ate. It is truly a remarkable city for food. We have eaten all over the world and the French really do have a handle on creating some amazing dishes. The club, Nouveau Casino (there was nothing new or casino about it) was in a very happening part of town and the show itself was packed with excited fans. We continued our French part of the trip in Dijon for Jeff’s birthday. We played as part of a 4 band festival called "GENERIQ". That night in honor of jeff’s birthday, we all went out to a fantastic meal in downtown Dijon, where we ordered escargot, cheeses, mussels, duck pie, and braised veal.

Another highlight was the last evening in Amsterdam. The Melkweg was packed and the energy in the room was on fire. After a long day of perusing about town, the band was ready to light the "milky way" ablaze. Our trip through Germany was probably the most educational for the band, since most of the band have not spent much time there and we did our best to meet new folks, eat new cuisine, and see the sites. The club, Postbahnhof, we played in East Berlin was a stone’s throw from the Wall. So we really got to see a strong difference in feel and architecture between the east and west sides of Berlin.

We are now off to Australia, we will fill you in on the details from that trip in a week.

 
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Nov. 26

Tour Dates

Date Venue City
Aug 22, 2008 Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival San Francisco, CA
Sept 19, 2008 Tipitina’s Uptown New Orleans, LA
Sept 25, 2008 Fox Theatre Boulder, CO
Sept 27, 2008 Aggie Theater Ft. Collins, CO
Sept 28, 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival Austin, TX
Oct 3, 2008 Gretna Heritage Festival Gretna, LA
Oct 8, 2008 Georgia Theatre Athens, GA
Oct 9, 2008 The Lincoln Theatre Raleigh, NC
Oct 10, 2008 Toad’s Place Richmond, VA
Oct 11, 2008 The Fillmore at the TLA Philadelphia, PA
Oct 12, 2008 9:30 Club Washington, DC
Oct 14, 2008 Higher Ground Burlington, VT
Oct 15, 2008 Paradise Rock Club Boston, MA
Oct 17, 2008 The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza New York, NY
Oct 19, 2008 8 x 10 Baltimore, MD
Oct 22, 2008 The Orange Peel Asheville, NC
Oct 23, 2008 Visulite Theatre Charlotte, NC
Oct 24, 2008 House Of Blues Myrtle Beach, SC
Oct 25, 2008 Variety Playhouse Atlanta, GA
Oct 26, 2008 WorkPlay Theatre Birmingham, AL
Oct 29, 2008 Warehouse Houston, TX
Oct 30, 2008 House Of Blues Dallas, TX
Nov 1, 2008 Tipitina’s Uptown New Orleans, LA
Nov 6, 2008 Richard’s on Richards Vancouver, BC
Nov 7, 2008 Showbox Seattle, WA
Nov 8, 2008 Crystal Ballroom Portland, OR
Nov 9, 2008 Ashland Armory Ashland, OR
Nov 10, 2008 The Crystal Bay Club/Crown Room Crystal Bay, NV
Nov 12, 2008 House Of Blues West Hollywood, CA
Nov 13, 2008 Belly Up Tavern Solana Beach, CA
Jan 4, 2009 Jam Cruise 7 Belize City, Belize and Costa Maya, Mexico

About Galactic

FROM THE CORNER TO THE BLOCK

With the release of their sixth album, From the Corner to the Block, the five-man group GALACTIC - drummer Stanton Moore, bassist Robert Mercurio, saxophonist/harmonica player Ben Ellman, keyboardist Richard Vogel, and guitarist Jeff Raines – reaffirms their standing as one of the funkiest outfits in the known universe. Featuring a cherry-picked guest list of some of hip-hop’s most dynamic lyricists – including Juvenile, Gift of Gab (Blackalicious), Lyrics Born, Ladybug Mecca (Digable Planets), Mr. Lif, Chali 2na (Jurrasic 5), Vursatyl (Lifesavas), and Boots Riley (The Coup), From the Corner to the Block exposes GALACTIC’s organic grooves to an urban ear while still maintaining their essential funk aesthetic.

