"Joe Morris was born in New Haven, Connecticut on September 13, 1955. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane's OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent most of his time day and night playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17. Drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the '70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston.

Between 1975 and 1978 he was active on the Boston creative music scene as a soloist as well as in various groups from duos to large ensembles. He composed music for his first trio in 1977. In 1980 he traveled to Europe where he performed in Belgium and Holland. When he returned to Boston he helped to organize the Boston Improvisers Group (BIG) with other musicians. Over the next few years through various configurations BIG produced two festivals and many concerts. In 1981 he formed his own record company, Riti, and recorded his first LpWraparound with a trio featuring Sebastian Steinberg on bass and Laurence Cook on drums. Riti records released four more LPs and CDs before 1991. Also in 1981 he began what would be a six year collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Lowell Davidson, performing with him in a trio and a duo. During the next few years in Boston he performed in groups which featured among others; Billy Bang, Andrew Cyrille, Peter Kowald, Joe McPhee, Malcolm Goldstein, Samm Bennett, Lawrence "Butch" Morris and Thurman Barker. Between 1987 and 1989 he lived in New York City where he performed at the Shuttle Theater, Club Chandelier, Visiones, Inroads, Greenwich House, etc. as well as performing with his trio at the first festival Tea and Comprovisation held at the Knitting Factory.

In 1989 he returned to Boston. Between 1989 and 1993 he performed and recorded with his electric trio Sweatshop and electric quartet Racket Club. In 1994 he became the first guitarist to lead his own session in the twenty year history of Black Saint/Soulnote Records with the trio recording Symbolic Gesture. Since 1994 he has recorded for the labels ECM, Hat Hut, Leo, Incus, Okka Disc, Homestead, About Time, Knitting Factory Works, No More Records, AUM Fidelity and OmniTone and Avant. He has toured throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe as a solo and as a leader of a trio and a quartet. Since 1993 he has recorded and/or performed with among others; Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Joe and Mat Maneri, Rob Brown, Raphe Malik, Ivo Pearlman, Borah Bergman, Andrea Parkins, Whit Dickey, Ken Vandermark, DKV Trio, Karen Borca, Eugene Chadborne, Susie Ibarra, Hession/Wilkinson/Fell, Roy Campbell Jr., John Butcher, Aaly Trio, Hamid Drake, Fully Celebrated Orchestra and others.

He began playing acoustic bass in 2000 and has since performed with cellist Daniel Levin, Whit Dickey and recorded with pianist Steve Lantner.

He has lectured and conducted workshops trroughout the US and Europe. He is a former member of the faculty of Tufts University Extension College and is currently on the faculty at New England Conservatory in the jazz and improvisation department. He was nominated as Best Guitarist of the year 1998 and 2002 at the New York Jazz Awards."

"Chris Dadge lives in Calgary, Alberta, where he works as a percussionist, producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, record label operator, and concert organizer.

As an improvising musician, Dadge has spent the bulk of his years playing percussion, developing a voice based on an increasingly open-ended variety of sound-generating objects, integrating found items, extreme tunings, and re-purposed strings. Massimo Ricci writes, "the almost perfect balance between skin, wood and metal-derived timbres is definitely cherished," and a review from Volcanic Tongue noted, "Dadge has a fleet, needling style that would transpose Milford Grave's multi-pulse work to a looser, more thought-paced setting, working in bursts of propulsion and single emphatic sound events." This underlying quest for a personalized vocabulary led to the broadening of the instrumental palette, adding violin, broken electronics, crude sampling, and various other small instruments to the list. The current realization of this approach can be heard in Dadge's solo work (on albums such as A Bird Is A Light Thing and What Comes After Dust) as well as with Scott Munro in the Bent Spoon Duo. The duo, which has been active for over a decade, "approach[es] improvisation from an anti-classicist stance, instead opting for a scrape and drape sound that finds the two moving between instruments and mood in rapid fire succession," (Ear-Conditioned Nightmare) and The Wire's Byron Coley calls it "splendid, low-bore Improv racket in the classic pots-and-pans style." Dadge plays regularly with guitarist Cody Oliver (as The MIdnighties) and saxophonist Jonathon Wilcke, and has worked with Peter Evans, Joe Morris, Eugene Chadbourne, Jack Wright, Chris Riggs, Eric Chenaux, Mats Gustafsson, Christian Munthe, Ellwood Epps, Chad van Gaalen, Bill Horist, Fossils/David Payne, John Oswald, and Colin Fisher.

The activities in improvised music were umbrella'd over a decade ago, under the name Bug Incision (www.bugincision.com), which is a concert series and record label run by Dadge. Over 50 critically acclaimed recordings and over 10 years' worth of near-monthly concerts have occurred.

