People may one day be able to hear what are now inaudible sounds, scientists say.

New experiments suggest that just vibrating the ear bones could create shortcuts for sounds to enter the brain, thus boosting hearing.

Most people can hear sounds in the range of about 20 hertz (Hz) at the low end to about 20 kilohertz (kHz) at the high end.

Twenty kHz would sound like a very high-pitched mosquito buzz, and 20 Hz would be what you’d hear if “you were at an R&B concert and you just stood next to the bass,” explained Michael Qin, a senior research scientist at the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in Connecticut.

“It would be the thing that’s moving your pants leg.”

Under certain circumstances, humans can also hear frequencies outside of this normal range. For instance, divers underwater can detect sounds of up to a hundred kHz, according to Qin’s recent experiments.

It’s unclear why the divers have enhanced hearing underwater, but it may be because the sounds travel directly through the bones to the brain, he said.

Vibrating Ear Bones Boost Hearing

In normal hearing, sound waves traveling through the air or water enter our ear canals and strike our eardrums, causing them to vibrate. Our eardrums are connected to three tiny, connected bones called the malleus, incus, and stapes—popularly known as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, due to their shapes.

As the stapes bone rocks back and forth, it pushes against a fluid-filled structure called the cochlea in the inner ear. Resembling a tiny snail, the cochlea contains tiny hair-like structures that translate the pressure waves in the jostling fluid into nerve signals that are sent to the brain and interpreted as sounds.

“If you think of the hearing system as one long chain of events, there are multiple places in which bone conduction or underwater hearing can bypass that chain,” he said.

For example, bone conduction occurs when very high-frequency sounds directly stimulate the ear bones, sending signals to the brain without activating the eardrums. This is how some species of whales hear underwater.

“The core of our work is trying to understand underwater hearing and bone-conduction hearing, and to determine if they share the same underlying mechanism,” he said.

Alternatively, certain ultrasonic frequencies might stimulate the fluid in the cochlea.

“It could be like hitting a wrench against a water tank,” Qin explained. “The fluid itself could go into oscillation.”

Superhuman Hearing Devices on the Horizon?

Qin and his team are now exploring which bones are most likely to be most sensitive to ultrasonic vibrations.

Could such research lead to devices that give us superhuman hearing or improved hearing aids? Qin is mum for now.

“That’s the great thing about basic science, right? It lets you know how things work, and you can bend it to many applications.”

Qin and his team will present their research at the annual Acoustical Society of America meeting in Seattle in late May.

Via NatGeo

i like the way it rings, reverbrating from the eardrums straight into the heart. it’s been a year.
only.
already.
and i don’t know how to feel, i just feel the need to thank you for the knowledge that someone in the world matters more than the world itself. je t’adore. and i’m not joking. sometimes, not too often, i catch myself pause in the middle of the sentence when i look at you because thoughts that flush into my head like tapwater into a blocked sink.

i’d say remember, but you do. every word i say. you’re magic, you hear me? maybe. telekenisis? unlikely. but know, if you do, that though you’re not here but somewhere else, my feeling never wanes. artificial flowers never wilt; real emotion never dies. sometimes it just recedes to the back of the mind. like magic.

you gave me the rosary beads from your first communion as a gift this morning. placed it along with your card on my porch. and i swear, i didn’t know what to do. it seemed like so much. a universe of you in my palm. 
and i couldn’t wait to ask you about the meaning, though i knew. and you knew that i do. it’s a game we play because neither of us likes losing.

it’s a symbol that i’m ready to learn about it with you. and i can’t be sure that’s exactly what you said, but that’s what i heard.

and i’m stuck for words, but i sit here clutching at metal and plastic made to look like glass in silence and i know wherever i go, you’ll follow.
sometimes emotion is enough to fill the silence. this once, its more than enough.

NEW DELHI, March 4 (CDN) — Hindu extremists have attacked Koya tribal Christians in villages in a remote area of Orissa state at least 15 times since Dec. 8, 2010, Christian leaders said.

