75 Dollar Bill

75 Dollar Bill

75 Dollar Bill is a Brooklyn-based duo active since 2012. The group consists of Rick Brown and Che Chen, and its music is generally described as jam band and psychedelic rock, with a strong emphasis on instrumental performance and microtonal guitar work.

Formation and line-up

The duo forms in 2012, bringing together Brown on percussion and Chen on guitar and other instruments. Brown is formerly of V-Effect and Curlew, and Chen is formerly of True Primes. Brown also works as a singer and electronic music-maker, and Chen is based in Brooklyn and Stony Brook, New York.

Music and performance style

75 Dollar Bill develops a sound built around Brown’s rhythm playing on a plywood crate and Chen’s abstract guitar lines. Chen often uses a custom quarter-tone guitar, which places the music in a modal, microtonal range. The duo plays a style that shifts between ecstatic dance rhythms and slow, polyrhythmic trance pieces, drawing on early electric blues, West African modal traditions, music from India and the Middle East, Sun Ra’s space-chord approach, and the minimalist and No Wave history of New York.

The group also begins with an intense local live schedule, playing rock clubs, DIY spaces, weddings and street performances, and it gains a reputation in New York for immersive live shows. On stage, the project often expands beyond the core duo, ranging from trio performances with saxophone to a 25-piece marching band.

Recordings and collaborations

After a series of self-produced cassette and digital releases, 75 Dollar Bill issues its first LP, Wooden Bag, on Other Music Recording Company. Its second album, WOOD / METAL / PLASTIC / PATTERN / RHYTHM / ROCK, appears on Thin Wrist Recordings in 2016 and features a more layered ensemble sound, with string and horn collaborators extending the duo’s core approach. In 2019, I Was Real expands further into a larger ensemble line-up.

Related work

Outside 75 Dollar Bill, Rick Brown performs solo as brownout and has been part of a number of New York groups and duos, including Blinding Headache, Run On, Inconvenient Music with Mark Howell, Les Batteries with Guigou Chenevier, and the long-running Two Mule Team with Sue Garner. Che Chen plays guitar, violin, tape recorders and other musical and non-musical objects, and has collaborated with improvisers in the US and Japan including David Watson, Amirtha Kidambi, Jozef Van Wissem, Tetuzi Akiyama, Chie Mukai and Tori Kudo. He also runs Black Pollen Press, which releases Catherine Lamb’s shade/gradient.