How a 'pot-smoking, acid-gobbling smart-arse' became the producer behind some of Australia's greatest music
Or maybe this excellent memoir by engineer and producer Tony Cohen, who died in 2017, will fling him into the spotlight.
- Or maybe this excellent memoir by engineer and producer Tony Cohen, who died in 2017, will fling him into the spotlight.
- Cohen, who was mostly Melbourne-based, made an astonishing contribution to Australian recorded music in the 70s and 80s.
- The gist of the stories was pure, even if the dates might have needed a bit of research on Olson’s part.
- Read more:
'A gentleman with the mad soul of an Irish convict poet': remembering Chris Bailey, and the blazing comet that was The Saints
‘Turn it up a bit more!’
- Working as an assistant, cleaning toilets and getting coffees, he was 15 and he had a job!
- In the first week he was paid $17 – “I was so young I spent it on lollies.
- I was up myself: a pot-smoking, acid-gobbling smart-arse who thought he knew it all.
- This time at Armstrong’s was informative, not just in learning what to do, but what not to do.
- And he talks a bit about Molly [Meldrum], which people will probably be surprised to read.” Cohen’s regard for Molly Meldrum is clear.
A strange, scrambled method
- He was daring to do different things, and there was a bit of "Fuck you!” to what the normal music benchmarks were.
- He was daring to do different things, and there was a bit of "Fuck you!” to what the normal music benchmarks were.
- He didn’t care that I wanted to tune my drums differently, it was all cool.
- Cohen wrote:
I’ve got a strange, scrambled way of working. - I know how to use most pieces of equipment, but I don’t necessarily know what they do or why they do it.
- I’ve got a strange, scrambled way of working.
- He was a master at both what not to do in the studio and what to do in the studio.