Noise complaints and gutless neighbours.

marT · Post by **marT** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:02 am

Today our household received an anonymous hand written letter in our letter box basically saying in a sarcastic tone "we just love your loud music, can you please play some R&B, Metal and punk etc as we like a bit of variety". There was more to the letter that made it clear it was sarcastic.

Apparently according to my girlfriends brother police also rocked up while I was at work saying there have been complaints about loud music. And he basically said WTF are you talking about because everyone is at work.

Now I used to have thursdays and fridays off work and occasionally crank up my JTM45 for a few hours during the day on those days to basically have fun and make some clips. Its the only chance I have to play my amp at volume.

I haven't however been able to do this for weeks because I have been working full time?!?!

So WTF is with these complaints?! Why can't the neighbours come and talk to me and why the fuck would they care if I am cranking my amp in the middle of the day for a few hours? Its not like its at night time?

I am going door knocking on saturday to find the culprit hopefully and if I can't find them I will continue to play fucking loud. I might even need to build a 100w.

God this pisses me off.

end of rant.

Post by **Scumback Speakers** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:30 am

I went to jail 7 years ago for testing my 9 watt amp with two old Greenbacks, my Les Paul and a TS-808 at 3pm on a Sunday. The neighbor (ugly, fat, raging beotch) who called in the "loud unreasonable noise" complaint, called it in 8.5 hours (11:15 pm) later while I was asleep. She had the police arrest me on a citizen's arrest, despite knowing she was fabricating the whole thing.

As I was being led away in handcuffs, she came out on her patio, 126 feet away and screamed "And make sure you keep that f**king scumbag in jail overnight!".

Now you know how I got the speaker name. I feel your pain over the gutless, whining, lying neighbor thing.

Freedom · Post by **Freedom** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:48 am

Southbay Ampworks wrote:Now you know how I got the speaker name.

fillmore nyc · Post by **fillmore nyc** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:08 am

This shit pisses me off too. A couple of years ago, I had an apartment in the Village. I lived above a cleaners, and there was nobody around me except a neighbor on one side. I told her in the nicest way possible that I want to be considerate of her, so if the guitar playing ever bothered her, PLEASE come and tell me, and I'd be more than happy to accomodate her.
She was all smiles, saying she was glad I talked to her.
A month or so later the super approaches me saying there had been a complaint about the guitar playing. Guess who it was...
I dont get shit like this. Well, like you said, marT, it caused me to buy a bigger amp, and do my "metal riff testing" at night.
She eventually moved.

NitroLiq · Post by **NitroLiq** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:54 am

We had a crotchety old guy like that that lived across the street from us in south FL. Always called the cops on me and my brother for playing too loud. One time, out of spite, we hooked up my Mom's cheezy casio into my brothers MXR dist +, Morley power wah, and into my musicman 4 x 10" and aimed it right out our front windows towards his house. Of course the police came again, but they were usually cool about it. The guy was an ass, he used to play his lwrence welk organ super loud, let his dogs shit in everyone's yard but his...and you could always tell when it was time to get up from school...chronic smoker...you'd hear him every morning on his front lawn sounding like he was coughing up a lung....he'd hack for like 5 minutes straight then spit.

I'm pretty good with volume being resigned to apartment life these days but it never fails, whenever I get the bug to crank an amp at all...I get pounding on the ceiling. It blows...I need to move near a cornfield in Iowa or something.

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:57 pm

NitroLiq wrote:...I need to move near a cornfield in Iowa or something.

Don't even need to be near a cornfield. I live in the middle of my town and no one ever says anything that I'm aware of. No cops, no nasty letters in my mailbox........

And I know it's not that the cops are busy. I got one speeding ticket a year ago and now they circle my car like vultures waiting for me to fall over dead, then swoop in for the kill.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:10 pm

How about the geniuses that move 2 doors away form a rock club then get a huge legal issue going for that club which only ever ends one way. You have to start playing later and stop earlier. Which pretty much kills how cool the club is. I know downtown in Philly they deal with that shit all the time. Some muckity-muck wants to have nice real estate across from a club thats been there long enough to have served Ben Franklin and the world should accommodate them because they have just enough money to think theyre that important.

thousandshirts · Post by **thousandshirts** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:31 pm

Yeah. Build a bigger amp, Bro. Install it inside your walls, and create a secret fireplace/bookshelf combo (Scooby Doo!) that lets you stash all your gear when the 5-0 arrives. Get a bathrobe, slippers, a big plush armchair, a gagger of fine brandy, a bookshelf, a longhaired cat, and some bifocals. Look up from your book, and say, "What noise?"