In the latest incident in Murliguda, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Malkangiri town, about 60 assailants from the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Feb. 23 damaged the eardrums of Bhadan Hontal and beat another Christian, Markari Soma, until he fell unconscious, according to a report by the Malkangiri District Christian Manch (MDCM, with Manch meaning “Forum”).  

Christian women, some pregnant, as well as children were among those injured in the attacks on churches, reported Pastor Vijay Purusu of Bethel Church and president of the MDCM. The spate of attacks began on Dec. 8 in Katanpali village, when about 35 Hindu extremists stormed the house of Pastor Mark Markani and beat him.

“Police action was delayed, so it resulted in more attacks against the Christians,” Pastor Purusu told Compass.

On Dec. 25, some 200 extremists barged into a Christmas Day celebration at a church in Koyi Konda village, beat the worshippers and destroyed furniture. Some church members received serious injuries on their hands, head and chest. About 10 houses belonging to Christians and their crops were destroyed, according to the MDCM.

The Christians filed a police complaint, but no action was taken, the forum reported.

“Persecution against the Christians has become a daily occurrence in the area,” Pastor Purusu said.  

Christians have suffered midnight raids on prayer meetings in which they have been beaten, he said, resulting in some Christians fleeing their homes and going into hiding. At least four families have left their village and not returned due to extremist warnings, reported the MDCM.

“There is great fear among the people because of the threats they received from the extremists,” Pastor Purusu said.

At the same time, Hindu extremists have forced about 25 people to convert into Hinduism in the Mottu area, the forum reported.

Church leaders said increased attacks on Christians are a symptom of fear and envy among Hindu extremists, who perceive that Christianity is spreading in many areas and who mistake Christian social and educational ministries as illegally “luring” people to convert.

The MDCM last month met with the district collector and superintendent of police, and Christian leaders had submitted a memorandum to the state chief minister on Jan. 27.

“Delayed action of the police, and less police force on duty aggravated the matter,” the Rev. Rendang Remo Paul stated in the MDCM report. He led a team consisting of representatives of the National Council of Churches in India, Church of South India and the Indian Missionaries Society that met with district collector on Feb. 3.

“We told the district collector that the situation must not become another Kandhamal [where large-scale violence broke out in Orissa in 2008], and the district administrator is responsible to curb the situation,” Pastor Paul stated. “To our plea he said, ‘Let’s see, because it has just started.’”

The local Christian community has met with various district authorities to address the situation, including the chief minister, said Tehmina Arora, advocacy director of the Evangelical Fellowship of India.

“However, the situation in Malkangiri is very tense, and the police do not have control over large portions of the district due to Naxalites [Communist militants],” she said. “This is the biggest hurdle in controlling the situation.”

Yesterday (March 3) area Christian leaders again met with the area district collector, who assured them that immediate action would be taken. Meantime, village Christians received rice and some essential items from the administration.

Area Christians fear that Malkangiri may see the same kind of eruption of violence that killed at least 100 people in Kandhamal district, as the same officials – R. Vineel Khrishna, district collector; Anurudh Kumar Singh, superintendent of police; a second officer of Mottu police station identified only as Jaal; and a project director, Gobinda Dansena – have been transferred from Kandhamal to Malkangiri district, Pastor Paul reported.

Report from Compass Direct News

Rhythm vibrates in your bones. Dents your fragile skin. Does you in. Penetrates up your spine and along your tapping foot or fingers.

Rhythm is an awakening.

Lyrics sail aloft between the eardrums, riding on air, and linger lightly, often disappearing before you can hold onto them.

Lines of music drop individual images like fishhooks in the pond of your mind and ripple, triggering concentric circles of thought, until the tug of an idea comes ripping clean out of the water, and takes shape whole in your mind’s eye the way a fisherman snags a wriggling trout. You catch it, words hit you with spray, a cold reckoning in the heat of the performer’s Kleig lights.

Guitar strums or the hammering of a piano ride you just as the rhythm hits and the words connect, and you are immersed in the world of song.

