Eighty-pound Pug

Michael Durek has played theremin with Eighty-pound Pug.

Michael Durek is a multi-instrumentalist, sound designer and producer. He creates and performs electronic music as The Use, and also with the groups Pas Musique, George Sand, and collaborates with many others.

Since 2010, Durek has performed in seven countries and at some notable festivals including Upvan Arts in Thane, India (2014), CoCArt festival at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun Poland (Pas Musique), Avant Garde festival in Germany (Pas Musique), and Kunstzwerg festival in Zweibrucken , Germany (SK Orchestra and Pas Musique), and has toured across the West Coast USA as The Use. He actively performs in the NYC and NJ area, and has played at many venues including Harvestworks, Flux Factory, Central Booking, The Tank, Monkey Town, Public Assembly, Madame Claude, and Surreal Estate, Muchmore’s, Bizarre, and Spectrum.

Durek’s theremin playing has led him to play the US premiere the work “Icarus” with the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra in Spring 2013, written by composer Lera Auerbach. He also performed at the 2012 Queens Museum Biennial in Rachel Mason’s “Dear Unisphere” work, an In January 2014, to perform at the Upvan Arts Festival in Thane, a suburb of Mumbai India.

His sound design work has been commissioned by artist Laura Mylott Manning in her work, “Cut, Crumble, Grind” and he has done scoring and sound design for Rachel Mason’s full length feature film “The Lives of Hamilton Fish”, which was premiered June 2013 in Hong Kong at the Pineapple Underground Film Festival.

Durek has appeared on over 15 albums, and has a full length solo disc on the Alrealon Musique label called What’s The Use? which came out February, 2014. It has enjoyed airplay on BiP_HOp generation, WFMU, WRSU, Disc Delirium, and many other stations.

First Meetings

Spectrum Try-out