Last week we gave you John Cage per­form­ing his avant-garde com­po­si­tion Water Walk on the CBS game show “I’ve Got a Secret” in 1960. Now, this week, we’re fol­low­ing up with a nice com­ple­ment — Frank Zap­pa bring­ing his own brand of off­beat music to the Amer­i­can air­waves in 1963. Only 22 years old and not yet famous, Zap­pa appeared on The Steve Allen Show and made music with some drum­sticks, a bass bow, and two gar­den-vari­ety bicy­cles — and noth­ing more.

The video above gives you most­ly the pre­lude to the actu­al music. Then, in the first video below, Zap­pa gives a demo of the instru­ments. Next comes the Con­cer­to for Two Bicy­cles, which fea­tures the show’s house orches­tra join­ing the cacoph­o­nous fun. The clips run a good 15 min­utes.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Frank Zap­pa Gets Sur­prised & Ser­e­nad­ed by the U.S. Navy Band at the San Fran­cis­co Air­port (1980)

Ani­mat­ed: Frank Zap­pa on Why the Cul­tur­al­ly-Bereft Unit­ed States Is So Sus­cep­ti­ble to Fads (1971)

Frank Zap­pa Explains the Decline of the Music Busi­ness (1987)

Frank Zappa’s Amaz­ing Final Con­certs: Prague and Budapest, 1991

In 1952, John Cage com­posed his most con­tro­ver­sial piece, 4′33,″ a four-and-a-half minute reflec­tion on the sound of silence. Now fast for­ward eight years. It’s Feb­ru­ary, 1960, and we find the com­pos­er teach­ing his famous Exper­i­men­tal Com­po­si­tion cours­es at The New School in NYC, and pay­ing a vis­it to the CBS game show “I’ve Got a Secret.” The TV show offered Cage some­thing of a teach­able moment, a chance to intro­duce the broad­er pub­lic to his brand of avant-garde music. Cage’s piece is called Water Walk (1959), and it’s all per­formed with uncon­ven­tion­al instru­ments, save a grand piano. A water pitch­er, iron pipe, goose call, bath­tub, rub­ber duck­ie, and five unplugged radios — they all make the music. And the audi­ence does­n’t quite know how to react, except with ner­vous laugh­ter. It was­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly cour­te­ous. But, as one schol­ar has not­ed, it’s equal­ly remark­able that prime time TV gave ten min­utes of unin­ter­rupt­ed air­time to avant-garde music. You take the good with the bad.

via Bib­liok­lept/WFMU

Kel­log­g’s first start­ed mar­ket­ing Rice Krispies way back in 1928, and, ever since, we’ve grown accus­tomed to whole­some adver­tis­ing cam­paigns that fea­ture the car­toon mas­cots Snap, Crack­le and Pop. (See ad from 1939.) For a brief moment in 1964, all of this whole­some­ness was put aside when the J. Wal­ter Thomp­son ad agency worked with the Rolling Stones to cre­ate a hip­per, more inspired jin­gle. The result­ing com­mer­cial aired briefly only in the UK…

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!