What listener could resist this harmony of intent: Me, reaching for the higher register of my voice, plucking the strings, aiming the verbal darts at your heart, and you, tilting your head, watching my fingers, and saying to yourself, “I know what that feels like. I know what she means.”

You cannot sleep through it. You will be roused.

And we will have had a conversation, impromptu, unbounded, with room to interpret one another’s gift, the gift of music, and the gift of absorbing meaning and melody, until we feel we know each other intimately, having never once lain side by side.

Mike Okay on What What Records with an upcoming release January 2011! Dip your ear drums into this cloud sauce!

Say Yes!, the debut album from The Hi-Life Companion has been included in a recent Best of 2010 releases from the influential Eardrums music blog. The list can be found here. We are joined on the list by great 2010 releases from the likes of Belle & Sebastian, Best Coast, The Drums, Frankie Rose & The Outs, The Lucksmiths, The Magnetic Fields, Maple Leaves, Palpitation, Teenage Fanclub, Trembling Blue Stars, The Vaselines, Wild Nothing, Veronica Falls amongst others. Thanks to Eardrums for including us!

Produced by Lando Calrissian, with backup vocals from Kanye, I can see it at number one on the charts in only a few weeks.

Watch out Justin Bieber, the Admiral is in town and he’s ready to throw down some righteous gangstatude.

I was quietly sitting watching some crazed woman run into traffic while stricken police tried to stop unaware motorists on one of the myriad of “Reality Police Dramas” that occupy the Sunday night screen when my ear suddenly took up the wail of the police sirens and began to throb. You know, that throb that only an ear can do. The one that pierces your skull, dislocates your jaw and sends you around the twist all in an instant. The one that pops and crackles and makes you certain your ear drum is going to bust right out of your head atop a geyser of puss. Yep, that’s the one.

This was some hours ago now and it has only just occurred to me, as I lay sleeplessly cursing my damned head, why this crackling, agonising ear is doing my head in so badly – emotional scarring. That’s right. I’ve been traumatised and now am absolutely paranoia-stricken.

Some months ago, Mr D was on a bit of a fitness kick and was getting up at 5.30am to go running/cycling. This was great. He was happy and I got immense pleasure out of somebody else leaving the warm bed to exercise, having given over many a morning to the training gods myself. The only trouble with this routine was that, creep as he may, Mr D’s leave of absence was waking The Lion, and so it was on this particular morning, that Mr D crept from the house and Little Lion called out.

I ignored him for the obligatory 10 minutes, then gave in, sat up in bed and in so doing disturbed a small cockroach. I heard it flutter and I jumped, waving my arms madly, as one does when startled by a small flying creature. It landed in the vicinity of my ear and I shook my head like a furious horse, slapping at the side of my head and, to take shelter from this onslaught, the bush-roach crawled into my ear. Yes. INTO MY EAR. Not just into the outer, flappy part. No. INTO MY EAR. Right down deep into to hole.

It didn’t take long for the hapless creature to realise that there was no way outa there and it found itself stuck, quite tight. Well, it thought. This is a bother. I guess I’d best START DIGGING!

Yep. I lost it. Big time. It was THE WORST PAIN I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED. Worst. Hands Down. Not to mention knowing there was a cockroach burrowing through to my brain.

I flew into action. I knew I had to go to hospital – I had seen a man with a beetle in his ear on one of the myriad of “Reality Hospital Dramas” that occupy the Friday night screen. And the pain whenever the little bastard moved was UNBEARABLE. So I whipped LL out of bed, got myself dressed, made him a snack box and was in the process of getting him dressed when Mr D returned, took one look at my tear-streaked face and thought “Geeze! Lighten up, lady, he’s just out of bed a little early…” 

Then I began to scream and hold my head.

He took over LL duties and I drove, yes I drove myself to the hospital, heavily pregnant and screaming at random moments as though possessed by demon voices in my head. When I showed up in emergency they whisked me in to see a doctor in no time.

