Records ruin the landscape : John Cage, the sixties, and sound recording

247 Pages·2014·1.486 MB·English

by  Cage, John, Cage, John, Grubbs, David, Cage, John

Records Ruin the Landscape
DaviD Grubbs
recorDs ruin the LanDscape
John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording
Duke university press • Durham anD LonDon • 2014
© 2014 DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ON ACID- FREE PAPER ♾
DESIGNED BY AMY RUTH BUCHANAN
TYPESET IN GARAMOND PREMIER PRO BY
TSENG INFORMATION SYSTEMS, INC.
EPIGRAPH FROM “THE SYSTEM” BY JOHN ASHBERY, FIRST
PUBLISHED IN THREE POEMS. COPYRIGHT © 1972, 1985,
2008 BY JOHN ASHBERY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY
ARRANGEMENT WITH GEORGES BORCHARDT, INC. FOR
THE AUTHOR.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING- IN- PUBLICATION DATA
GRUBBS, DAVID, 1967–
RECORDS RUIN THE LANDSCAPE : JOHN CAGE, THE SIXTIES, AND SOUND
RECORDING / DAVID GRUBBS.
PAGES CM
INCLUDES BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES AND INDEX.
ISBN 978-0-8223-5576-2 (CLOTH : ALK. PAPER)
ISBN 978-0-8223-5590-8 (PBK. : ALK. PAPER)
1. CAGE, JOHN—CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION. 2. IMPROVISATION
(MUSIC)—HISTORY AND CRITICISM. 3. AVANT-GARDE (MUSIC)—
HISTORY AND CRITICISM. 4. SOUND RECORDINGS. I. TITLE.
ML410.C24G78 2014
780.9’04—DC23 2013041395
The rejected chapters have taken over. For a long
time it was as though only the most patient scholar
or the recording angel himself would ever inter-
est himself in them. Now it seems as though that
angel had begun to dominate the whole story: he
who was supposed only to copy it all down has
joined forces with the misshapen, misfit pieces that
were never meant to go into it but at best to stay on
the sidelines so as to point up how everything else
belonged together, and the resulting mountain of
data threatens us.
—JOHN ASHBERY, “The System” (1972)

contents
(ix) preface
(xxiii) acknowLeDGments
(1) Introduction
1
(19) Henry Flynt on the Air   
2
(45) Landscape with Cage  
3
(67) John Cage, Recording Artist   
4
(105) The Antiques Trade  
Free Improvisation and Record Culture
5
(135) Remove the Records from Texas  
Online Resources and Impermanent Archives
(167) notes
(195) seLecteD DiscoGraphy
(199) bibLioGraphy
(209) inDex

Preface
What does it mean to come to know a period through its recordings?
What does it mean to know a period through the recorded artifacts of
composers and musicians who largely disdained recordings?
An early impulse to write this book came from observing how listeners’
understandings of experimental and avant- garde music from the 1960s
change on the basis of access to sound recordings. Simply put, what circu-
lates in recorded form at a given time helps to delineate a historical land-
scape of musical activity. But for many practitioners of experimental music
from the 1960s, sound recordings register as an odd, counterintuitive ob-
ject of study. I encountered this firsthand when discussing the project with
a number of musicians, composers, and producers who came of age in the
1960s, most of whom remain of the opinion that audio recordings are at
best curiously incomplete representations of their efforts.
I was born in the late 1960s, and I often gravitate toward music created
in that decade. Fundamental to my interest in music from this period is
the challenge of understanding that part of the past that lies just beyond
memory’s reach. My fascination with the recent but experientially inacces-
sible past found its first and most enduring subject in the popular music
of the 1960s. From an early age, I felt that I knew the pop music of this
time through an itinerary of its landmark albums and singles, and through
arranging these recordings on an increasingly detailed time line. If your
passion centers on pop music from the 1960s, it becomes second nature
to know by date particular albums or songs or events in the careers of the
Beatles or the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan or James Brown. It begins with
the release dates of iconic recordings: Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band in the summer of 1967, Blonde on Blonde in the summer of 1966,
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” in the