My right ear drum is a god damn wasteland. I blame a lot of it on Killdozer. I blame it on Killdozer, but that comes with a caveat. Basically, the caveat centers around my being a total and unrelenting asshole idiot. When I was standing in Emo’s Houston watching Killdozer play so fucking loud I though it was possible I might surpass the loss of my hearing and tear directly into the new asshole of death, I came to a realization. You see, it was the whatever-th anniversary of Emo’s life and Killdozer were the guests of honor. The boys from the Midwest came to town with the promise of a backline. A backline, for the uninitiated, is a full stage setup that can range from a drum kit and amplifiers, to a drum kit, amplifiers and guitars as well. Killdozer brought the guitars. The rest was up to Emo’s.
For whatever reason, in order to provide a backline, Eric, the guy who owned Emo’s, asked the Mike Gunn if Killdozer could borrow our bass rig. Scott, our bassist, agreed (a fact that I practically guarantee he regrets to this day).
Once the boys hit the stage (and their bassist/vocalist, Mike Gerald hit our bass rig), it became immediately obvious that we were a very, very loud band.
See, the thing is, even though we had been told on countless occasions that we were so painfully loud it was practically unbearable, for some reason we never paid any attention. Call it hubris, it’s as good a reason as any.
Standing in front of Scott’s rig, listening to Killdozer blast out a mind-bendingly heavy and amazing set, I destroyed my right eardrum.
And it got worse from there.
To describe the damage, I’ll put it like this. As the boys played I began to notice a tingling in my right ear. The tingle quickly devolved into an outright buzzing, not unlike the sound of a blown speaker. Whenever Gerald hit a particularly hard chord I felt a buzz in my right ear that felt similar to having a bug in there rattling around.
And yet, I stayed for the entire show. I can’t justify it now, other than to say you ought to take pity on an idiot, because that’s what I am — a total idiot.
I shouldn’t add this, but I’m going to anyway. Gerald was total dickhead about the bass rig. Not liking it is one thing. This guy took it to a higher place and was loudly bitching about how much he hated the free amp he got to use directly in front of the owner of the amp.
Seriously, Mike Gerald was a dick to Scott while Scott was taking the amp off the stage that Gerald just stood on while using said amp for free. Dickhead.
Not only that, the fucking guy didn’t even apologize for ruining my ear.
Fast forward to the Butthole Surfers show a couple of weeks later, over at the Ensemble Theatre. While the Ensemble is a much larger venue, the spastic Texans are nonetheless ridiculously loud, and I suffer another command performance without earplugs.
Keyword: idiot.
After this sublime but highly auditorily destructive show, I vow to never attend another rock show without earplugs.
Enter the Melvins.
Watching the Melvins at a place like Emo’s, for me, was a slightly religious experience. You see, the Melvins totally changed my life 15 years ago (just kidding, Justin, just wanted to see if you were reading). Honestly, though, I was pretty into catching them live. Hearing some of the Boris era stuff one night on KTRU while driving around town with Tom Carter was a memorable moment for me, so seeing them play that stuff live was something I was looking forward to.
Naturally, I forgot to bring earplugs that night.
This wouldn’t be a problem if I wasn’t dumb enough to stay in the main room for the entire show.
And as for how loud the Melvins play, I’ll put it like this. I have friends who never enter a club without earplugs and those guys couldn’t handle it. They went outside to join the rest of the entire packed venue after about half the set.
Emo’s had a big glass wall that separated the stage and indoor bar from the nightmarish cesspool that used to be a swimming pool as well as a smaller outside bar. From the relative safety of the other side of the glass you could watch the Melvins, sort of hear them, and then go home and tell all your friends how cool you were for sitting through that.
Not me, I was in the tiny minority that stayed inside for the whole damn thing.
These three shows were the trifecta of my trashed right eardrum.
I have since learned the err of my ways, but now it’s too late. My ear is fucked.
I don’t hear the distortion any more unless I hear an abrupt and sharp loud noise.
The only place where it gets me is when I swim. When I swim I get water in my ear and it makes me dizzy after a while. I literally lose my balance and have to move slowly.
For this, I give thanks to Killdozer, and by extension, my own damn self. It’s a vicious circle.
In my defense, I will say that live music pretty much sounds like crap with earplugs in. In fact, you are not getting the full experience when you wear them. But, that’s the deal. If you intend to outlive your 20s (something I honestly didn’t do until I was about 29 and-a-half), then, wearing earplugs is a necessity at rock shows. Of course, when you’re a self-destructive moron who needs primitive visceral experiences in order to see tomorrow, earplugs are for pussies.
Well, now I’m 42. And worse, I am the consummate pussy.
That’s what you call a malicious self-fulfilling prophecy.
