BRANCA SCHOEN
ANN ARBOR, MI—Like the spirit of rock ’n’ roll itself, Glenn Branca could only have come from that brutal, sweet land of mad poets, the good ole U. S. of A. Like Walt Whitman and Iggy Pop before him, this composer of guitar symphonies is one of those self-styled primitives, an avatar of the barbaric yawp, and tonight in Detroit he even looks the part.
BRANCA SCHOEN
ANN ARBOR, MI—Like the spirit of rock ’n’ roll itself, Glenn Branca could only have come from that brutal, sweet land of mad poets, the good ole U. S. of A. Like Walt Whitman and Iggy Pop before him, this composer of guitar symphonies is one of those self-styled primitives, an avatar of the barbaric yawp, and tonight in Detroit he even looks the part. With his withering stare, five o’clock shadow, and shirt sleeves tattered up to his elbows, Branca might actually be mistaken for some Bowery bum, and his music— which is inseparable from his persona—sounds like it could have been composed by one. Ranting, barely controlled, yeah, even frightening, it resembles the sort of half-articulate cosmic screed that emerges out of the passion of suffering, that white rage that makes you want to pound on heaven’s door to demand an explanation.
