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Jeff Raines, third from left, plays guitar for Galactic.
Credit: Taylor Crothers
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The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is on the minds of many music artists, especially those that call New Orleans home. The BP disaster was the talk of the recent New Orleans Jazz Fest, for instance, which included the funk band Galactic. Jeff Raines, guitarist for the New Orleans outfit, says his city is still reeling from 2005's Hurricane Katrina. It's scary to think how the impending black tide might affect the city this time. Galactic is promoting a new album, "Ya-Ka-May," along with social causes. The album title refers to a local noodle dish, a hangover cure and the general mix of music cultures in The Big Easy. Raines talked with Planet Green before the spill.
Planet Green: Why "Ya-Ka-May"?
Jeff Raines: It's kind of a made-up word. The dish itself is slightly reflective of the record. There's a lot of guest artists. We wanted to make sort of a New Orleans-inspired record. We were sort of debating the best way to do that.
PG: The artists on the record include established legends along with younger artists.
JR: Yes. We decided we wanted to make a New Orleans record with a bunch of normal artists. Not what you'd expect, with Dr. John, etc. We kind of wanted to portray the city kind of as it is today.
PG: What's it like on the ground there, all these years after Katrina?
JR: You can sort of drive around not constantly thinking about the storm. You're not sort of confronted with it at every turn. There are bad parts of town where there are still water marks, Xs from the National Guard.
New Orleans is sort of a very unique city. A lot of the neighborhoods just sort of don't exist anymore. On the positive side, I think there has been a lot of forward progress here. The Super Bowl was a symbolic victory in terms of a lot of things.
PG: And there's a new music scene in New Orleans. New Orleans is more than just old legendary music?
JR: Right. We really wanted to get some of the artists that are here in town maybe that aren't as well-known nationally that are playing and vital here in the scene today.
PG: Are you trying to create a sense of community?
JR: Not really. We're just trying to make the point to some degree that things are still evolving down here. It's not like just Dixieland cover bands on Bourbon Street. There is this vibrant music scene and it's all sort of interconnected ... Everyone kind of knows each other.
PG: Causes that Galactic supports include Voice of the Wetlands, which is organizing volunteers to help in oil spill cleanup efforts.
You also can download and listen to the band's Jazz Fest performances.
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