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PT hearing



In the August issue of Guitar magazine there's an interesting interview of
PT in which he discusses why the Who played loud and his resultant hearing
problems. He agrees with the interviewer that his famous heavy guitar sound
was responsible for his success even though it damaged his hearing in the
process. He says he was told he was losing his hearing in '74 and as soon as
he learned this he started to be "much more careful", but that even after
this he sometimes let his guard down because of drinking too much. I find it
interesting that he cites the year of the medical consultation as '74. In
TKAA (film), he states to Moon that he had just seen a doctor to test his
ears and the physician told him he'd have to stop playing or "learn how to
lip read". (BTW Pete does a funny impression of an English doctor's posh
accent when telling Moon this, who finds it hilarious). The film was made in
1978 I think - certainly years after this earlier visit to the doctor in
'74. Or is Pete mistaken about the year of this first consultation?  After
all, the Who played very loud shows in the mid-70's, notably at Charlton in
1976 when they were clocked as the world's loudest band in the Guinness Book
of  World Records. The current Generations magazine has a superb description
of this show which really conveys the excitement of the Who's performance
and describes in detail each song and how loud the show was. (For example it
says you could hear the beat in a town 5 miles away!). In fact, I believe
Pete may have meant 1978 when he said '74. I noticed a significant volume
change in PT's guitar sound in live recordings from 1979 on, not 1974 on.
(In studio recordings, the change came in much earlier, with Quad, although
this may have been artistic, not hearing, related). The 1979 Chicago and
Kampuchea and 1982 Toronto shows feature a respectable guitar sound but not
the Les Paul avalanche of sound of the mid and early 70's (itself possibly a
lighter sound than the classic SG/Hiwatt combination of '69 to '71). In a
1980 guitar interview with PT, available through Chris Hinkle's Who web
site, PT says that one of the amplifier cabinets in the stack behind him was
a dummy, so I think he may have started this post-'78 to reduce the on-stage
sound pressures in his ears....Gary M.