We’ve had our eye on 75 Dollar Bill since catching their Trans-Pecos show back in June. Since then, they’ve delivered an impressive run of summer performances, including a weeklong series with special guests at Troost in Greenpoint last week. In terms of useful information or praise, I can’t do better than our previous review, but I’ll add that the band got name-dropped among Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo’s influences in a recent New York Times piece, if that moves the needle for you. The experimental duo of Che Chen on guitar and Rick Brown on homemade percussion and horns conjures what you might’ve heard checking out a blues artist in an old-time juke joint in the early 20th century — if that blues artist had somehow been able to take a trip to the future and learn about punk rock. That Kaplan himself described their sound as unlike anything he had heard before should tell you something about how cleverly this band merges the familiar and the experimental without a lot of bells and whistles to their stage setup.
This set at Mercury Lounge, opening for Eleventh Dream Day and Antietam, was mostly different from the June show, with only “Water In the Lock” repeated. The set opened with a sharp, untitled blues number, followed by “Beni Said,” which we hadn’t heard before. After another rollicking untitled jam, the band closed with “Water In the Lock,” similar to the version we heard at the Trans-Pecos show. While we’re bummed to have missed the Troost shows the following week, we’re very excited to see what 75 Dollar Bill does next.
I recorded this set with a soundboard feed from Dave Lefcourt, together with Schoeps MK41V microphones. While there are a few brief sounds of me setting up on the first track, the overall sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!
Download the complete set: [MP3/FLAC]
Stream the complete set:
75 Dollar Bill
2015-08-21
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY USA
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack
Soundboard (engineer: Dave Lefcourt) + Schoeps MK41V (PAS)>KCY>Z-PFA>>Roland R-26>2×44.1kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (mix down, compression, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, imaging)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )
Tracks
01 Untitled (9)
02 Beni Said
03 Untitled (5)
04 Water in the Lock
Support 75 Dollar Bill: Bandcamp | Buy Wooden Bag from Other Music Recording Co.
thanks! for a genre, I called them “avant dirty blues” ;)