No Music Day: A Way To Clean Out The Ears That’s Safer Than A Q-Tip

noah | November 20, 2006 5:31 am

KLF founder Bill Drummond is suffering from clogged ears, so he’s called tomorrow–and every Nov. 21 following–No Music Day, where people can shut themselves off to all recorded sound. Drummond outlined the impetus behind his holiday in the Observer last month:

I decided I needed a day I could set aside to listen to no music whatsoever. Instead, I would be thinking about what I wanted and what I didn’t want from music. Not to blindly – or should that be deafly – consume what was on offer. A day where I could develop ideas. This day I would call No Music Day.

St Cecilia is the patron saint of music. I have no idea why and I am not interested in finding out. But her Saint’s Day is on 22 November. This is the day we are supposed to celebrate music, thank God for its existence. I decided that No Music Day should be on the day before St Cecilia’s Day, using the same principles as having Halloween the day before All Saints’ Day or Mardi Gras on the day before Lent kicks in.

Now, Drummond is in the always-tweaking KLF, so he may very well be using this as a setup to erect huge speakers throughout the UK and blare “Justified And Ancient” through them at a prescribed time. But we actually like this idea–even if we can’t participate–and we’re just going to say that if you ever needed a reason to not watch tomorrow’s Jimmy Kimmel-hosted crapfest (“Mariah Carey, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Eyed Peas and Nickelback lead the nominations…”), we’ve just given you a huge out.

No Music Day [nomusicday.com]

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