New Orleans-based band Galactic will play tonight at SoGo Live.
In the early ’90s in New Orleans, Galactic began creating a style that is very much its own – an infusion of jazz, funk and rock music with slight hip-hop elements. The band has been met with growing popularity over the past decade and a half, but until tonight the band as a whole has never played SoGo Live. Drummer Stanton Moore has, though.
Moore said he has played SoGo Live, not with Galactic but with George Porter and a number of other musicians.
Moore became interested in both drumming and the New Orleans music culture as a toddler through one of the city’s most defining attributes – Mardi Gras.
“My mom started bringing me to Mardi Gras parades at 8 months, so by the time I was 3 or 4, I was really excited about drums coming down the streets,” Moore said. “So I would go home and beat on pots and pans and Tupperware.”
Through his training on kitchenware, Moore said he became quite interested in drums. He took piano lessons for a while, but when he got his first snare drum, piano was far from his mind.
Galactic has always been hailed as an intense and spectacular live band, but Moore said time in the studio is just as important as time on stage.
“I think that one offsets the other, so you know, if you play live all the time, then you get anxious to create new music,” Moore said. “I think you need both. It’s the yin-yang or up and down; you need the two of them.”
Moore said that while both live shows and studio time are needed, he does love playing live – so much so that he cannot pick a single show that was his best.
“I can remember the best show I played this week,” Moore said.
In keeping with not being able to pick a favorite show, he said he cannot pick a favorite city to play either.
“We try not to pick favorite city because if you have your favorite city then [when in] every other city, you want to be in your favorite,” Moore said.
Moore’s reasoning for playing music, wherever he might be playing it, is simple and direct.
“If I didn’t, I would stop breathing and curl up and die,” Moore said.
Galactic will play SoGo Live tonight. Doors open at 9 p.m., and the show begins at 10 p.m. Tickets are $20.
 
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