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 supergroup” 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.
Here he appears in a solo context “because the IPR asked me when I had been coincidentally considering the drum kit in a solo context” followed by a set with bass legend and ethnomusicologist (as well as former Rollins Band mate) Melvin Gibbs.