Alas, the doctor on duty had never faced a cockroach extraction before. In 2 ½ hours all she managed to do was anaesthetise the roach long enough to rip off part of its wing and it’s backside (revealing that it was, in fact, a pregnant female roach and isn’t that funny – a pregnant cockroach in a pregnant lady’s ear! Yes. Fucking hilarious. Excuse me for not laughing myself stupid…).

So when roach-ette woke from her anaesthetic, she was doubly pissed off. Not only was she stuck in a black hole, but she’d had her wing shredded, her arse removed and her egg stolen. All in all, a bad morning, so best get digging.

After 2 ½ hours of having my eardrum scratched out by a cranky cockroach, a doctor pull and prod and yank at said cocky (each move eliciting a cry of agony, I might add), numerous syringes of water shot into my ear with a force to blast my eyeballs from their sockets but having no more effect than saturating my top, and two attempts at vacuum extraction, the doctor gave up, I cried and she handed over to the next shift.

He took one look. Shook his head. Poured oil into my ear (I think it was olive, but he assured us that canola would do). Killed the sucker dead, dead, dead. Sent for an eardrum surgery kit from the operating theatre upstairs and in two swift movements with the apropriate tweezers, pulled the beast from my ear. It was the size of the top of my little finger. Man how I screamed as he yanked it out. Man how I screamed as he flushed and vacuumed the left-over legs and bits of cocky backside from my battered ear drum. Man, how sick I felt for the rest of the day.

And man, how paranoid of buzzy things near my head am I now?!

PS: Little Lion, by the way, had a fabulous time exploring the hospital’s emergency area. He was a star, everybody loved him and he enjoyed his adventure emense ly. Good for him.

Sounds surround us all day, whether apparent or not. The slight hum of your computer, or the new Arcade Fire album you’ve been blasting on the way to work, all keep our hearing active. Yet, we have to realize when our ears can handle the sounds, or just need a well-deserved break. Our eardrums work like any muscle in our body, and can get worn out. When this happens, instead of our ears feeling tired, the ear drum scars and damages your hearing. We don’t always realize when this happens, either, increasing our risk for hearing loss.

Here are some simple tips to allow you to hear a pin drop until you’re 90:

• Turn down your iPod. With 1 in 5 teenagers showing hearing loss, it’s as  simple as reducing the volume a few decibles on your iPod instead of blasting it when wearing earphones.
• If you want to blast music, get a room. Blasting music on your iPod can seriously damage your hearing. By blasting music in a room, it allows the sound to reverberate off of the walls and then enter your ears, reducing the volume some and preventing serious damage.
• ALWAYS bring ear plugs to shows! Even if the artist happens to be an acoustic guitar player with a soft voice, you may want these when you end up in front of a speaker. Bands with loud drums and bass also are perfect examples of when ear plugs will help. Instead of buying the cheap foam ones, look into a pair that will reduce the volume instead of deadening it, such as this pair for $6. That way, the music sounds the same, but won’t make you deaf. Still not sure? If your ears are ringing after every show for several hours, it’s time to invest in earplugs.
• Don’t stand near speakers or stereos. By being near these, whether at a show or a party, you automatically have to speak louder to be heard over the music. Both the music and loud speech can damage hearing.
• Musicians, it’s ok to wear earplugs when practicing. Often times, when practicing, we forget how loud our instruments can get. If practicing for several hours, make sure to let your ears rest for a while, or wear ear plugs for a few hours.

Got other tips to reduce hearing loss? Feel free to leave them in the comments!

you’ve gone to france, as you always do. your second life, i call it, but i dont blame you: that’s what a lifetime of living with parents who are teachers does to you. four weeks this time; it’ll be five the next or six, or whatever. but i’ve stopped counting the days. i learnt to live without salting my wounds.

Y went camping with his blonde, though she’s not blonde now but rather a seductive red. they’ve been together months now. it’ll be a year soon. october, i think.
he was meant to come back yesterday, but his phone was off. i called him twice. twice is always my limit.
i know i’ll call him again.

