Cage Against the Machine

2010-12-07 10:11:44

#1

liquidat0r: wtf.; +2,223|6835|UK

So, this year's attempt to steal the Christmas number one from X Factor is dubbed CATM. A bunch of artists have recreated John Cage's experimental work 4'33" in a bid to knock X Factor off the top once again. Last year, there was a successful campaign to get Rage Against The Machine's Killing in the Name to the Christmas number one spot.

All proceeds will be donated to various charities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11909886

An anti-X Factor "supergroup" has recorded its entry in the race for this year's Christmas number one - the sound of silence.

Madness star Suggs and dance acts Orbital and Pendulum were among those who did nothing in a recording studio.

They were recreating composer John Cage's experimental work 4'33" - the sound of musicians not playing.

They hope to emulate Rage Against the Machine, who beat X Factor winner Joe McElderry to number one last year.

Dozens of musicians were present and the campaign - dubbed Cage Against the Machine - currently has 62,000 Facebook fans.

Guillemots frontman Fyfe Dangerfield, Unkle's James Lavelle, Scroobius Pip and Dan Le Sac also took part in the unconventional session.

They were joined by members of The Kooks and Heaven 17 at Dean Street Studios in London.

Paul Epworth, who won the Brit Award for best producer this year, was at the controls to record the four-minute, 33-second "performance".
Rage Against the Machine Rage Against the Machine caused a major chart upset last Christmas

Xfm DJ Eddy Temple-Morris, who helped organise the event, said: "You could hear the odd click of a camera shutter or a creak.

"There were people who were seriously into it, like Matty from The Infadels, who had his guitar and was poised to do a massive power chord, but it just never happened.

"There were people swaying, or putting their lighters up in the air, or headbanging and pretending that they could hear some music and really getting into it.

"It was an emotional, unusual, quite beautiful thing to have so many people in a room and be silent."

http://www.facebook.com/cageagainstthemachine
http://www.catm.co.uk/
http://twitter.com/JOHNCAGEXMAS

Fun and games.

2010-12-07 10:15:26

#2

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6679

yeah heard about this already.

i've just spent the last 6 weeks intensively studying cage so i'm still not sure how i feel about another form of stupid no-brained fucking moron bandwagon... even if it is in his name. in fact im not sure if that just aggravates me more. we're gonna have a bunch of cage-fans now, aren't we? christ i hope not.

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-12-07 10:25:11

#3

liquidat0r: wtf.; +2,223|6835|UK

I think this campaign is better thought out than last year's.

2010-12-07 10:36:22

#4

KEN-JENNINGS: I am all that is MOD!; +2,978|6840|949

yeah totally let's get people to buy silence as a protest against mindless consumerism.

2010-12-07 10:38:42

#5

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6679

hahaha, yeah exactly.

and nobody that's on this bandwagon can pretend to understand cage... just a wanky seizing upon his piece because 'oh! it's silence!'

missing the point of it, methinks. the point is you listen to what else is there, and that constitutes music.

in this case what all the people that 'buy' into this fad will hear is the painful sound of their own fucking stupidity

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-12-07 11:45:59

#6

JakAttaK: csanva<3; +492|6534|England

Rather than paying for something like this, why don't people just not fucking buy the xfactor single? It's retarded, especially this time round seeing as you're paying for silence. How are we even gonna know they didn't just record an empty studio? I haven't checked the links posted so there may be evidence. But even still. Don't buy the xfactor one if you wanna "protest"

Last edited by JakAttaK (2010-12-07 11:51:18)

http://soundcloud.com/csanva

2010-12-07 11:49:55

#7

liquidat0r: wtf.; +2,223|6835|UK

My thoughts are that it's just a fun, silly campaign against the X Factor that's giving money to charity.

2010-12-07 11:52:13

#8

JakAttaK: csanva<3; +492|6534|England

Nothing stopping them starting up a campaign of "Give the money you would spend on the Xfactor single directly to charity". Of course for some reason, it definitely wouldn't sell as well..

http://soundcloud.com/csanva

2010-12-07 11:54:55

#9

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6679

being a rebel is cool!

