FROM NO-WAVE, experimental rockers Swans, to work with the Cinema Of Transgression movement, and bands like The Heroin Sheiks and Five Dollar Priest, Norman Westberg is a key part of the New York arts and music scene.
“Norman Westberg’s guitar playing with SWANS has influenced a generation of musicians across genres,” said the composer, artist, and curator Lawrence English. “I can personally attest to how his particular approaches to that instrument, in creating both harmony and brute force, have challenged and ultimately influenced my own sonic preoccupations.”
Galway will be able to experience this live and in person when Westberg plays a solo show at the Róisín Dubh on Friday October 8 at 8pm.
After Swans founder Michael Gira, Westberg has been the longest serving member of the band, appearding on their 1983 debut, Filth, and each subsequent album to 1991's White Light from the Mouth of Infinity. He has remained with the band since Gira reformed them in 2010. Aside from Swans, he also plays with NYC bands NeVAh and Five Dollar Priest, and maintains a solo career.
“His guitar, as a singular source, becomes transformed,” said English about Westburg’s playing. “He transforms vibrating strings completely, taking a singular gesture and reshapes it through webs of delay, reverb, and other treatments. To me, these works echo many of the concerns of American minimalism...Norman has created a very dense and powerful statement of intent with [his] recordings.”
Tickets are available from www.roisindubh.net
