75 Dollar Bill: 75 Dollar Bill formed in New York City in 2012; the singular music of this instrumental duo draws various sources from around the world and across disciplines, everything from Mauritanian guitar to raw minimalism and blown-out urban blues, yet sounds unlike anything we’ve heard before. Wooden Bag is their debut vinyl release (after various cassette and digital EPs) and first for Other Music Recording Co., packaged in a limited-edition hand-stamped sleeve, download included. The band will be touring the US throughout the winter and spring. Che Chen has recorded and toured playing violin, guitars and other instruments, with a diverse set of artists including True Primes, Jozef van Wissem, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Che-Shizu and Robbie Lee. His guitar work explores a variety of influences, including Mauritanian guitar, Indian music, North Mississippi guitar boogie, Sun Ra, Led Zeppelin, the Velvets, Henry Flynt, and DNA. Rick Brown has been playing drums and percussion on the downtown New York scene since the early ‘80s, and has recorded and toured with numerous bands, including V-Effect, Run On, Timber, Fish & Roses, and Chris Stamey, and has collaborated live or in the studio with Tortoise, Matmos, Yo La Tengo, Charles Hayward, Fred Frith, Malcolm Mooney, Elliott Sharp, Jean Smith, Mark Cunningham and many others. In The New York Times, Ben Ratliff wrote of the duo’s live show: “Che Chen’s guitar: a cut-rate Japanese model sketching looped figures inside old Arabic modes, pushing jagged sound through a small amplifier. But as Mr. Chen stood playing hypnotic guitar repetitions, moving with the stresses of the riffs, the drummer Rick Brown sat on a square wooden box, open in the back, and attacked it from above. Sometimes he used his heel to bounce on a kick-drum pedal, pointing backward toward the box; mostly he was striking the sides of the box with his hands and a homemade mallet, hard, finding different pitches in different places. He cued transitions in the music, building odd or compound rhythms, turning them around and blurring distinctions between downbeats and upbeats. On the surface, the rhythms were only secondary to the guitar lines; deeper down, they were enfolded. One couldn’t do without the other.” Tyler Damon & Darin Gray: “Tyler Damon and Darin Gray had their first earthly encounter in early 2012 and patiently began to develop a rapport over several live dates in the American Midwest, eventually culminating in their first recording session in Darin’s hometown of Edwardsville, IL in the Autumn of 2014. The result was “Oninbo,” a recording that has, perhaps unintentionally, evoked an abstract narrative of the ‘Implacable Man’ trope, conjuring feelings of foreboding doom, exhausting, cathartic intensity and eerie calm via electro-acoustic free-improvisation and an aggregate of disparate personal influences. This drums/percussion and electric bass/percussion duo is the latest of several such collaborations for Darin, having performed for many years as On Fillmore (with Glenn Kotche) and Chikamorachi (with Chris Corsano); However, Damon and Gray confidently stand apart in the present with a nod toward the future. Their second full-length release, “For Four,” is due out in mid-November, 2015.” Darin Gray is best known as Jim O’Rourke’s go-to bassist for nearly 20 years, as half of the duo On Fillmore (with Glenn Kotche of Wilco), and as the bassist for Tweedy, Grand Ulena, Dazzling Killmen, Yona-Kit (with K.K. Null, Thymme Jones & Jim O’Rourke), Akira Sakata & Chikamorachi, You Fantastic!, and Brise-Glace. As an improviser he has performed and recorded with among others: Loren Connors, Bill Horist, Rafael Toral, Jim Becker, Robert Beatty, Tim Barnes, Chris Corsano, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Joshua Abrams, Tyler Damon, Nels Cline, Michael Zerang, Raglani, Dave Rempis, Rafael Toral, Akira Sakata, Dave Stone, Jeb Bishop, Yamashita Yosuke, Tatsuya Yoshida, Michiyo Yagi, Ghost Ice, Alan Wilkinson, Jason Roebke, Tatsuya Nakatani, Axel Dorner, George Cartright, Kevin Drumm, Alan Licht, Rob Mazurek, Gene Coleman, Glenn Kotche, Jim Baker, Michael Colligan, Weasel Walter, Konono No.1, Brain Transplant, Steve Dalachinsky, Thollem Mcdonas, Eric Hall, Jim O’Rourke, Ikue Mori, Illusion of Safety, Mars Williams, Brian Labysz, Jason Soliday, Raw Thug, William Tyler, etc… As a session bassist he has played on recordings by & performed live with Will Oldham, Cheer-Accident, James Toth/Wooden Wand, Rope, Yoshimi P-We, Bobby Conn, Daneilson Family, Gastr Del Sol, Domenico Lancellotti (from the Brazilian band +2), Early Day Miners, Bunnygrunt, Jim O’Rourke, etc… He has toured extensively in the United States, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Russia, and Europe. Tyler Damon (b. 1987, Cincinnati, OH USA) is a Bloomington, Indiana based artist whose work aims to reveal obscured and untold narratives via drums/percussion & free improvisation. Operating primarily as a soloist, Tyler is also currently involved in duo exhibitions with guitarist Tashi Dorji (Bhutan/Asheville, NC) and bassist Darin Gray (St. Louis/Edwardsville, IL), as well as the recently formed Chicago free jazz outfit the Mars Williams Quartet. Often recognized for his contributions to the shapeshifting outfit Open Sex and punk outliers Lech, other collaborators have included Mars Williams, Ken Vandermark, Little Howlin’ Wolf, Nathan Warrick (as Canned Hamms Blues Band), Chris Trull (Grand Ulena, Yowie), Kent Kessler, Peter Maunu, Brian Sandstrom, Steve Marquette, Kevin Harris, Mark Hosler (Negativland), Keith Jost, Matt Shuff, Curt Oren, Matthew Schneider (Moon Bros), Muyassar Kurdi, Circuit des Yeux, Sir Deja Doog’s Love Coffin and Sitar Outreach Ministry, among others.”

Cost: $7

For more information contact:

(812) 334-2080
[email protected]