Vinny Valve

Vinny's account of the school dance

The sound dropped out at the Fernwood volunteer hall during a long summer dance. Vinny Valve had been fifteen, had dressed for church by mistake and had asked a girl named Ellen to go out to the river with him. She said yes, but the boy helping with the speakers waved to Vinny before they made it out the door. Somebody had knocked over a speaker at setup. The cone had pulled away at the edge and made a patting noise every time the bass came in. Vinny knew what he'd heard because his grandfather's radio had done the same thing every morning for a year.

He switched the speaker out. Then someone had to finish the dance because the boy who waved him over had left. Ellen found him in the booth at the end of the night and said she liked his last three choices. He had chosen quiet ones so he could tell whether the other speaker was doing the same thing.

Ellen's version

According to Ellen, there was nothing wrong with Vinny's clothes. He'd been asked to help because he'd spent the entire night talking about there being a fault. She had already been down to the river by the time he noticed she was gone. When people in town ask how long they've been married she says it depends on how long they spent waiting for him to declare the loudspeaker repaired. There is some pride to this. She still takes him along to public meetings when she wants somebody to tell the board why the microphone quits every time they move it.

Vinny went on to fit sound booths and auditorium speakers. All his travel has given him a good collection of music he took a long time to like. At DGM, Enzo Redline disputes how long any of it needs at one sitting. They've agreed to give each other a side at a time. On the last afternoon they tried, Enzo waited for Vinny to finish blaming the radio before turning it off himself.

The noise on the second pass

They had first heard the rattle from inside the Ford 1999 Mustang GT's bay while the radio was still on. With the dial down, they couldn't make it happen until Vinny turned the car through a short section on the closed course. There it lasted less than a second under load. Vinny stopped, performed his best impression of it and asked Enzo to come and listen from the outside. They located a loose fastener at the edge of the car. Half an hour later, when the Ford went quietly through the same bend, Vinny said there was another sound he'd just noticed. Enzo turned the music back up.

Vinny has done the same listening job for Axel Rose beside an empty stage. Some people get frustrated when Vinny asks for a second try. He likes it when they try to imitate the sound back at him. Axel is good at that, but for a while they both made the same wrong noise because it was more fun to do.

What he wants to hear

Vinny is trying to set the Mustang into the long right without tightening his grip before the car takes a set. On Sunday he told Ellen it felt like the first beat coming in on a song he'd known for years. She asked if he was planning to use that line with Enzo. He said he'd only get away with it if he gave Enzo his turn on the radio first.