Volume
In that heady first year or two of college, when I was finally away from my parents and was able to listen to music in the optimal situation, and, as Timothy Leary said, in the right “set and setting” I remember the first times I really started to understand the effect that the volume music was listened to had in the overall appreciation of the music itself. During my second year, Joel Berk (R.I.P.) and I met a guy named Enoch who became a close friend in that whirlwind, 20 year old-here today-gone tomorrow- kind of way. We were two Jewish kids from Denver, he was a very Southern, African American kid who shared none of our background but all of our youthful yearning to live and learn outside of the confines of our upbringing. We somehow got on completely the same page about listening to music…loud. It was from Enoch that I first “got it” about turning it up. He would say, “you turn it up and you turn it up, but you finally get to the point where it just turns the corner muthathafucka, and then…” and he would sit back, all 6’6”, 260 pounds with the most perfect, beatific grin on his face “and then… you are IN the music.”
That semester we were inseparable. We would spend hours listening to music loud. He would play us records (this was before CDs) by Funkadelic, Ohio Players and Earth Wind and Fire and we would play him Zappa, The Dead and Zeppelin. We all experienced the music “turning the corner.” We ruined many speakers and pissed off many neighbors. After Christmas break we never saw Enoch again. The experience was indelible for me. I had long been excited by loud concert sound, but just didn’t get the same experience at home. Through the years my appreciation of this fact has never diminished. I now have the loudest stereo I have ever had, and the most permissive environment in which to listen and I can more fully extol the virtues of “turning the corner” than ever. Headphones are one thing, but really turning it up and letting it just shake the room is truly one of the great visceral pleasures we are still aloud.
In that heady first year or two of college, when I was finally away from my parents and was able to listen to music in the optimal situation, and, as Timothy Leary said, in the right “set and setting” I remember the first times I really started to understand the effect that the volume music was listened to had in the overall appreciation of the music itself. During my second year, Joel Berk (R.I.P.) and I met a guy named Enoch who became a close friend in that whirlwind, 20 year old-here today-gone tomorrow- kind of way. We were two Jewish kids from Denver, he was a very Southern, African American kid who shared none of our background but all of our youthful yearning to live and learn outside of the confines of our upbringing. We somehow got on completely the same page about listening to music…loud. It was from Enoch that I first “got it” about turning it up. He would say, “you turn it up and you turn it up, but you finally get to the point where it just turns the corner muthathafucka, and then…” and he would sit back, all 6’6”, 260 pounds with the most perfect, beatific grin on his face “and then… you are IN the music.”
That semester we were inseparable. We would spend hours listening to music loud. He would play us records (this was before CDs) by Funkadelic, Ohio Players and Earth Wind and Fire and we would play him Zappa, The Dead and Zeppelin. We all experienced the music “turning the corner.” We ruined many speakers and pissed off many neighbors. After Christmas break we never saw Enoch again. The experience was indelible for me. I had long been excited by loud concert sound, but just didn’t get the same experience at home. Through the years my appreciation of this fact has never diminished. I now have the loudest stereo I have ever had, and the most permissive environment in which to listen and I can more fully extol the virtues of “turning the corner” than ever. Headphones are one thing, but really turning it up and letting it just shake the room is truly one of the great visceral pleasures we are still aloud.
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