Stereo MC’s Announce US Dates Ahead Of Cruel World Festival
Today, globally revered Hip-Hop/Electronic dance pioneers Stereo MC’s announce new US dates leading up to their appearance at the Cruel World festival on May 17th. The band came to the East Coast in January for their first US shows since 2001 and while in New York, they stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform their classic hit, Connected - you can watch that here.
Featuring original members Rob Birch (Rob B), Nick Hallam, and Cath Coffey, with drummer/percussionist, Tansay Omar, fans can expect to hear tracks from across the Brit Award-winner’s seven studio albums, including Connected, Step It Up, Elevate My Mind, Lost In Music, and many others.
Stereo MC’s are probably best known for their international Top 20 hit single ‘Connected’, which was released in 1992 and was the title track of their album the same year, reaching #2 in the UK Album Chart. It also contained the hits ‘Step It Up’, ‘Creation’, and ‘Ground Level’, and led to the group winning two Brit Awards for Best Group and Best Album in 1994.
Being childhood friends and neighbors, Rob and Nick formed Stereo MC’s in the mid-eighties, with the pair inspired to make music by their combined love of early hip-hop, funk and electronic music.
The Stereo MC’s initially pressed their first 12” vinyl and started their own independent record label called Gee Street Records, with Kiss DJ Richie Rich and budding entrepreneur, Jon Baker.
When Gee Street attracted the attention of 4th & Broadway in 1989, the duo recorded the debut Stereo MC’s album, ‘33-45-78’. Nick says, “When we started getting gigs around that time, we thought it would be great to have live drums, even if they made the turntables bounce around. But when we went to the States, the U.S. branch of our record company said, ‘We’re not paying for a drummer to come on tour, because you don’t do that with this type of music’. There were a few barriers to cross before dance music was established as a live music force and was given equal rights in the touring and festival scene. Island Records had a good attitude to developing young acts, though, and we were given time to grow both in the studio and on the road.”
After releasing 33-45-78, the band toured with De La Soul, Living Colour and A Certain Ratio. They then headed to New York to record their second album, ‘Supernatural’ in 1990, bearing the singles ‘Elevate My Mind’ (which made it into the US R&B Charts) and ‘Lost in Music’ which was a club hit in the UK and US. This success was further cemented when they supported Happy Mondays on a US tour.
Rob says, “If we weren’t on the road or making our own tracks we were remixing for other artists. Life didn’t have a clock, you just worked and vibed until you dropped on the sofa and woke up in your clothes six hours later.”
“The summer of 1992 saw us finish our 3rd LP, Connected, which we toured solidly for about 18 months after its release. It was a big success for us and everybody involved and was a beautiful moment in our development. Navigating our way through the aftermath of over-touring fatigue and life catching up with you was challenging, and for a while the creative spark was hard to find, so we went into recluse mode and built our own studio again so we could get out of the music biz domain.”
Stereo MC’s were in demand for remix work from the likes of U2, Madonna, Tricky, Pressure Drop, David Holmes, Terranova and Mo’Wax records, as well as earlier mixes for The Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah and RZA.
After making a mix album for the DJ Kicks series on Studio!K7 in 1999, 2001 saw the release of the band’s fourth album ‘Deep Down & Dirty’, followed by a tour that included opening for Jane's Addiction in the US. The album’s title track became Stereo MC’s fifth consecutive Top 20 hit single in a row.
Following recordings for Pias, K7 and Graffiti, they continued their long relationship with club music, starting the label ‘connected’ in 2015, initially to release their own new music, while also releasing other artists, and have since become established in the ever-popular Afro House genre. They have also collaborated with some of the biggest current names in house music via releases with Adam Port and Keinemusik and Stil Vor Talent, and have featured guest spots with Re.You, Anja Schneider, Fred Everything and many others.
US Dates:
May 8 Dallas, TX Granada Theater
May 9 Austin, TX The Mohawk
May 11 Denver, CO Oriental Theater
May 12 Seattle, WA Crocodile
May 13 Portland, OR Holocene
May 15 Oakland, CA New Parish
May 17 Pasadena, CA Cruel World festival
Tickets for all dates are available from www.stereomcs.com
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