Renaissance Live at Carnegie Hall

I remember when I was a young man, driving around with my car window open and loud music blaring. I wanted everyone to hear this music because I thought they would be awestruck. I did not have massive subwoofers, I was not a “notice me” guy. I just had music to share.

For example the bass solo 10 minutes into the Ashes are Burning track of Renaissance’s Live at Carnegie Hall is perhaps the world’s most magnificent bass guitar cadenza. You won’t find this on any studio album, it was a one-time live performance and this is the only recording. (Don’t play it on tinny speakers, at least use some decent headphones!)

These days I would not dream of pushing my music on others in this fashion. But plenty of people love that feeling of the windows down and the music up so loud that your car itself seems silent. It feels like you are floating down the highway on a cushion of joy.

During the extremes of winter there were a few twisted souls who would drive with their windows open, at great personal discomfort, simply to impose their noise music on the rest of us, but most of the Boom Boom Bullies settled for blowing their own own eardrums out behind rolled-up windows.

Now spring is here, car windows are rolled down, and once again an uncivil minority will decide for the rest of us whether we must listen to their music when we are stuck in traffic with them.

I understand why you may love your music so much you want to share it, but I don’t understand amping your bass with subwoofers so that I can hear the thumping two blocks away.  What we hear is not music, it’s more like a steam hammer in a shipyard.  You put $$$$ on your credit card for THAT?

There’s a spectrum of wilful noise pollution that ranges from the benign but insensitive “I thought everyone loved this song” to the arrogance of “I don’t care that you can’t hear your music because of my music” to the sonic violence of “my subwoofer up your ASS”.

It’s a sad reflection on your life when the best you can think to do with your irreplaceable allotment of time on this pale blue dot is to force others to listen to your crap.