Harmonically Distorted Power

By Lyle Preslar

I played guitar onstage steadily for the better part of 10 years, and every hour I was allowed to spend in front of a crowd was the product of ten times as much time rehearsing. And like my guitar heroes, I wanted, I craved, I “needed” to play through the legendary Marshall amplifier stack: 100 (sometimes for me, 200) watts of harmonically distorted power blasting through 8 speakers in 2 cabinets (4 speakers in each) stacked 6 feet high!

Lyle Preslar was the guitar player and songwriter for the ’80s hardcore punk band Minor Threat.

Being right-handed, I liked playing “stage right” so that I only had to glance up from the fretboard to see my band mates across the stage—and DIRECT them. It was heaven: The amp stack was behind me roaring into my left ear, the drums were just next to me, each cymbal crash trying to blow that ear off.

My head rang—a lot. There were far too many tiny practice rooms and shows in clubs that had all the acoustic refinements of metal boxes ventilated by jet engines. If you were a fortunate musician, your rooms got bigger and your stage monitors got better, and you might be able to bring your volume down somewhat. Still…

My awareness of the sonic dangers I faced increased—a bit. I read that the great Roger Miller of Mission of Burma was forced to quit playing because of a hearing condition I couldn’t properly pronounce (and couldn’t for years): tinnitus. I got a bit scared. At shows, I started wearing earplugs during support act sets and wore them in some rehearsals. I bought the state-of-the-art ones of the time. 

I used the term “ear fatigue”—by the way, a “concept” soundmen use as a justification to pump up the volume for the headlining act. But while performing, the plugs just didn’t work: with the top end cut, I found it impossible to tune or even hear that I was out of tune. And I still stayed in those tiny rooms for hours, blasting away at my songs and our brains (let it rock), still largely ignorant of exactly what I was doing to myself and everyone else. The noise went on, and it was sweet, but every night’s sonic drunk became a next day mild hangover: manageable and smoothed out by late afternoon and ready for that night’s party. Let it roll.

I like to tell the story that Dave Grohl—no stranger to volume—pushed my brain’s audio system over a sonic cliff one evening during a Foo Fighters arena show. But while this tale might have some satisfying punk rock irony to it, it’s certainly untrue. My damage was years in the making. 

People ask me how my tinnitus (now pronounceable: touché) developed, when it first happened, what it sounds like, when did it get worse. I have no good answers besides the obvious ones. I can say it “crept” up on me; I don’t recall any early milestones. But my day-to-day problem became impossible for me to deny several years ago when a filmmaker friend asked me to record sound for him on a low-budget production. 

He shot a scene, and I took him aside: “I think there’s some hiss in the left channel,” I told him. Knowing he was on a shoestring budget, working with amateur actors, I wanted to make sure each take was captured properly. He took the headphones and listened to the playback. He heard nothing but clear sound. A few takes later I repeated my concerns. Again, when he listened, there was nothing. He’s a charitable guy, but he must have thought I was crazy. In any event, goodbye to any possible sound engineer career: That left channel is the one in my brain.

I had my hearing checked around three years ago and, considering my age and history, I was told it was remarkably good. When I mentioned the everyday hiss in my left ear the audiologist shrugged ever so slightly: I took it as a sort of involuntary “And, so?”—a casual acknowledgement of a sad but unremarkable fact.

My condition has its own various performance highlight moments: It’s louder, or shriller, or hissier, or even tantalizingly gone for a bit. Sadly, it’s mostly just there. Best I can do is have noise around to take my mind off it. Noise to quell the noise. There’s never an enjoy-the-silence moment. And, while there seem to be positive treatment developments, tinnitus is likely not curable in my lifetime. I try to control the extent of the damage. If you see me at a show, I’m probably one of the few wearing earplugs. 

I’ve watched my teenage daughter and her friends spend virtually every waking hour with earbuds in: on the street, at lunch, in the car, while supposedly having a “conversation.” I warn her, and occasionally I have managed to get her to turn down. I’m worried about her in the way that all who “know” should be worried.

Maybe I’ll just start hiding the buds. She apparently doesn’t know what speakers are!

Lyle Preslar is a musician best known for being the guitar player and songwriter for the hardcore punk band Minor Threat. When Minor Threat dissolved, he played guitar in The Meatmen and the first incarnation of Samhain. After retiring from performing, he ran Caroline Records, signing Ben Folds, Chemical Brothers, and Fat Boy Slim; he was later a marketing executive for Elektra Records and Sire Records. In 2007, he graduated from Rutgers School of Law–Newark. He is admitted to practice law in the state of New York.

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