Audio Disease

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Audio Disease
by Heather Roscoe

"You're going to love this," Erika said over her shoulder as she pushed the door open.

We stepped into a small, hot, dark room with a low ceiling and sea of black-clad humans. Black clothes, black-dyed hair and thick black makeup-I stuck out like...well, like a preppy girl at a punk concert actually.

Erika ran off to join the crowd surfers, however she was a little concerned for my safety, since I was thoroughly unfamiliar with this type of concert. She found someone to 'protect' me, a twenty-two year old guy named Matt, with bleached white hair and a piercing in every available piece of nerveless flesh. He had a spiked dog collar around his neck and when he smiled all of his silver decorations lifted with his skin.

"Matt, don't let her get trampled," Erika said just before running off to join the pulsing crowd.

Matt led me to the darkest corner of the room and, to my horrified surprise, picked me up, setting me on a speaker where no one could see me. He jumped up next to me and served as a sort of interpreter the entire evening. I was not afraid of the crowd, however I had the distinct impression that they were slightly concerned about me.

The band was dressed in this neo 60's sort of theme. Ill-fitting black suits with white shirts and slim black leather ties, high water pants revealing about three inches of white socks between their cuffs and the tops of their black Doc Martins. They were wearing more makeup than I ever have and had molded their hair into whimsical coifs. The drummer lit his cymbals on fire and the music began. I noticed that the electric piano they were using was covered in duct tape--but I'll come to that later.

At one point, the lead singer took the microphone and strung it over the beams of the low ceiling. The sweaty, enthusiastic crowd leapt and sang into it, arms wrapped around each other. Then he lay on his back on the stage and played like that for a while. Once he held up his guitar and everyone started climbing over each other, dragging their fingers across the strings. It should have sounded terrible but the singer and his instrument couldn't be heard over the screeching noise emanating from the speakers.

Finally he collapsed, not because of dramatic impulse but because someone had reached out and grabbed his shoe, yanking him off his feet. He fell on his back with a clatter and the crowd leaped on top of him. The drummer flipped over his drum set on top of the fray. The piano player soared over his instrument, but his foot caught it and the piano tumbled to the ground, shattering. No matter, they'd just tape it together later.

Matt turned to me, and grinned from ear to studded ear. "Isn't this great?!" He yelled.

Music can sing gently to our soul, or scream violently to our rage. It can be a more effective tool of communication than the internet or television. Music does not have to be translated into another language, it is the universal language of this planet. Although not everyone has the ability to speak this language, we all can understand it.

But it has its bad side too.

The lead singer of another band which played at the concert that night was acting barely more civilized than a diseased hyena in heat. He would bark some things into the microphone and then go through a routine of pulling his hair, rolling his eyes and clawing his hands across his face and torso, then continue to shriek some other unintelligible phrase into the saliva-dripping microphone.

He whipped around and spotted me on top of my speaker. Wild eyed, he pointed to me, "Growwwrrrr...yak! Mppppblth!!" Then he started to quiver and convulse.

Can music have dangerously negative effects on us? On Thursday, July 6, USA Today reported that nine people were killed at a Pearl Jam concert in Denmark. Eight people suffocated at the concert because of the out of control crowds. What a pointless way to die.

Never before has music been as explicit, as profane or as violent. Elvis would not have gone into great detail about the wild night he had with his girl last Saturday in any of his songs and even the stoned out Beetles didn't use the amount of profanity per square inch that Limp Bizkit does.

Is it possible that music, as well as TV and the internet are corrupting the youth of America? Or perhaps it's not the music but the youths themselves, who are unable to distinguish between what is entertaining and what can truly harm them, emotionally and even physically.

It would be easy to say that the intelligence and finesse of today's youth is degenerating to that of a steaming pile of cow manure. It would be foolish to say that there is nothing we can do nothing about it.

So, where do we start?