I am sitting in the cab of a shiny red Chevy pickup with my new friend Ira Katz. The back has been enclosed, and the interior is lined with plush burgundy velvet and trimmed with rich inlaid wood paneling. I feel like I’m sitting in a love seat in a high-class New Orleans bordello. Ira says the vehicle is worth $90,000. That’s because it has 1,500 pounds of sound equipment installed for its occupants’ listening pleasure (including six batteries that weigh 75 pounds each). Ira calls it a mobile sound room.
“That’s where the radio would be,” Ira says.
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Ira owns Mobile Music on the corner of Clark and Pratt. Today Mobile Music is having a big sale, with a lot of demonstrations by car audio equipment manufacturers–and a contest for the loudest car stereo. Ira, and everyone else in the parking lot where all the commotion is taking place, is intent on making the point that having and maintaining loud, forceful, and well-conceived car stereo systems is a major U.S. sport–and not just in big urban areas but all across the country. The sport is even organized: the International Auto Sound Challenge Association meets all over the United States at events where as many as six judging lanes can run from morning till night evaluating custom car-stereo systems, identifying winners and losers and runners-up.
Several Hispanic guys with brown paper bags, open white shirts, gold chains, and black crosses around their necks come into the parking lot to admire the pickup and another auditorially fancy Chevy van–but mostly, Scott’s white Mustang. They flutter around the car: “It’s cool. It’s bad. I like it, man,” they say, bursting with desire and envy.
Scott explains he only drives his Mustang for part of the year. “In bad weather, for the rest of the year–until a drunk driver totaled it–I drove a 1966 Ford pickup with an AM radio. And that was fine.”
“I just wanted to see what I was hitting,” says Ben, surprised that he broke 100. “I’ve got one good amp and one cheap one, but I guess I’ve got the best wiring and good speakers. Now that’s a primo system,” Ben says, pointing at the white Mustang.
The crowd has grown, and Ira is standing near the Chevy pickup again. “Background” music in the parking lot goes through deafening little spurts and then returns to normal. I am never quite sure what kind of music I’m listening to, and certainly there seems to be no emphasis on the music itself–only the volume. And installation and design technique. And principles of sound and pressure and other scientific components.
