"Don Dietrich is a saxophonist and founding member of New York City based improvisational group, Borbetomagus. Recently, he has become involved with the noise/free jazz "supergroup" The New Monuments (with C. Spencer Yeh and Ben Hall)."

Multi-reedist Jim Sauter was born July 23, 1953 in Nyack, NY. He currently lives in Sparkill, NY. He is a primary member of Borbetomagus.

"Donald Miller was born on 7 May 1958 in Washington, DC, and raised in suburban Maryland. At age 13, he began formal guitar lessons. At 18, he moved to New York City, where he was educated at Columbia University's College and the School of Visual Arts, receiving a BFA from the latter in 1982. He remained in The City for a quarter century.

Miller entered the NYC New Music scene in 1978, already possessing a strong background in the avant-garde. His first regular band was the now cult-status group Sick Dick & the Volkswagens, which featured infamous critic/crooner Lester Bangs as an auxiliary member. In February 1979, Miller met and first played with saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich, giving immediate birth to Borbetomagus.

From 1984-99, Miller also worked closely with free jazz drummer William Hooker, in both duo and larger band formats. In this milieu, Miller met saxist Blaise Siwula, with whom he has worked in duo and trios with drummers Mike Evans, Jeff Arnal and Matt Hannafin, and the late synth guru Doug Walker.

In August 2001, Miller and his wife moved to New Orleans, four weeks ahead of the September 11 attack on NYC, and into a house 90+% unscathed by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There he formed The Death Posture with fellow guitarist Rob Cambre and Butoh dancer Vanessa Skantze in early 2002. This ensemble performed over two dozen butoh actions, later including dancer Alex Haverfield, in the Gulf Coast area, mostly to a stunned New Orleans, until late 2004 when Skantze and Haverfield took themselves and the name (with Miller's blessing) to Seattle. Miller and Cambre have continued to perform in solo and ensemble lineups, and gave two notable reunion performances with Vanessa in 2006."

"Jason Gross is a webmaster and a former teacher/nurse/Peace Corps volunteer, originally from Pompton Lakes, NJ, now residing in New York. He has been the editor/publisher of the acclaimed online music magazine Perfect Sound Forever since 1993. He is also a contributor to periodicals such as Village Voice, Spin, Yahoo! Internet Life, Real Blues, and Signal To Noise as well as the Musichound and Rough Guide to Rock book series. He has served as a moderator and panelist for the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas. In 2000, Ellipsis Arts released OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music, a three-CD box set which he produced and prepared the liner notes for, including pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Brian Eno, La Monte Young, and many others. Currently, he is working on getting reissues released of some of his favorite obscure bands (a long-time pet project). Though he has had the pleasure of doing countless interviews with many of his musical heroes, his proudest achievements have been serving as a roadie for the Sic F*cks and being the official photographer for the Lester Bangs tribute band."-Jason Gross

"Along with his work as part of the acclaimed art/punk rock band Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore [b. born July 25, 1958] also pursued numerous solo and side projects, including Even Worse and the Dim Stars with Richard Hell. His first solo album, 1994's Psychic Hearts, featuring ex-Half Japanese guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, had an appropriately offhand feel but was far from sloppy. Along with carrying Sonic Youth into the 2000s, Moore collaborated with artists including DJ Spooky and Nels Cline, wrote music reviews and other pieces for Arthur magazine, and issued a book, Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture, in 2005. His second song-based album, Trees Outside of the Academy, arrived in 2007, and featured largely acoustic arrangements and cameos by Shelley, Samara Lubelski, and Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis. In 2010, Moore guested on the Hat City Intuitive's A Ticket for Decay and began laying the foundation for another solo effort, Demolished Thoughts, which appeared the following year.

Following Moore's separation from bandmate, wife, and partner Kim Gordon in late 2011, Sonic Youth was put on indefinite pause. Nevertheless, Moore and Gordon collaborated with Yoko Ono the following year on the album YOKOKIMTHURSTON. By 2012, Moore had begun touring and recording with new act Chelsea Light Moving, as well as joining black metal group Twilight on guitar. The year 2013 saw the release of @, a collaborative album of sax/guitar improvisations with fellow N.Y.C. fringe dweller John Zorn. Arriving in 2014, The Best Day saw Moore shedding the softer acoustic moods of Demolished Thoughts for a return to his signature rock sprawl and daydreamy lyrics. Two years later, he issued the single "Feel It in Your Guts," which was available to anyone who donated to Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. For 2017's Rock n Roll Consciousness, Moore reunited with his backing band for The Best Day -- Sonic Youth drummer Shelley, My Bloody Valentine bassist Deb Googe, and Nought guitarist James Sedwards -- on a mystically inspired set of songs."

