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Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca

Acting

Biography

Glenn Branca (born October 6, 1948 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume,alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Known For

I Need That Record!
6.5

Guerilla filmmaker Brendan Toller unleashes I NEED THAT RECORD! THE DEATH (OR POSSIBLE SURVIVAL) OF THE INDEPENDENT RECORD STORE, "an elegy for a vanishing subculture...a lively, bittersweet film that examines - with caustic humor, brutal candor, and, ultimately, great affection - why roughly 3,000 indie record stores have closed across the nation over the past decade," (Johnathan Perry, Boston Globe). A tour-de-force tale of greed, media consolidation, homogenized radio, big box stores, downloading, and technological shifts in the music industry told through candid interviews, crestfallen record store owners, startling statistics, and eye-popping animation. Fat cats or our favorite record stores? You decide. Featuring- IAN MACKAYE, NOAM CHOMSKY, MIKE WATT, THURSTON MOORE, LENNY KAYE (Patti Smith), CHRIS FRANTZ (Talking Heads), GLENN BRANCA, PATTERSON HOOD (Drive By Truckers), PAT CARNEY (Black Keys) , LEGS MCNEIL, BOB GRUEN, BP HELIUM, and many indie record stores across the U.S.

I Need That Record!

2008Movie
Silver Rockets Kool Things - 20 Years of Sonic Youth

This portrait of the New York band Sonic Youth marking the band’s 20th anniversary covers its history from the beginnings to today. Numerous video clips and films of live gigs as well as interviews with, and reminiscences of, collaborators over the years will be used to document the musical development of one of the most innovative and influential bands of the last two decades. Contemporaries include former mentor Glenn Branca, composer and conductor of guitar symphonies which had a seminal influence on participating musicians such as Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, who went on to become Sonic Youth’s guitarists. The band members‘ numerous creative arts projects and other musical activities – in particular improvised music – will be covered in depth.

Silver Rockets Kool Things - 20 Years of Sonic Youth

2000Movie
Rock My Religion

Rock My Religion is a provocative thesis on the relation between religion and rock music in contemporary culture. Graham formulates a history that begins with the Shakers, an early religious community who practiced self-denial and ecstatic trance dances. With the "reeling and rocking" of religious revivals as his point of departure, Graham analyzes the emergence of rock music as religion with the teenage consumer in the isolated suburban milieu of the 1950s, locating rock's sexual and ideological context in post-World War II America. The music and philosophies of Patti Smith, who made explicit the trope that rock is religion, are his focus. This complex collage of text, film footage and performance forms a compelling theoretical essay on the ideological codes and historical contexts that inform the cultural phenomenon of rock 'n' roll music.

Rock My Religion

1984Movie