X is just an ex. we speak sporadically on msn and i’ve not been on the computer for days. i just couldn’t face the lonely screen staring in my face. i wanted physical contact, the sound of someone’s, anyone’s voice reverbrating in my eardrums.
and i read books. sartre, “streetcar named desire” and anais nin with her erotica. that put me down, but then, i wanted to be put down. sometimes there comes a point in our lives when we can no longer continue to believe in what we are believing until we see what else there is to see.

then there was Z. another reunion. he called me just now. for no reason. he didn’t say so, but then he rarely says a lot. he’s coming back from wales today. he was away for a week, but what more is there to it? it was another failed lesson in love for him, but i know i’m not the one to teach him.
in the end of all ends, i love you.

and i met your ex too on the days. that was fun. hurt me like crazy but it had to be done.
somewhere in between “the spy in the house of love” and ”the age of reason”, i’d lost my wits. literature has a way of doing that to you.
i needed to see her. 
i needed to feel the arterial spray of your past on my face. 

let her do her worst i thought and damn, she tried her best.

Well.
On Friday my niece had a child, a baby boy.
On Saturday my sister had her birthday.
That same night Camilla, The Boo and I followed her home. She lives on a small island, out in the archipelago. We were hoping to score some sun and some salt water swims.
On Sunday it was summers coldest day yet, 13°… and rain. Massive rain.
So we ended up going for a dog walk.
The Boo found some sheep.
Which he barked at. As The Boo usually does… when he sees sheep.

In other news ‘Summer Love AA’ has been getting som initial press:
In Norway through Eardrums.
In Spain through Muzicalia.
In USA through itsatrap.com.
Always nice to get some press. Hoping more stuff will surface.

The group have now released an EP of other tracks from their album remixed by quite a few different artists…including Chicken Feed but strangely enough not the Questions remix.

The Hatchback version of Questions is good with it’s dreamlike quality but I have to say that I still prefer the Chicken Feed version with its subtle yet driving electronic tones.  For comparison purposes I have put both below so have a listen and decide yourself!

Questions (Chicken Feed Remix)

Questions (Hatchback Remix)

The other remixes are pretty damn good as well and you can get them at LOAF where you can also stream them in full.

I heard the tune Claustrophobia a while back and when trying to remember where I came across it- unsurprisingly from Eardrums on A Good Crop compilation in 2008- I also came across a post from mp3hugger back in 07 so his finely tuned years were ahead of the curve as always!

No videos for Claustrophobia but a good live acoustic version of the excellent tunes Riot and Sharpen Your Knife.

Riot and Sharpen Your Knife- Live version with simple acoustic versions

You can also download a new track Action/Reaction from RCRD LBL- while I think their older tunes are more atmospheric have a look at an intimate version of Action/Reaction which is just sublime.

Slightly better quality  at Soundvenue.

You can get all of Eardrums compilations for free and Promise And The Monster features on the second one of the Birdsongs, Beesongs with the tune Words.  No video for that so for the one-clickers there are the excellent tunes below from her album Transparent Knives.

Sheets

Light Reflecting Papers

Friendly Fires singel Jump in the pool känns helt rätt på alla sätt och vis. Lite Phoenix över soundet, dock utan det där prefekt distinkta som fransmännen iklär sina låtar med och istället lite…skitigare. Däremot inte sagt att det ena skulle vara bättre än det andra.

(En detalj som lutar åt det humoristiska hållet: ordet “Skitigare” finns tydligen inte i min Mozilla-ordbok, utan istället föreslås “Skitägare”. Hur många gånger har ni använt ordet Skitägare?)

*****

Polletten verkar ha trillat ned hos Jenny Wilson och hennes skivbolag. Nu släpps äntligen Like a fading rainbow som singel, tillika det överlägset bästa spåret från Hardships. Jag hoppas innerligt på att det blir en radiohit utan dess like så här i P3-tider. Handklapp/konstiga klpp-ljud är som bäst när det är subtilt.

*****

Jag hoppas att ni prenumererar på Eardrums RSS-feed så att ni inte missar deras utomordentliga uppdateringar med indie-musik. Om ni inte redan surfat in på sidan föreslår jag att ni gör det nu och laddar hem deras sommarsamling anno 2009. Summer’s here! vol.2 heter mästerverket.

