Geff Cassuto
this band changed my life in the darkest hours ive known and they continue to remake themselves, the world, and me. Thank you, Nadha Brahma
Favorite track: Interlude #3 / Nourathar (with Space Chord).
CH
each live album more ecstatic than the last. #3 @7:00 made me wanna cry. i can’t thank you enough for giving me this experience.
Favorite track: Interlude #3 / Nourathar (with Space Chord).
Well, the 2020 coronavirus pandemic is still deviling us all and, while Che and I have yet to play together again since March, we're still digging up what we think are worthy recordings from the archives. Here's a concert we did at Roulette in Brooklyn in Spring of 2017. It was the first time we found ourselves playing a room and situation that lent themselves to our largest “stage band”, this time with nine players! We prepared some new material for the expanded instrumentation and schemed a way to use the room's structure to allow a bit of the marching band action many of us had participated in when we helped celebrate/mourn Other Music when the store was forced to close a year earlier. The concert also included a few opportunities for some of the musicians to “let go” in ways they don't often explore when playing with us.
This package begins and ends with versions of songs we've released on our “official” recordings: “Like Laundry” starts the set in duo mode (speaking of “letting go”, my funnel horn is pushing the “harmony” pretty far in the introduction here, with Che valiantly adjusting his approach.) The final “I'm Not Trying to Wake Up” follows the structure of the studio recording with Cheryl Kingan's crucial baritone sax riffs illuminating the rhythm, but also has the denouement we've developed over the years of playing with this gang: Jim Pugliese laying wild counter-rhythms over my basic crate patterns and the fade to massed shakers over the 18-beat pattern. Along the way, Karen Waltuch takes a blazing solo turn over Che's 2nd section strumming. Between these two “oldies”, the band helps us try all sorts of things. [Titles may tip you off that one or another of us is thinking of Le Sony'r Ra, Norma-Jean Wofford and Mary Hallock-Greenewalt.] Sue Garner and Barry Weisblat work with Karen on one interlude/intro, which leads into the marching section mentioned above. Andrew Lafkas' upright bass dominates the other “interlude”, with Steve Maing and Che on electric guitars beneath, which introduces “Nourathar (with Space Chord)”. I'm pleasantly surprised by the way tempos and meters work out on this one – it actually kinda swings, could this be a mazurka?
-rick brown
credits
released October 2, 2020
75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band
Live at Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn, NY
March 27, 2017
Like Laundry
Rick Brown: homemade horns, maracas
Che Chen: quarter tone electric guitar
Interlude #2
Sue Garner: electric bass
Karen Waltuch: viola
Barry Weisblat: signal processing, Casio sk-1
(His Sister, Otherwise Known As) The Duchess
Rick Brown: plywood crate, percussion, vuvuzela
Che Chen: soprano saxophone, 12-string electric guitar
Sue Garner: snare drum
Cheryl Kingan: baritone saxophone, cowbell, bass drum
Andrew Lafkas: bass drum, contrabass
Steve Maing: alto saxophone, electric guitar
Jim Pugliese: tom tom, percussion
Karen Waltuch: alto saxophone, viola
Barry Weisblat: field drum
Interlude #3
Andrew Lafkas: contrabass
Che Chen: electric guitar
Steve Maing: electric guitar
Nourathar (with Space Chord)
Rick Brown: plywood crate
Che Chen: 12-string electric guitar, soprano saxophone
Sue Garner: electric bass
Cheryl Kingan: alto saxophone
Andrew Lafkas: contrabass
Steve Maing: electric guitar
Jim Pugliese: tom tom, congas, percussion
Karen Waltuch: viola
Barry Weisblat: Casio sk-1, electronics
I'm Not Trying to Wake Up
Rick Brown: plywood crate
Che Chen: 12-string electric guitar
Sue Garner: electric bass
Cheryl Kingan: baritone saxophone
Steve Maing: electric guitar
Jim Pugliese: floor tom
Karen Waltuch: viola
Almost Everyone: maracas
Live sound and Recording by Stephe Cooper
Editing, Mix and Cover Design by Che Chen
Mastered by Steve Silverstein
Liner Notes by Rick Brown
75 Dollar Bill was formed in 2012 in NYC by Rick Brown and Che Chen. Played on a deeply resonant plywood crate, Brown’s
elemental rhythms are the foundation and foil for Chen’s ecstatic, modal guitar style. While Brown and Chen are always at the band’s core, they frequently draw on an extended family of players live and on record, from trios to “little big band” to 25-piece marching band....more
supported by 106 fans who also own “Live at Roulette”
Bright gray sheets of roaring and shimmering guitar held aloft by a delicate web of percussion. Post-rock, shoegaze, psych- rock and hints of bluesy folk, all audible and enmeshed. IlsaJ