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At 03:09 PM 6/2/99 -0400, Dennis wrote: > >I hope somebody else will find this as funny as I did. > >The past week-end I wandered into the local Barnes and Noble looking for a >John Cage recording. "What section?", I asked myself since virtually all >music MUST BE CLASSIFIED (check the Music Business Police Handbook under >"retail sales"). "Pop/Rock? Folk?, New Age, Classical?" I found John >Cage >in "Classical." I laughed out loud. While I can see the humor in Dennis' situation, in thinking about it, I'm not sure I would have found any other categories applied to Cage as being less funny. After all, if you had to pick, how would you classify Cage? His earlier material - 30's and 40's - sounds like progressive rock to me. I especially love his percussion and prepared piano pieces - so far ahead of their time. From the 50's on, when he began composing through chance operations, could fall into a couple areas for me. For the quieter pieces a classification of ambient sounds reasonable while the louder works might go well with the RIO, Rock In Opposition, crowd. If you're looking for an interesting starting point for Cage, a few years ago I produced an album in tribute to Cage called A Chance Operation. It was a double disc set that featured such artists as Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, Kronos Quartet, John Cale, Robert Ashley and many more, 22 artists in all. It got quite a bit of positive press at the time. You'll find info about it at <http://www.artist-shop.com/gary>. Gary ************************************************************** Gary Davis The Artist Shop The Other Road http://www.artist-shop.com artshop@artist-shop.com phone: 330-929-2056 fax:330-945-4923 SUPPORT THE INDEPENDENT ARTIST!!! ************************************************************** Check out the latest Artist Shop newsletter at http://www.artist-shop.com/news.htm