Glenn Branca , The Ascension: Classic or Dud?

My sense is that Branca picked up on Rhys Chatham in a tortured, forbidden, Aerosmith-driven outlaw way. There seems to be a social line in the sand by people who were around back then.

But you should have the Ascension CD, if only for the 2 minute clip of Glenn solo in 1979. It's really cool.

I'm gonna get all versions of Magic Fly and make a mega-mix!

Didn't follow much of the artists' subsequent history. Thought Lesson Number One was pedantic (or anyway drove the point or the nail into the ground), but I heard it through shitty speakers. But then again, hip-hop sounds great on a clock radio, and if... well, it may well be that the live stuff was the best, just as it may be that I'm best in conversation, but doesn't one have a responsibility to adapt to one's medium, rather than to say, "We'll do what we did live"? (Not that this is a comment on these people's records, few of which I've heard.)

No New York is in desperate need of a remix.

But even if hip-hop sounds good coming out of your clock speaker, it'd probably sound better coming out of a jeep.

I know Barbara was teaching photo at Bard for a while, and supposedly also lives in my neighborhood.

The X Benefit was underway when I arrived - Theoretical Girls were already up. Earlier in the evening I'd gone with Kathy Nathanson (Strand, social sciences) to see Lou Reed at the Bottom Line. That was a very distanced experience in every way, like sitting in an exclusive theatre. During the long wait, these two guys behind us were having a loud, boring conversation about hockey, then Lou came on (near the release of Street Hassle, I think) and was singing in a deliberately wanky voice I'd never heard from him, as if he didn't want to sound tough anymore, which might have been an admirable personal choice but wasn't good for his music. Kathy and I tramped over to the East Village after that, to La Mama's, Theoretical Girls were rocking out. I can't add anything to my description, except that I recall their doing the white-shirts-with-rolled-up-sleeves things - maybe that's how they dressed in their day jobs, assuming they worked for Existentialist Gas & Electric, digging underground cables - and they didn't seem to have any go-go dancers or manicurists on their payroll. If I saw DNA that night, I don't remember it. I do remember the Contortions: this was the first I'd heard of them. They moved the beat - I remember that. James seemed like an asshole, saying hostile things with no apparent provocation. The music danced all right, but I didn't get it, sounded like a jumbled noise stew. Really, it wasn't until the third time I saw them that my brain and my body figured out how to hear them and how powerful they were. What I recall from the La Mama night was the motion of the music and that an incensed, crazed guy in leather was heading towards James to do him damage, and Jody stepped in between, brandishing his guitar like an axe, to protect James. (A year later, Jody probably'd have stepped aside and let James get creamed.) Adele threw a cup of water at the leather psycho. Bob told me the next day that everyone in the Contortions should have been shot, including Jody - especially Jody. But eventually we all became fans.

yeah, me too, and i cherish them. more than my branca records sad to say. but i meant a written history. or a history of ze. or maybe there is one. i just haven't seen it.

http://www.blankproductions.com/bios/bblank.htm

the autotonic nervous system, that is. Not the Ascension or Lesson No. 1.

http://www.acuterecords.com/XmagBen.jpg

I think I scanned that thing in like 4 pieces and stitched it together in photoshop.

A recording of the Third Ascension just came out and it is highly recommended, was performed last night for the first time since his death on what would have been his 71st

https://glennbranca1.bandcamp.com/releases

it really rips

it really does. played through this once so far and it was a pretty magical commute

Whoa nice! Just saw this, looking forward to checking it out. Branca an eternal influence for me.

Oh wow, this rocks harder than I expected. A good listen.

If you haven't heard it The Ascension:The Sequel from 2010 is similarly great

Wow, "Cold Thing" is massive.