Born Joseph Gantic, raised as Robert Sheff, and having acquired the name he was known by during a brief period as a member of Iggy Pop’s band, he performed Charles Ives and John Cage while still in high school, worked with Robert Ashley and Laurie Anderson, and made a career composing and performing music that, as Steve Smith puts it, “deftly balanced conceptual rigor with breezy pop sounds.” – The New York Times