A couple of months ago I read an article about hearing loss, which made me realize that I’m a prime candidate. I’ll probably be deaf by the time I’m 40 at the rate I’m going; Mr Madeiros my 8th grade choir teacher was right! All us kids are going to grow up to be deaf with all the loud music we listen to!
Since then, i’ve been hyper vigiland about the background music in the store; making sure it’s not so loud you have to raise your voice to talk above it (prolonged exposure to those levels causes hearing loss). I really don’t want to go deaf; that would completely suck, because music is a pretty integral part of my life.
I’ve also started wearing ear plugs to shows. At LCD Soundsystem, we were right in front of the speaker, so earplugs were kind of necessary. It was kind of nice to get home and not have my ears ringing, too!
Saturday night Athena and I went to see the Faint (she won a spot on the list from somewhere and I was her Concert Bitch +1)! I put in the earplugs before the show started. The show seemed kind of weird– the Faint’s electronic music just didn’t seem to translate well into a live set. The dudes on stage just didn’t seem enthusiastic. The crowd seemed apathetic. It was all so low-energy… until I took the earplugs out… then everything seemed normal. OK, whatever frequencies the earplugs block out apparently are the ones that The Faint needs to be heard properly, but are expendible for LCD Soundsystem. I don’t quite understand what was going on there, but the Faint was actually pretty good, post-earplugs! I’m not sure I dig the stuff that will be on their upcoming album as it sounded a bit solo-Phil-Collins-esque to me, but who knows? Maybe they can pull it off.
The last time I saw the Faint was a few years ago, and I was so drunk I don’t remember anything about the show. I vaguely remembering Les Savy Fav playing, and looking up and thinking, “oh, there’s a band playing…” but after that is a blur. I woke up the next morning to discover that I had bought a shirt at the show, too. Uh… yeah. That was back in Those Days. I’m glad I was alert and sober this time and actually saw the show!
