Here's John Cage performing Water Walk in January, 1960 on the popular TV show I've Got A Secret.
At the time, Cage was teaching Experimental Composition at New York City's New School. Eight years beyond 4:33, he was (as our smoking MC informs us) the most controversial figure in the musical world at that time. His first performance on national television was originally scored to include five radios, but a union dispute on the CBS set prevented any of the radios from being plugged in to the wall. Cage gleefully smacks and tosses the radios instead of turning them on and off.
While treating Cage as something of a freak, the show also treats him fairly reverentially, cancelling the regular game show format to allow Cage the chance to perform his entire piece.
File this one away with Frank Zappa playing his bicycle on The Steve Allen Show (which happened three years after this): part one | part two
Download the mpeg video of this clip here (57 megs)
Thanks to Charlie for chucking this VHS tape into my "to rip" pile.
I was watching Five Easy Pieces, a wonderful early Jack Nicholson classic. A fundamental theme of the film is sound, especially music. [...] The scene reminded me immediately of the John Cage and using found sound: his compositions Imaginary Landscapes and HPSCHD both lept to mind. Cage was at the top of my mind as I had just seen a recent post about clip of Mr. Cage on the old television game show I've Got a Secret...
Posted by: Randy Thornton | May 21, 2007 at 09:31 PM
If a truck drives by a school it isn't music unless someone hears the truck, and that makes them think of something.
Anyways I really like how Cage spices up his music with a bit of visual performance. When he started watering the flower for instance... brilliant.
Posted by: Adwanoc | August 20, 2007 at 04:35 PM
The radios being turned on are definitely part of the piece, so I imagine the union dispute was real; having waited half a day to have a lamp plugged in at a convention hall, I find the idea all too credible.
Posted by: Hell's Donut House | September 28, 2007 at 12:27 AM
I'm glad that the radios weren't plugged in... slapping the radios and pushing them off the tables is more creative and absurdly funny.
"I prefer laughter to tears"... brilliant and so kind of him.
Posted by: Mark | April 13, 2008 at 02:43 PM
I just can't believe this.Thanks for this lovely clip and it made me forget all the worries at least for the time being.
Posted by: Viddiction | May 10, 2008 at 03:33 AM
This was terrible, music isn't sound! If music was sound then my fart would be music too.
Posted by: Cheeseman | January 14, 2009 at 04:55 PM
Hello,
I’m from the „Wiener Taschenoper“, which is an Autrian office for theatre produktions.
For our play “A House Full of Music” (John Cage for children) we are desperately looking for a recording of John Cage performing Water Walk in January 1960 on the TV show I've Got A Secret. We tried to download the video from the internet but the quality is really bad. If somebody knows where we could get a proper recording from, we would be very happy and thankful for any help.
Lili Hargassner
Posted by: Lili Hargassner | September 24, 2009 at 04:20 AM