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Originally Posted by batreleaser
And whoever said John Cage is the nest in modern noise, I highly disagree. I can't stand his music, the guy has some balls to record and perform silence for nine minutes and think some hack academic types are gonna hail its brilliance. I respect the man for his ideas and theory, but as far as his music, no thanks. He's the ultimate in overly academic snobbery music. If we're talking 20th cent Avant Composition, I'd take Xenakis, Partch, Stockhausen, Boulez, and Varese everyday. But then again, I've only recently been getting into this stuff (past year) and have limited knowledge on the subject. I'm a rock n roll mothafucka.
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Since I think you have good taste in music overall, I urge you to actually listen to a broader sampling of Cage's work than you obviously have. Cage was in no way an academic snob, as his willingness to associate with the Fluxists clearly indicates. There are definitely some academic snobs out there who have appropriated the man onto a pedestal that he never asked for and had no use for, but so what? That has no reflection on his music.
Check out "First Construction in Metal", "Imaginary Landscape No. 1", "Radio Music", and "Rozart Mix" then tell me this guy wasn't decades ahead of his time and setting the standard that much of the crazy shit we listen to stems from.
"4'33"" is one of the most misunderstood pieces ever, because it's not actually about the silence, it's about the sound of a room full of people in anticipation of sound and the sounds the musician makes turning the blank pages in the sheet music. That said, it's far from his greatest work and he has some stuff that is absolute mindfuckingly good listening.
To answer your original question, Merzbow is clearly the Jim Hendrix of noise music and revered on that same level of worship.
I don't really have a favorite noise musican myself. I mean, Crank Sturgeon, but I think of him more as a genius performance artist than noise musician, despite the fact that the noise scene fully embraces him.