Tag: Stanton Moore

Galactic & Orgone bring the funk to Bourbon Country

What better 30th birthday present than two great funk bands playing down the street from my house in Louisville, Kentucky? On top of that, Galactic’s management gave me permission to videotape, guaranteeing quality for the viewers.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS.
NOTE: I recommend watching youtube videos in HD when possible, it makes a huge difference! Just click the “360p” in the bottom right hand corner and change it to “720p”.

Orgone is a funk band from LA that has been on the road non-stop the last few years. They toured with Galactic back in February and March, and, luckily for us, their tours just happened to criss-cross in the midwest for a few shows this summer.

I urged all of my friends to arrive early, and I was happy to see a semi-full house when Orgone hit the stage. Orgone headlined this same venue on a Saturday night back in November and there were barely 60 people in attendance. But that’s how you do it: start by converting a room of 60 people, who end up telling their friends about you, then come back through again.

Orgone opened with an instrumental cover of “Melting Pot” by Booker T & The MG’s. It was a great warm up choice that worked to get the crowd grooving. Of course, lead guitarist Sergio Rios always gets the crowd into it with this body gyrations and bouncing afro….

Portions of Orgone’s set featured their new vocalist Niki J. Crawford. It’s definitely sad to see their old singer, Fanny Franklin, leave to focus on her solo album, as her voice just had a grit to it that can’t be matched. When Franny would join the band, they always jelled like one organism on the same groove. Although Niki J. held her own, she seemed a little timid and it will be interesting to see if she continues with the band after this long summer tour is over…

Galactic was the band everyone came to see and the room was expectedly packed with people. I was lucky enough to have my buddy Brent in attendance, and he brought his audio recording equipment. We used my new clamp to mount his video camera to his mic stand, allowing us to have two HD video cameras running for the entire performance. On top of that, I shot a few videos near the front with my iphone4.

Three cameras + Galactic’s light show = !!!

In recent years, Galactic has been bringing vocalists and MC’s out on the road with them, and that’s actually what really got me into the band. As much as I love the funk, I never really got into Galactic when they were purely instrumental (& I was a little late to experience the Houseman era).

This tour featured Corey Glover from Living Colour on vocals. Featured here is a double dose of Allen Toussaint covers. First up is “What Is Success?” I love the colored lights on this video, and the performance is over the top with Corey pretty much going off at the end.

Next up, another Allen Toussaint / Lee Dorsey cover, “Night People.” Galactic & Corey Glover played this song during Jazz Fest when they did a mini-set with The Funky Meters with all members of both bands playing together. Lucky for us, that wasn’t a one time performance and they’ve continued to work this tune into their setlists.

Only Galactic can turn a traditional Mardi Gras Indian chant into a hip-hop influenced funk workout like this next tune, “Hoo Nah Nay.” Corey Smith, trombonist for Rebirth Brass Band, takes center stage on this one (he has pretty much become a full time member of Galactic the last few years). This video also includes a Stanton Moore drum solo. Fortuitously, I started shooting video up front with my iphone right before the drum solo started, so there are plenty of close ups.

If you’ve made it this far, you will be rewarded by this last video. To close out the encore, a super intense cover of Led Zeppelin’s “How Many More Times.”

Special thanks to Galactic’s management for permission to run video. Also special thanks to Brent Stober for the audio, the wide video angle, and the first photo.

The Dead Kenny G’s with Freekbass 3/11/11 @ Cosmic Charlies

Skerik, Mike Dillon, Brad Houser: The Dead Kenny G’s. Then add Freekbass as a special guest for this recent show at Lexington’s up and coming concert club, Cosmic Charlies.

Scroll down for a few HD videos. First is an evil cover of Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” followed by a tune from the Dead Kenny G’s new album. The second video is a funky improvisation including several Mike Dillon raps, teases of Drop The Bomb, as well as some P-Funk sax riffs. This segues into the third video, which is a punk rock cover of Ween’s Motorhead spoof, “It’s Gonna Be A Long Night.” The Dead Kenny G’s then close out the night with their seminal punk-jazz workout, “Punk Rock Guilt.”

I have to say that these are some of the best videos I’ve shot so far with my new video camera. I also have to say thanks to Rex-A-Vision for the use of his great photos.
I’ve also added some nifty buttons to the blog so you can easily share it via facebook, twitter, email, etc… whatever strikes your fancy!

George Porter Jr’s 63rd Birthday Bash (VIDEO)

I had the pleasure of spending last Christmas in New Orleans. I was also fortunate enough to catch George Porter Jr‘s annual Birthday Bash at the Howlin’ Wolf on the last night of my stay (before driving 12 hours back to Kentucky the next morning).

With George’s permission, I mounted my new HD video camera to the side of Nick Burlison’s audio recording rig, and when the crowd poured out onto the chilly St. Peters Street at 3:15am I had nearly 4 hours of footage! I even shot a few songs from the front row with my iPhone4, which allowed me to make a 2-cam mix for several tunes. The audio on this one is simply top notch. It’s a matrix mix of Louie Liokis’ on-stage schoeps mics and a soundboard patch.

The entire performance, a 4 DVD set, is available to download here: http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=89960

The night began with a 90 minute set from George Porter’s Runnin’ Pardner‘s band. This set featured several classic Meters tunes like Borro, What’Cha Say, & The Dragon, as well as a reworking of Curtis Mayfield‘s “Check Out Your Mind” which exemplifies the way George holds down the groove. George’s wife brought out a cake and his granddaughter came out and sang a diva-like rendition of Happy Birthday. The set ended with a solo performance of a song from George’s new EP of Christmas songs, “Christmas In New Orleans.”

The second set was a free for all of guest players: Stanton Moore, Anders Osborne, Kirk Joseph, Brian Stoltz, June Yamagishi, Tony Hall, Russell Batiste, Eric Bolivar, Terence Higgins, etc. Seven different drummers and five different guitarists! At one point, you had a triple guitar threat of Tony Hall, June Yamagishi, & Brint Anderson ripping through Them Changes & Third Stone From The Sun.

To close out the night, George brought out Billy Iuso & CR Gruver for some Grateful Dead tunes, topping it off with a cover of Sugaree, a song that George has really made his own while touring with Bill Kreutzmann & Papa Mali in their new band, 7 Walkers.

UPDATE with 2 new videos added on 12/27/13:

Christmas In New Orleans:

Is Pray > Dance To The Music > I Want To Take You Higher > Them Changes (w/ Third Stone From The Sun tease):

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