July 2006

jurassictone    News    

SELFISH NEIGHBOURS & STUPID COUNCILS

We played a gig this month at Wickham Bishops, which is near Braintree, Essex.  It was in the village hall, an absolutely superb building, which is better appointed and has more facilities than many town halls and it was built quite recently with funds raised by the villagers.  Some of the funding came from selling part of the playing fields for development – so far, so good.

New houses were built and they were bought by people who were perfectly well aware at the time of purchase that their new houses were situated near to the building where all the village’s social events would take place and I don’t doubt that this was reflected in the price paid.  Not content with this, the householders decided to complain about the noise and, instead of dismissing them as sour-faced kill-joys that should have known what to expect when they bought the houses, the local council upheld their complaint.

A noise limiter has now been installed and this is set at a level that makes it very difficult to play any sort of live music other than totally acoustic folk.  Even this would not be so bad, but these noise limiters (which shut off the power to the stage if the pre-set limit is exceeded for about three seconds) are not perfect as they (like hearing aids) are more sensitive to certain frequencies than others and also respond to resonances within the building.  As a consequence, they may well exceed the limit during what everyone would consider to be a quiet song, but not when things actually get louder.  The upshot of this is that we spend all our time looking at the visual indicator (a series of bulbs that light progressively as the sound increases, turning from green to red as the limit is approached) and not on playing and singing.  This spoils the evening for us and the people who are there to enjoy themselves.

Not content with having had a limiter installed, one of the neighbours kept coming across and complaining, which just adds insult to injury.  How can they possibly complain further when we are already working within the limits they have set?  Furthermore, the hall is in the middle of the building and is flanked on all sides by other rooms, so it is totally insulated from the outside.  We sent someone outside whilst we were playing and they said that the sound was barely audible.

I can understand that loud music night after night would be intolerable, but, as we discovered, the hall is well sound-proofed.  It is also multi-purpose and only used occasionally for functions involving loud music.  Setting a reasonable time for the music to stop would be perfectly acceptable, but people who move into the village and then go out of their way to prevent the original members of the community from using properly a facility they have spent many hours planning, raising funds for and building, are sour-faced kill-joys.

A GIG FOR ALL COMERS

As many of you will know, most of our gigs are private functions, so there is no point in providing details here on the site.  However, on 25th November we are playing at the British Sugar Social Club in Bury St Edmunds and I understand that all are welcome.  Further details will be posted nearer the time.  In the meantime, please make a note in your diaries.