Metamatic Forums News and Announcements John Foxx news Cage Against The Machine...

Earlier today John Foxx participated in the re-recording of John Cage's 4'33"...

Below is the press release...

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On Monday the 6th of December a band made up of influential artists and musicians of the alternative scene from Pete Doherty to Penguin Prison, Kooks to Coldcut and Crystal Fighters to Dan Le Sac, will be gathered at the legendary Dean Street Studios in Soho to make history by re-recording John Cage’s celebrated piece, 4'33", which comprises of four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. The single (and subsequent 'pocket call' remixes by Alex Metric, Herve, Adam F, Mr Scruff and Hot Chip) will be released on Wall of Sound Records on December 13th, 2010.

Cage Against The Machine was started by London-based artist Dave Hilliard in summer 2010 as a grassroots Facebook campaign to get John Cage's famous 'silent' composition 4'33" to number one this Christmas. The idea soon reached tens of thousands of people and attracted media attention from all the national daily newspapers and radio stations around the world including The Sun, Mail, Guardian, MSN, Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff to name a few. The campaign stepped up a gear in October 2010 with the help of Eddy Temple Morris (XFM broadcaster and ambassador for BTA), Joe Hutchinson (Ou Est Le Swimming Pool) and Mark Jones (Wall of Sound) who joined forces to rally some of the most influential artists, producers and directors around today to make Hilliard’s vision a reality.

Just about this time last year what started off as two ‘likes’ on a Facebook page, and which quickly turned into a million, made Rage Against The Machine’s anthem Killing In The Name Christmas number one, in now legendary fashion. Jon Morter, one of the chief architects of the RATM campaign last year, recently came out in support of Cage Against The Machine, saying: "If ANY Xmas No.1 campaign is going to work... it'll be the John Cage 4'33" one." Now the Facebook community has reached over fifty thousand people committed to buying this single and, with a nation of indie / rock / punk communities ready once again to make a stand against bland, vacuous pop music; the clarion call is Cage Against The Machine for Christmas Number One!

All the proceeds from sales will go to five charities. These music-related charities were chosen by the Cage Against The Machine Facebook community's organisers as something they feel John Cage would have whole heartedly approved of. These are not fluffy or 'sexy' charities but five charities who are pitifully underfunded and desperate for funds to help research cures and improve awareness: Specifically...

1. The British Tinnitus Association (BTA): When Cage's 4'33" begins, anyone with Tinnitus will just hear their own dreadful ringing. This condition can drive people suicidal and affects musicians more than any other illness. BTA can't even afford to fund a single phone line 24 hours a day to help cope with suicidal calls from sufferers. We can change that.

2. Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM): When Chazz Haddon, singer of Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, tragically ended his own life at Pukkelpop festival in August, a spotlight was put on the fact that the biggest killer (aside from road accidents) of men under the age of thirty-five in the UK is suicide. Men are four times more likely to kill themselves than women. CALM is the only charity to soley focus upon addressing young male suicide.

3. Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy: Nordoff Robbins brings music's transforming power to children and adults in need, through the delivery of music therapy services.

4. Youth Music: Youth Music is the leading UK charity using music to transform the lives of disadvantaged children and young people.

5. Sound And Music: Promotes challenging new music and sound art. "Your support enables us to conceive, experiment and pioneer programmes to engage and inspire audiences of all ages."

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Below are some links from around the www which have (so far) covered this item...

The BBC ...

The Guardian ...

The Metro ...

Music News ...

Spoonfed ...



Watch the recording of 4'33" here ...

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I dare say that there'll be plenty more articles to follow...

Rob

BRILLIANT!

What he said! Let's do this.

YEAH!

Charity = +
Cage's 4,33 = pretentious crap, even the explanations they use to describe it are just that...

fons

This is great news. I knew the campaign was gathering momentum

http://www.metamatic.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000802

But didn't relise it had got this far.

Excellent that Quiet man himself is among those involved in it too...



Is that Suggs I can see next to John towards theend...?

It seems more than appropriate that the "quiet man" should take part.
Excellent.

Cracking stuff, suitable charity choices, and really great to see John as a part of this.

Does it really matter whether XFarter eats the Christmas day chart pudding or not? its already way beyond everything, you don't need to watch it on TV or listen to the radio to be aware of the extent of Cowells grip on popular culture, I just get on the bus and by the time I get to the centre pages of the free Metro paper I've been unwillingly treated to my daily dose of XFarter heroin.

I hope that 4'33" does get to number one - a moment of silence at the top of the music charts on Christmas day... confounding, or just profound...

It's pretty cool what John has done, way to go!

Just had a thought. Although it is of course highly appropriate for the Quiet Man to be involved, didn't I hear somewhere that he once wanted to be a machine? Perhaps John was the cougher that required a second take.

I actually think 4'33" of people listening to silence on Christmas Day would be rather useful. The stuff that can race around in your head in such a short time is amazing.

Maybe John's cough will be released as a bonus track when DNA gets reissued! :p

and OMG there really are a whole load of remixes!

Enjoy the Silence?

5.1 Surround?

Click here to see a film documenting the recording of the Cage Against The Machine track...

Rob

oops... spelling mistake .. .Radio 1 obviously very sensitive to the importance of this track
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/11990058
:rolleyes:

I look forward to hearing it played, in full, on air this coming Sunday then

Wonder what Reggie Yates reason for skipping past it will be...?

OK fair play. He didn't skip it, but did avoid referencing 'Cage Against The Machine'

Made No 21.

So that means John Foxx is back in the charts - a fitting way to end his 30th 'Anniversary'!!

:rolleyes: Oooooops!!! ,
I didn't actually notice this thread before I placed my own post about 'Cage Against The Machine' in the Green Room last night (my only excuse is that it was very late!). Thanks to Birdsong for pointing this out to me.

For a track with no sound, it's quite something to get to number 21 and amazing that they actually played it on the radio. I can imagine plenty of people thinking that something had gone wrong when there was no sound on the airwaves for four and a half mins.

Interesting to see how some of the people in the room didn't quite know what to do with themselves during the silent period and started swaying together from side to side (just stopping short of a Mexican wave!), with some others rocking their heads quite a lot, seemingly to some unheard beat playing in their own head.

Also quite surprising that all the various movements didn't get captured by the sensitive studio microphones and become a part of the track. After all, John Cage did intend for ambient sounds from the immediate environment to become a part of the piece and not necessarily for the whole thing to be completely silent. I wonder if the studio wiped any sounds from the recording, or maybe if it's turned up loud enough, there is actually something there?

All in all, a fascinating experiment to bring such an avant garde piece to the chart-centric populace.

Out for now,
Garden