Friday, October 12, 2007

Now this is something I wish I'd seen....


As urban guerrilla sounding in it's own way as Throbbing Gristle, drum 'n' bass or techno, Glenn Branca has always produced some awe-inspiring music. My particular favourites are 'Lesson No.1 for Electric Guitar' and 'The Ascension', in which you can hear the endless oscillating strands of sound that come from multiple guitars. Presumably an orchestra of one hundred guitars at once would produce endless micro-tonal possibilities? I actually think that the two tracks by him mentioned above sort of predate genres like shoegazing and post-rock that we've become used to. There's not a huge difference between the tracks and some of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's work, for example. Or Seefel's 'Quiqe'. Anyway, this gig is something I wish I'd went to, along with the Boredoms gig in New York, in a park with 77 drummers on the 7th July 2007, at 7pm, which would perfectly fit their frenzied drum incantations:

Sadly, though, I couldn't go to Branca, due to relocating this weekend to a new house near Walthamstow Dog Tracks of all places, where my famous neighbours will include Blazin' Squad, Daniella Westbrook (her of the nose sans septum), Teddy Sheringham, and - of course - Brian Harvey. Exactly how I've gone from Glenn Branca to Brian Harvey in one post I don't know. Still, Branca's playing two sets at the Portishead ATP in December (including one set with 'special guests' - no doubt Thurston Moore will be among them, as he's doing a solo set too), so will catch him then.

1 comment:

Chart Smart said...

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