Gilroy
– The bass beat drew Stan Faulwetter to Juice Zone, but the
lyrics repelled him: racist slurs, sexist violence and a flurry of
profanity.
Gilroy – The bass beat drew Stan Faulwetter to Juice Zone, but the lyrics repelled him: racist slurs, sexist violence and a flurry of profanity.
It was a Saturday afternoon, March 24, and Faulwetter was headed for Kohl’s department store at Gilroy Crossroads, a 475,000-square-foot shopping center. From the opposite end of the parking lot, he could hear the music; when he drew closer to Juice Zone, the words hit him like an assault. Before a Juice Zone banner, rappers shouted things Faulwetter flinched to hear, broadcasting the music across the open parking lot.
“It was an affront to public decency,” said Faulwetter, a Morgan Hill resident who confronted store manager Dung Le and later wrote an angry letter to Juice Zone’s regional headquarters. “I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be offended.”
Juice Zone representatives called Faulwetter Thursday and apologized, saying the performance, part of a one-year anniversary party for the franchise, wasn’t condoned by the corporation. Le said the performers, a group of college students, disobeyed the event’s ban on “cuss words,” and the DJ didn’t block the words, as promised to the event manager.
“It was out of my control,” said Le. “They’re young kids, and they’re not professionals … It was negative. I asked the DJ to go up and apologize, and he did.”
Faulwetter said he’s satisfied by the company’s response. But complaints such as Faulwetter’s echo across Gilroy, as residents tire of other people’s noise, especially offensive music. Though City Councilmen are busy crafting an ordinance to hush fixed noisemakers such as pool pumps and air conditioners, other forms of unwanted noise can be just as noxious – and tougher to stop.
Car stereos bother passersby
Letter-writer Jim Fennell calls them “the audio-terrorists”: teens and young adults driving “boom” cars that slowly cruise Gilroy, blasting music from oversized sound systems. Even inside her Seventh Street home, Lucero Mendoza can hear them, and she’s sick of it.
“Sometimes we can’t even hear our TV,” said Mendoza, shaking her head, as she pushed a stroller down her block.
Downtown business owners are aggravated, too. At Ashford’s Antiques, Linda Ashford is frustrated not only by the music’s volume, but also its content. Obscenities are flung toward the store “every minute and a half,” as waves of cars stop at the nearest traffic light.
“A lot of the music is ugly stuff,” Ashford said. “We’ve got sitting areas out there, but who wants to sit and listen to that?”
Kids playing loud music is nothing new, said psychotherapist Carleton Kendrick, author of “Take Out Your Nose Ring, Honey, We’re Going to Grandma’s.” The rock ‘n’ roll of the ’50s and ’60s was meant to be played loud, as epitomized by movies like American Graffiti; a generation earlier, parents probably griped about big-band records, Kendrick said. But much of the music popular among today’s teens – gangster rap and hip-hop, purchased across class and racial lines – is laced with violence and profanity.
“It’s one thing to be base-boomed out of consciousness by an incessant, pounding rhythm,” said Kendrick. “It’s another to be assaulted by lyrics that degrade women, that are invitations to violence against police … More than annoyed, I’m offended. It’s an involuntary, inescapable assault.”
Police cite offenders, but many roll on
Susan Hamilton claims her chandelier and even the windows vibrated two weeks ago, when some neighbors amped up the music and washed their car. Aggravated, she called the police, who cited the neighbors. Booming music is a crime: Under California’s Vehicle Code, police can cite drivers whose music can be heard 50 feet away, explained Sgt. Jim Gillio. Gilroy officers issue a handful of vehicle noise citations each month, writing 19 such citations in 2006. But though the din upsets residents, few note noisy drivers’ license plates or phone the police.
It’s bad for business, Ashford said. It’s worse for eardrums, added window-washer Michael Gonzales, who hears several ‘boom’ cars an hour. A typical car stereo rates 100 decibels, according to the Hypersound Group; a large stereo can reach 10 decibels higher. That’s louder than a typical 90-decibel lawnmower, which can damage hearing in as little as eight hours, and far louder than the 70-decibel limit City Council is mulling for residential streets.
Why teens crank up the volume
As he soaps up windows on Monterey Street, Gonzales notices that the culprits are often teens and young adults.
“It’s like the louder they are, the more they get noticed,”Gonzales said, toting a bucket of water.
Not all teens who love loud, profane music aim to offend. Maikol Grundhoefer, 17, scopes out a friend’s Mitsubishi sound system during lunch at Anzar High School in San Juan Bautista, but he won’t blast the music in quiet neighborhoods, or at home in Gilroy.
“It’s fun to hear that big bass, that boom, boom,” Grundhoefer said. “Kids will bring in music to play, and see who has the biggest stereo. But I don’t like doing it around parks, or around old people. They don’t appreciate it.”
But for some teens, offending is the point, said Kendrick. Cars are a teen status symbol, an expression of who you are and how well you’re doing. Almost all teens feel powerless at some point, and low-income teens especially so. A sound system that rattles bystanders gives some teens a sense of power, a presence that demands attention.
“It’s like a clarion of trumpets announcing the emperor’s coming,” Kendrick said. “It’s the testosterone-driven, chest-thumping bravado of young men. The louder, the better.”
Unwanted noise now a fact of life?
That hasn’t stopped other cities from taking on offensive sounds – no matter where they come from. Several years ago, Oakland police confronted vehicle noise in an onslaught on ‘cruising,’ which can range from blasting music to spinning ‘donuts’ on city streets, and spent more than $44,997 in officer overtime in six months. Kendrick says he’s heard parents complain about high-volume profanity across the country, from small towns to sprawling cities.
“It’s an extension of the noise pollution that is extant in the culture,” said Kendrick.
John Tomasello groans at the mere mention of the ‘boom’ cars. By day, the noise pummels his Railroad Street business; at night, they roll past his Railroad Street home, rattling the windows even more than the trains do.
“It’s terrible,” said Tomasello. “I hope it’s just a fad.”
