SOMEDAY I WILL HAVE TINNITUS
Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 3:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
I forgot my earplugs last night when Vince and I hit up The Faceless show here in NYC last night. This was kind of a terrifying realization. I am finally at a point where I honestly feel like metal shows are almost too loud. It’s not that I hate the music – I obviously love the music – I’d just still like to be able to hear it in ten or twenty years (I plan on dying shortly thereafter, so that’s really as far as I need to make it.). Luckily, my man Vince had an extra pair for me, but guess what? When I got home, my ears were still ringing. My point being: it seems inevitable that I will someday suffer from hearing loss in some capacity.
D.X. Ferris recently wrote an article on just this topic for The Cleveland Scene, which includes interviews with such metal luminaries as Keelhaul and Soulless. Here’s an excerpt:
Keelhaul drummer Will Scharf has played in some of Cleveland’s loudest, heaviest bands since the early ’90s. He didn’t start wearing earplugs until he was 22.
“Bad idea, waiting that long,” says Scharf. “[Now] ‘What’ and ‘huh’ are like punctuation marks in my vocabulary.”
Pondering his muffled existence, Scharf wishes someone had brought it to his attention sooner. He thinks the worst of his hearing loss was “absolutely avoidable. It’s just that most kids don’t give a shit about it until it’s too late.”
Check out the rest of the article here. It’s a good read, and if it encourages a few of you young ‘uns to start taking the protection of your hearing a little more seriously, well then, Mr. Ferris has done a good job.
And speaking of Keelhaul: thanks to Ferris for bringing it to my attention that they have a new album dropping August 18 on Hyrda Head. Head over to their MySpace page for more info.
-AR
That image would be way better if the letters were actually carved instead of a red typeface.
Graphic designer Stephan Sagmeister made a poster to advertise for one of his design lectures by having his intern carve the message into his body with an xacto knife then photographing it and printing it as the poster.
See the image of it:
http://designhistorylab.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/aigadetroit.jpg
…which is what i was thinking when i made the comment. sagmeister is metal.
Tinnitus is metal…it even has “tin” in it
this is true.
there should be a new trend of brutal ear plugs with spikes on and shit
What I can’t hear you I just got back from another Jucifer show.
Jucifer = The only live show I’ve left because it was so fucking loud. Their wall of amps may have made me sterile as well.
it’s not the genre- it’s the venue. some venue’s setup and soundmen/women just plain suck and don’t know how to manage sound.
you can have some acoustic idiot that sounds too loud or a metal band that you can barely hear except for the drums…
nice to see i wasn’t the only 1 seeing Atheist and The Faceless last night. excellent show
I find that earplugs ruin the sound. Also, as BrandonMetal says, it depends on the venue. Mayhem Fest was outdoors, and my ears are fine.
On a side note, what the fuck is Mariah Carey doing on the ads on the left?
Getting good Db-rated earplugs is key. Experiment and see what works best. As someone mentioned earlier, cutting them in half so they fit loosely will round off the highs and make the overall volume much more comfortable. It also helps define various sounds in an otherwise muddy mix.
There are great earplugs now that leave the sound okay, but just reduce the volume level, if you don’t mind looking like you have odd antennae coming out of your ears. The other thing to do is cut regular earplugs in half and don’t shove them in all the way. It just takes that top end off, which is where the damage comes from.
When I’ve forgotten them, I’ve just balled up some toilet paper and it works in a pinch.
And you’re right, Axl, it’s supposed to be loud, but when it’s 130 decibels loud, your ears just can’t translate the sound to your brain it’s just a wall of sound. It’s retarded macho bullshit.
Yeah those Etymotic ( http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er20.aspx ) earplugs aren’t too bad, good for attending gigs – not so much for playing them. Pretty much do what they say on the tin, drop the sound level about 20 dB’s, but they’re pretty uncomfy. Spend the $$$ & get decent moulded ones, especially if your a gig pig.
Sound advice for metalheads (pun intended?): you are very picky about sound and the music/concerts you go to (at least that’s what it seems like from what I read here). Go to an audiologist and get custom-molded musicians’ earplugs! It will be $150 well spent. I started playing in metal bands in high school and although I’m not in a band now, there are still loud concerts I go to which can be as bad as band practice in terms of killing your hearing. With musicians’ earplugs I actually enjoy concerts that are too loud w/o earplugs. They don’t kill important frequencies like foam earplugs (which I used to hate wearing). The reason I got them was because I discovered I had a high-frequency hearing loss in my left ear (apparently from birth). If you don’t wear earplugs you’ll have an even worse loss in both ears.
