Can someone like Glenn Branca but not Sonic Youth?
 

i've been thinking about it for a while, everyone who know and like branca at the very least, at some point, been into sonic youth, yet i've never seen someone say "i have never given sonic youth the time of day but i love branca's shit"

you can actually understand someone hearing some branca because of the sy association and have those people not like him but hardly the other way around.

have you encountered someone who actually got into branca independent from the sy association?

interesting.

i dunno if someone would DISCOVER branca first but i can definitely see someone digging branca and not digging sy.. branca's a lot less noisier and more epic and more beautiful and there are no kim constipated vocals. so hey, maybe i like branca and not like sy, haha

It could be, why not? It's stretching it a little, but someone might find Sonic Youth interesting as a direct consequence of appreciating Branca's music, but still not be into them all that much. This thread made me think about what Calvin Johnson says about Jandek on 'Jandek On Corwood', somehow: The fact that he operates completely outside of the record industry, even the most underground and uncompromising fringes of it, doesn't necessarily mean that there is something wrong with him.

covered branca through sonic youth.
but I find it hard thinking some one can like branca and not SY

Yeah I like most people discovered Branca through Sonic Youth

there are people who dig branca who come from a classical or contemporary-classical milieu. Same thing w/ people who come from the free-jazz/improv scene and respect - or just find ok,hehe - Moore's imrovs but don't really care about the band.
SY is in the borderline between the pop/rock and the avant-garde thing, this is bound to happen from time to time..

I found out about Branca through SY, but, as saoq says, he exists in the classical world in his own right and people inhabiting that world have every opportunity to discover him without ever knowing that SY exist. I saw a performance of his music at a Steve Reich birthday celebration concert which would have been attended by all sorts of music enthusiasts, and some of those, maybe, might have left thinking "I like this Branca chap" and gone on to buy some of his CDs without knowing that the players are anything other than musicians about town.

there's also this school of thought regarding 20th century classical music that don't count branca (or rhys chatham) for being "too rock"...i would suppose that someone who is prone to like branca must like or tolerate rock to be into his stuff, and with that in mind, it's hard to think they wouldn't dig sy. of course, there are exceptions and probably someone out there got into branca through following the late 20th century classical fringe but don't care much about rock at all.

of course there might also be people who are into branca, don't like sy's song oriented albums but at least like their more experimental/out there moments like the syr series, etc. but, still, it's sonic youth making that music.

it's difficult to think even the most snobbish of 20th century classical music (or improv fan, for that matter) wouldn't at least like 1 or 2 sy albums proper, like ddn or nycg&f.

Can someone like Glenn Branca but not Sonic Youth?

It's been attempted several times in lab experiments, but always without success.

i think, given branca's recent output versus sonic youth's recent output, i DO like branca but not sonic youth haha..

Tell us something that we haven't heard already 3.000 times before. It's almost as if you have to repeat it at regular intervals every week to check out if anyone has started giving a shit yet. Try harder, my man.

Since that was the first time I've ever said I prefer Branca's recent output to Sonic Youth's, your comment makes no sense, so I'm not sure why I'm even bothering to reply to it. It's almost as if you have to be mindlessly insulting at regular intervals every week to check out if anyone has started giving a shit yet.

I mean, you're really scratching the surface with your latest reply; I know you're trying to make a point that I make fun of Sonic Youth all the time, but that's actually not the case at all -- it's very rare that I go on a tyrade about my hatred of the last few Sonic Youth albums. Not to mention that I was simply answering the question asked in the thread title. Try harder yourself.

:rolleyes:

You make the perfect whipping boy.

Heh.

different contexts.

i found about buddy guy while looking into the blues and didn't know there was a connection with hendrix (and that connection, basically, is just that hendrix heard him play and learned some of his style) until much later.

besides, i'm more prone to listen to buddy than hendrix.

that's exactly what i thought when i started pondering this, i thought that sy's music is ever expanding, then realized i haven't someone who don't know sonic youth but actually know and love glenn branca, never seen mentioned anywhere.

Branca found his sound.
Sonic Youth are still looking.

That pretty much sums it up.

I like how, amongst SY fans, Branca is considered a proper grown-up composer. I know a fair few classical types, and most of them struggle with Cage and the New York school, have no time for Penderecki or Xenakis (and the like). Branca is way off the radar, generally speaking. That's not to say he doesn't compose, but I've never known his name mentioned in classical circles. I like Branca a lot, but he does seem to be more like a composed music for rock kids than bringing rock to classical (it was there already).

Anyway, in response to the question at hand, I've got plenty of mates who can't abide SY but really got off on Branca. It was me who loaned them said Branca, but still. You do all know that there are absolutely hundreds of thousands of people out there who can't abide SY, right?