Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Noise music is old hat for Depression-era Robber Barons.


The Society of Beaux Arts Architects have completed all arrangements for the Beaux Arts Ball to be held in New York. The affair is to be a "fete moderne - a fantasie in flame and silver" and will be held on Friday evening. [...] It will be modernistic, futuristic, cubistic, altruistic, mystic, architistic and feministic.
The orchestra will be assisted by nine riveting machines, a three-inch pipe for live steam, four ocean liner whistles, three sledge hammers and a few rock drills.
Beaux Arts Ball Will Be Modernistic Fete,
The Pittsburgh Press, January 21st, 1931

Back when the average drug-poncho wearing RISD grad's grandparents were in shortpants, the scions of high society were dressing up as skyscrapers, getting wasted, and making an unholy racket, proving that even noise music is old hat for Depression-era Robber Barons. Tickets were $15, which is $201.19 in current US dollars, and the event was sold out.

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