This of course coming from a guy who can take 4x12 cabs OUTSIDE and play them without trouble.

Ahh. Those insecure, waffling individuals who feel that "somewhere, somehow, somebody is cheating me out of something" never cease to amaze. Be it a 10 cent discount on coffee, a parking space by the entry door, or someone with a better guitar amp, it never fails.

fillmore nyc · Post by **fillmore nyc** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:45 pm

Billy Batz wrote:Some muckity-muck wants to have...

Ahhh, yes... yet another reason one should never live near muckity-mucks. Nothing good ever comes of it!!

/

Wicksy · Post by **Wicksy** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:20 pm

I have a neihbour like that. She threatened me with a volume war

I then infornmed her that the amp she heard was the 18 watter.... the OR120 was considerably louder than any paltry sound system she had

However i have respected her wishes and only crank my amps when she's out. Its usually only a few weeks a year but for those few weeks i can wail on my guitars dreaming of being Hendrix or Clapton. The other weeks of the year my Vox amplug has to suffice

Ricky Lee · Post by **Ricky Lee** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:51 pm

What's bad, is it's typically not the loudness that ticks some people off, it's the type of music that one plays. If ya don't play their kinda music then they complain. I have actually had the cops called on me by other muscians, specifically rappers that hang out at the public park, a stones throw from my house, playing their music as loud as it gets. When my music level competes with their's they call the cops. My neighbors are elderly and never complain, in fact they love to hear me play. They even bug me to play if I take to long of a break from my music. All said, when the cops show up they dig the music and just ask I tone down a bit, they're relly great in my neck of the woods and I respect them for just doing their job the right way.

yngwie308 · Post by **yngwie308** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:54 pm

Jim, you are indeed a dedicated amp guy, I believe no one else has served time over their amp playing..you continue to amaze sir!!
I was going to ask the derivation of the moniker Scumbag, but now I know.
When I was a young lad in Wembley, Middx., I cranked the first Marshall Stack I had with the windows open, my sister heard it at least two blocks away getting of the school bus.
I still feel guilty for my poor neighbors in London, I had the SL stack dimed, with my Fuzz Face, howling feedback, and the walls were fairly thin.
I remember the old man, kicking in the door of my bedroom, and no doubt he would have inflicted drunken violence on me, if my young friends weren't in the room with me, taking him by surprise.
I was a noize violater for sure back in the late sixties,

yngwie308

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:45 pm

Lol. Ricky I played with a band that practiced in the evening in a rented basement of a tiny strip mall. It was obviously rented by band for years because the place shows upgrades by past bands. Couches, stringed Xmass lights everywhere, old equipment and a cool DIY drum riser. Anyway we practiced there for years. Unknown to us the guys we rented from rented the place above us at night for some department store training on PCs or whatever. Never told us. So naturally we pulled there one night cranked to 10 since noone has ever been there before to complain (except- funnily anough- a place called 'Asian Massage Parlor') and literally 3 minutes later cops were coming in. All they wanted to do was shoot the shit about the band and playing instruments. We were all busting on what pussies the people upstairs were. The cops were cool as hell. They werent worried about it at all.

My drummer who was the oldest by a long shot went upstairs to be diplomatic. Obviously noone cared that we rented there for years and knowing that before hand didnt stop them from calling the cops and the owner obviously didnt care about us either so we were fucked. Then fate intervened. The main sewage pipe busted open, mustve been later that week. It was huge. We were able to clear our remaining stuff out. We agreed not to inform anyone and not to contact the landlord again. Needless to say they mustve had quite a hrd time there the next few days as the floor directly below them was filled with shit.

We honestly didnt do it. Though I wonder if the band before us tried to do it. It looked like it may have been bashed before but didnt break then.

thousandshirts · Post by **thousandshirts** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:03 am

We have a winner

Ricky Lee · Post by **Ricky Lee** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:25 am

I'd respect my neighbors, with no hard feelings, if one came to me and said my playing was to loud and disturbing them and could I turn it down, more so than someone who just up and calls the cops. Why call the cops? I know I can get a little over the edge with the volume sometime, so just come and tell me, and there's no problem turning down.