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-12-07 12:52:33

#10

DefCon-17: Maple Syrup Faggot; +362|6364|Vancouver | Canada

This is quite possibly dumber than Lady Gaga.

Also, it's been done:

2010-12-07 12:52:57

#11

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6679

are you trying to suggest pootie did this before cage? lollllllz

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-12-07 12:58:37

#12

DefCon-17: Maple Syrup Faggot; +362|6364|Vancouver | Canada

Stupidity isn't restricted to current years (although I'm convinced it went up a few notches), so I guess not.

Either way, I can recreate it by putting some earplugs in.

2010-12-07 13:10:35

#13

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6679

see... people have no fucking clue what cage's 4"33 is about

this is precisely the reason why the hijacking of his work for some stupid 'point' is a dumb idea

btw i have no fucking idea who that pootie is but i guarantee he probably wasn't born when cage was experimenting with anechoia

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-12-07 13:12:10

#14

mtb0minime: minimember; +2,418|6863

I have tinnitus, I've never heard silence

(Please donate to me for a cure )

2010-12-07 13:16:49

#15

liquidat0r: wtf.; +2,223|6835|UK

Hah, point proven on the misunderstanding-the-idea front, zique.

2010-12-07 13:49:12

#16

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6679

mtb0minime wrote:
I have tinnitus, I've never heard silence

(Please donate to me for a cure )

this is the point of cage's work

upon entering an anechoic chamber at harvard, he said he could hear two hums... high-pitch and low... one is your nervous system, one is your blood circulating. you are always surrounded by _some_ sound through your entire life, a constant soundtrack, with naturally musical qualities... a pitch, a rhythm, a timbre etc. there is no such thing as 'absolute silence', and 4"33 challenges conventional composition and the western-tradition's method of ordering sounds to form 'musical' pieces. the point of the piece isn't that "LOL IT'S JUST SILENCE". the point is that the random sounds (aleatoric music, a tradition stemming back to the green aeolian harp), ambient sounds and general soundscape of the performing-space creates its own MUSIC.

people are just hijacking this because they think the point is that there is 'silence'- not so. the point is that we're listening to a form of music all the time-- the purest form of music, too, nature's own music.

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-12-07 13:52:40

#17

liquidat0r: wtf.; +2,223|6835|UK

The article made it sound like they were trying to replicate that idea exactly. What they have recorded is not complete silence, it's the ambient sound/noise (read: music) of the people in the room. As you described.

2010-12-07 13:54:11

#18

DefCon-17: Maple Syrup Faggot; +362|6364|Vancouver | Canada

So really, my earplugs comment was spot on then.

2010-12-07 13:58:00

#19

KEN-JENNINGS: I am all that is MOD!; +2,978|6840|949

"the purest form of music - nature's music"

LOL

2010-12-07 13:58:28

#20

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6679

liquidat0r wrote:
The article made it sound like they were trying to replicate that idea exactly. What they have recorded is not complete silence, it's the ambient sound/noise (read: music) of the people in the room. As you described.

yes, but the social 'intent' of the 'protest' is to replace the x-factor trash with 'silence'

it sounds as if, even to the reporter and people arranging the recording, that the accidental noises were just that... accidental, unintentional

cage was mindful - a real artist. this is bullshit. sorry. no other way to look at it.

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-12-08 04:56:39

#21

JahManRed: wank; +646|6836|IRELAND

Done last year, point has been made. Anyone with an ounce of brains knows the XFactor would be fucked without the vocal processors. And if people want to buy it, then well and good. Its a handy way to keeping track of the number of retards in the country.

If it fails, then the xfactor is vindicated and last years little protest will have little importance and can be rubbished by the anti Christ of music, Simon Cunt.

2010-12-08 05:16:12

#22

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6679

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:
"the purest form of music - nature's music"

LOL

just rephrasing cage's own musical theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_harp

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

BF2S Forums Cage Against the Machine

mtb0minime wrote:

liquidat0r wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

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