Sim Cain is probably best known as the drummer for the Rollins Band. Despite an exhaustive touring and recording schedule during the late eighties and nineties he managed to establish long term musical and personal relationships with the likes of (composer / guitarists) Marc Ribot, Elliot Sharp, and David Poe. He has appeared on recordings and/or in concert with Tbone Burnette, Zakir Hussain,Ween, John Zorn, Zeena Parkins, Annie Gosfield, David Shea and many other “downtown” artists. In the mid eighties he was a member of the L.A. noise/rock band Gone (with guitarist Gregg Ginn of Black Flag) before forming the Rollins Band with vocalist Henry Rollins in 1987. That band went on to have a gold record and a Grammy nomination in a string of unlikely mainstream success. In the nineties he had a project of his own called Hand Job which included a revolving door of who’s who New York new music musicians of the time. Over the past few years he has toured with blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin ( Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters) in a group that sometimes included David Johansen (New York Dolls) and “Roots Rock super group” Golden Smog . He has performed  and recorded around the world including projects in Haiti and this past winter  Bali, Indonesia where he studied the baliphone-like rindik.

Nick Didkovsky – Stink Up! (2003) [World Premiere]

full ensemble

PERSONNEL
Trumpet – Shane Endsley, Russ Johnson

Josh Frank

French Horn – Mike Atkinson, Ann Ellsworth, Mark Taylor

Trombone – Joe Fiedler, Chris McIntyre

Bass Trombone – Jacob Garchik, Dave Nelson

Tuba – Ron Caswell

Percussion - Garrett Brown

Conductor - Greg Evans

 www.tiltbrass.org

TILT Brass’ New York Noise series presents compositions and improvising strategies developed within the singular musical culture of Downtown NYC during the past 30 years.  By the late 70′s, “Downtown Music” referred to several strains of activity in New York such as minimalist tendencies in the classic SoHo Scene, the post-punk severity of No Wave bands, and the improvisational abandon of the Loft Jazz scene. As the 80′s progressed, a natural blending of these performance practices gave rise to a sort of Post-Modern hybridity still highly influential on the “new music” community today.

The musicians of TILT are direct descendants of these historical “local” traditions, continuing to evolve and mutate inherited aesthetic DNA, often along side important legacy artists.  When possible, the group works directly with composers to adapt older works and/or create new ones for its innovative instrumentation(s), striving to expose and reinvigorate this important musical legacy.

New York-based TILT Brass is a collective of creative brass and percussion artists that has presented concerts throughout the city since 2003. Many of the musicians who participate in TILT projects are leaders in their field, such as trumpeters Russ Johnson and Nate Wooley, trombonists Joe Fiedler and Curtis Hasselbring, horn player John Clark, and percussionist Kevin Norton. The group’s repertoire features over a dozen works custom designed for its two projects, the 10-piece Creative Brass Band and 6-piece SIXtet. The latter, with duos of trumpet, trombone, and tuba, features Johnson, Wooley, Hasselbring and TILT Director Chris McIntyre on trombone, and Joe Exely and John Altieri on tuba. 

>This ever-evolving list of idiosyncratic pieces being created for both ensembles includes works by important voices in the avant jazz and experimental concert music fields, including Anthony Coleman, John King, Chris Jonas, Taylor Ho Bynum, and group members Norton and McIntyre, among others. Coleman’s work Set Into Motion, premiered by the Brass Band in 2005, was released on the composer’s acclaimed Tzadik CD Pushy Blueness in August ’06. In addition to original works, TILT presents many pieces from the experimental tradition. Programs have featured historical compositions such as a Varése graphic score from the late 50′s and selections from James Tenney’s Postal Pieces, epochal works from the 70′s by Fredric Rzewski (Les Mounton de Panurge) and early John Adams (Light Over Water), and contemporary works by Elliott Sharp and Lois V. Vierk (June ’09).

Over its 6 year history, a number of vital New York venues have presented TILT Brass projects such as the Whitney Museum, BAM Café, Joe’s Pub, Issue Project Room, and Tonic. In December ’06, TILT SIXtet joined forces with Chris McIntyre’s group Lotet (collectively known as LoTILT) at Roulette Intermedium to premiere his folio score Metaxis.The Creative Brass Band presented two nights of original repertoire at The Stone in June ’07. Entitled ALL TILT, these important events included the premiere of new works by Curtis Hasselbring and Nate Wooley,composer/performer members of TILT, and by multi-instrumentist Charles Waters and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum. Recent SIXtet performances include a Febuary ’08 set during Issue Project Room’s Horn Week (featuring Santa Fe-based saxophonist and composer Chris Jonas) and an October ’08 presentation on Composer Collaborative’s Serial Underground at Cornelia Street Café.