I’ve read the posts on the recent EU regulation that nowhere in Europe should a workplace exceed 83db and did not think a great deal about it until tonight when I was standing up near the stage at an electric blues gig. There is a section of the bar near the speakers that is “musician country”. Everyone there is either a head or part of the family. It struck me somewhere arount the 3rd or 4th pint that the decibal level where I was standing was a bit beyond 83. Well, let’s face it. it passed 83 when the first chord was struck and went up from there. For myself, I’d hardly noticed it. If I’m due for hearing loss, the damage was done and finished with over 20 years ago standing in front of a speaker stack with my Hagstrom III cranked up to eleven. 83db? Is for wimps!
Which got me thinking. Where is the EU going to find someone with the pure balls to walk up to a rock band and tell them they are playing too loud for EU law? Thinking back to my own self in a younger and wilder format, I know exactly what would happen. I’d have stopped playing long enough to beat the crap out of him. Jail? Who cares? For most young musicians trying to make it jail would be warmer, cleaner and have better food that they can afford. Artists live on the fringe. Many bloggers comment on artists who have “made it” and that they are socialist. That might be true when they’ve got the gig with real dosh… but for most artists politics is just words. The enemy is whoever threatens your art.
Would you like to imagine what songs will be written if the EU starts trying to shut down punk rock bands?
And can you imagine what the regulation enforcers will look like walking out of a gig with a drum stick rammed up their arse?
