Glenn Branca Ensemble & Paranoid Critical Revolution played Le Poisson Rouge on 9/11 -pics

photos by Lori Baily

I first heard [Glenn Branca's] music for (mostly) electric guitars and drums, back in the '80s, when it was so new and strong it swept me away. Of course, at LPR he couldn't have 100 guitars, as he has in his symphonies, and had (or some number like that) when I heard him last, between the World Trade Center towers, obviously before 9/11. (A pang of nostalgia and history. I heard him now on 9/11 -- my way, I think, of marking the anniversary.)

But the music was strong, and sat, vollume-wise, just on the good side of hearing loss. And it hadn't changed since the '80s. Nor had Glenn. More nostalgia. The shock of the once-new, coming from the then-shocking insert of rock into classical music...the presence (as the electric guitar music builds from the simplest repeated elements) of minimalism, as the unavoidable dominant style...those things still lived in the music, put into it back in the '80s, and still ringing out with full '80s force.

What I liked most: Knowing that much of the music resides in the overtones, listening not to the notes the guitars played, but to the cloud of sound above and around those notes, hearing sound like a dark gray stone wall, pitted and fissured, with new fissures showing up every few moments. That's not the '80s. That's timeless. -Greg Sandow

Glenn Branca Ensemble played at (Le) Poisson Rouge on September 11th with an opening set from (ensemble members) Paranoid Critical Revolution. Glenn's "conducting" is physical to say the least, and it looks like they put up some kind of barrier to keep him from falling off the stage. That didn't stop his glasses from flying into the crowd though (a crowd that included an injured Lee Ranaldo in a cast).

Glenn Branca Ensemble will again perform from the album-in-progress THE ASCENSION: THE SEQUEL on October 17th at Issue Project Room. Tickets are on sale.

More pictures from LPR are below...