[2] As a musician, he was an important figure in the New York minimalist scene of the early 1960s, during which time he performed as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music (along with John Cale, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and others).

[1] His father worked with Everett Warner during World War II in designing dazzle camouflage for the United States Navy.

[4] Conrad's high school violin lessons with symphony violist Ronald Knudsen introduced him to just intonation and double stop playing.

[1] After moving to New York, Conrad became an early member of La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music alongside John Cale, Angus MacLise, and Marian Zazeela.

[10] In 1964, Conrad and Cale were recruited by Pickwick Records to serve as a backing band, The Primitives, to perform the Lou Reed-penned single "The Ostrich"/"Sneaky Pete".

Yellow Movies was a project of Conrad's in 1973 of twenty "movies" consisting of rectangular borders painted in black house paint on large pieces of photographic paper, effectively framing each sizable expanse of emulsion whereby the physical aging and transformation of the emulsion itself would constitute a definitively slow-motion moving picture over such an extended period of time.

[15] While in Buffalo, Conrad was part of a scene that included Sharits, as well as Hollis Frampton, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Peter Weibel, James Blue, Cathy Steffan and Gerald O'Grady.

[17] Table of the Elements released a number of Conrad's archival recordings in the 1990s and 2000s, including Four Violins (1964),[1] Fantastic Glissando, and Joan of Arc.

[18] Slapping Pythagoras, an album of new music commissioned by Table of the Elements, was recorded with Jim O'Rourke and Steve Albini at Electrical Audio and released in 1995.

[21] Conrad collaborated with artists such as Charlemagne Palestine,[22] Genesis P-Orridge, Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, David Grubbs, C Spencer Yeh, Tovah Olson, MV Carbon, and numerous others.