As proof you never know who’s reading, and that one must be careful in a public diary when naming times and places as well as names, I’ve received an email from a chap from the band Red Atlas, regarding my previous grumpy entry. They want to know if it was them I was referring to as The Most Awful Band In The History Of Humanity, playing too loudly in the rehearsal room next door:<\/p>\n
I too was rehearsing at Audio Underground on Monday in the uncoveted 7-10pm spot. I’m hoping that the aforementioned Most Awful Band In Humanity next door were the fifty strong thrash rockers who peppered the evening with chirrupping “rock and roll”s and squawling twin guitar salvos – with the doors open yet! – and not our own resolutely British Pop Stuff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh yes, it was definitely a thrash rock outfit. Or perhaps they called themselves ‘Sludge Metal’, a term I saw in a ‘Drummer Wanted’ ad on the studio noticeboard. Charming description: I’ll take two!<\/p>\n
But I was more bemoaning the seemingly eternal rule of rehearsal room life: that the band next door will always be (a) too loud despite soundproofing, and (b) play the most unlovely sound in the world.<\/p>\n
That said, it’s funny how even a sound you might quite like to hear leaking out through the walls – say, ‘Elizabethan Serenade’ by Eric Coates – is unfailingly rendered unpleasant by the process. Loud music from next door is just always unwelcome, regardless.<\/p>\n
Actually, my upstairs neighbour plays loud 1920s Ivor Novello-type records, but as the recordings from that era all have zero ‘bass end’, the sound hardly makes it through the ceiling at all. Very considerate of him.<\/p>\n
On the bus home last night, a Young Person was playing some loud music from their phone’s speaker – a recent common annoyance which I persuade myself to not mind by remembering the cassette-playing ‘Ghetto Blasters’ of the 80s. They were far, far worse. From the 90s till about two years ago, there was a gap between the ghetto blasters going out of fashion (with the switch to CDs) and the new phone variety coming in. So there’s been a whole generation of youths who actually didn’t play loud music on public transport, purely because there wasn’t a desirable gadget around at the time with which to do so. Portable CD players were just too mumsy, I suppose: one associates them with aerobics classes.<\/p>\n
The phone music in this case was modern hip-hop, rather than ‘Elizabethan Serenade’ or Ivor Novello, disappointingly enough. Actually, I have heard Morrissey songs blaring out from an open topped sports car on the Archway Road, which I suppose is about halfway there.<\/p>\n