George Smith, Village Voice, slithering over the beat like a for her in terror, “She said, It’s been said... July 6 2004 snake, then rhythm guitar, then ‘What road?’” David Fricke, , The blues have me by the Kidney’s thin voice, insisting on April 2004 throat, and the fingers are a that greenback suit until you Joe Cushley, Mojo It wasn’t all steel-mill Stooges man’s who lives in a cemetery. can see it walking down the 15-60-75 are one of the few out- action in 1970s . While Pere The band is tight, turns on a street as his lead guitar picks fits to have stamped generic R&B Ubu and were in the early dime. The Numbers, one gath- up the bass’s theme and flails with an original seal. At moments stages of mutation, 15.60.75 - ers, were the very definition of it like a whip. Across nearly 11 one catches strains of Santana a.ka. - terror- unpopular but committed. minutes, the performance is and The Doors in their polyrhyth- ized local saloons with a future all play and menace, all here mic blues effusions - but there blues of Sun Ra-style sax honk, Greil Marcus, Salon.com, and now, all origins erased, a is also a deeper, more esoteric raga-guitar spinout and funky July 7 2000 reach beyond the story to the imagination at work. Kidney is a “Sister Ray” surge: Bonnaroo in Cat-Iron a blues singer from willfulness in which it begins, Van Vliet on the distaff side, or a bottle, way ahead of schedule. Natchez, Miss. “Jimmy Bell” was a willfulness only a long, mean a less hung up David Byrne. His the Numbers’ wipeout piece, solo will turn up. By the time heady, poetic, lyrical marinades Brian Turner, New York Times, as much Bobby Darin’s “Mack Kidney returns to words Jimmy are spiced with harmonica from August 8 2004 the Knife” as Cat-Iron’s cryptic Bell has come and gone and Southside heaven - and horns The band offers an off-kilter crusader. Picking up on the bare come back again, and you’re on which can’t quite decide whether take on the blues somewhere syncopation in the Cat-Iron the next train out. “Up the road they’re playing a Stax revue or a between the styles of Captain version, the Numbers press the I’m going,” Jimmy Bell tells his free jazz freak-out. You will not Beefheart and Fred McDowell. rhythm right away, the bass wife. “She said,” Kidney shouts be disappointed.

The Inward City (Hearpen Records HR143) is the latest from 15-60-75 (aka The Num- bers Band), a group that can claim among its enthralled fans musicians as diverse as Frank Black, , , The Black Keys, , Devo, and anglo-progressive legend .

“The Numbers Band is the greatest band I’ve ever seen, will ever see, and can ever conceive of seeing,” wrote Pere Ubu’s David Thomas. “You have, of course, no reason to believe me.” So he offered a money back guarantee of satisfaction for anyone buying 15-60-75’s first album, Jimmy Bell’s Still In Town (Hearpen HR112). In 6 years there have been no takers for his refund offer. When he brought the band to London in 1998 as part of a 3-day festival he curated at the Royal Festival Hall, women were weeping in the aisles at the end of their set.

For 40 years, in a small town 40 play blues reimbued with meaning, blues, a form routinely approached miles south of Cleveland, Ohio, The purged and purified by flame, shorn as a compendium of formulas, this Numbers have kept the blues alive. of every superfluous moment, sound is startling, and it means that any Where the guardians of the form or word. Because their songs are change of personnel necessitates starved it of innovation, 15-60-75 compiled across a series of markers months of not just re-learning but nurtured abstract evolution. Where - words, sounds, phrases and pauses rewriting every song. It is a meth- the priests of Budweiser Blues - they don’t count measures and odology from another planet - Don droned old catechisms by rote, can’t outline the structure of their Van Vliet and Sun Ra come to mind. 15-60-75 aspired to vision. They own songs to an outsider. For the It is form dedicated to vision. The line-up of 15-60-75 consists of Robert Kidney (guitar, vocals), Jack Kidney (harp, sax, vocals), Terry Hynde (sax), Bill Watson (bass) and Frank Casamento (drums). (Pictured left to right: Frank Casamento, Terry Hynde, Jack Kidney, Robert Kidney and Bill Watson) Produced by Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, The Inward City is available as a download from iTunes and www.hearpen.com and on cd from Hearpen Records.

The Inward City Track Listing Battery B (4:12) From Me To You (5:47) Yonders Wall (5:51) Matchbox Defined (5:35) Thunderhead (5:41) The TellsusourVision (5:55) Nobody’s John (4:10) Coal Tattoo (4:43) Heavy Rain (6:33) References Photos for press use: http://ubuprojex.net/numberspix.html The Inward City: http://www.ubuprojex.net/hearpen/inwardcity.html Jimmy Bell’s Still In Town: http://www.ubuprojex.net/hearpen/jbell.html Numbers website: http://www.numbersband.com

mishap every time they tried to In the late 90s and early 00s Biography play out of town the band soon Robert and Jack Kidney featured in Robert Kidney (guitar, vocals) gave up bothering and was not to David Thomas’ theatrical produc- formed the band in 1969 in Kent, leave the Northeast Ohio area for tion, “Mirror Man,” which toured Ohio, a small college town between decades, settling into residencies in the UK and had premiere perfor- Cleveland and Akron. Two founder in the blues clubs of Cleveland, mances at London’s Royal Festival members of the band, brother Jack Akron, and Kent. A speakeasy in Hall and Los Angeles’ Royce Hall. Kidney (harp, sax, vocals) and Terry Youngstown is still the scene of Soon thereafter Jack Kidney re- Hynde (sax, flute), remain in the many of their greatest nights. corded on Frank Black’s “Rider Man” line-up to this day. The band estab- In the 80s Robert became a album and performed with him on lished a residency at a blues club in regular in ’s Golden Palo- the Conan O’Brian Show. Kent and soon gathered a large and minos band projects, recording and Robert Kidney was the subject fanatical following, among them touring along side , of a feature article on the cover of nearly every musician who would Richard Thompson, , the Wall Street Journal (January form the nucleus of the extraordi- T-Bone Burnett, and finally John 20 1999) in one of their series of nary Cleveland / Akron underground Lydon and . portraits. scene of the 70s. Robert and Jack’s side project, Recently Terry Hynde’s sister, In 1975 they recorded the live a duo called The Kidney Brothers, Chrissie, recorded one of Robert’s record, Jimmy Bell’s Still In Town. toured twice in the UK and twice in songs, “Rosalee,” for ’ Dogged by unnatural bad luck and Holland between 1997 and 2000. “Break Up The Concrete” album.