“Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?” – Nigel

Just stumbled across the San Francisco based Ipickmynose (music from the left coast) pointing to Engadget pointing to an interesting reuters article about teens not caring about potential hearing loss.
Kids [and adults, and self] this is one of life’s lessons I put in the same pile as learning and appreciating the power of compound interest: the sooner you get it and the long term consequences, the better off you will be.

Adrian, the gentlemen behind ipmn, has some personal experiences with the issue too [I am somewhat concerned about getting my own hearing tested now and wonder what 3 years in a jam space will do to one's hearing + too many shows sans ear plugs + my own jamming + constant headphone usage]:

This reminds me of the group Don’t Lose the Music that I’ve heard about lately. They have a pretty good point: you won’t be able to hear music well if you have hearing loss. Another point about hearing loss is that it won’t just make all music harder to hear; hearing loss affects some frequencies more than others so it’ll distort music as well.

As someone who loves music and has had some temporary hearing loss, I can say it’s not a good situation to be in.

Check out my recommendations for ear plugs and keep the volume reasonable on those ipods.

I also fully endorse the name of his radio show.

Visit the Wired Wiki for more info on how to Prevent Hearing Loss

And previous on AQR:: Am I Going Deaf? Probably [shit…]