Eugene Chadbourne: Crude Gene Mannipuappalachian.

The guitarist and free styling provocateur Eugene Chadbourne with his renegade rockabilly noise band recorded at Roulette on December 10, 1994. Featuring Chadbourne on banjo, guitar, voice; Barry Mitterhof, mandolin; Bob Jordan, home made instruments; and Charles Rosina, electronic effects. Portions of this concert were released on Leo Records in 1999 as Worms With Strings.

Chadbourne’s early musical influences were Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey. During the early 1970s, he lived in Canada to avoid military service in the Vietnam War and later moved to New York City where he got involved in free improvisation with Henry Kaiser and John Zorn and launched an unconventional rockabilly band named Shockabilly with Mark Kramer and David Licht. Chadbourne explored other genres, playing with a Cajun band and a Russian folk band; mixed country, Western, and improvisation in the band LSD C&W; and was in a duet with Jimmy Carl Black, who played drums for Frank Zappa. He has also worked with Han Bennink, Fred Frith, Elliott Sharp, and Charles Tyler.

Tracking The Odds: The Roulette Concert Archive is a monthly hour-long radio special produced by Roulette Intermedium (roulette.org) and broadcast in partnership with Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM. The broadcasts feature selected highlights from Roulette’s New York experimental music space dating from the early 1980s to the present. Thousands of rare, formative, and often unheard recordings by innovators and adventurous musicians populate the archive. Tracking The Odds airs the third Thursday of each month at 1am and is archived at wavefarm.org.

Founded in 1978, Roulette operates a 400-seat concert hall on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn with a focus on experimental and unorthodox music and performance across all genres and media. It's archive of thousands of audio and video recordings is currently being restored.

Pictured: A screening, reading, and performance for Henry Hills' film "Money" at Roulette (1985) with dancer Pooh Kaye surrounded by (L-R) John Zorn, Tom Cora, Ciro Baptiste, (obstructed, possibly Sally Silvers), Abigail Child, Diane Ward, Susie Timmons, Alan Davies, Bruce Andrews, Ikue Mori, Jim Staley, Butch Morris. Photo: Lona Foote.