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In the winter of 1983/84 Glenn Branca came to Vancouver and played at the Legion on Commercial Street. My friend Colin Griffiths was playing with him and probably organized some extra local the guitar players. Colin was living in New York at the time came out west for a visit traveling with the Glenn Branca Band. I remember there was at least 12 guitars, which probably included Thurston Moore, Ned Sublette and Lee Ranaldo all playing in unison, creating a wall of sound that built to a very loud din of dissonant harmonic overtones.

I remember having this Lesson No. 1 for Electric Guitar album (99 Records)- what a great cover! A few years ago I found a copy of Glenn Branca: Symphony No. 3 (Gloria) in a used record store on Granville Street. Listening to it now I can recall that evening at the Legion so well- the ambiance the excitement of hearing something radical, “no-wave” something extreme- underground musical research from New York.

Thinking about it now, it reminds me of hearing Charlemagne Palestine playing Strumming Music (1974) on a grand piano in the dark, in the dark at a small auditorium at Dalhousie University in Halifax in the mid 70’s where the only light in the room was from the kretek (Indonesian clove cigarettes) he was chain-smoking as he played.