Correct yourself! You did not go to a Faceless show last night–you went to an ATHEIST show! The Faceless just happened to be there (and they were pretty good). Only -core kiddies went there for any band other than Atheist. Also, the sound was perfect, so I have no clue why you are complaining (I had earplugs, but I chose not to use them). I’ve been to shows that were much louder, and with a much worse mix at BB Kings, and if that were the case this time, I’d understand, because it can get painful there, but last night was perfect sound-wise.
Also, Psyopus is the worst band I’ve ever seen in my life. I would literally make better music by taking a shit into the microphone. I guess it would be a Nattefrost tribute song: Ziltoid takes a shit.
Yep, I was at the show, too, and Psyopus is one of the worst bands on earth. They should go download Brutal Truth’s Need To Control and OLD’s Lo Flux Tube, listen carefully, and then break up. The spazzy noise-psych-grind thing was played out in 1991.
I found their “breakdowns” to be hysterical, though. The pit was awful (some fatass was walking around trying to mosh, but failing miserably and looking like a broken tank instead. Security stopped him, XD), but worth turning around to laugh at. It’s not like watching Psyopus was any fun. They seriously need to stop. And they got on a tour with the mighty Atheist? What a shame.
My first metal concert was the first Gigantour. I lost some of the hearing in my left ear because it was so loud (and I couldn’t hear the music anyway). Since then I’ve always worn earplugs. Some bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica had the volume at a good level. Then I went to a Testament show and it was so loud I couldn’t discern the notes and had to discern the song from the drum pattern. The show was still pretty good but it would have been so much better if it had quieted down some.
Yeah, I have permanent tinnitus and didn’t give a shit about my hearing until I got it. I have a hearing loss, but probably isn’t permanent due to an Eustachian tube problem. Either way, it’s frightening, when I first realised the ringing wouldn’t stop I had problems to sleep the first nights.
Yeah, I have tinnitus as well, from some gay ass local metalcore show back in high school. Shit was filled with scene kids, and the place was probably about 50 feet by 25 feet, brick basement. Hate that place. I’ve played a few gigs there myself and it was terrible, they don’t even promote their venue.
Well, anyway, now any show I go to, whether it be local or a large venue, I wear earplugs. I bought stock ones from this company called Etymotic. They have stock ones, that will actually just lower the volume, and NOT filter out any frequencies, so you can still hear everything, just at a much lower level. I believe they have professional ones too, but they’re expensive and such.
http://www.etymotic.com/default.aspx
I’d recommend them to ANYONE. Most of my friends think I’m fucking insane for buying them, but then when we go to shows, they complain about the volume. Go figure.
Yeah, always wear earplugs. Fuck those meatheads who call you a “pussy.” I like being able to chill out and listen to sports radio or something soft on the drive home without my head pounding every 3 seconds and not being able to hear for 2 days. I’d get some of those musicians’ plugs, but I’m afraid I’d lose one headbangin or something.
yeah I have to be careful. one time a hardcore kid knocked one out of my ear with his foot after stage-diving (luckily I found the detached noise filter). almost lost it at a crowded lamb of god show at the beginning of their set.
That’s what you get for being at a LoG show. Fucking morons crowd surfing. That shit is for brain dead hardcore kids and Rage against the Machine fans. Crowdsurfing…pffhht. Anytime one of those fucks gets near me, the get an automatic punch to the kidney and or ribs.
i’d like to wear earplugs (like the etymotic plugs), especially since i’m a drummer and i’m the closest dude to the fucking china cymbal. but i can’t see myself enjoying the music as much; my hearing’s already degraded from years of abuse, back during the day when being cool meant having a sony discman.
Music has been becoming louder as a trend for the past couple years. If you use a good headphone/amp setup that’s sensitive to the album sound level (speakers can show it, but not nearly as much, most of the time), it becomes extremely obvious. The same goes for concerts – the last Ozzfest I was at (I think 2005?), the second stage speakers were so loud, it was nothing but fucking noise. A Nightwish concert I hit last year was a lot of the same – just way too loud. Not sure if it’s the douchebag in-house sound guys doing it or what. It’s one reason I don’t go to a whole lot of live concerts. Between knowing a lot of people who do, and being an active shooter, most of the people I know who don’t use ear protection doing either are young (in their 20s) and already have serious hearing damage, and that shit never heals.
Kinda destroys the point of music when all you can hear is basically REALLY LOUD NOISE. Yeah, it should be loud, but not to the point where you can’t actually tell it’s music any more.
Yeah, I have tinnitus as well from too many concerts without earplugs and cranking the car stereo way too loud back in the high school/college days. As many others here have said, I will wear earplugs at every show now. I came across these Earlove ear plugs a while back and don’t use the foam ones any more. Looks like the same Etymotic ones that have been posted. Probably not recommended though if you enjoy getting in the pit since that little plastic piece sticks out of your ear. I’d hate to get hit in the side of the head and have that thing jammed in and cause more damage.
http://www.earlove.net/index1.html
Curious about how this will go as I get older.