FEARS FOR EARS

Eamonn Holmes has just tested my ears. The jolly TV presenter is the voice of the telephone hearing assessment offered by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, which I called after reading about its Don't Lose the Music campaign, to make us all aware of the dangers of regular gig-going. As this paper's rock critic I've been going to more than 100 gigs a year for more than five years, which makes me a prime candidate for early hearing loss.

After calling 0845 600 5555 and spending a few minutes tapping in numbers, which are read aloud with an increasingly obtrusive whooshing noise in the background, I'm told that "Your hearing is within the normal range", which is a relief.

The trouble is, the phone test can't pick up on the occasional "weeeeee" or crackling noises I experience, and which could be the first signs of tinnitus - your brain hearing sounds that aren't coming from an external source.

The RNID's Lisa McDonald is concerned. "There is no cure for tinnitus, so if you start to experience it, do something about it quickly," she says. "Real music lovers are the ones in the most danger."

She proposes standing nearer the back of concerts, which won't appeal to mosh-pit merchants; taking regular breaks away from the noise, which is hardly desirable when you're waiting for the band to play your favourite song; and most importantly, wearing earplugs. She admits this advice is hard to sell because, as was once true for, say, the cycle helmet, earplugs may make sense but they're not cool.

I've had some expensive "custom mould" earplugs for a few years (check out the different types available, including very affordable ones, at www. dontlosethemusic. com/home/areyouatrisk/earplugs.) They're supposed to filter out certain-damaging levels of sound but I don't always wear them because they can make some kinds of music soggy.

If anything convinced me to try harder with them, though, it was meeting Michael King, a 28-year-old insurance broker whose years spent in a jobbing garage rock band, Caruso, have left him "with a multitude of sounds constantly in my ear".

"It's what I wake up to in the morning, like an alarm clock," he says. "I hardly go to gigs any more. It's not that I can't hear, but the clarity isn't there. It's killed my enthusiasm for music."

Scary stuff. This doesn't happen to everyone, but the consensus seems to be that I'm setting myself up for future decades of saying "Eh?" to my children. Those plugs are going back in for good. In the meantime, I'll be charging my editor danger money.

FAREWELL TO FOPP

Farewell, then, Fopp, the music store chain that closed its doors without warning last Friday, went on to sack 700 staff this week and is reduced to begging other retailers to take over more than 100 of its premises.

The owners, who began it all 25 years ago with a Glasgow market stall, seem to have bitten off more than they could chew when they took over 68 Music Zone stores in February.

I'll miss Fopp's smart pricing, dividing music, books and DVDs into £15, £10 and £5 groups to generate a fevered hoovering-up of bargains among customers who often couldn't believe their luck. On the web, at Amazon or the iTunes store, I always simply find what I need and get out fast. In Fopp I instantly turned into 50 Quid Bloke, going in for something specific and ending up staggering to the till under the weight of dirtcheap classic albums that I really ought to own.

There's infinite choice online, of course, but there's also much less chance of stumbling across something that you didn't know you had to have. It may be hopelessly old-fashioned now, but I and plenty of others like me still enjoy losing hours to a good old non-virtual browse.

With HMV also struggling and independent record stores closing by the minute, it's becoming harder, but it's still well worthwhile.

AN EARLY LISTEN TO...
Deborah Harry
Necessary Evil (Eleven Seven)

Blondie play Hammersmith Apollo next Wednesday, but as their reunion winds down Debbie Harry (pictured) will already be thinking about her fifth solo album, released on 17 September. Although two songs, Jen Jen and Naked Eye, are written by her Blondie collaborator, Chris Stein, elsewhere she spreads her wings far beyond the band's sleek guitar pop. Most striking is her rapping on Dirty and Deep, a glossy synthpop track that recalls her platinum-blonde imitator Gwen Stefani. Whiteout and Charm Alarm also employ electronic beats to set her apart from her most familiar work. It isn't as cutting edge as she would like to think it is, but it's certainly a refreshing change.

NEW ON THE NET
Tom Waits covers one of his own songs for charity this week. Diamond in Your Mind, which he originally wrote for Solomon Burke, is on sale in download stores in aid of the Tibetan Health Initiative. It precedes a live album, Healing the Divide, out on 9 July and featuring Waits with the Kronos Quartet, among others.

Other digital releases this week include a couple of future dancefloor favourites - former Moloko singer Roisin Murphy's slinky disco comeback, Overpowered, and an unexpected comeback by seventysomething crooner Frankie Valli. Best known as the voice of the Grease theme tune, his music has been remixed by French DJ Pilooski. His song Beggin' is about to supersede Leo Sayer's Thunder in My Heart as this year's least likely clubland hit.