"Byron Coley is an American music critic who wrote prominently for Forced Exposure magazine in the 1980s, from the fifth issue until the magazine ceased publication in 1993. Prior to Forced Exposure, he wrote for New York Rocker, Boston Rock, and Take It! Coley is one of the first writers to have extensively documented indie rock from its inception to the present day. Coley was a contributing writer and the Underground Editor at Spin in the 1980s and '90s, and currently writes for Wire and Arthur with Thurston Moore. He also runs Ecstatic Yod, a record label and shop based in Florence, Massachusetts.

Coley has contributed liner notes to albums by the Flesh Eaters, Borbetomagus, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Big Boys, Yo La Tengo, John Fahey, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Flaherty/Corsano duo, Urinals, and numerous others. He has also appeared in documentaries about musical artists Half Japanese, Minutemen, Jandek, The Holy Modal Rounders and Borbetomagus, in each extolling the genius of the subject matter. When he wrote the Flesh Eaters' entry in the Spin Alternative Record Guide, Coley stated that he considers A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die the best rock album ever recorded. For the 2007 Deluxe Edition of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, he contributed to the liner notes with a reflective essay on the legendary album.

Coley is also a published poet and occasionally gives public readings of his (and others') works. He also wrote a biography of Chuck Norris that was published in 1986. He also published a quickie bio of Mötley Crüe under the pseudonym "Billy Dwight" (an in-joke).

In 2010, Coley became involved with Feeding Tube Records in Northampton, Massachusetts, a record store where he sells rare items from his personal collection.

In 2011, Coley published the first collection of his reviews, C'est la guerre : Early writings 1978-1983, in a bilingual edition put out by Montreal publisher L'Oie de Cravan."

"First spellbound by freely improvised music in the mid-1990s after witnessing performances by TEST, William Parker, Cecil Taylor, and others, Chris Corsano began a long-standing, high-energy partnership with Paul Flaherty in 1998. A move from western Massachusetts to the UK in 2005 led Corsano to develop an expanded solo music of his own, incorporating sax reeds, violin strings and bows, pot lids, and other everyday household items into his drum kit. In February 2006 he released his first solo recording, The Young Cricketer, and toured extensively throughout Europe, USA, and Japan. He spent 2007 and '08 as the drummer on Björk's Volta world tour, all the while weaving in shows and recordings on his days off with the likes of Evan Parker, Virginia Genta, and C. Spencer Yeh. Moving back to the U.S. in 2009, Corsano returned focus to his own projects, most notably a duo with Michael Flower, Rangda (with Sir Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny) and solo work, now revamped to include synthesizers and contact microphones in addition to his drum set and home-made acoustic instruments.

In addition to the those mentioned above, he's also worked with, among others: John Edwards (released by: Clean Feed/Dancing Wayang), Jim O'Rourke & Akira Sakata (Drag City/Family Vineyard), Paul Dunmall (ESP-Disk), Nels Cline (Strange Attractors), Jessica Rylan (Load Records), Jandek (Corwood), Sunburned Hand Of Man (Manhand), MV&EE (Eclipse/Time-Lag), Vampire Belt (Open Mouth), Joe McPhee (Roaratorio), and Wally Shoup (Leo/Columbia Japan)."

"Hijōkaidan (非常階段, emergency staircase) is a Japanese noise and free improvisation group with a revolving lineup that has ranged from two members to as many as fourteen in its early days. The group is the project of guitarist Jojo Hiroshige (JOJO広重), its one constant member, who is head and owner of the Osaka-based Alchemy Records. Other regulars include Jojo's wife Junko and Toshiji Mikawa (also of Incapacitants).

The group began at the very end of the 1970s as a performance art-based group whose anarchic shows would often involve destruction of venues and audio equipment, food and garbage being thrown around, and on-stage urination. As the group's lineup changed over time, their focus became less performance-based and more musically based, fine-tuning their sound into a dense wall of noise."