75 Dollar Bill
Friday, September 22nd, 2023 | 7pm Doors / 8pm Show
Joe’s Cafe ( 6014 Kingsbury Ave, 63112 / map )
Che Chen – electric guitar
Rick Brown – percussion
“In the world of 75 Dollar Bill, the blues is also a parent, but the spirited offspring – a seamless, unpredictably mutating union of desert blues, global sounds, reined-in improvisation, scruffy psychedelia and John Lee Hooker-derived boogie – proves impossible to define.”
75 Dollar Bill is one of the most influential groups in NYC’s current underground. Driven by the telepathic union of Che Chen’s microtonal electric guitar and Rick Brown’s odd metered percussion work, their long-form approach and sound is unmistakable and compelling.
Formed in 2012 in NYC by Brown and Chen, the duo’s unique sound pits elemental rhythms against ecstatic, modal electric guitar work. While Brown and Chen are always at the band’s core, they frequently draw on an extended family of players, both live and on recordings, from trios to “little big band,” to 25-piece marching band.
After touring extensively following the release of their excellent 2019 album, I Was Real, 75 Dollar Bill dropped a few live recordings on Bandcamp earlier this year, including recent ones from late 2019 (Live at Cafe OTO) and February 2020 (Live at Tubby’s). The latter set fleshes out their hypnotic music with a mix of brass, viola and other accompaniments. Their more subdued side comes through on the Cafe OTO recording, which boasts the addition of an upright bass.
In their music, 75 Dollar Bill has created an intimate language, drawn from the fringes of their musical experiences, alluding to everything from Arabic wedding songs, to distorted No Wave skronk, to some unadulterated Mississippi juke-joint shuffle. Their songs often congeal into cyclical patterns with a raw, jagged minimalism and a locomotive pace, as they build to hypnotic intensity.
Bandcamp
