Humorously (to me at least), as I was writing this, someone literally just parked in front of my house with the bass throbbing from the car stereo. My windows were shaking and the sound was drowning out Tom Waits who is quietly spinning on the turntable. This is on a Sunday, about noon, so no one was being awakened by the noise, so no big deal in the life of a city. I went to the door to see what was up: there was a woman inside a beat-up old car texting away. After a few minutes, she moved on.

Literally, all I could hear was the bass, but she could surely hear a lot more. Throbbing car sound systems can certainly be disruptive to those nearby, but the sound often doesn’t seem nearly as loud if you’re inside the car. And those in the car can hear a lot more than just the bass notes.

Sound is a fickle thing, as Kevin Rose — an architect and recording engineer — notes in my column today.

But it’s hard to address any noise complaints because Savannah has specified decibel levels in our noise ordinance that are literally unenforceable. It’s impossible for many businesses to contain all noise on their own property, and the sound pressure levels defined as nuisances are, as I quote Kevin in the column, lower than the ambient noise of the city.

I talk a bit in the column about the polarized reaction to the dispute. Lots of commenters on social media are assuming that the neighbors are complaining unnecessarily, but they’re not. I’ve seen two rather strong comments that suggest a racial element to the controversy — but that could not be farther from the truth. This definitely falls into the category of white people’s problems. In fact, I suspect that many of the older black residents who might live near The Wormhole wouldn’t even bother to complain about a noisy bar down the street — not after years of poor support from police and the city on much more serious matters of street-level prostitution and drug dealing.

I’m also troubled by the persistent attacks, often by people with NO stake in the issues and NO knowledge of the particulars, on residents who have legitimate complaints about noise.

I live next door to a police precinct and half a block from a fire station, but Iâ€ve never been bothered by sirens, which come and go pretty quickly. And, if I were bothered, I’d hardly have a right to complain. Public safety is a pretty important thing.

Some former neighbors who lived across the street still apologize about the noise and lateness of their parties, but those literally didnâ€t bother me at all. They were loud, for sure, but Iâ€m a night owl and my largely uninsulated house mysteriously buffered the noise just fine.

My biggest noise complaints, by far, have to do with very early morning distractions that seem to penetrate every crevice of my wood frame 1870s home. Iâ€m talking about the train horns that are many blocks away and the small armies of leaf blowers that occasionally descend as early as 7 a.m. on large properties nearby.

Are the train horns needed for safety? Yes, at least until we signalize all the crossings. Do they have to be so loud that they’re audible inside homes more than 9 blocks away? No. Do they have to be so early? No. Despite these legitimate questions, residents who are complaining about such noise nuisances get attacked all the time these days via social media and via the comments section of the Savannah Morning News.

Why do some people feel the need to launch such attacks? It’s a bit of a puzzle. There will be all sorts of conflicts like these in thriving urban areas that have embraced mixed-use zoning. There’s a constant give-and-take in public discourse. Thoughtlessly attacking residents who just want to improve their quality of life and protect the value of their property does nothing to further that discourse.

If the complaints are irrational, and I’ve heard plenty of irrational complaints over the years about living in the city, then we can point out the irrationality of the complaints through rational arguments.

And, in some cases at least, we need better public policy so that disputes can be addressed sensibly.

I read a lot of Sontag’s work back in the day — her essay “Under the Sign of Saturn” is about Walter Benjamin, whose work I studied extensively. Ater finishing Songtag’s essay on Saturday, I felt both smarter and dumber. But that’s a post for another day.

A few snippets from three of Sontag’s 58 notes:

8. Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style — but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated, the “off,” of things-being-what-they-are-not. […]

9. As a taste in persons, Camp responds particularly to the markedly attenuated and to the strongly exaggerated. The androgyne is certainly one of the great images of Camp sensibility. Examples: the swooning, slim, sinuous figures of pre-Raphaelite painting and poetry; the thin, flowing sexless bodies in Art Nouveau prints and posters, presented in relief on lamps and ashtrays; the haunting androgynous vacancy behind the perfect beauty of Greta Garbo. […]

10. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman, but a “woman.” To perceive Camp in objects and persons to to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.

And this:

22. Considered a little less strictly, Camp is either completely naive or else wholly conscious (when one plays at being camp). An example of the latter: Wilde’s epigrams themselves.

I don’t agree with everything that Sontag says about Camp, and some of her examples seem curiously off. Still, it’s brilliant and challenging stuff.

But what of the world today, when irony pervades so much of our public discourse, especially on social media, and when sometimes it “seems” that every other “word” ends up in quotation marks? Sontag considers Camp as a way “to be a dandy in the age of mass culture,” but the mass culture of 1964 is obviously different from that of today.

Years ago, wandering along the river in Budapest one night on our way to a hostel, a friend and I popped into Capella Cafe, where we saw a drag show that embodied Camp. Typical American drag involves performers who take significant steps actually to appear as women and who lip-sync to pop songs. The performances can have Camp elements — some intentional, some not — but ultimately such drag shows rely heavily on mimicry. (“Mimesis” would be too generous a word.) The show at Capella that night bore only superficial resemblance to average American drag. The performers actually sang and didn’t seem to be trying to look like women at all, but stylized versions of men dressed as women. Varuca would have fit right in.

On Friday night, Varuca sang her beautiful original songs (maybe too beautiful for Camp), played the keys masterfully (can one play the piano too well?), and chatted warmly (maybe too warmly) with the (mostly) young crowd. It was a beautiful American debut, one that retained the transgressiveness of Camp.

I took some photos and shot a video of the final song, which is obviously disrupted halfway through as dancers take to the stage.

