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Electronic music pioneer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011)
01.30.2011
11:38 pm
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Composer Milton Babbitt died yesterday at the ripe old age of 94. I have always adored his piece Ensembles For Synthesizer, composed from 1962-64 on the guargantuan RCA Mark II synthesizer for which he was an official composer/consultant. I include that piece here from the 1967 album New Electronic Music from Leaders of the Avant-Garde which is a toweringly great slab of classic experimental music. Seek it out !
 

Part One
 

Part Two
 
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And because it’s so totally great, here is the John Cage piece from the same LP: Variations 2 as performed with brutal precision on amplified piano by the great David Tudor.
 

Part One
 

Part Two
 

Part Three

Posted by Brad Laner
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01.30.2011
11:38 pm
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Destroy the music machine: ‘Remixing’ John Cage’s classic 4’33” on the way to a UK Xmas #1
12.10.2010
01:06 pm
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  Cage Against the Machine..‘4.33’ Mr. Scruff Remix! by Mr Scruff

Three silent cheers for Dave and Julie Hilliard! They’re the couple behind Cage Against the Machine, the grassroots Facebook effort to bring a new recording of composer John Cage’s famous “silent” piece 4’33” to #1 in the UK charts this Christmas over whichever bullshit song wins the UK TV pop contest X Factor this year.

The Hilliards named CATM in hat-tip to last year’s successful Facebook campaign to boost Rage Against the Machine’s raw 1992 tune “Killing in the Name” into the Christmas #1 over whatever crappy tune won the ’09 X Factor. This year, indie-ish artists like Imogen Heap, Fyfe Dangerfield, Scroobius Pip, The Kooks and Heaven 17 popped into the studio to not play their instruments, and the single will be released by the Wall of Sound label. And instead of one single charity, the proceeds from sales of the new 4’33” benefits FOUR. Factor that in, Simon Cowell, you tit-head.

The race to #1 starts December 13. Here’s where you can sign up for a reminder and chart-eligible link to download the single.

Here’s an added plus: the wonderful conceptual flexibility behind 4’33” has allowed CATM to solicit remixes from both some innovative producers and you:

So go to it, give us a four minute thirty three second audio snapshot of your life. Record it on your phone, your Mac, PC, recorder, dictaphone, walkperson, whatever and share it here.

Check some out…
 

Latest tracks by RemixAgainstTheMachine

 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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12.10.2010
01:06 pm
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John Cage chats with John Lennon & Yoko Ono (1972)
11.18.2010
01:30 pm
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This is nothing too profound, in fact it’s rather goofy and quite amusing to see how giddy the two Johns are around each other, but I’ve never seen this before and have no idea as to its provenance. Anybody?

 

Posted by Brad Laner
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11.18.2010
01:30 pm
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Good Morning Mr. Orwell: 1984 live TV experiment with Cage,Ginsberg,Dali,Paik,etc
11.17.2010
02:59 pm
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On new years day 1984 25 million people (myself included) throughout the world tuned in to PBS to watch video art pioneer Nam June Paik’s pleasantly shambolic live experiment Good Morning, Mr. Orwell featuring the likes of John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Phillip Glass, Salvador Dali, Laurie Anderson and other usual suspects. All hosted by a bemused and mildy annoying George Plimpton. The full version of this was once up on the mighty Ubuweb but has mysteriously disappeared, so I bring you as many fragments of said program as I could find. Watching this in retrospect it comes off as perhaps the last 60’s style large scale “happening” featuring some of that era’s major hitters and is of course very quaint seeming “We’re linking New York to Paris on live TV !”, still very enjoyable to watch.
 
John Cage/Joseph Beuys

 
A ton more after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Brad Laner
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11.17.2010
02:59 pm
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Joey Ramone sings John Cage
09.28.2010
12:11 pm
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Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Here’s the late, great Joey Ramone doing a smashing job of singing the beautiful early John Cage piece The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs which is itself based on text by James Joyce. This comes from an Italian Cage tribute LP from the early 90’s that I was previously unaware of which also features a ton of other luminaries such as DM super-pal Ann Magnuson, David Byrne, Debbie Harry, John Zorn, etc.
 

 
Hear Robert Wyatt and Cathy Berberian’s versions of the same song after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Brad Laner
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09.28.2010
12:11 pm
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John Cage: 4’33” (Vuvuzela cover version)
06.28.2010
12:42 am
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Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.28.2010
12:42 am
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Whimsical wedding cake toppers by Mike Leavitt
06.08.2010
01:26 pm
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John and Yoko - $1200
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John Cage and Merce Cunningham - $800
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Harold and Maude - Sold
 
Here’s a fantastic collection of wedding cake toppers by seattle based artist Mike Leavitt. It’s totally worth a look. From Mike Leavitt’s website:

No longer shall little random plastic people rule the top of your cake. Why suffer the cruelty of impersonal sculpture poisoning the cake frosting you lick from your fingers? Weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, retirement, online bingo… The cake topper figurines can be of any person in any style. Some ‘cake toppers’ aren’t even the bride and groom, just plain loved ones. The finished figures are protected and sealed from any frosting surface damage. For further protection, they aren’t posable with the multiple body part pieces like the action figures. These are finely crafted sculptures that will be enjoyed as long as the union of love that they honor.

(via The Jailbreak)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.08.2010
01:26 pm
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Water-Walking With John Cage
11.09.2009
05:10 pm
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The New Yorker‘s great Alex Ross (The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century) alerts us to the first major museum exhibition in years devoted to “arch-magus of the musical avant-garde,” John Cage.  Unfortunately, though, it’s happening not in America (nor is it scheduled to), but in Barcelona at its Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA).

The Anarchy of Silence?

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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11.09.2009
05:10 pm
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John Cage: Indeterminacy
10.20.2009
05:54 pm
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Check out an online archive of John Cage’s Indeterminacy stories here, and on YouTube below. Stereophile has this to say:

The idea behind Indeterminacy was, like many Cagean ideas, essentially simple and audaciously original. Cage read 90 stories, his speed determined by the story’s length. In another room, beyond earshot of Cage, David Tudor, pianist and veteran Cage collaborator, performed miscellaneous selections from Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra and played pre-recorded tape from Cage’s Fontana Mix. The resulting collaboration is an astounding piece of “music,” and a fine introduction to the innovations of John Cage. “A wonderfully curious way to hear stories.”

Check out Indeterminacy on CD here.

Posted by Jason Louv
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10.20.2009
05:54 pm
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