Concurrent activities in the world of pop music have resulted in appearances on over 50 albums and recordings, and countless shows and tours with acts such as Lab Coast, Alvvays, Chad VanGaalen, Un Blonde, Samantha Savage Smith, Crystal Eyes, Pre Nup, Jon Mckiel, Gold, Chairs, Jay Crocker, Monty & The Beasts of Monty, Lorrie Matheson, Sandy Cassels, Jon Gant, Extra Happy Ghost, Faux Fur, You Are Minez, Laura Leif, Snailhouse, Thighs, Crests/A Relative Distance, Dolly Sillito, Woodpigeon, Embassy Lights, John Rutherford, Ryan Bourne, Kenna Burima, Mama Safari, Tariq, Aaron Booth, Clinton St. John, Vail Halen/Key To The City, and Chris Vail. He has also spent two years as a support musician for the Banff Centre Indie Band Residency, where he worked alongside the likes of Brendan Canning, Charles Spearin, Kathleen Edwards, Shaun Everett, and Nyles Spencer. With Scott Munro and Jay Crocker, in 2009, he also recorded a solo album, which is available online. He is currently playing drums with Samantha Savage Smith and Chad VanGaalen and bass in Pre Nup.

Dadge co-leads Lab Coast along with David Laing. The two write and record the as a duo, while the live band features Samantha Savage Smith, Darrell Hartsook (Pre Nup, The Gooeys, Sissys), and Henry Hsieh (Crack Cloud, Cold Water). Lab Coast has released two short albums, Wilding and Pictures on the Wall, three split EPs - with Extra Happy Ghost (a 7" on Saved By Vinyl), Friendo (a 7" on UK label Faux Discx), and Diamond Mind (a tape on Tranist) - and an EP, Editioned Houses, on Night People. Walking On Ayr, their third album, was released on CD in 2013 and LP in 2014. FFWD Weekly praised their "effortlessly appealing pop songs" and Exclaim! refers to the music as "short, deceptively simple drops of catchy-as-hell indie rock". Their fourth full-length, Remember The Moon, was released on April 29, 2016, and the Toronto Star said of it, "Lab Coast has grown so good at making a certain species of scuffed-up, small-scale psych-pop that the rest of Canada really no longer has any excuse not to pay attention." In May of 2017, Faux Discx issued a compilation LP of the band's firstg four albums, called Lab Coast, which AllMusicGuide calls "catchy lo-fi pop gems ... solid from start to finish".

Over the last few years, Dadge has developed a reputation as a recording engineer and producer in his home studio, 606, where he specializes in "mid-fi" productions, hybrid analong/digital recordings incorporating unorthodox recording techinques and diverse instrumentation. To date, his recordings of Calgary acts such as Empty Heads, Hex Ray, Ashley Soft, Crystal Eyes, Pre Nup, Dream Whip, Sunglaciers, and Samantha Savage Smith have been released.

From 2010-2013 Dadge was a member of Theatre Junction's Resident Company of Artists, composing and performing music for original creations Lucy Lost Her Heart and Sometime Between Now and When The Sun Goes Supernova, and a production of Martin Crimp's Attempts On Her Life. He composed two scores - POLKA(dots) (2015) and We All Need To Say GOODBYE/ADIOS (2013) - to the dance/multimedia performances of flamenco artist Rosanna Terraciano, and accompanied Montreal-based dancer/choreographer Katie Ward on theremin for her piece Reality 1."

"Jonathon Wilcke is a writer, saxophonist, composer, and scholar who has lived in Calgary, Anpachi-cho (Gifu, Japan) Vancouver, and Claresholm. He has published two books of poetry, Pornograph (Red Deer Press 2004) and Dupe! (Linebooks 2010) and the online collection Sonnets from *Some* Portuguese (Papertrail Press 2010). His poetry appears in journals and magazines including filling Station, Fiddlehead, dANDelion, W, Ampersand, and Poetry is Dead. He considers his writing as an exponent of the Oppen-Zukofsky-Stein-Tish-L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E-MacLow-KSW trajectory of poetics.

As a saxophonist, Wilcke's music ranges through strict compositions, free and structured improvisation, text-sound, and vocal accompaniment, in both solo and group situations. He plays regularly throughout Western Canada as a solo performer and in groups including Robots on Fire, ffffffft!, Mechanics Who Can Drive, and The Real Featuring the Unreal. His first solo recording, All Errors Included, will appear from UnCanadian Activities in the Spring of 2013.

Wilcke's compositional practice includes creating improvisational strategies and music for small ensembles as well as song/performance settings of contemporary and Modernist poetry by writers such as George Oppen, Louis Zukofsky, Harryette Mullen, William Carlos Williams, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Bernadette Meyer, and Jacqueline Turner for trios, quartets, and solo situations.

In Calgary between 1996-1998, Wilcke was a member of the filling Station collective as a fiction and poetry editor who also contributed reviews and poetry to the magazine. He co-hosted the CJSW radio literary interview program Audible Mutterings from 1996-1999. In Vancouver between 2004-2012, Wilcke was active as a collective member of the Kootenay School of Writing while being a regular performer at 1067 Granville, The Cellar, Fake Jazz at the Cobalt, Kozmic Zoo, and other music venues for improvised and outside music. During this period, he directed "The Pppoetry Band," a group consisting of Wilcke, Dave Chokroun (bass and vocals), Darren Williams (saxophone and vocals), and Nikki Reimer (vocals), which played Wilcke's settings of poetry, improvisational strategies generated out of poetic forms, and sound poetry scores by Jackson MacLow and The Four Horsemen."