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Citizen complaint of the day: The growing drum menace
By adamg on Sun, 05/09/2021 - 8:05pm
Two days after somebody complained about bongo drums in Roslindale, a weary citizen files a 311 complaint about unceasing drum circles at Herter Park along the Charles River in Allston:
There are 2 loud drum circles in this park. They were playing from 11:30am - 4pm today on Sunday, 5/9. I'm not against playing music outdoors - we are in a city and share our public spaces. But almost 5 hours is excessive, on a day of rest for residential neighbors. It's incessant and rhythmic. There are two of these circles, playing different things! What a cacophony.
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Comments
How much art can you take?
How much art can you take?
I don't want to freak anyone out...
but I think it's spreading:
https://www.reddit.com/r/malden/comments/n39zhu/drumming_in_pine_banks_p...
There are only two options to address this existential threat to decency:
A) Destroy the drum circles
B) Smoke as much pot as they are
I, for one, plan to do both.
Did these 3-1-1- callers ask them to stop?
If people are upset about the drumming, how about walking to the park and nicely asking the drummers to stop?
It won't work
In a perfect world that should work. In the real world it never does. If you ask them to stop, they just won't, case closed. It's the same with people setting of fireworks late at night in my neighborhood. I've asked them (nicely) to stop and they didn't.
I am one of those people with
I am one of those people with no shame when it comes to too much noise coming into my house and instead of calling the police will go talk to people politely. I am also young and capable of defending myself if needed and have a pleasant demeanor.
My experience has been the more people there the less likely you are to have a pleasant result. It often becomes very unsafe very fast.
I also notice that the more out of mainstream the activity is the more likely it is to not be pleasant. Neighbor playing loud music is often an easy one. Kids playing basketball swearing at 3am not so much. Fireworks almost never end well. It sounds like these drum circles would be the types that would fall directly to victim mentality.
Calling the cops on a family having a bbq in a park is very different from calling the police on a large drum circle making a huge racket.
That's not always reasonable
If it's a sunny afternoon and you're free to stroll down to the park, that's a good approach. If it's 10 pm, maybe you just want to go to sleep.
Pardon the tangent
When I lived in Fenway, there was often a person who would sit in the middle of the Bowker Overpass (safely, but in an area where there were few/no pedestrians, only passing cars), and endlessly play bongos. Is that person still around? I never could figure that out.
The Kenmore Bongo-ist
She was still around as of last Fall, yes. And amazingly, in all the years she's been playing she's never gotten any better. (I have friends who live in the apartment close to the overpass and they're so tired of her.)
sheesh.
the Herter Park drum circles are a delight. I can't imagine how many brain worms I'd need to think otherwise.
There is such a thing as oversharing
When I lived in Somerville, I had a Baptist church as neighbors. In the summer they would take over the street and have a "concert" every Sunday afternoon, at such high volume that it was impossible to talk on the phone in my apartment, or listen to my own music. I had the choice to be subjected to ghastly born-again hootenanny music all afternoon, every single Sunday, or leave my apartment and go elsewhere. Appeals to be better neighbors fell on deaf ears (understandable given the volume and execrable quality of their "music").
I see your religous hootinanny
and offer my self-centered boomer neighbors who blast steely dan from their highest-in-the-neighborhood roof deck on the weekends. If I want to hang out in my own yard I have to wear earplugs. And I always end up with a steely dan ear worm.
Play the music, sure. Just don't blast it. Get some hearing aids.
I have experienced such
I have experienced such things as well and it's pretty annoying, but no one lives within hearing distance of where they do these drum circles at Herter Park. It's also a very large (a bit over a mile long) and busy park and easy to escape the sound, at least to where it shouldn't be particularly noticeable over the other sounds of park enjoyers (unless you're obsessively fixating on it).
Ice Cream Truck
People laugh at me because I have a vicious hatred for a ice cream truck.
I love ice cream. I have lovely memories of getting a tasty treat from an ice cream truck.. but.
When the damn thing makes a beeline for your neighborhood, and doesn't turn on its music until its at the corner, leaves the area entirely when they done. You're just a predator (as ice cream). Means you aren't doing this for fun, you're going to where you can make the most money & leaving when you do.
Yeah so same truck came by 4 times yesterday.. FOUR TIMES. This is after coming just about every day last week it didn't rain.. TWICE in an afternoon. (once around 2 and once around 7).
