Ken Hollings lectures on John Cage

My friend Ken Hollings is a master at connecting the dots between avant garde art history, outré culture, weird science, and basically everything that interests me. You might recall that Ken is the author of the absolutely fantastic radio series and book "Welcome to Mars," about the "fantasy of science in the early years of the American Century" involving nuclear war, LSD, flying saucers, the occult, B movies, and the space age. Here he is talking about John Cage and many, many other things. This was part of the 2011 "Off the Page" music criticism and audio culture literary festival that takes place in the seaside town of Whitstable in Kent, England. This year's festival is February 24 - 26 and will feature the likes of Simon Reynolds, Gavin Bryars, and BB pal Mark Pilkington! Off The Page 2012

• [Steen N. A. Rasmussen]

  Just in case anyone is looking for the ‘Welcome to Mars’ radio series, it’s up on Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/Welcome_to_Mars

  • [David Pescovitz]

    Thank you! I updated the link in my post.

• [Noctilucent Studios]

  That “Welcome to Mars” series was one of the coolest things I have ever found online.

• [Sweeny]

  That was really enjoyable, offered a few new insights into Cage.

• [tristan eldritch]

  I loved the book Welcome to Mars – it’s like an Adam Curtis documentary with the considerable added bonus of UFOs and atomic mutations.

• [Michael]

  I love this radio series, thank you very much!

• [ronhip]

  Might be nice to credit the photograph of John Cage to Susan Schwartzenberg,  © Exploratorium, All rights reserved. (given that it’s not public domain…) It was taken of him when he was working at the Exploratorium on the Speaking of Music series. You can hear a podcast of John Cage’s presentation here:

  http://www.exploratorium.edu/40th/podcasts.php?cmd=browse&project=92&program=00001092&type=podcast

• [Choco Penotti]

  Thank you very very much for sharing this! Great work!