[silence] John Cage 1975 Columbus GA (cd aud recording)

[Stefano Pocci]

Hi there, I thought this was a nice one to share here. On dimeadozen.org, a 
popular torrent tracker where only unreleased live recordings (of all kind 
of music) are shared (downloading via bit-torrent clients), two days ago a 
John Cage performance was posted. Below you'll find the details added by the 
uploader.

It's John Cage performing, not just a piece of his played.


Stefano



P.S. registration at Dime is free, but there is a limit on the slots 
available (currently 100.000) so signing up is hard since it's difficult to 
find a free hole. But once you're in, if you love jazz, avantgarde or 
classical or just any music in particular, you'll dig the place. It's a huge 
resource.



>
> A new torrent has been uploaded to DIME.
>
> Torrent: 150684
> Title: John Cage 1975 Columbus GA
> Size: 109.37 MB
> Category: Avantgarde
> Uploaded by: TheTooleMan
>
> Info hash: 39bf4bf7c206c4a3f78fb92fe6f7aefd5325605a
>
> Description
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> John Cage
>
> Auditorium, Columbus College (now "Columbus State University")
>
> Columbus, GA
>
> Spring, 1975
>
>
>
> Recorded by TheTooleMan
>
>
>
> Lineage: (1975) Panasonic cassette recorder and E/V 660 microphone -> 
> Tandberg 3000X -> BASF reel @ 3-3/4 ips
>
> (2007): AKAI GX-220D reel-to-reel deck -> Xitel Inport -> Sound Forge -> 
> FLAC
>
>
>
> In the spring of 1975, Ken, a friend from our mutual home-town of 
> Columbus, Georgia, came by my dorm
> room at the University of Georgia and to say that John Cage was doing an 
> artist-in-residence program at
> Columbus College, and was giving a performance on the coming Friday night.
>
> THE John Cage? In sleepy little Columbus?
>
> Being the guy from Columbus with a car, Ken and two of his buddies piled 
> into my '66 VW Beetle, and
> we headed south for Columbus that Friday afternoon.
>
> That night, from my squeaky auditorium seat, I taped most of Mr. Cage's 
> performance, as well as part of the
> "meet and greet" on the stage afterward. Ken and one of his friends asked 
> Mr. Cage a couple of good
> questions, and his answers tell us a lot about the work he presented that 
> night.
>
> (I am looking for more information about this performance, and have 
> contacted Columbus State University to
> see what they have in their archives. I know that an art instructor at the 
> school was filming with a 16mm camera
> while I was on the stage with Mr. Cage and Ken and his friends, but I do 
> not know how much more was filmed
> or whether that film still exists. Any additional information would be 
> welcomed.)
>
> "Empty Words" is a four-part "non-syntactical" work based on the journal 
> of Henry David Thoreau. For the
> reading, Mr. Cage sat at a desk with a lamp and a watch, the text on a 
> book stand, and read part of
> the third part of the work, which has only syllables and letters. Mr. Cage 
> gives an extended explanation of
> the work in his introduction, which is track one of this CD. The reading, 
> track two, lasted longer than the
> 30 minutes I captured. The tape ran out, and I did not flip the cassette 
> and record the rest of this part
> of the program. (Anyone with a time machine, please contact me to rectify 
> this situation.)
>
> Track four, "Music for Marcel Duchamp" (1947), is performed by Mr. Cage on 
> a prepared piano, which I believe
> was an upright piano rather than a concert grand. As he explains in his 
> introduction, track three, the work was
> written for Duchamp's segment of the film "Dreams That Money Can Buy" by 
> Hans Richter.
>
> Track five is a recording on the stage of the auditorium, during the 
> post-program question and answer period
> described earlier. Mr. Cage gives more insight into his work and this 
> evening's performance. From what he
> reveals in answer to Ken's question about the watch, I gather that each 
> performance of "Empty Words" is
> unique, based on chance operations which involve his watch. Also, we learn 
> that there were slides projected
> during the "Empty Words" performance, but Mr. Cage indicates that these 
> were not coordinated with his reading.
>
> My recorder and microphone were in my knapsack throughout the program, and 
> I took the knapsack onstage
> for the questions and answers. I held the sack, dangling from a strap, at 
> approximately knee-level, the mic
> protruding from the opening and the recorder's buttons and red record 
> light plainly visible to Mr. Cage when
> he looked down at it after answering Ken's questions. He looked at me 
> suspiciously. I smiled, tried to be
> charming, and asked if he would give me a "sound autograph." He replied, 
> "No."
>
> For this edition of the recording, noise reduction was used only on track 
> one, the introduction to "Empty
> Words," to improve the clarity of Mr. Cage's introduction to the piece. A 
> parametric equalizer and spectrum
> analysis graph were employed to isolate and filter out hums from the 
> auditorium air conditioning system.
>
> Volume was boosted on tracks one and three, both introductions spoken 
> off-mic by Mr. Cage. The audio
> level of "Empty Words" is unaltered from the original recording, as the 
> loud and quiet passages are
> essential elements of the work.
>
>
> TheTooleMan
> June, 2007
>
>
>
> Tracks:
>
> 1. Introduction to "Empty Words"
> 2. Empty Words (incomplete)
> 3. Introduction to "Music for Marcel Duchamp"
> 4. Music for Marcel Duchamp
> 5. Questions and Answers
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You can use the URL below to download the torrent (you may have to login).
>
> http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=150684&hit=1
>
> Take care!
>
> dimeadozen.org