Unsilent night in NY

Too many do-gooders have crucified carols at Christmas, so New York composer Phil Kline created his own music for a Chrissie parade.

Rather than trust it to a human choir, he assembled a choir of boom boxes.

Kline crafted a multi-layered composition, recorded each part onto separate tapes and handed them out to about 30 New Yorkers who showed up for the first Unsilent Night parade in 1992. Then, simultaneously, they pressed play on their ghetto blasters and began walking through the city streets.

"When I had the idea, I didn't really know what it would sound like," the 52-year-old says. "But it sounds just sensational.

"It's like being inside a benevolent snowstorm. The music floats in the area and spreads around and sometimes you can't tell where it's coming from. It almost feels like it's coming from heaven."

From: The Sydney Morning Herald

Go here for more on the story above.

In 2005 the New York event will happen on Sunday December 18th. We will meet at the Arch in Washington Square at 6:45 pm, begin at 7 pm and proceed eastward to Tompkins Square Park, where the piece will end around 8 o'clock.

It would be really cool if you could join us and bring a boom box. The more tapes we run, the bigger and more amazing the sound will be. This past Christmas we had 100 boomboxes and over 500 people total, it was really spectacular... If you'd like to do it, please email me at boombox@mindspring.com so I will know how many tapes to make. If you'd like to do it but don't have a boombox, I have several dozen and you can grab one...and if you want to come and just listen, that's cool, too. Help us make a BIG (and joyful) noise.

I just found more info on this below:

Volunteers should contact organizers in advance at the email addresses below and should bring their own boomboxes.

December 10, 4:30 p.m.: Middlesbrough UK (Judith_Croft@middlesbrough.gov.uk)
December 17, 7 p.m.: San Diego, CA (sounds@accretions.com)
December 17, 7 p.m.: Sydney, Australia (filmcement@gmail.com)
December 18, 7 p.m.: New York, NY (boombox@mindspring.com)
December 18, 7 p.m.: Vancouver, BC (colin@crypticmusic.ca)
December 19, 7 p.m.: Philadelphia, PA (www.relache.org)
December 21, 7 p.m.: San Francisco, CA (colinb@sonic.net)