Last week Jamie Parker said that he had never seen a group of people more allergic to silence than the Thais. The TV never gets a rest. Rice farmers wake to loudspeakers blaring crop prices. Dogs howl without an owner’s restraining smack and karaoke bars punish neighbors with painful renditions of Isaan love songs way past dawn.

And I’ve never heard a Thai complain about this ceaseless din.

Quiet on the other hand scares the shit out of Thais, as if ghosts or phi are slinking through the night to eat their flesh.

This aversion to silence is not to say that they don’t appreciate san-dti? so?ok or tranquility, which was yesterday’s goal of No Music Day in the UK.

No music. None at all.

The website www.nomusicday.com belongs to KLF founder Bill Drummond, whose infamous counter-reaction to fame and fortune was to delete KLF’s musical backlog and then burn a million pounds on the deserted Scottish island of Jura. The fiery destruction of 50-pound notes took less than an hour and gained the band members near-legend status for their disregard for money.

Now Bill Drummond has organized No Music Day on November 21.

“All music is shite.” He said after a visit to HMV Oxford Street and he doesn’t consider this attitude due to his age. “There was nothing So I went home and searched every corner of the web for something new, fresh, exciting. Something that would make me hear music in a different way. Something that would open a door to a room in my head which I had never been in before. But even in those furthest corners I could find nothing that did this. 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.”

Nietzsche countered Bill Drummond by saying, “Life without music would be a mistake.”

Maybe so, but I joined No Music Day and didn’t play a single CD or watch TV.  

My house was a temple to No Music.

No Stones, no Beethoven, no Jam, no Ramones, no Loso.

But I must have been the only person observing the holiday in Pattaya, because as soon as I left my soi, music was coming from every direction. The 7/11, passing car stereos, a girl answering her telephone. Most of it meaningless background noise.

I did mention No Music day to Nick Rieter recently back from the UK. “KLF. That wanker. Says he burned a million pounds. Probably said it to keep from paying back his friends and I couldn’t remember a single song of theirs anyway. Fucking sod off. You don’t want to hear any music, then stick chopsticks into your ears.”

I stopped mentioning No Music Day after that and broke my fast with Jeff Beck’s Truth CD.

SHAPES OF THINGS

Nothing says old like pre-1969 music.

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