Crystal Guardian – Elliot Cash

I grew up surrounded by all kinds of live music every other weekend in a church that had been torn down in the center of my small Hudson Valley town and rebuilt as a performance space in my friend’s backyard. There, world-class musicians would travel to perform intimate shows for our special network of local friends and families. The lifeforce behind what became known as The Building (and later, The Falcon) was the late, great Tony Falco, whose motto was repeated at every show: “Support living artists!”

These 100% donation-based, word-of-mouth concerts –where listening was explicitly prioritized above talking– gave me a formative and ever-inspiring education as a young musician in the limitless bounds of musical expression, and introduced me to music as community. Tony consciously cultivated and instilled a deep care for art, artist and audience.

My first full-time job after graduating college as a musician unexpectedly merged my background in music with my experience in carpentry and working with my hands: working as a lab technician for an international custom-fit audio company.

During this period, some silicone doodles I made ended up in an art show, displayed next to a Vito Acconci drawing, with the following artist statement: “Clear earplug orders are invested in gel molds of in-ears with soft silicone first, while colored earplug orders are invested with the desired silicone color after as a method to reuse the same disposable mixing nozzle of the dispensing gun in order to save on both silicone and mixing nozzles. You can only chase clear silicone with colored silicone because clear will not bleed into a color, whereas color, if chased with clear, will bleed into the clear silicone. This recurrent instance of chasing the small amount of clear silicone in the mixing nozzle with the newly loaded colored silicone cartridge leaves the technician with a small amount of unclaimed clear-into-colored silicone combination that the artist has utilized to create playful faces.”

I’ve come to realize this is an essential part of the philosophy behind Crystal Guardian and my own interest in helping protect the body’s incredible and delicate tool that allows us to both experience and create music; the ear.

Crystal Guardian launched in 2019, after much encouragement from musician friends wanting custom filtered earplugs. The CG lab modestly started in my bedroom upstate. The goal from the beginning was to make custom earplugs accessible–not a luxury–for young musicians, concert and club-goers, and nightlife workers, offering the same quality product as other companies in a more affordable, accessible (and fun!) way.

The company’s viability has always depended on the many supporters of this mission. I’ve had the privilege of watching it enter different corners of New York’s music scenes, especially the DJ and club community– where exposure isn’t just to extreme volumes, but extreme durations as well.

Last year, our lab moved to Greenpoint, into the wonderful Studio G–where, to my surprise, two musicians I grew up idolizing at The Building, Chris Cubeta and Jeff Berner, now work.

The process of making custom-fit silicone earplugs has always been both interesting and satisfying for me. While the process is repetitive, each ear presents variations in canal anatomy–as well as glitter combinations (there are over 25 million possible options!).

Above all, it’s extremely satisfying to create custom-fit objects that have a practical and important use for the health of both artist and audiences, and which people tend to enthusiastically enjoy.

But as important as high-quality hearing protection is, wearing earplugs does not solve the broader cultural issue of extreme music volume (which, by the way, has a fascinating history). Right now, most amplified music events pose at least some risk of hearing damage to anyone not wearing earplugs. While Big Earplug might drool over that, I think most would agree this doesn’t make sense. (And no, the solution isn’t as simple as just saying “turn it down.”)

There is a small but critically important community of music audiologists and hearing conservationists I’ve had the honor of getting to know– people who are leading the way in developing best practices at the intersection of auditory health and live music events.

I think talking about–and learning about– these nearly ubiquitous, complex and serious health issues needs to be part of music communities. (Alongside, of course, the equally urgent and ever-present issue of surviving as an artist.) I hope that Crystal Guardian can play a bigger role in advocating and educating especially younger audiences in all things hearing health.

Musical expression is one of humanity’s greatest achievements, and I believe we have the ability to better safeguard and support its creation and its enjoyment. In addition to the important motto, “Support living artists!,” I might add; “Support living ear hair cells!”