Sunday
(0)This is exactly the time one one should avoid writing: immediately after being poured out of a Belfast taxi on a Saturday night. But it is also the time when "In Vino Veritas" holds most true and one will say what comes to mind rather than considering details like flow and cute turns of phrase.
I go out for music. If a woman happens to fall into my lap during the search, that is certainly a plus, but not a prerequisite. Tonight, I decided on the Shaftesbury Square/Botanic Avenue area rather than the usual good chat and trad music at my local. For a bit of a change I started at Madison's. A couple pints, a bit of girl watching... but after three or four songs I simply could not take the music. Not that it sounded bad. Au contraire. It sounded marvellous. The problem was... it was a Milli Vanilli band: karaoke tracks with occasional backup from live guitar, bass guitar and maybe vocals. To most of the audience I am sure it was just two guys making a lot of music. Never mind there was no drummer or cowbell or keyboard player on stage; never mind that sometimes the guitarist was playing a D chord when the sound was lead guitar. The guys on stage were making their nut; the audience was happy... capitalism at work.
But I was not a happy camper... and despite the pulchritude surrounding me I decamped for a more classical low down rock bar.
I found what I was looking for. Not that it was much of a search. I knew where I was going. I would tell you except I do not wish to get them into trouble. They had the real thing. Five live musicians with driving Rock and Roll so loud a Brussell's regulator would have pissed herself. "If it is too loud, you are too old". I was, naturally, up close to the stage where I could feel the volume. That is the proper way to experience AC/DC and Judas Priest covers... up where your clothes are vibrating.
Now I may have an advantage over some. I probably blew out half my hearing long ago standing in front of a Fender amp in a Pittsburgh bar band; or perhaps from that time I half laid on the stage at a Patti Smith concert at the Leona Theater in the South Side, my head resting inside the lower Altec Lansing. That was a good few years and a lot of substance abuse ago.
One thing you need not worry about. The rockers will simply not obey the regulators. I have said it here before. 'Turn it down' is simply not in an electric lead guitarist's vocabulary. "Fuck off", on the other hand, is definitely there.
You can only be enslaved if you are actually willing to obey the law... or, as Robert Heinlein said: "You can never enslave a free man. The most that you can do is to kill him."
Oh yeah... I went out for a cheeseburger with bacon afterwards. Dripping grease and ketchup... yummy. Screw the Health Nazi's too...
I am sure David Carr would have approved.
Loosing your hearing isn't a static thing. The more you are exposed to very loud noise the more your hearing deteriorates. Beeing hal deaf isn't much fun.
Posted by Jacob at August 8, 2004 11:31 AM
Be warned, Mr. Amon. Those self-same health Nazis are onto you.
Plans are already quite far advanced to exert draconian control over noise at gigs. Watch this space over the next couple of years - my spies tell me its going to be quite a battleground - possibly involving the mandatary use of equipment to monitor and control noise levels at venues.
God rot these "'elfan'safety" androids. I hope they choke to death on their own cotton wool.
Posted by GCooper at August 8, 2004 12:24 PM
I'm sure I could find ways to tamper with whatever equipment they come up with, and so will members of most rock bands. There is a lot of electronics and audio knowledge in that line of work. You don't make it into the good gigs just by knowing a few power chords. You have to know your gear.
Monitoring devices will last all of five minutes before they are compromised, subverted or just strangely failed when that chick accidentally dropped her rum and coke into the ceiling sensor...
Posted by Dale Amon at August 8, 2004 01:37 PM
Oh GCooper, there's nothing new under the sun. In Leeds we had the 96 decibel rules way back in the late 60s/early 70s as a response to (I think) the delights of Status Quo. If I recall correctly, there was a gizmo that cut the speakers when the noise level reached 97 dB. Many bands boycotted Leeds Town Hall for gigs for a few years after this.
Posted by John R at August 8, 2004 01:55 PM
I wonder how long it's going to be before such a post becomes some sort of hate speech under EU law....
Posted by Sylvain Galineau at August 8, 2004 02:36 PM
For me, it's "If it's too loud, you forgot your earplugs." I treasure my hearing, so I take my own steps to keep it rather than tell the band to turn it down.
And yes, I actually have spent the better part of a concert with my fingers in my ears. All the distortion gets cut out that way, and you can hear the playing clearly. (It was Jeff Beck.)
Posted by B. Durbin at August 8, 2004 06:35 PM
Sounds like a good night out. Where your clothes are vibrating, yes. Patti Smith -- an old Lefty, but all is forgiven for the ROCK. Saw her in Chicago a few summers ago and she kicked ass. I don't get out enough to get deaf anymore. But I know the feeling.
Rock and Roll will never die unless you let it.
We won't.
Posted by Lexington Green at August 8, 2004 08:05 PM
A year or so back (actually, looking at the trowerpower.com web site, it must have been almost three years ago), Robin Trower came to a nearby venue on a U.S. tour. Being a fan from back in the late seventies, I went. It was a smallish place, and they played LOUD. Ahh....
Posted by Bill St. Clair at August 8, 2004 08:33 PM
Dale Amon writes:
"Monitoring devices will last all of five minutes before they are compromised, subverted or just strangely failed when that chick accidentally dropped her rum and coke into the ceiling sensor..."
Well, yes... you might be right. Then again, I wouln't underestimate the determination of these bastards to make their silly notions stick. If the penalties are sufficiently draconian and the enforcement rigid, a couple of well-publicised 'examples' could change a lot of things.
Judging from their impact in almost all other areas of human commercial activity, I would have to cite the "'elf'ansafety" Nazis as one of the most dangerous brands to have arisen in the last 30 years.
I mean... whoever would have believed the Irish would stop smoking in bars?
Posted by GCooper at August 8, 2004 11:33 PM
"I mean... whoever would have believed the Irish would stop smoking in bars?"
Do you think they have? (And yes, I do mean down south)
They haven't stopped over in NYC either btw. Won't name
bars there, but the ashtrays still come out at night.
Posted by Dale Amon at August 9, 2004 03:13 AM
About a year ago I wrote a piece for TCS about this very issue. There were estimates that it would pretty much kill live music in the EU. Or as I prognosticated, a lot of live music would move to Norway.
Music can be loud and not distorted. I loath going to gigs (and I got to quite a few as a reviewer) where its so loud that all you hear is the distortion. I have been to a few gigs where the sound-man should have been severely beaten for being so crap.
Tonight I am off to CD launch/gig by the awesome DSF. I am guessing it will be rather loud and it will involve lots of free booze. No word on whether there will be any food to alarm the safety Nazis.
If its too loud, you're too old. (KISS)
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge at August 9, 2004 04:15 PM
Andrew Ian Dodge writes:
"About a year ago I wrote a piece for TCS about this very issue"
I'm sure it's an incredibly stupid question, but what is TCS?
Posted by GCooper at August 9, 2004 10:39 PM
"I loath going to gigs (and I got to quite a few as a reviewer) where its so loud that all you hear is the distortion."
Yes. But for ROCK there is an optimum loudness which is very loud indeed, though short of a pure-noise din, which amounts to an almost palpable impact on the body and ears, which has its own psycho-physical effect, which is a big part of the experience. To make that illegal as "too loud" is like making all beer be 1%. It destroys much of the point of the exercise.
Posted by Lexington Green at August 10, 2004 04:03 AM