The band started out over a decade ago as an instrumental act in the tradition of the Meters, the JB’s, and Booker T. & the MG’s – bands equally comfortable recording their own material or working with vocalists. From the Corner to the Block grew out of GALACTIC’s experiences touring with artists like the Roots, Jurassic 5, Triple Threat DJ’s and Gift of Gab. Though it features cameos from a “wish list” of fan-favorite MCs, this isn’t a typical hip-hop album per se, but a contemporary funk record that just happens to feature hip-hop vocalists. “We never set out to make a rap record,” explains Ellman, who produced the record with assistance from engineer extraordinaire Count (Halou, Quannum, DJ Shadow). “We wanted to kinda modernize the New Orleans sound,” adds Mercurio.

The New Orleans legacy echoes throughout the album, indeed. The brassy “Bounce Baby” (featuring DJ Z-Trip) stirs up wah-wah guitar, a horn-driven melody, syncopated beats, and turntable wizardry into a potent rhythmic instrumental. “Tuff Love” (featuring Trombone Shorty) offers a taste of some of New Orleans’ hottest young talent. “Second and Dryades,” (featuring Big Chief Monk Boudreau), evokes the spirit of the Wild Magnolias – it’s a percussion-laced Mardi Gras anthem for the digi generation, on which Boudreau relates the story of being an Indian on Mardi Gras day.

The song sure to raise eyebrows though is the title track and first single, featuring the Soul Rebels Brass Band and platinum rapper Juvenile (who tapped GALACTIC to back him on the “Jimmy Kimmel Show”). Mercurio, for one, is happy with the outcome. “It sounds like it was all supposed to be there, this track was meant to happen” he says.

The rest of the album features a diverse array of funky arrangements, vocal deliveries, and musical expressions, from sexy downtempo jams like “Squarebiz,” featuring the ever-delectable Ladybug Mecca and singer Nino Moschella; to uptempo party-starters like “What You Need” with Lyrics Born, and “Hustle Up” with Boots Riley (which Mercurio calls “a total rock tune” dressed in funky threads); to semi-autobiographical tales of urban street life by Mr. Lif (“...And I’m Out”), Vursatyl & Ohmega Watts (“Find My Home”), Lateef the Truth Seeker (“No Way”), Gift of Gab (“The Corner”), and Chali 2na (“Think Back”).

Even with all the different vocalists, the songs maintain a sense of thematic consistency. As Ellman explains, this was by design: the rappers were each asked to write about a corner. “It could have been any corner,” he says. “Everyone had a different perspective.”

Many contemporary all-star collaborations are purely commercial exercises, yet From the Corner to the Block stands as a labor of love, connecting GALACTIC’s hip-hop jones and their guests’ fervor for funk aesthetics. The result isn’t just the grooviest, funkiest record of 2007, but perhaps the finest post-Katrina album to come out of New Orleans.

Boots Riley

Born in Chicago and raised in East Oakland's Funktown neighborhood, Boots became a teenage community organizer, but later switched from a clipboard to the microphone, forming the Coup with rapper E-Roc. Pam the Funkstress, the first female DJ star in the famously competitive Bay Area turntablist scene, later signed on.

Their 1991 self-distributed EP landed them a deal with Wild Pitch Records. Two singles, "Dig It" and "Not Yet Free", cracked BET and national black radio. Their debut, 1993's Kill My Landlord, went on to wide acclaim. The next year, Genocide and Juice shot up the charts, but stalled when EMI absorbed Wild Pitch. E-Roc then left the group.

1998's Steal This Album, released by indie label Dogday Records, was received as a masterpiece and sealed the Coup's rep. But the band's next record, Party Music, scheduled for release shortly after 9/11, became a cultural flashpoint amidst Cheney-Ashcroft hysteria. The album’s original cover (completed three months prior to 9/11) depicted the crew setting off an explosion in the World Trade Center using a guitar tuner and drumsticks. The band's label, 75 Ark, pulled the cover immediately after the attacks.

"As far as the record industry was concerned, it was the end of my career," Boots says. Instead, Boots' defiant refusal to "ride the fence" and the album's undeniable funk made it an underdog favorite. The album hit 8 in the 2001 Pazz and Jop Poll, the most important year-end critic's list.

At the same time, Boots visited South Africa's World Conference Against Racism with the Black August hip-hop tour, where he distributed tens of thousands free cassettes of music in the Oakland community, what he calls "newspapers on tape". He also founded Shoyoass Words, Sounds, & Pictures, a record and media company specializing in music and art that he calls "relevant to social change."


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