E-Mail This Article to a Friend Symphonic rock (continued)

But the session’s bête noire is not, as you might expect, coordinating this many guitarists. The problem is the drums, and specifically the baffles that stand on three sides of the kit to harness the sound. Most of the first day has been spent addressing minutiae: testing each guitarist’s sound ("No reverb, nothing like that; turn down the bass; can you make it brighter?"), pointing the microphones at the right spots, conferring with engineers, buying hundreds of spare guitar strings (each guitar, though not the basses, has been retuned and restrung with light-gauge strings), and seeing how one section sounds against another. Sometime around 4:30, five and a half hours after start time, the orchestra attempts its first run-through of the first movement. A click track sets the tempo, Branca counts to four, and the amplifiers explode with sound. Within a few measures, Branca signals a stop, and it’s as if he’d slammed on the brakes, leaving you bouncing against your seatbelt, flushed with adrenaline for which you have no use. The drums are simply inaudible, drowned out in the din. Branca asks for a general lowering of volume. This time, the drums are faint; it’s like hearing your own pulse in your ear. He halts the music again; someone in the orchestra yawns, most start to fidget. Everyone just wants to play. Branca calls a five-minute break; after three of these breaks, everyone learns that "five minutes" translates to 20 or 30. Monitors are set up in the front of the room — speakers no bigger than one you might have at home — and it still doesn’t do the trick. There’s another attempt to play and then another break.

"I don’t think we’re ever gonna get this accomplished," one guitarist is heard saying outside the building. "The guy takes more breaks than a band."

When Branca sends everyone home early, a single movement of the symphony — one featuring less drumming — has been committed to tape. But upon their return the next morning, most of the musicians seem to be touched by an excitement born of brushing up against the sounds they’ve worked to create in the studio. Bostonian Annie Clark, who had recently opened for Television, says happily, "I had the experience of my earplug falling out and the shrieking hounds of Hell, every overtone possible, just assaulting my ears." Wharton Tiers — renowned producer, a member of Branca’s early band the Theoretical Girls, and this session’s beleaguered drummer — says, "It’s a great piece . . . and the energy . . . everyone wanting to do it. And the whole sound of 100 guitars . . . everyone’s going to go back home to their bands and it’s going to sound much emptier."

When extra monitors still fail to bring out the drums, the breaks begin again. But today — in the final hours — the passing minutes have a taunting edge. Branca gets agitated, his voice gets louder. The musicians dive headlong into every section, but each time, things go wrong. "I really need to hear the fucking drums." He demands the baffles be removed and is refused. What must be all the tamped frustration of the previous day’s session plus the gaffes and glitches of today’s and whatever sleeplessness he endured pondering it all in the hours in between comes out. He screams at producer Weasel Walter: "You were saying that if we took the baffles away — don’t put your hand on me! — that we’ll get so much bleed, we won’t be able to hear the drums on the track. . . . I’m not trying to be a bitch. I cannot hear what he’s fucking playing . . and all this stuff about bleed-through if we don’t have the baffles up is bullshit. . . . I use studio mikes on stage. . . . Have you ever been to Germany? They use studio mikes on stage. I mean, Christ almighty, do you know how many years I’ve been doing this? The last time I put baffles in front of the drums was in 1978, and I was supposedly green behind the ears and the fucking studio engineer told me what to do or get out."

He calls a break. There are about 75 minutes or so left to get the thing done. But by this point, as each movement gets semi-rehearsed, the players are starting to see the larger picture. Outside, a knot of them stand, smoking, talking loudly, animated; "Now I’m getting it, now I’m feeling it," one says, face upturned to the stars. "That last section — it was so intense I’m still shaking. Shit. Damn."

With about an hour to go, Branca is at the podium; John Myers stands to his right, facing the orchestra; Weasel Walter stands to his left. The monitors have been turned up to their highest, and the trio will be human metronomes, counting off each beat.

After discussing the technical problems, Branca says, "But it sounds great. You’ve all been playing great. It sounds so good, in fact, that we’re going to record the entire thing all the way through. Starting now." And with the click-track introduction, the symphony begins from the start. When Branca conducts, he throttles the air and writhes; his glasses fly off his face; he’s not directing so much as showing what sounds like this do to the blood. He punches the air to each beat; Myers and Walter flank him, counting along. The players move in time, mouthing "one-two-three-four." Some have their eyes shut in a rapture; others stare with iron concentration; more are just stoic. The drums are still hard to hear, but everyone is locked onto every beat. One guitar section screams against another, passing from one movement into another. In the din, you hear phantom trumpets, whole choirs of voices. The music keeps rising. The room is screaming. And this time, everyone nails it.