*****

Jag trodde jag satt bredvid Sarah Assbring (El Perro del Mar) på bussen idag. Det visade sig dock vara en Rosvikare. Likt var det dock.

Förresten, hur ser IPRED-hökarna om den musik man laddar ner är laglig eller inte? Jag bara undrar…Eller om jag klickar mig in på Pirate Bay och laddar hem Unni Drougges ljudbok? Vilka “lagliga” sensorer dyker upp på IPRED-skärmen?

Som sagt, jag bara undrar…

http://www.eardrumspop.com

När vi ändå är inne på gratismusik kan jag även tipsa om vinnaren av Rockbjörnens MySpace-pris, Billie the vision and the dancers. Ni får betala för musiken om ni vill, men känner ni er fattiga, snåla eller principfasta kan ni ta hem samtliga skivor utan kostnad. Senaste skivan, “I used to wander these streets” är i mitt tycke ett måste, men missa för guds skull inte duetten med Hello Saferide i form av “Overdosing with you” från skivan “Where the ocean meets my hand”.

http://www.billiethevision.com/music.php

Se där, det finns en laglig väg att vandra. Inte lika stor, men letar man tillräckligt länge så hittar man något till slut.

Dagens moralkaka presenterades av: Zoega Intenzo – Snart i en kaffekopp nära mig

The groups other tunes are good if lacking in the intensity they display on Dominating Spot- still a great sound but more of a twee feel.  You can download some of their tunes from NRK…being in Norwegian it took a bit of clicking but on the right hand side of the profile click on the ‘LAST NED’ button and you will get them!

Fortune Map

Her world was slathered with broad strokes, with just enough detail to expose a bare minimum of information. She felt unfinished, like a badly developed photograph, as if, when her story ended, everything else would be sucked into her wake and just disappear.

She was a genie in a bottle.

A thunderstorm crashed the air above with alarming rapidity. Lightning flung their light among the green eaves of the oak-lined street. Hail raced across the asphalt. She turned and ran, determined not to scream like a  b-movie extra. The tattoo of her frantic steps led her up the drive of a house she knew to be hers. The world had melted into a strobe of shadows. She pushed through the front door and rushed into the livingroom and  threw herself onto the green velvet couch. Why wasn’t it so strange that the room and the house, but for the lamp on stand and the couch, was bare? She huddled in horror on the green leather couch. She imagined cackling deities straddling the electric arcs of thunderbolts swarming into her life like so many hornets. How wrong she was!

There was only one god and he watched her in his mind as he crafted her story. He hadn’t decided whether she would be a blonde or a brunette. She clutched at the cycling hues of her hair and sobbed, “What is happening?!” Perhaps it didn’t matter. Was she plump, or is anorexia her way of life? She knocked the lamp over in her panicked oscillations of mass. Haphazard silhouettes camped and leered across the livingroom wall in a precession of devils. She collapsed in a heap on the lush carpeting and, as soon she saw her skin shifting through the ethnicities, sobbed some more. She felt like a flesh-colored prism, no—did she really think that? “Stop it!” she screamed, knowing she wouldn’t be heard, but told. “Stop it…”

She slept the ragged sleep of exhaustion that those teetering at the brink of death or madness welcome. She awoke on a floor smooth as marble and lay for some time in a bare and cold cone of light. She could see nothing in the absolute darkness ahead. Tears sprang from her eyes and pooled on the floor. Her livingroom flickered into existence, then a local pub with regulars laughing through foam flecked lips, then the house of the parents escaping fluid memory, and it was quickly like a rolodex thumbed through at an incredible speed whirring through scenario after scenario until she started screaming.

A river of obscenities churned through her larynx like a niagara, pummeling her own eardrums. Did he want her to say that? Did he hate her—no, himself—so much? He felt uncanny pity for the figment. He soothed her tears, closed her eyes, and when she came to she was seated in front of a warm fire. A mug of hot chocolate steamed on the coffee table and a novel lay splayed on her lap.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she murmured to herself as she watched through a window the snow whitewash the land.

