\

shut the fuck up

it was 4:33
four minutes 33 seconds long. notaded silence.
people seem to forget that cage had many other works besides 433.

Merzbow is the only one who will survive from a strictly noise point of view. Argue your stupid points all you like about it.

Stop pretending that you love music and start enjoying it. You secretly hate most of it, therefore make it sound boring when you have to write about it. You should be made to hate all of it for one day and then understand ''things''. Also, you have no durable place in the world of writing, 'cause you're writing is shit, etilist, pointless, and ultimately yawnsome for anyone who would like to get into any of the artists I'm sure you don't even listen to properly yourself.

I disagree with this. Noise music is repellent and extreme to a lot of people, what some musicians (few I imagine) who try to put themselves above it all think is another thing altogether. Judging it by the sort of crowds that go to these sort of gigs or listen to a lot of it is one thing, playing it in front of 'normal' people is another thing altogether.

Since I think you have good taste in music overall, I urge you to actually listen to a broader sampling of Cage's work than you obviously have. Cage was in no way an academic snob, as his willingness to associate with the Fluxists clearly indicates. There are definitely some academic snobs out there who have appropriated the man onto a pedestal that he never asked for and had no use for, but so what? That has no reflection on his music.

Check out "First Construction in Metal", "Imaginary Landscape No. 1", "Radio Music", and "Rozart Mix" then tell me this guy wasn't decades ahead of his time and setting the standard that much of the crazy shit we listen to stems from.

"4'33"" is one of the most misunderstood pieces ever, because it's not actually about the silence, it's about the sound of a room full of people in anticipation of sound and the sounds the musician makes turning the blank pages in the sheet music. That said, it's far from his greatest work and he has some stuff that is absolute mindfuckingly good listening.

To answer your original question, Merzbow is clearly the Jim Hendrix of noise music and revered on that same level of worship.

I don't really have a favorite noise musican myself. I mean, Crank Sturgeon, but I think of him more as a genius performance artist than noise musician, despite the fact that the noise scene fully embraces him.

Silver Session. The end.

I'd also like to say that Cage has a lot of interesting works; I particularly enjoy "Works for Percussion"... and he does have some works that are pretty damn noisey... I'm not a huge fan, but I definitely like Cage's music. As far as his personality, he seems like a dickhead.

Yup, John cage's 4:33

Someone already replied that.

And John Cage isn't a "modern noise artist".

Just a question: on band sound only (not john cage or merzbow), any band actually as noisy+creative as SY?

yes

thinking fellers union local # 282 is about 100x more creative than sonic youth, for starters.

"fellers union local # 282" is this the band name?

Thank you.

People here also seem to forget that I already brought this up ON PAGE ONE!

Not that I care... :)

I like Cage, an I mentioned him because of the question about a silent piece. That being said, I don't consider him noise. He's got stuff that may sound noisy, but it's not NOISE, as a genre of music.

I have the feeling that some musicians are close to burst in laughter ( preventing it is the hardest part of the job ).
This also is funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U

How so?

He was a really brilliant guy with an almost oracular vision of where music would go (he's the first composer to state outright that all music would be electric by the end of the 20th century). Plus he was very supportive of other artists and from all I've read a kind and gentle soul. Aside from taking his own music seriously, which is something that I don't think reflects poorly on an artist at all, he was incredibly unpretentious. Not that there isn't humor in a lot of his music either, just subtle humor.

It is true that he has been very propped up by some uptight academics (I once caused quite a fracas on the John Cage mailing list by suggesting that you could easily play 4'33" with a whoopie cushion rather than a piano), but that is no more of a reason to judge him harshly than it would be to judge Nirvana harshly because a lot of mainstream pop music idiots like their most famous hit songs.

I swear a lot of people just want to reject Cage off hand because he is so well known, and that the bias that being intelligent and sincere at the same time isn't cool is prevalent.

I would agree he's not a "noise musician" because he has much more breadth to his music than just noise, some of it being rather straight forward piano pieces. However, he is a very important figure in the development of noise as a part of the palette in modern music.

To see how he fits into the broad scope of noisy music, I highly recommend the Sub Rosa compilation An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music Vol. 1 which has his "Rozart mix" alongside the likes of Sonic Youth, Einsturzende Neubauten, Gordon Mumma, and Survival Research Laboratories. That whole series of comps. is incredible and puts the best 20th Century composers right next to everyone from Throbbing Gristle to Merzbow, doing an incredible job of breaking down the context that makes people judge a given artist as "academic" vs. "street music".