I will die with my pants full of shit, my eyes clouded over and my brain a little mass of pungent sponge.
God, I can’t wait.
Wear earplugs.
It doesn’t sound like I’m in as bad a shape as you, but yeah, I’ve given myself an awful case of tinnitus over the years. The last Terrastock Linus played was the worst, as monitor feedback (oh I hate monitors) hit so bad that my ears literally shut down, and I had to finish the last song out by watching Clinton’s fingers on his guitar, and feeling the beat through the floorboards. But yeah, over the years whenever I’ve forgotten earplugs, I’ve paid heavily for it. And you’re right, they make music sound like shit. It’s kind of unfortunate, but I guess volume is necessary for that “visceral experience” you referred to. Still, it’s kind of ironic when a band plays so loud that you have to wear earplugs and thus not hear their music as intended.
By the way, one of the loudest shows I ever went to was Project Grimm at Emo’s. I remember a friend standing less than a foot away from me in the crowded room and yelling at me, and I couldn’t even hear the sound of his voice, much less what he was saying. My god man, you had a monstrous amp.
“Still, it’s kind of ironic when a band plays so loud that you have to wear earplugs and thus not hear their music as intended.”
You know what’s ironic, when you see that the musicians playing such loud music for you to hear are wearing ear plugs themselves.
I don’t know about guitarists, but drummers almost always need to wear ear protection onstage (and in the practice room) if they’re playing rock music, even if it’s not particularly loud to the audience. Cymbals will wreck your ears like you wouldn’t believe.
Have, Charlie . . . have. And, it’ll be somewhere near that volume on December 26th at Rudz! How’s that for a plug?
What’s going on December 26th at Rudz?
Oh yeah, Project Grimm is playing a reunion show. Clouded is playing a reunion as well in the opening slot.
I really don’t know how people play music with ear phones or enjoy listening to music with ear phones. I never where them. But when I notice my ears bleeding I usually do something about my proximity to the speakers.
This might have been said before here (by me) but that Killdozer singer guy is a real punk.
The Melvins rocked Chicago a couple of weeks ago. Set up like a mirror – two drummers, leftie and rightie. Show wasn’t unbearably loud, but then I had been quarantined to the back of the room with the other old fogies. Actually, there were a lot of old fogies there. I think we quarantined the kids at the front of the stage is what it was.
I think if the band is loud enough to need earplugs, the soundperson should do the mix such that it’ll sound decent with earplugs in. What I especially hate though are those shows when it’s so loud that you get hearing damage even with earplugs in. I’ve noticed at SXSW that some places in Austin really like to make things unnecesarily loud. I think I got some damage watching Kinski there a couple years ago. On the drive home (to Justin’s home, that is), my ear was making these weird strangulated whimpering sounds, which was quite worrying.
Of couse, loudness is also a function of attendance. The less popular the band, the less people there to soak up the sound, the more hearing damage for the hardcore fans.
Well, being a veteran of poorly attended shows, I can attest to our massive volume not getting absorbed by body mass. Do the math as far as what that says about my popularity.
Oh, I’m reading all right. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve always been pretty scrupulous with the earplugs, unless I’m actually running sound, but my ears are screaming at me right now as I sit here in this quiet room.
No, I really don’t feel any better knowing everyone I like from the world of music will probably be deaf in ten years.
I’ve always actually been pretty good about earplugs, at least when they’re really necessary, but my undoing was the fact that for a good ten years, I wouldn’t wear them when I was playing live myself. I wanted to hear what I sounded like so people listening to Linus wouldn’t find it patently offensive or anything while I blithely (and deafly, if that’s a word) kept doing my thing. But that was enough. Now my ears scream all the time, and I require fans or air conditioning units or ambient music to distract me from the sound.
I actually hear they’ve got little things that look like hearing aids that help with tinnitus by essentially drowning it out with low-level harmless ambient noise, much like I do with the AC/fan/ambient music, but I’m thinking they’re probably pretty expensive, and I’m still too foolishly vain to go walking around with what look like hearing aids in my ears. I just wear earplugs a lot more religiously now.
You all should invest in fitted musician’s earplugs:
http://www.hearnet.com/
They are made from a mold of your ear, and attenuate roughly equally across the frequency spectrum. They’re available in 15db and 25db reduction (or you can get filters for both). I would recommend the 25 db ones. They cost some $ but are worth it.
I recommend Mack’s HEAR Plug High Fidelity Earplugs (from the same site). The first time I tried these it was like turning on a light bulb. Not at all like regular foam earplugs. And they cost a tenth as much as the fitted version.
Dang, those ARE expensive, but yeah, almost certainly worth the money in the long run.
Pussies.
Honestly, SoR, it’s like a diaper convention in here.
Somebody needs changing!