And then to add insult to injury, we have TWO other ice cream trucks that come into our neighborhood. Not as frequent as the main one, but last weekend we had 7 different occurrences of an ice cream truck on a SUNDAY.
And the cherry on top is that my house is between a driveway and a fire hydrant. So the truck(s) love to pull over in either one. So I'm stuck listening to the music for 20 minutes so loud I can barely think while he sits there and waits on 1 customer.
I've just had it after 10 years. When I was a child, the ice cream truck was a TREAT. It didn't even come by on a weekly basis.. maybe monthly or if town had something special going on. But it was TREAT.. not a daily occurance.
I've asked him over the years to beat it.. but all he does is just park down the street at the intersection. (which is a hazard). I'm not quite yet ready to start a ruckus at city hall, but I've gathered none of these trucks are really licensed in the city to do so (its a food truck folks, it just sells ice cream).
I'd also like to add that this is the same ice cream truck that decided that it was OK to sell ice cream during lock down.
Let that person feed their
Let that person feed their family, why are you stopping the hustle? Can't blame the ice cream truck if your block has a sweet tooth and disposable income.
Thats a great arguement
But you missed the point how he's here every day and making a beeline for my neighborhood.
Last time I checked, my street wasn't the only place in the Boston area that has kids living on it. My point, there are a million other streets he could do business on. Why ours? Go elsewhere.
and disposable income? LOL You're new here. Thats not applicable on my street. Also, all the stuff they sell, you can get 40 feet away at the bodega on the corner. There's nothing special about this except its overpriced and served to you out of a truck.
And when does the right to run a business usurp my right to a quiet home? Especially for someone who isn't from my town and clearly is a nuisance to non-customers.
And what about my right to run my business. I work from home. In the past 3 weeks, I had to drop off 4 calls because the ice cream truck parked right out front and I could not hear the caller. This affects **MY BUSINESS** too.
I am not against the ice cream truck but seriously.. SEVEN trucks in one day? Thats excessive.
I also question this guy, he clearly doesn't abide by the law. The other two trucks safely park, this guy pulls in, blocks the street, blocks hydrants, and makes it very unsafe for kids. The other two do not do this. They get it, this guy does not. He just wants to turn a buck.
(and unconfirmed reports say he tried to pick up a sex worker in the Market Basket parking lot at 11am on a TUESDAY. Yeah he's workin to support his family alright... Agatha Winking.gif
NYC banned ice cream truck
NYC banned ice cream truck music while the truck is stopped, due to an overwhelming number of complaints. They can still ring a bell.
This is one law I wholeheartedly agree with. People will figure out what the bell means pretty quickly, and neighbors don’t have to have their summer ruined by the awful noise.
Yeah, but, that's just, like, your opinion, man
Look, I went to Oberlin. I KNOW drum circles. If you're in the right frame of mind they can be fun. But with the right acoustics you can hear them a half mile away, and if you're trying to concentrate on anything they can be as unbearable as someone playing Baby Shark outside your window. Five hours is three hours too long.
So glad a local reporter is
So glad a local reporter is still covering the drum beat.
A Hundred Circles
Many think that the best way to fight fire is with fire, though in general that just leads to a larger conflagration. In that spirit, I propose a positive-minded response to the situation. Let a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred circles sound! While I admire the fortitude and moderation of the imaginary person who one poster suggested should walk into a circle of thirty or so self-mesmerized drummers, and politely ask them to stop, I somehow doubt that this would be effective. So rather than attempting to shut down these circles, add more! First a circle of saxophones, mostly tenors, with a few sopranos for the high tragic screech, and basses for low comedy. Add a middle-school string orchestra, and a circle of electric guitars, all playing either “Smoke on the Water” or “Stairway to Heaven”. More circles! Circles of beatboxers, of harmonicas, of triangles and trombones and of tambourines! All of these circles should be concentric, with the drummers at the centre so that they cannot escape. The outermost circle should be a marching circle of amateur bagpipers, all attempting to play “Scotland the Brave” or “The Skye Boat Song” in various tempos.
After all, you can’t have too much Art, or too big a fire.
I think
you misspelled Fyre.
It's like the old saying
The only thing that stops some bad guys with a drum circle is a good guy with a water balloon launcher.
Not just bothering people
The Franklyn Park Zoo animals are bothered, too.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/10/metro/franklin-park-party-noise-i...