CucosBlog

At the end of August, the call came to attend Camp Branca once again, this time in mellow Belgium…

This time there were to be 3 performances of Glenn Branca’s massive 13th Symphony, played by a hardcore of a dozen musicians who had played the piece before along plus a squadron of local guitarists. Where 80-something guitarists mustered for the LA show, the Euro team amounted to only 60 or so - falling well short of the intended 100 guitarists. But Belgium, the local musicians and the halls we played in made for a very different sounding performance to the LA show. Many of the LA guitarists had shown up with great big good quality amps, and the one or two players who were having to crank their amps up to breaking point really stood out in the sound checks.

For these Belgium shows, it seemed like almost everyone was cranked up to the max out of shitty little amps. And that means that each guitar was breaking up and sounding tough, harsh, distorted. And that actually had an incredible effect on the piece. Especially the 3rd movement, which just rocked so fucking hard - it sounded EVIL! So although there were fewer players, the sound was heavier and punkier. With an orchestra of much closer to 100 in LA, the sound there was more oceanic, less well defined.