Eugene Chadbourne/ Jim McHugh Duo and Samara Lubelski play Solo Live SEP 15 2023 at P.I.T.
P.I.T. is a community space, venue and infoshop supported by our sale of books and records*411 South 5th Street in Los Sures Williamsburg, Brooklyn*Wed-Sun 1-8pm
Eugene Chadbourne was born in Mount Vernon, New York, but grew up in Boulder, Colorado. He started playing guitar when he was eleven or twelve, inspired by the Beatles and hoping to get the attention of girls. Although he was drawn to Jimi Hendrix and played in a garage band, he found rock and pop music too conventional. He gravitated to the avant-garde jazz of Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey. Braxton persuaded Chadbourne to abandon his intention to enter journalism and instead pursue music. During the early 1970s, he lived in Canada to avoid military service in the Vietnam War. Returning to the United States, he moved to New York City in the mid 1970s and played free improvisation with Henry Kaiser and John Zorn. Around this time, he released his first album, Solo Acoustic Guitar. In the early 1980s, he led the avant-rock band Shockabilly with Mark Kramer and David Licht. Chadbourne explored other genres, playing with a Cajun band and a Russian folk band at a festival in Winnipeg. He mixed country, Western, and improvisation in the band LSD C&W. For many years he was in a duo with Jimmy Carl Black, who played drums for Frank Zappa. He has also worked with Han Bennink, Fred Frith, Elliott Sharp, and Charles Tyler. A solo album, Songs (Intakt, 1993), featured politically oriented originals, such as “Knock on the Door” and “Hello Ceausescu”, and covers, such as Nick Drake’s “Thoughts of Mary Jane”, and Floyd Tillman’s “This Cold War With You”. Chadbourne invented an instrument known as the electric rake by attaching an electric guitar pickup to a rake. He played a duet of electric rake and classical piano with Bob Wiseman on Wiseman’s 1991 album Presented by Lake Michigan Soda. He also played the instrument on a Sun Ra tribute album.
From the Farney drumlins of Co. Monaghan, Ireland, multi-instrumentalist Jim McHugh brings a new edge to the folk tradition, blending traditional and indie styles with up-tempo beats. In 2017 he drew upon his past and recent musical experiences to record an album of new songs entitled ‘Noise Machine’, nicely summed up by Pete Whalley as ‘Indie folk-driven rock that has a vibrant beating heart’. Jim’s second album ‘My Nuclear Radio’ followed in 2019. This 11 track album included the singles Avenue Road, Marjorie, Everything’s Cool and My Mandalay and was recorded, produced and mastered in Ben Reel’s studio in South Armagh. My Mandalay featured on the ‘RTÉ RADIO 1 recommends’ playlist in Nov/Dec 2019, and was the ‘LMFM All Out Local Song Choice’ for March 2019. Single Everything’s Cool was Roddie Cleere’s ‘Song of the Week’ on KCLR in August 2018 while Avenue Road and Marjorie were widely played at home and abroad. In 2020, Jim released ‘Should Have Lied’ which was premiered by Hotpress Magazine and received multiple airplay nationally and internationally. In 2021, Jim released ‘Pretending To Wake Up’ and featured singles ‘Dave’, ‘Hey Jimbo’ and ‘Her Love’. Jim’s songs have been premiered by Hotpress and received national and international radio play.