From CBS13-TV, Sacramento:
Neighbors Fed Up With Bagpipes Blasting From McDonald’s On Broadway
People living in Midtown Sacramento are getting an earful from a nearby McDonald’s that’s blasting nonstop bagpipe music.
It’s supposed to keep the homeless away, but residents say it’s driving them crazy.
This story is not about music to the ears. CBS13 asked three managers about the bagpipe music blaring from loudspeakers and they replied, “What bagpipes?” The fast-food restaurant at Broadway and 24th is open 24/7, and some neighbors were moved to complain about the sound coming from its walls.
“The first couple of days they had it on 24/7. If we wouldn’t have said anything or reported it to the police, they would have had that thing going on still,” Arnold Phillips said.
Phillips lives across the street and says it’s making him crazy.
“It actually penetrates through the walls. We can hear it [when] I’m trying to watch TV or whatever and it’s going through that,” Phillips said.
The music is intended to drive the homeless away and doesn’t appear to be working.
“I think it’s an absurd action to take instead of actually dealing with the issue,” Kiara Reede said.
The idea of weaponized sound is nothing new. A 7-Eleven in West Hollywood loops classical music and a 7-Eleven in Sacramento replaced classical with a high pitch tone. But here at Broadway, it’s “raining bagpipes” over and over and over again....MOREI think my favorite story of the pipes being weaponized—other than Bill Millin, personal piper to the Lord Lovat, skirling away when coming ashore at Sword Beach on D-Day. According to The Economist's obituary the Germans didn't shoot Millin because they thought he was mad—other than that my favorite is probably this from 2016's "British Special Forces Blast ISIS Stronghold With Bollywood Music".
...There is a history of this stuff, the most famous probably being the U.S. psychological operations troops targeting the Papal Nuncio in Panama City to drive out strongman and drug dealer Manuel Noriega who had sought refuge within.
It took ten days but he came out, playlist below.
Probably my favorite example of music as instrument of power was this kid in St. Andrews last year:
Taking Out The Hate Preacher In The Most Scots Way Possible
For folks who don't recognize the tune, it's Scotland the Brave, which, for some reason, pipe bands in the U.S. insist on playing on St. Patrick's day.
If interested, here's what got Noriega to surrender. From the National Security Archive at George Washington University this is the start of the official playlist:
(You've Got) Another Thing Coming - Judas Priest
Blue Collar Man - Styx
Danger Zone - Kenny Loggins
Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
Don't Look Back - Boston
Electric Spanking of War Babies - Funkadelic
Heaven's On Fire - Kiss
If I Had A Rocket Launcher - Bruce Cockburn
In My Time of Dying - Led Zeppelin
Iron Man - Black Sabbath
Judgment Day - Whitesnake
Jungle Love - Steve Miller
No More Mister Nice Guy - Alice Cooper
Paradise City - Guns & Roses
Panama - Van Halen
Paranoid - Black Sabbath
Refugee - Tom Petty
Renegade - Styx
Run Like Hell - Pink Floyd
The Party's Over - Journey
This Means War - Joan Jett
Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi
Wanted Man - Ratt
War Pigs - Black Sabbath
We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister
You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
Your Time is Gonna Come - Led Zeppelin
And many more.
