Notes

• [1]
  Bosma, Hanna (2005), “Different Noises in Electroacoustic Music”, ASCA Conference Sonic Interventions: Pushing the Boundaries of Cultural Analysis, Reader for Panel 2: The Sonic in the “Silent” Arts and Bring in the Noise, 2005, coordinator: Sylvia Mieszkowski: 18–23, as discussed by Cloonan & Johnson, 2008: 21.
• [2]
  Played by real-life director of This Is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner.
• [3]
  Likely to be the standard 100w version of the amplifier, though the 50w version of this generation of amplifier looked identical from the front. The late Jim Marshall (died, 2012), founder of the eponymous British amplifier company was often referred to as “The Father of Loud” (Maloof, 2004).
• [4]
  Transcribed from the short promotional film, Nigel Tufnel—“20” (c.1990). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwuZePiQHLI.
• [5]
  More surprising perhaps is the 1993 Meat Loaf track that uses Blackmore's joking request as a song title. Lyrically this song has nothing to do with live performance volume—the chorus features a protagonist who claims to like his music the way he likes his life, “Everything Louder Than Everything Else” (from Bat Out Of Hell 2: Back Into Hell, 1993).
• [6]
  Transcribed from Episode 5 of the 1981 BBC Television adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, first broadcast 02 February 1981 (Hitchhiker Wiki, 2013).
• [7]
  http://www.rocksbackpages.com.
• [8]
  1973 marked the beginning of Status Quo's UK commercial breakthrough with the albums Piledriver (1972) and Hello! (1973).
• [9]
  As noted by, amongst others, Waksman (2009: 326).
• [10]
  The leaning of volume-up electric guitars against loud amplifiers and walking off stage is probably a micro-social act of rock performativity deserving of its own article, but here at least it is an explicit example of the role of the front-of-house PA system. There was probably nothing stopping the sound engineer from dropping the levels on the guitar amp microphone to ease the pain of uncontrolled feedback, and yet he apparently didn't. Over the years I have been at many shows where guitar players have left the stage empty except for howls of guitar feedback, normally after the final encore. In larger venues, when the front of house PA is powered down and the house light go up, it can actually seem almost embarrassingly quiet when the only sound coming from the stage is a feeding back 100W Marshall stack. Punishingly loud in a rehearsal room, yes. But not so impressive in a 3500 seat venue or on an open air festival stage. For me this is a slip of the rock and roll stage mask, where the cool, 'loud' stage amplification is exposed a being relatively quiet in comparison to the resolutely unsexy functionality of contemporary front-of-house sound systems.
• [11]
  While it is theoretically possible to break thin resonant glass with extreme sound pressure levels at appropriately tuned frequencies, in practice the scenario de Whalley describes is extremely unlikely.
• [12]
  I was reminded of this observation when leaving early from a 2011 Judas Priest show in Doncaster, England. They definitely sounded better from the car park too.
• [13]
  Or perhaps both (a) and (b).