You won't catch Jeff Raines bitching about the jam-band label. "I feel like some of the other guys are conflicted about being categorized like that," he says of his band Galactic. "But to me it's not a negative thing.
"Fine, we're a jam band," he adds with a chuckle.
Galactic's membership in the jam-band universe underscores how diverse the genre has become, encompassing rock, blues, jazz, bluegrass, funk and various permutations of Phish-dom and Dead-dom. Galactic holds up the New Orleans end, playing their updated take on the city's traditional slinky funk as laid down by The Meters and the brothers Neville.
The ceaseless road-dogs of Galactic recently parted ways with vocalist Theryl DeClouet, who, depending on the night, might've been on stage a third of the time. "He's definitely facing some health issues, and the road wasn't helping that," Raines says of the 50-something DeClouet, who was two decades older than his bandmates. "Plus, artistically we felt it was time to do something new … Galactic was always intended to be instrumental."
The singer's departure leaves guitarist Raines, drummer Stanton Moore, bassist Robert Mercurio, keyboardist Rich Vogel, and Ben Ellman on saxophone and harmonica. Moore, a Crescent City native, possesses an innate feel for the town's undulating syncopated rhythms. His sensibility rubs off on the rest of the guys.
Washington, D.C., natives Raines and Mercurio, who've been in bands together since the eighth grade, started as punk rockers. Late in high school, Raines (son of former New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines) encountered his first P-Funk album and fell for it hard, digging for rare-groove vinyl in used record shops.
By coincidence, the guitarist and bassist attended different colleges in New Orleans (Raines at Loyola; Mercurio at Tulane). They formed a big, George Clinton-inspired outfit in New Orleans called Galactic Prophylactic — 10 members, with a horn section, playing R&B dance-floor rave-ups. One night, at the now-defunct Muddy Waters Club, they performed for a crowd of 400. "At the end of the night, we had a couple thousand dollars," Raines recounts. "We thought, 'Holy shit; maybe this is more serious than we thought. We might be able to make money playing live music.'"
About this time, the D.C. transplants were falling under the spell of The Meters. "Then when we got Stanton in the band, he was more versed in the New Orleans stuff," Raines says. "We were also into James Brown. It was more like stewing, in-the-pocket stuff than over-the-top P-Funk stuff, which had only a few grooves. Now we had this huge array of tempos and feels and vibes. We got rid of the horn section, pared it down to one horn player. When we got a B-3 [organ] player, it was that much more convincing."
Galactic stirred their gumbo on Frenchman Street, a strip near the French Quarter that was a petri dish for fresh New Orleans sounds. They began developing a new audience at a boho spot called Café Brazil. "That's really where we started to evolve," Raines informs. "That was right about the time we graduated college."
From there, the road beckoned. Raines says that Galactic initially glommed onto the Acid Jazz movement of the early '90s. "But we set out to tour with what was really a jam-band ethic," he explains. "Going on tour, making our money on the road. We were never derivative of the Dead, but that [jam-band] crowd latched onto us.
"Thank God. We're incredibly fortunate to be involved in the scene. The whole taping community generates free publicity, and word-of-mouth is huge, whether it's the Internet or friends telling friends. We were out there chugging along playing as many shows as we could, and there was this grassroots scene developing. It was a no-brainer."
In the mid-'90s, the music-marketing machine pushed "electronica," causing many in the critical community to swoon over such a seismic paradigm shift. In certain circles, instrumental prowess and soloing were viewed as self-indulgent and hopelessly passé. Problem was, the public wasn't buying in. Electronic music found a niche in rave and club culture, while a growing legion of young people started turning their ears to organic, improvisational music.
The kids realized they didn't have to grow dreads, bathe in patchouli and join a caravan to dig jam music. And it didn't hurt that, as the jam-band scene mushroomed, a lot of acts brought the groove. Suddenly, George Clinton, James Brown and The Meters became jam-scene icons along with the Dead. All of this helped open the door for Galactic. "To get those kids out seeing live music, it was like a miracle at the time," Raines says. "With [an instrumental] solo, you don't know what's going to happen. It's a compelling thing to watch."
Galactic released four albums of liquid New Orleans funk, and then figured it was time to try something different on the recording front. For the 2003 Sanctuary CD Ruckus, the band enlisted hip-hop producer Dan "The Automator" Nakamura (Gorillaz, Dr. Octagon) to give the music a more concise, updated feel. He sent a couple of song doctors to work with the band in tightening up their material. "Where if it was just the band we might've argued all day about subtleties, stroking our personal aesthetic or ego, having this outside influence really helped," Raines says. "They would get right down to it: 'I think that's garbage. That's good.' It made the album happen a lot quicker."
The writing process took two weeks, then Nakamura showed up in N'awlins. He took a more laissez faire approach than expected. "He wasn't as hands-on as some people would have liked," Raines reveals. Galactic figured the producer would then hide away with the tapes and do his Automator magic, but, according to Raines, "He didn't really deliver a lot of that, either. We ended up doing a lot of it, creating our own drum loops, finding bizarre found sounds. We were trying to make a record that was more modern, not retro New Orleans."
They succeeded. Ruckus was denser, more coiled and urban, driven by huge, thudding drums. In the process, though, they sacrificed much of their interactivity and suppleness, and all but ignored their bedrock: improvisation.
After cutting Ruckus, Galactic did what they do: resumed touring. Over the last year or so, the guys have felt road burnout creeping in, so they plan to do something about it.
After this current tour swing, the band has scheduled a hiatus until May, its first extended break since forming, after which they'll return to the studio. As much as Raines loves being on stage playing for people, he says, "I'm really excited about the break."
This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2005.