Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca (born October 6, 1948 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) is an avant-garde composer and guitarist.

As a teenager his interests extended to rock music. He started playing the guitar at a

Glenn Branca (born October 6, 1948 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) is an avant-garde composer and guitarist.

As a teenager his interests extended to rock music. He started playing the guitar at age 15. He also created a number of tape collage pieces for his own amusement. After attending York College in 1966-1967 he started the short-lived cover band The Crystal Ship with Al Whiteside and Dave Speece in the summer of 1967. Branca studied theater at Emerson College in Boston in the early 1970s. In 1973 he moved from Boston to London with his then girlfriend Meg English. After moving back to Boston in 1974 he met John Rehberger. While there, he began experimenting with sound as the founder of an experimental theater group called Bastard Theater in 1975. Working out of a loft on Mass. Ave. they wrote and produced the music/theater piece "Anthropophagoi" for a 2 week run. The lead actor John Keiser was chosen in The Boston Phoenix as one of the best performances of the year. In 1976 The Bastard Theater's second production was "What Actually Happened" at a new loft in Central Square, Cambridge and later at The Boston Arts Group. Considering the unconventional and sometimes confrontational nature of the productions the shows still received interested reviews from the Phoenix and The Boston Globe. All music for Bastard Theater productions were original compositions by Branca or Rehberger and were performed live by the actor/musicians. He moved to New York in 1976. His first encounter with the NYC music scene was with the N.Dodo Band whom he observed many times at their rehearsal space- Phil Demise's Gegenschein Vaudeville Placenter. This is where he first met Jeffrey Lohn who was playing electric violin with the N. Dodo Band. He then formed two bands in the late 1970s, first Theoretical Girls (in 1977 with composer/guitarist Jeffrey Lohn) and later The Static. He also performed Rhys Chatham's Guitar Trio in 1977, an experience that was very important in the development of his compositional voice (Branca 1979).