Dead-Air, is there anything you don't know or can't do?

Your profound knowledge of seemingly every interesting subject, or possible every subject for that matter, never ceases to amaze me.

Can anyone with a degree of good knowledge make an extentive list of any odiern noise band etc worth listening to from a point of view that isn't just their own personal taste? You know, with a little explanation as to why one should check the music out and why it stands out from the rest. I'm thinking of people like DJ Rick or people who probably post rarely on here. I'd appreciate that, since all this talk about John Cage is interesting but not related to anything particularly relevant to the threads's title.

Dead-Air, I'm actually talking about that one Glenn Branca track which is just John Cage talking about Branca for like 30 minutes and saying how terrible he is. Cage sounded like a pompous dickhead. I've only heard one other interview with Cage besides that and he seemed like a dick. No big deal, just sayin'.

Huh, I'd never heard of that track. I always find that sort of thing unfortunate when one artist spends a lot of energy dissing another. I can see where you're coming from then. Is it on a particular Branca album?

Yeah, I'm with you on that... I think the point I was making is that criticising noise at this point in history is a bit like the Daily Mail 'modern art isn't art' brigade. It's here, it's art, deal with it. It's fine to not like it, but dismissing it entirely is just critically rubbish. I'm more trying to undermine the reverence of noise fans rather than trying to explain what's good about it.

There was this really awesome industrial (as in EN style, not NIN style) band in Seattle in the late '80s to early '90s called the Metaphonics, and they had this hilarious song called, "I don't know what I like, but I know what art is!"

For some tangential reason, your post reminded me of that (though I'm going even further off topic now...)

I think they are all pompous dickheads. it is part of being avant garde in NYC. you have to be an asshole or something. hahahah!

DID I ALREADY MENTION THAT JOHN CAGE DID THIS?

Dead-Air, you can read about the track here:

http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/sho...ight=john+cage

It also reminded me that John Cage hated Harry Partch, the most innovative composer maybe ever.

the most innovative composer ever was Johannes Sebastian Bach.

and he was rocking his shit 400 yers ago damnit!

i dunno if the term "ROCK HIS SHIT" really apllies to JS Bach.

ha ha
o well

MOZART ROCKS MY COCK!!!!

true, I'm just not a huge fan is all I'm trying to say, not my thing.

Listen man, I'm one of the most excepting of people's opinions on here, and I constantly am pointing out that people should listen to whatever the hell they want, you on the other hand seem to attack anyone who brings up a band or whatever that isn't commonly discussed on here. Listen, I am not trying to call you out, you write thing I find fun to read sometimes. But you consistently call me out and talk shit when everyone else just gives a decent response to the thread. I don't hate anything really, even music I don't like, I seldom say I hate, except for the later Cure albums. Right now, I'm listening to Pere Ubu's "The Modern Dance", before that, the newish Skaters LP, before that Van Morrison's "Veedon Fleece". You don't have much right calling me out as someone who doesn't love the music I speak on or write on, shit you don't even know me, man.

That's the whole point I'm trying to make. With Noise there isn't anything really definitive. The average Noise review is just surrealistic mumbo jumbo. The music is very personal and therefore difficuilt to write from an objective standpoint. It's easier to write on how Noise makes you feel personally than what the music actually does.

this is too rough, play nice.
who in hell are you to give people this kind of shit????!!!!

Ha. That's as fitting a phrase for my tombstone as any...

actually.... *start being a music snob*
but while bach was brilliant, he was not considered to be a very innovative composer for his time. his true brilliance was he took inspiration from all kinds of music from opera to 16th century counterpoint (ars antiiqua)
im not saying that he wasnt great. but as for pure innpovations there were much more innovative composers before him.

the most innovative composer ever was Cro-Magnon.

and he was rocking his shit 40000 yers ago damnit!

But Bach is better than anyone else, we're agreed on that, right?

Actually, Radio 3 seems to be exploring the non-J.S Bachs lately, and I'm developing a fondness for CPE. Should I worry?

yeah Bach was conventional in his time, just really really brethtakingly good.

shut the fuck up.

Isn't that true about any music? Anyway, apart from this nonsense, this forum could seriously do with people who specialise in something and really know their shit, instead of this continuous incoherent drivel.