Turtlerock Forum

I only met him once, and that was an experience. I don't think we'll ever see anyone like him again.

Oh dragsville

Happens to the best of us I guess

Onwards we much

Man what a character

Very sad to hear this. I never met him, but I live with the sound of his records. He made so many of my favourites.
Amazing and unique use of space and time.
Vale Tony Cohen.
Paul

I posted this on facebook but I thought i'd share it here as well.

A sad loss for his family and Australian music. I worked with him a bit in the 90s on some Cruel Sea and Tex solo stuff. Crazy fucker, he liked a chat, even if you weren't listening. He once turned up for a 5 day recording session with some guy he called his manager, turned out it was a dealer from Melbourne who came along for the ride. Tony didn't like what he had to offer and went out looking for Sydney's best, he came back 3 days later looking a little worse for wear and said to the band 'ok chaps lets go!" Rest in peace Tony Cohen

Yeah, what a legacy and what a loss. Makes me think a lot about the community around us...

Great reading, mostly from the horses mouth.
http://www.daleblair.com.au/wp-content/ ... -blair.pdf

I met tony through rick who played with the zoot and ferits I think I was about 18 at the time I was a fair bit younger .I had just moved from a 4 track to 8 track had a small studio under a rented house .I don't no how it happen but tony ended up at my place we talked for most the night .The next day he invited me up to the studio where he was doing the final mix on a saints track called ghost ships
when I got there he made me sit down and listen to the track .It sounded amazing
His work will live on forever
Tony was a true master and gentleman

Thanks for that link Paul.
I don't know much about him but I loved those post punk records he made. There is so much smack and speed in that story it's amazing he lived as long as he did.
I found this bit interesting:

(quote from the dale blair pdf)
The importance of dynamic and how it worked is explained by Andy Parsons, owner of Fortissimo studios, ‘Even if there was automation on the desk Tony would get hands on the faders and invite the band to have hands on faders and anybody else and it would be like a performance, a mix down would be a performance of a song where everybody has a task to switch things in and out or fade up or down and that injects feel into a mix where things are getting louder or softer. Reverbs would change between chorus and verse or drums which is not that unusual to do but you have a big reverb on a drum but in a chorus take it away or in the verse and it’s a dynamic and these dynamics were injected by Tony live in a mix on the spot even if it was automated...he would always hang on to the vocal and he would ride that fader all the way through and the mix was only done when Tony thought it had been done correctly or the dynamic sounded right. That is unique to Tony. Most engineers will avoid that like the plague, they’ll thank automation because they don’t have to do that but Tony would make sure he did do that. When automation came in Tony looked at it as useful but not the be all end all whereas engineers who have only known automation rely on it, totally. In Tony’s mixes nothing was safe from getting pulled up and given a bit more punch or being dumped...during the song going to tape. That’s where the difference is and Cave realized that.’
(unquote)

Also interesting: somewhere (youtube?) I heard him say that he didn't know how a compressor worked, but he knew if he liked the sound of it.

Was it Tony who as a relative novice did the mix for "The Real Thing"?
If it was , there's the story about Molly who was producing, wanting more excitement factor so Tony ? at wits end and feeling under pressure, got in the head engineer who proceeded to make a show out of patching in an 'excitement' fader for Molly to push when he so desired .
It was of course utterly placebo and wired to nothing.

That's not to put shit on Molly - I do those similar things to myself, eqing the wrong channel and believing it's sounding better etc - but if it did involve Tony it's a great story from Ausrock history.

Cheers, Ross