He smiled and clicked save. He would leave it at that.

And it’s a good thing that history is always there to tell us important facts like there was a time when there were no stage monitors at live shows.

Hard to imagine, right?

Well, I learned about this as Lost guitarist Ted Myers tells his story in Bruce Pollock’s Working Musicians.

Myers begins the storytelling by explaining how they opened for Sonny and Cher and the PA system wasn’t working so the audience couldn’t even hear them and they had to improvise with an instrumental ten-minute jam on the Rolling Stones’ “2120 South Michigan Avenue.”

Then Myers says this:

“I guess it was this experience that got us to thinking we should bring our own sound system. In 1965, there was no such thing as onstage monitors. There were no high-tech multi-track mixing boards. There were no sound roadies accompanying every act, busting balls of the promoter if the sound wasn’t just right during the sound check. There weren’t even sound checks. You just walked on stage and played. The people doing the sound at these places didn’t know or care about your music. They didn’t know you from P.J. Proby and could care less!”

After I read this passage, I closed the book for a moment and thought about my last few concerts I’ve been to and how different it would have been to experience a concert in pre-1965…with no monitors.

I’ve been to shows were the sound was so bad and I felt equally bad for the artist. And had I been at this concert I would have gone nuts as Myers struggled in vain to communicate with the audience over the dead PA system.

Interestingly enough, Myers goes on to explain how he eventually contacted the Hanley Brothers who were then known for constructing a solid and strong live sound experience.

Getting his due and no longer billed as the Lost, he and his band were billed as the Hanley brothers and had a formidable sound system in their camp, backing up and pumping up their live show.

And you better protect your eardrums against what comes next…

Myers continues…

“[our] friends the Hanley brothers now brought with them a pair of speaker stacks that looked like a pair of Godzilla Porta Pottis. They miked every amp, every drum. There were monitors speakers at our feet, a luxury, as I said, virtually unheard of in 1965. Even the Supremes and their backup band, the King Curtis Orchestra, would be relegated to the house sound system. We were so ready! We took the stage at eight o’clock sharp, ready to rock the socks off those collegiate snots [at the Brandies venue]….

…our first number was an original that started off with a big, ringing guitar chord—sort of a “brang!” I remember hitting that chord and seeing the first five rows go down. The sound was so big, so loud, so unexpected, that I guess, they just dove under their seats. When we started to sing, another few rows went under. By halfway through the song they were standing up and booing with their fingers in their ears. It began to dawn on us that we were killing our audience with volume—the sissies. …

….as the first song ended there was a cacophony of boos and cries “Get off!” we were insulted but doggedly pressed on. We tried to turn our amps down, but with the close mics that did little good….

Myers finished the epic tale saying that they tried looking for the Hanley brothers but never found them and eventually finished the set after only the second song as the booes where so loud; so they flipped off the crowd knowing that the crowd just wasn’t quite ready for the loud romp of rock n roll.

Myers and the Lost were eventually dropped from Capitols records only after a year and Myers had these closing words to say about live sound and fan appreciation and sacrifice for the progression of live music.

“We did however make one or two sound breakthroughs during that lone quarter-hour of my rock-and-roll fame. We were the first (that I know of) to use psychedelic lighting as part of our show, and we were among the very early users of feedback and other sound effects generated from a weird array of honkers, tooters, sirens and other gizmos. And as stated above, we were among the first to pioneer the live-sound technology routinely used today…and …I like to think of it this way: a few eardrums were sacrificed to that many could rock.”

Well, after that story, do you now think of yourselves as live music-loving guinea pigs for a larger scientific experiment who are more than fans just trying to enjoy a show?

When I go to my next concert you can bet that I’ll be thinking about who is learning from who, and about how much both fans and the artists need each other to contribute to the future of live music.

Anywho! It was a great vacation story ;0)

Until Next time..

.:LoVeS:.