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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

The Belly of an Architect
6.8

Stourley Kracklite, a driven, detail-obsessed architect, travels from America to Rome with his much younger wife, Louisa, to oversee an architectural homage to a personal hero, 18th-century master builder Etienne-Louis Boullée. En route by train, Stourley and Louisa conceive a much-wanted child — but Stourley's obsession with his wife's expanding belly, her perceived infidelity, and his own recurrent bouts of abdominal pain reach epic and dangerous proportions.

The Belly of an Architect

1987
Kill Your Idols
7.5

A 2004 documentary on thirty years of alternative rock 'n roll in NYC.Documenting the history from the genuine authenticity of No Wave to the current generation of would be icons and true innovators seeing to represent New York City in the 21st century

Kill Your Idols

2004
I Need That Record!
6.4

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!

2008
Punk: Attitude
7.1

From London's 1970 mod scene to Sonic Youth, punk music has always been about attitude and anarchy. This comprehensive rockumentary traces the roots of punk, from The Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls to the Sex Pistols and The Clash.

Punk: Attitude

2005
No image
10.0

the connections and energy flow between the various artists populating the 1980s sub-cultures of New York and Berlin. Features Jim Jarmusch, Lydia Lunch, Blixa Bargeld, Alex Hacke, Gudrun Gut, Nick Cave, and others. An important film. Bravo, Mr. Dreher.

No Wave - Underground '80: Berlin - New York

2009
Silver Rockets Kool Things - 20 Years of Sonic Youth
N/A

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

2000
Hail the New Puritan
10.0

A fictionalized portrait of the British dancer and choreographer Michael Clark, depicting a day in his life as he and his company prepare for a performance.

Hail the New Puritan

1986
Two Minutes to Zero
5.0

A feature-length narrative crime film compressed two different times into two separate films of diminishing duration until the synoptic is synopsized. The imagery has all been "appropriated" (the fancy, art-world-sanctioned term for "stealing") from four issues of an early 1960s comic book version of the then-popular American television show 77 SUNSET STRIP. Music by Glenn Branca (an excerpt from "The Ascension"); film commissioned by the 2004 Rotterdam Film Festival's "Just a Minute" program. - Lewis Klahr

Two Minutes to Zero

2004
Rock My Religion
N/A

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

1984
Put More Blood Into the Music
7.8

PBS produced documentary in two parts: the first is dedicated to saxophonist and composer John Zorn; the second is about Sonic Youth at the height of their powers in 1988.

Put More Blood Into the Music

1988
No image
7.8

A full-length feature documentary produced in 2006 which serves as a companion piece to and is included on the DVD of the 2004 film KILL YOUR IDOLS.

Kill Your Idols: More.

2006
Branca Ensemble: Symphony Nos. 8 & 10 – Live at The Kitchen
N/A

Concert film documenting a 1995 performance of Glenn Branca's 8th and 10th symphonies performed live at The Kitchen.

Branca Ensemble: Symphony Nos. 8 & 10 – Live at The Kitchen

2003
135 Grand Street New York 1979
4.5

New York's No Wave scene, recorded on Super-8mm, performing in a sparse downtown loft.

135 Grand Street New York 1979

2009