| Jonathan McGee is a cool guy. In fact, his friends call him Jono or the J-man. He’s got two cellphones in case, God forbid, the battery dies on one of them. He plays in two Vancouver bands and when he’s not performing in the hottest venues in town, he can be seen front row and centre at most concerts (oh yeah, he’s on everybody’s guest list). He has an exemplary t-shirt collection. But he never breaks the cardinal rule of a bar superstar: never buy merch at a show and wear it the same night. He could be any scenester in any town, really. So why does this rock ‘n’ roll man about town have rolled up wads of ass-wipe hanging out of his left ear?
Quite simple. He, like many aging scenesters, is starting to feel the effects of not wearing proper hearing protection. After 17 years of exposure to loud rock, McGee only recently started experiencing ear troubles.
"About six months ago, I was standing beside one of those monster stacks listening to some really shitty band and my ears started hurting and bleeding," he says. "That’s when I went to the washroom and rolled up a piece of toilet paper and jammed it in my left ear."
Since then, he’s tried almost everything to mitigate the damage. Out of desperation, he bought a bucket of industrial earplugs intended for construction workers. But he soon realized that he couldn’t hear anything, not even his own band on stage. Then he tried high-fidelity plugs, especially designed for musicians because they reduce noise at a flat response that equals out all frequencies, so you still hear the music in all its quality, but the level is reduced. It seemed too good to be true and it was. McGee bought the wrong size and they hurt his audio orifices more than the change in air pressure caused by loud noise. He’s just about ready to give up.
"It’s kinda like putting on a bulletproof vest after I’ve already taken two to the chest," he says about proper ear protection. "I mean, I probably should have started wearing earplugs about 10 years ago."
So for now McGee is going to continue shoving TP in his ears, which according to Hugh Davies, is futile.
"He’s not getting the reduction in noise levels that he thinks he’s getting" says Davies, who is an assistant professor at the School of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene at the University of British Columbia.
"He’s actually still at risk of damaging his hearing," he says about McGee’s unorthodox practices. "Maybe the sound is distorted in such a way that it doesn’t sound as loud but there’s no evidence that toilet paper is effective."
McGee is shocked: "So it’s just kind of filtering out nothing? It seems like it’s doing so much more."
Not only is TP useless at preventing hearing loss, it can be very harmful if it gets lodged in the ear canal – something most of us already know, but who are we to judge?
"That happened to me at the Real McKenzies show," admits McGee. "Half way through the set I started to get a piercing pain so I went to the washroom, rolled up tiny spitball-size plugs and of course jammed them into my ears and before you know it, they were stuffed down too far. I pulled one out and couldn’t pull the other one out. The next thing you know, I’ve got drunken girls trying to suck them out with bar straws and drunken men trying to perform ear surgery with pins from my rock vest."
This horrifies Kathy Peck. She is the co-founder of H.E.A.R., a non-profit San Francisco-based organization devoted to educating musicians and music fans about the perils of improper ear protection. Peck knew of a DJ that recently had to undergo emergency surgery to remove some fermenting paper from his ear. Yes, a DJ. Don’t think just ’cause you prefer turntables to guitars that you’re exempt. Bassy house and stabbing keyboards are just as bad for unsuspecting hearing organs. And she would know. Peck lost most of her hearing after her band, the Contractions, opened up for Duran Duran in 1984.
"My ears rang for three days and it was just really weird," recalls Peck. "I didn’t know what was going on and there really wasn’t that much education because you didn’t talk about it because you’d lose work. It was something that only happened to old people."
Today she depends on two hearing aids, but doctors say that her audible range continues to deteriorate. However, enlightening people like McGee, keeps her positive.
"Doing the work here really gives me another purpose, so I‘m OK," says Peck, who works year-round with leading audiologists on both sides of the border on her mission to convince young people that it’s hip to hear. This spring, H.E.A.R. is releasing a compilation album of The Who covers in memory of John Entwistle. All proceeds go to H.E.A.R., which incidentally, was originally funded by rock’s most notorious cochlea casualty, Pete Townsend.
As for people that didn’t make millions from their own "Baba O'Riley" lick but still cozy up to Marshall stacks, they should realize that every time they expose their ears to noise over 100 decibels (average electrified concert) for more than 15 minutes, they’re doing transitory damage. That’s why after a particularly loud concert, most people’s ears will ring for a day. Davies uses the following example to explain this phenomenon to his students: "When you get in your car in the morning, you almost immediately have to turn the radio down," says Davies. "That’s because when you were in the car the night before and you’ve had the noise of the traffic and your engine, you kept turning the volume up and up because you’re getting this temporary threshold shift and it gets harder and harder to hear the radio. But when you get (the car) in the morning, your ears are fresh and it seems too loud."
The effects may be short-term, but in most cases, repeated exposure to noise without respite can lead to permanent impairment and may knock years off your hearing life. Davies also warns people who like to see and be seen by impressive Marshall stacks prior to the music starting are subjecting themselves to another form of audio injury. For example, hanging out by the monitors right before AC/DC’s "Thunderstruck" blasts samples of a cannon being shot is probably not a good idea.
"Up around the level of a weapon being fired right next to your ear can cause what’s called a traumatic hearing loss and that is literally physical trauma to the ear much like being hit with a sledgehammer," says Davies.
For the best prevention, Davies is apprehensive about the standard bar-issued plugs because he says most people don’t know how to insert them properly. He doubts that club hoppers are going to take the time to read the instructions that recommend using your opposite arm to lift the ear in order to straighten the canal while you slide in the sponge – that should be rolled up as thin as a matchstick – in your cochlea. He’s right.
Not only that, the ability to hear the music isn’t on par with today’s audio cork technology. For the Les Paul of earplugs, visit www.hearnet.com for a list of clinics that cast custom-fit ear molds for plugs that combine hearing protection with personalized monitors. Next to having a miniature soundboard installed in your cochlea and a personal soundman to mix, this is your safest bet. Costing upwards of $100, these plugs will set you back a bit. But then again, so will losing your hearing.
And just think: because they’re tailor made, image-conscious rockers like McGee can order a pair of coloured plugs to match the face plates on their cellphones. |
Copyright ©2004 FFWD. All rights reserved.