So even more sad news early this week with the passing of Tony Cohen. If it counts for anything I would call him one of the greatest Aussie producer, engineer and studio wizard, if not the greatest ever. He passed away on Tuesday peacefully in Dandenong Hospital at age 60 according to his brother who broken the news.
When I really started getting into Aussie Punk and Post-Punk as a teenage his name just was on so much stuffed loved, it seem an unbelievable amount of albums he worked on. He never when oversea to find work at all because he just worked with almost ever greatest Aussie act from the late 70’s into 2000’s which is were he slowed down and stop working so much. I’ve started watching some of the hit single video clips and some fave album tracks of all the acts he worked with over his life. So I might as well embedded them into a blog post for this Friday afternoon and share them with anyone, everyone!
The opening track just has to be the Perth band own glam rockers Supernaut with the I Like It Both Ways 7″ single from 1976.
Next has to be Shivers by The Boys Next Door which was done by January 1979 and moving into the punk scene now.
By 1980 he did the first Laughing Clowns recording with Ed Kuepper’s then new band after leaving The Saints and here’s Holy Joe.
By 1981 The Boys Next Door had become The Birthday Party and they did Nick The Stripper together.
Also in 1981 he worked with the so what under rated band called The Reels and the epic classic track Quasimodo’s Dream.
In 1981 and then 1982 he worked on The Go-Between single and then album and I’ve picked out an album track called Hold Your Horses from Send Me A Lullaby album.
Also 1982 he worked on the self-titled debut album by Hunters & Collectors and here’s the craziest video they ever made for the single Talking To A Stranger.
As well as recording Birthday Party’s Junkyard album in 1982, did you know the members Go-Betweens and Birthday Party did a one 7″ single together naming themselves Tuff Monks and were Grant McLennan, Lindy Morrison, Mick Harvey, Nick Cave, Robert Forster and Rowland S. Howard which Cohen was there to recorded the song After The Fireworks.
Also in 1982 came the some what forgotten but stone cold classic for me Sacred Cowboys‘ Nothing Grows In Texas 7″ single.
For me 1983 has to be Pel Mel Pandemonium single and then album Persuasion.
By 1984 it was the crazy Psycho single and the one day session to record the drunken album The Axeman’s Jazz by Beasts Of Bourbon.
Also that year was The Saints classic Ghost Ships and album called A Little Madness To Be Free.
1985 was the Aussie punk band called X with the album named At Home With You and here’s the classic Degenerate Boy song.
In 1986 he did the garage rockers of Spencer P. Jones’ band The Johnnys album Highlights Of A Dangerous Life and I’ve just got to included country & west-ish The Day Marty Robbins Died.
1987 was Rowland S. Howard’s new band These Immortal Souls album Get Lost (Don’t Lie) and I chosen the song I Ate The Knife.
In 1988 did he the now some what forgotten great Aussie songwriter Simon Bonney’s band Crime & The City Solution album called Shine, it’s closing song with Home Is Far From Here.
He worked on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds epic album The Tender Prey in 1988 too, here’s a least known track Watching Alice.
The Cruel Sea single/video This Is Not The Way Home which when to be the title track of the 1991 album too.
The Beasts Of Bourbon comeback album The Low Road was also in 1991 so Chase The Dragon.
New Zealand’s Straitjacket Fits did their single called Done in Melbourne with Tony in 1992.
Dave Graney ‘N’ The Coral Snakes album Night Of The Wolverine with the track Three Dead Passengers In A Stolen Second Hand Ford from 1993 is a fave of mine.
Kim Salmon & The Surrealists album Sin Factory with the track Rose Coloured Windscreen also from 1993 is a fave of mine.
Three blokes calling themselves Tex Don & Charlie album Sad But True with the song Sitting In A Bar again from 1993 is yet another fave of mine.
Maurice Frawley & Working Class Ringos album Livin Lazy with the song Bad Wine and Women is bloody great.
Paul Kelly did an album called Wanted Man with even a Cave cover song on it, God Hotel’s yet again in 1994.
Also 1994 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Cohen did an album with yet another great album Let Love In, here’s Jangling Jack. This time recording continue and large part of the Murder Ballads album was done at the very same sessions.
Serge Gainsbourg’s English translation by then Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey album Intoxicated Man, here’s Anita Lane singing the Harley Davidson track in 1995.
Now he did do some more Bad Seeds albums in between mid-80’s to 2000’s but I wanted to included a bit for everything else I know and love not just all of Cave stuff. Anyway then after recording and working pretty much every album before in Melbourne he travel to London and Abbey Road Studios for the last album he did with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in 2001’s No More Shall We Part and it’s got to be the Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow because he’s in the video somewhere too.
The debut self-titled album by the Devastations in 2004 was good one too and here’s the track called We Will Never Drink Again.
Kirin J Callinan early band called Mercy Arms recorded the one and only album which was self-tilted in 2008, here’s the video song Half Right.
So he did way more albums that those above, like missing almost all Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds albums he worked on with them which the full list is From Her to Eternity (1984), Kicking Against the Pricks (1986), Your Funeral… My Trial (1986), Tender Prey (1988), Henry’s Dream (1992), Let Love In (1994), Murder Ballads (1996) and finally No More Shall We Part (2001). Nick Cave pen his own tribute here on his facebook page today. He did other acts too but these are my picks from it all and above are just some songs I really enjoy and love so I hope you might like them or some or one? Let me know which ones? Or do you have your own fave Tony Cohen one, let me know that too? Thank you Tony and rest in peace.
a1000mistakes 