Music as an Instrument of Torture
Posted by: Traveling Dan on 31 March 2004
I'm sitting in a client's offices in Istanbul (great location - top floor by the port, views of the Bosphorus, Golden Horn, Topkapi Palace, Blue Mosque, etc.). There's a multi-storey car park about 120 yards away ... and a local rock group shooting a video on its roof.
Not a bad song, either: a bit drum-heavy and the singer's range seems limited, but mildly catchy. The problem is that they have been playing the same %&*#+$ song over and over and over for more than four hours now. This is cruel and inhuman treatment and there ought to be something about it in the Geneva Convention. I think I'm close to cracking. I've got the elevation and the line-of-sight, but have you noticed how you never have an Armalite handy when you need one?
Anyone out there got any good musical torture stories?
Alternatively, can you think of any song you could have blasted at you for 4+ hours without starting to develop murderous fantasies?
Posted on: 31 March 2004 by seagull
Just invite The Riders round, see the Hi-fi Corner...
Posted on: 31 March 2004 by JohanR
I consider all music videos torture. You know what I mean, flickering pictures that gave me headache even when I was in the "target age group", stupid looking young men with ugly haircuts, nothing in the pictures seem to be corelated with the lyrics, the sound quality, via MTV, is worse than a clock radio.
So having to endure the making of one... Well, can't find words. My thoughts are with you, Dan.
Istanbul is a fascinating city, though.
JohanR
Posted on: 31 March 2004 by starbuck
quote:
Anyone out there got any good musical torture stories?
You could maybe ask the people from Waco, Texas, what they thought about having Def Leppard played at high volumes for very long periods of time - I'm sure they were begging for the flame-throwing tanks by the time the SWAT team stormed the compound.....
Posted on: 31 March 2004 by BLT
When I lived in a Flat the resident upstairs used to play "Fisherman's Blues" by The Waterboys over and over again. He also sang along loudly and out of tune (he fancied himself as a singer but he was tone deaf). This was actually a song that I quite liked originally, but it became torture. I cured him of his behaviour by playing "In a Hole" by the Jesus and Mary Chain at full blast over and over again!
Posted on: 31 March 2004 by long-time-dead
You should really try listening to Britney's TOXIC through a wall over and over and over and over and over........................
as my daughter and her friend "practise" their dance moves.
Next week or so it will be some other "creation" designed to invoke mayhem.
BTW - she's in bed sleeping and I've got Fred Simon "Dreamhouse" on at the moment. Instant cure !!
Posted on: 31 March 2004 by Rasher
Take a trip to Asda or B&Q and take in the non-stop muzak of Elton John, George Michael or Annie Lennox, then imagine having to work an 8 hour shift there.
Nuff said
Posted on: 31 March 2004 by Midun
More than one convenience store owner here in the States has taken to playing opera or easy listening music at loud volumes in the parking lots adjoining their stores to keep youthful gang members from congregating there.
Posted on: 01 April 2004 by JohanR
Now I remember the worst one!
25 years ago i lived in a small apartment while trying to do some studying. When the neighbour came home he always put on 'Yes Sir I Can Boogie' with the spanish quasi disco duo Bachara. Max volume, of course.
I had forgotten all about this, until the other week, when I was reading the newspaper. Bachara was to apear in the Swedish trial for the 'Melody Grand Prix' on the telly
No, I didn't watch it.
JohanR
Posted on: 01 April 2004 by Rasher
Did you boogie...woogie woogie...all night long?
Posted on: 01 April 2004 by Pete
Tony Levin's book "Beyond the Bass Clef" has a not entirely dissimilar story. The band (KC Double Trio) were doing pre-tour rehearsals or somesuch in the wake of VROOOM but before THRAK and were staying in a hotel in Buenos Ares (IIRC) with a large number of CD inserts to sign in their spare time, itself a form of music related torture judging by the account. T-Lev relates the verious problems with these, and how they were compounded by some guy practising the same riff on a guitar, very badly indeed, over and over and over and over and over again...
Pete.
Posted on: 01 April 2004 by Traveling Dan
By way of finishing the story, they finally stopped after just over seven hours. My respect for their stamina is matched only by my hatred for that damn song.
What takes me to the fair is that it took seven hours of filming for a video that will last four minutes at most - can't help thinking they could have gone home after 30 minutes and no one would ever know. I assume the video crew were on an hourly rate rather than a lump sum fee.
I'll bet you can't guess what song has been running through my head all day!
Posted on: 02 April 2004 by Kevin-W
Sting and bloody Van Morrison
Posted on: 03 April 2004 by Nime
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin-W:
Sting
What are the lyrics to that thing about the "fields of..."? If you let me know, I'll write to Sting and let him know too. He seems to run out of words on every repeat of "fields of ..err...umm.....err...umm..."
Nime
Everyone has the right to be wrong.
Posted on: 04 April 2004 by J.N.
Opera.
Anything really; but mainly female opera singers.
A painful screeching racket.
Blood will be boiling all over the world at these comments I am sure, but it's the wonderful enigma of 'music.
I can enjoy 'finger in the ear' accapella folk; and have numerous female vocal stuff in my collection, but opera - no thanks.
I have to confess that I was with a friend (who has a good system) a couple of days ago and he was playing CD's of steam engine recordings. He also likes opera!
Didn't light my firebox, but a Spitfire in flight does.
Fascinating.
Posted on: 04 April 2004 by Derek Wright
The ice cream van chimes that came from the ice cream van touring the housing estate across Ashby Road every Sunday afternoon. Always happened when I was trying to write up a heat engines lab when I was at Loughborough - these were the days when using log tables and a slide rule meant you were using the latest in technology
Derek
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