The son of acclaimed author Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment), James grew up on a steady diet of Johnny Cash and Roy Acuff records. His first album,Too Long in the Wasteland (released in 1989), was produced by John Mellencamp and marked the beginning of a series of acclaimed projects for Columbia and Sugar Hill. In 1996, McMurtry received a Grammy nomination for his Longform Music Video ofWhereâ€d You Hide The Body. 1997′s It Had To Happen received the American Indie Award for Best Americana Album. […]

Jonny Burke is at it again. Just over a year after the release of his debut solo album “Distance And Fortune”, Burke puts forth “Cup Runneth Over”.

A veritable narrative of the seedy underworld and gritty glory that is the life of a down and out song man, “Cup Runneth Over” projects the insight of a young artist who has seen more than his share of heavenly highs and crippling lows; ranging from rootsy, rollicking numbers (Wake Up, Back On Top) to tuned-down soulful tracks (El Paso, God In Them (You)) peppered with a good dose of humor (Sociopath, 32.50).

A Wagatail production.

So I was sure glad that Richman returned with drummer Tommy Larkins for a predictably quirky upbeat set.

I’m certainly no Richman expert and I didn’t keep good notes, either. So thanks to Christie Goeller and Adrienne Dickerson for reconstructing much of the set list (although not necessarily in this order):

“Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild”
“No One Was Like Vermeer”
“O Moon, Queen of Night on Earth”
“Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow”
“Let Her Go Into the Darkness”
“Keith Richards”
“Stultify”
“La Festa e Glactica”
“Dance to Tommy’s Drums”
“Bohemia”

There was more, but not that much.

Here’s a video from the Hideout in Chicago a couple of years ago that gives a pretty good sense of what Richman and Larkins are up to these days:

That was about the same angle I had most of the night for enjoying Richman and taking a few pics:

In 1970, Jonathan Richman founded The Modern Lovers, an influential proto-punk band (well known songs include “Pablo Picasso” and “Road Runner.”) Band mates included Jerry Harrison and David Robinson (who later joined the Talking Heads and The Cars.) Richman is often considered the progenitor of the punk rock scene and has been referred to as the “Godfather of Punk Rock.” Many bands have covered his Pablo Picasso song including David Bowie and The Velvet Underground. Frank Black, Weezer, The Violent Femmes, and They Might Be Giants are among a long list of bands that have cited Richman as a favorite influence. Richman also had an appearance in the movie Something About Mary as the quirky guitarist between scenes.

I was out of town the last time Richman played The Wormhole, so I hope to make it to this one.

A great clip from back in the day:

That’s a line from “Count On It”, an introspective rap that Ceschi included in his short set at The Wormhole on Saturday night.

There was a small crowd — only a little better than his last trip in June 2011. It’s a frustrating puzzle. We have a small but dedicated hip hop scene in Savannah, but it’s tough — really tough — to get crowds out for acts that aren’t aren’t already well-known and that explore genres in novel ways.

Kedrick “Knife” Mack and Miggs Son gave some strong local support before turning the stage over to Mikal kHill from North Carolina. Before ripping into his set, kHill moved the tables and chairs closer to the stage to create a more intimate feel.

And then Ceschi moved them even closer, lured us to the front, had the lights dimmed, and launched into a great set — attacking his acoustic guitar, climbing on his chair, nearly falling off the stage, jumping up to queue up the next song on his laptop.

Great stuff. A couple of pics and a couple of Ceschi embeds:

Mikal kHill

Ceschi

Part of the bio from his Facebook page:

Ceschi (pronounced Chess-key) Ramos has been in a lot of bands.

Thereâ€s the experimental post-psych-rock-hop-jazz-fusion outfit Anonymous Inc. started in the mid 1990s with his brother David, the genre-defying latin progressive group Toca which collaborated with everyone from Busdriver to Aceyalone, hardcore metal band Dead By Wedneday, the lo-fi synth pop group with Blue Sky Black Death called Deadpan Darling, the Crunk-rap crew Knuck Feast and many more that he may or may not own up to.

But most of us know Ceschi Ramos best as a one man band.

Drawing from the experience of these groups, he ignites crowds around the world with simply his acoustic guitar, a laptop and the bravado of his dynamic voice.

There’s more at Fake Four.

Highly, highly recommended.

Paleface’s website:

PALEFACE is an American musician and artist currently on tour as high-energy indie-folk three piece band, in support of his Ramseur Records follow up One Big Party. Paleface celebrated the release with a special guest-performance alongside The Avett Brothers at NYCâ€s Radio City Music Hall, followed by US and Europe tours. Soon after the album’s release, Daytrotter.com featured a brand new live stripped down recording session by Paleface, and one of the tracks was voted “Daytrotter’s Best of the Year – Reader’s Choice”. And later PASTE Magazine premiered “PALEFACE – The Making of ‘One Big Party'”, a short documentary which follows Paleface during the process of recording, touring and performing, and features interviews with Paleface, his darling drummer Mo, and friend Scott Avett of The Avett Brothers.

Paleface was schooled musically by friend Daniel Johnston and soon discovered by the legendary Danny Fields (The Stooges, The Ramones, MC5) at an NYC open mic. He has since released over a dozen records including two major label releases, and he’s collaborated and performed on three albums by The Avett Brothers. Paleface has influenced and inspired a wide range of musical acts, from electropopsters YACHT, to Grammy Award recipients Kimya Dawson (The Moldy Peaches / Juno), and Beck who calls Paleface “a big influence on my early work” on Annie Leibovitzâ€s book American Music. At the moment, Paleface is in the process of writing a new album to record later in the year, and in the meantime he’s just self-released Multibean Bootleg Vol.3, a collection of raw demos, live performances and outtakes.

Click here for the Facebook invitation.