Here’s John Cage performing Water Walk in January, 1960 on the popular TV show I’ve Got A Secret.

At the time, Cage was teaching Experimental Composition at New York City’s New School. Eight years beyond 4:33, and quite the controversial figure in the musical world at that time. His first performance on national television was originally scored to include five radios, but a union dispute on the CBS set prevented any of the radios from being plugged in to the wall. Cage gleefully smacks and tosses the radios instead of turning them on and off.

While treating Cage as something of a freak, the show also treats him fairly reverentially, cancelling the regular game show format to allow Cage the chance to perform his entire piece.

thanks WFMU.   thanks Dr. Mark Radice, for superceding all the conceptual jargon, to succinctly describe Cage’s music as a way to ‘creatively participate with time’.  You gotta wonder, with a last name like that, whether he intentionally set out to transcend his very name, or seemingly subconsciously outlined and negotiated that negative space, which would become his life work.

Melodia Women’s Choir Benefit Party
Live performances by Bora Yoon, Valerie Eskridge, Rachel & Colleen & Friends, Shaina Murphy, Vanessa Valentin, Steff Lyon, Ali Rulle, Rosemary & Friends, and the Melodia Benefit Ensemble, conductor Cynthia Powell.
FREE FOOD, DRINK SPECIALS, AND GREAT RAFFLE/AUCTION PRIZES!
Common Ground Bar, East Village
206 Avenue A (btw E12th & E13th)
$15 adv /$20 at door |  buy tickets

I was recently given the neat opportunity to curate a small listening party at my friend Josh Bonati’s beautifully pristine mastering studio down in DUMBO - where the Journal of Popular Noise 7″ vinyl master I did with Ben Frost was prepared. What this means: full artistic reign over a pair of 8-ft tall mastering speakers for an hour in which to design an audio journey to a private roomful of folks.

Now, what surprised me, was that people were really taken for a loop with how to react to this party.  I don’t get it.  So what is it? Is there going to be live music? so we’re just going to listen? are you playing original music?  My thoughts: are we really that far into the 21st century of the digital age of feeding forward, and the next next next inertia-making mentality we New Yorkers so torturously love, that we can no longer fathom that time-consuming act of singularly focusing and appreciating music (that’s not promotional)?

The concept is pretty simple: taking it back analog to the good old days when you would invite your friends over to just listen to some records.  What’s been reeling your mind, ruling your world, making you dance in your kitchen, making you feel that much more alive.   Sharing what has fed you, as we are what we eat.

So here are some favorites I’ve collected over the years, seemingly disparate but essentially sequenced: die-hard inspirations, old treasures, new finds, and rarities - passed down by mentors, colleagues, old and new friends, of musics of all shapes and sizes.  All sequenced into a journey of musical diasporas, outlining that very tricky and particular thing we call Taste.

Tune in  |  Turn it up | and Festina Lente: