Glenn Branca Bombs London, Oct. 12
Months ago, Mike Watt sent out to his email list, of which I am a lucky member, a call for interested parties to join left-field conductor Glenn Branca's guitar armada. Since I'm too undisciplined for Branca, I sent the email onto Morphizm contributor and Space Team Electra brainiac Myshel Prasad, who signed on with Branca and devastated, of all places, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles with a noise assault built of over 80 guitarists and 20 bassists. I heard it was a blast. No really, I heard it all the way from Santa Monica. OK, I'm kidding, but London is not. They've welcomed Branca and his bizarro orchestra into town for an Oct. 12 performance of Branca's Symphony No 13, also known as "Hallucination City," which boasts, as this Times UK article points out, the power of a "nuclear weapon." Branca's quotes are awesome:
On "Hallucination City:" "This is not just about 100 Jimmy Pages getting up there and jamming or something; this is very much an orchestra...Every beat of every damn measure is written down and conducted. It’s just an orchestra that’s about ten times as loud as any you’ve ever heard in your life."
On his work: "I am the most pretentious person on the face of the Earth, but I’ve always tried to make powerful artistic statements, confronting the audience in what I thought of as a Brechtian way – that idea of the alienation effect...My music isn’t for everybody; it’s not pop music by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve always done things that I would like to go and see. I like things that are going to challenge me, things that are going to fuck with my perception. As it turned out, in New York and elsewhere, I’ve met a hell of a lot more people who are like me."
Don't miss this show for the world. Your ears will recover. Here's Branca's site for more. Duck and cover!
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