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Tracking the Odds: 75 Dollar Bill (Audio)

Jun 23, 2025
Produced by Roulette Intermedium.

75 Dollar Bill was formed in 2012 by percussionist Rick Brown and guitarist Che Chen. Brown’s earthy, elemental rhythms, played on a deeply resonant plywood crate, are both the foundation and foil for Chen’s searchingly abstract playing, often using a custom quarter tone guitar. The duo’s electric, richly patterned music can shape shift from ecstatic dance tunes to slowly changing polyrhythmic trance minimalism, an uncategorizable hybrid which draws on early electric blues, the modal traditions of West Africa, India, and contemporary experimental music. Here the duo is joined by Sue Garner, electric bass; Cheryl Kingan, saxes; Andrew Lafkas, contrabass; Steve Maing, guitars, sax; Jim Pugliese, percussion; Karen Waltuch, viola; Barry Weisblat, field drum, electronics. Recorded at the Roulette concert hall in Brooklyn in 2017.

"Tracking The Odds: The Roulette Concert Archive" is a monthly hour-long radio special produced by Roulette Intermedium 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.

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. Its archive of thousands of audio and video recordings is currently being restored.