January 5, 2006

Turn the radio up, for that sweet sound (but for the love of God turn the iPod down)

Pete Townshend Warns iPod Users About Hearing Loss
By The Associated Press, Jan 4, 2006 06:44 PM

LONDON – Guitarist Pete Townshend has warned iPod users that they could end up with hearing problems as bad as his own if they don’t turn down the volume of the music they are listening to on earphones.

Townshend, 60, guitarist in the 60s band The Who, said his hearing was irreversibly damaged by years of using studio headphones and that he now is forced to take 36-hour breaks between recording sessions to allow his ears to recover.

“I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal components deaf,” he said on his Web site.
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I’m not sayin’ Townshend is not right and wise, but all the great rebels are, well . . . getting old. Seen the new Kaiser healthcare commercial with Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’”? For some reason it is a little depressing.

Someday, decades from here, I am going to hear Nirvana’s “Lithium” in a retirement-home commercial, or Ed Vedder’s scream selling denture cream. And then I will go in the bathroom and cry (well, not really, but come on). It seems like the odd and slightly melancholy thing about being young and rebellious is that eventually you become old and safe.

2 Comments

  • Yes, you either get Old and Safe or you don’t get there at all.

    Anonymous — January 5, 2006 @ 1:40 pm

  • fierce blog. i know all too well about saving the hearing as i dj. earplugs are a common thing now for us while spinning. anyway check out te film It’s All Gone Pete Tong which shows the downfall of losing your hearing to excessive decibels.

    Best

    R

    Rich Watt — February 8, 2006 @ 3:43 pm

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Bio Pic Name: Heather Browne
Location: Colorado, originally by way of California
Giving context to the torrent since 2005.

"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel."
—Hunter S. Thompson

Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.

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