Never Trust Your Drummer?

This is the date, back before most of you were even born, that Pete Townshend identifies as the beginning of his hearing loss problems that plagued him for life.  It was an appearance on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" where The Who played "My Generation."   Pete went on as planned smashing his amp, his guitar ... even Tom Smothers' guitar... But what he didn't know was that Keith Moon had rigged his drum kit to "explode" instead of just combusting.  Pete was about two feet away from the exploding drum at the end of the song, and you could tell it "rocked" him.

He suffered with hearing issues from that point on, often needing a couple days off between recording sessions or live concerts.  He also said it affected his writing style, which could explain some of the "awful" parts from his Rock Opera ... I digress.  He later came out to say the biggest culprit for his slow hearing loss was persistent headphone usage.  I might have to agree with that one, as I have already noticed some effect from 25 years of loud headphone use for radio and voice work myself.

So the lesson for today... Keep it under 100...  Decibels that is!   Hey, wanna see that 1967 video of The Who on that show?   Click the link... Wow, TV has come a long way!