when it comes to conceptual pieces, then i think seeing this in a live setting is far more powerful than listening to a cd or LP of it.

case in point - the andrew liles/jonathan coleclough performance @ brainwaves was excellent, but wouldn't have the same impact w/o seeing the performance unfold visually.

Yeah.. John Cage farts aren't brilliant.

John Cage is a good example of like "oh my god the Concept is sooooo interesting." "Yeah, want to listen to it?" "Not really, no."

same with boring fuck phillip glass

Philip Glass is mostly turd (Einstein and some of the earlier things excepted). I sent someone some mp3s of Cage recently and he was surprised that, once you actually get to listen, it's not entirely turd. I like Cage a lot, but I definitely prefer the post-1950s stuff.

I have a Cage record that is actually quite good of prepared piano pieces.

My senior painting class all got free tickets to the opening of Phillip Glass' Opera based on a Gertrud Stein poem. Three Kings or something/ it was fucking HORRIBLE

who wrote that article just watch one side of the question...there is a lot to be said about this...but i'm still saying noise is just a technical word to classified some kind of sound.
musicians like Cage ,Merzbow, Branca noise don't exist, and how your or mine ears are educate that's other thing...
...red wine...peace!

Yeah, I gotcha. I was just egging you on.

Didn't Glass do the scores for the first 2 Candyman films? If so, they werent boring.

speeaking of music sounds, "noise" is senseless.

speaking of self-described genres, "noise" does exist.

i think recently my tastes have move from enjoying more free noise to prefering noise as a means rather than an end. a lot of my reasons for disliking noise s by speaking to noise artists and noise fans, who can be so booring. the main problem with them ( very broad generalazation) is that they seem to think that since the genre itself is "bad" ie noisy, that justifies any peice of shit record or show, as long as it lives up to that criteria.
so if i say, man that show was shit, all they did was shout and push buttons, they say, what do you expect, its noise. that attitude opens up the slate for such a long list of talentless frauds that justify their musical exsitence because the noise is the final stop in their creativity.
cause i do think, no matter what, to make music, just like every art form one needs talent. thats why extreme free jazz noise, like boerbetomagus is more interesting to me than some asshole with an osscilater and dist pedal through a mike, because not everyone can play sax that way... kind of like any idiot can throw paint on a canvas, but not everyone is jackson pollock...
but i still like noise sometimes....
i hope some of that was coherent and not just random babble

brfanca and cage arent noise...
for some reson i have it stuck in my head that if it can be notated than its not noise. but then someone went and transcribed metal machine music, so i dont know what to belive...

It's the old thing of reading with context. When we're in a thread about Whitehouse/ Wolf Eyes (or whomever) we understand that the word 'noise' may refer to the musical genre 'noise', characterised by x and y (alluded to above).

When we're saying it's shit, prurient sound (the idea that Celine Dion is offensive sound), 'noise' is an adjective meaning 'sound I didn't enjoy'. Or, if we're being Kantian aesthetes, we're broadly generalising to say that this is tasteless, bad music.

In the context of Cage-ian aesthetics, we understand that Cage sought to destabalise the Western 'classical' notion of tonality being central to music (something that Schoenberg, to Cage, didn't succeed in doing).

Often by 'noise' we mean something that doesn't fall under the auspices of accepted Western tonality - precisely the sort of argument that dismisses quartertonal music (or just intonation) as being outside of the accepted boundaries of Western tonality.

We've also got the sense of 'noise' whereby it's used as synonymous for what a lot of people (your spectralists/ post-Xenakisians) refer to as enharmonism.

All are fine, methinks, but when people read things out of context and just say "I believe Cage was right, absolutely" we miss the context of reading. Cage didn't do away with the ideas of good or bad (he had preferences and dislikes, like everyone), he just made the decision 'good' or 'bad' art less important than (drumroll) its context.

Tristan Murail, Gerard Grisey, Kaija Sariaaho, Horatiu Radelescu - all names you should check out. I presume you're aware of Xenakis anyway.

How can you describe something like that? Some noise is good because it just absolutly pummels, like Whitehouse. Some Noise is good for the sheer freakiness and wierdness of it, like Cock ESP and To Live and Shave in LA. Some Noise can blast you into other dimensions, like the Skaters.

All and all I like Noise a lot. I also hate when people hate on a band like Wolf Eyes, talking about how they put too much stuff out. Maybe so, but I would appreciate a band who puts out a shit load of decent/interesting-amazing stuff, then a band who puts out a good record every three years. Some of the random jam cdr's by Wolf Eyes I have are totally amazing shit that you feel special for being one of the few people to know about.

Although, one thing I do prefer in my Noise is for the artists to make thier racket without any sort of pretense. Take Merzbow. Yeah, he's had some good records, but, there's just so much academia snobbery in his music, he's lacking that primal sleaze element that makes bands like the Velvets and the Stooges so damn eternal. Because of this, you'll rarely meet a big Noise fan who will say, "Merzbow is my favorite", for me, Merz is more a gateway artist than anything.

Then take Masonna. Though he is most oft-compared to Merzbow, Masonna is not content to sit behind a labtop and watch it makes loud noises. No way, he gets out on the floor, dances, hurts himself, and oozes rock n roll ferocity. His music is also exceptionally consistent, and is always ear seering loud and extreme.

Then of course there's Noise bands who rely more on shifting frequencies of sounds at atmosphere than pure aural chaos. I like those too. Like Filthy Turd and the 16 Bitch Pile Up LP.



Then,

I'd much prefer a band put out 12 perfect songs every 3 years than the piles and piles of regurgitated crap that wolf eyes keeps putting out.

Agreed. There's potentially merit in everything, but personally I switch off quite quickly if the quality control is low. This syndrome isn't exclusive to noise - I was quite into free improv for a while, but there is a whole world of perfunctory releases there.

As this thread seems to be a stairlift of noise references...
I only tried listening to "noise" because of reading people on this board, and its resulted in the following conclusions;

I absolutely love Ashtray Navigations and cant think of how i listened to music before hearing them

There are a couple of Whitehouse videos on youtube which are very visceral, a little ojectionable, and strikingly familiar.

Merzbow is admirable but still shit

Americans pressing buttons and screaming doesnt really work