Gabba Gabba Cage

While I appreciated the content and breadth of Mark Swed’s article on the crossover between popular and more-or-less “highbrow” musics, his characterizing Joey Ramone’s performance of John Cage’s “Wonderful Widow of 18 Springs” as an “attempt” is way off the mark (“Crossing Over, Way Over,” Sept. 26).

It’s one of the best examples of a Cage performance (and would be quite suitable for many a Charles Ives song, as Phil Minton has done), recalling the performance of the same song by Robert Wyatt on Brian Eno’s Obscure label, which incidentally first released Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet,” also mentioned in the article.

DAVID PORTER, Anaheim.

Porter, a musicologist, is a music programmer at KPFK-FM (90.7).