Tony Cohen's Contributions To Aus Music Will Resonate Through The Ages

Studying the resume of venerated Australian producer and sound engineer Tony Cohen - who sadly passed away earlier this week in Melbourne's Dandenong Hospital at the age of 60 - is like tracing the fertile history of Australian underground rock'n'roll, such is the breadth of his involvement in the lineage.

Born and bred in Melbourne, Cohen became infatuated with sound engineering after undertaking work experience at Armstrong Studios while still at high school, and before long he'd left school altogether to follow his musical dreams full-time. In 1976 he began his career in earnest working on the debut self-titled album by Perth glam-rockers Supernaut, which topped the Australian album charts on the back of radio smash I Like It Both Ways, while that same year found him working alongside Oz rock legend Molly Meldrum on The Ferrets' debut album Dreams Of A Love.

By 1979 he was house engineer at Melbourne studio Richmond Recorders and a session with the Boys Next Door kickstarted a long and fertile relationship with Nick Cave and his various bands, which continued over the ensuing decades. According to Clinton Walker in his book Stranded (1996) by the time Boys Next Door had morphed into The Birthday Party, "Cohen relished their iconoclastic approach", with Cohen himself admitting the role Cave had on his recording craft to the ABC's Richard Fidler in 2006:

"It was all very experimental then, because we were all learning - I fell in love with this new way of recording... because there were no rules. We were looking for sounds that made your fillings drop out rather than pleasant pop tunes, so we got to do crazy things like find concrete stairwells and abuse equipment, so it was all very attractive for me."

His sessions with Cave opened many doors, with Cohen soon working on releases such as the Models' Cut Lunch (1981) and The Go-Betweens' 1982 debut Send Me A Lullaby. His work appealed to both established acts and fringe-dwellers alike, 1983 finding him ensconced in Sydney working concurrently on Cold Chisel's final album (of their initial incarnation) Twentieth Century and the Beasts Of Bourbon debut The Axeman's Jazz (the beginning of another enduring relationship).

But it was his work with Cave's outfit The Bad Seeds which defined most of Cohen's '80s, the soundman going as far as moving with them to Berlin as he produced their first four albums, and touring the world with them as their front-of-house mixer. As he told Walker for Stranded;

"I nearly got killed a couple of times, trying to score with Nick. You know, and I saw Nick getting dragged off by the cops in New York, and then we couldn't find him because they kept moving him to different precincts. That was wild. And then in Amsterdam having knives at our throats as they guys took money out of our pockets. It's funny to look back on, but at the time..."

Indeed Cohen had by this stage earned a reputation for partying as hard (if not harder) than nearly all of the musicians he worked with, no mean feat in the decadent '80s with its penchant for rampant hedonism. As his younger brother Martin reflected of his life this week on Facebook, "Tony lived a hard life with drugs and alcohol playing a big part in his professional career. He did give them up many years ago but always knew that he would eventually pay for his sins".

By the end of the '80s, things had gotten so bad that Cohen moved into semi-retirement in rural Victoria to shield himself from further damage, but his reputation as an engineer par excellence refused to abate. It was upon his return to production work in the early '90s that he finally (and deservedly) began receiving industry accolades: after working on recordings by artists such as TISM, Straitjacket Fits, Dave Graney and Kim Salmon, Cohen took home the 1994 ARIA for Producer Of The Year for his work on The Cruel Sea's The Honeymoon Is Over, then scoring that same award again in 1995 (as well as Engineer Of The Year) predominantly for his work on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Let Love In. And his penchant for working with artists at both ends of the spectrum continued unabated, 1994 finding him equally happy working with established icon Paul Kelly on Wanted Man as he was helping burgeoning Brisbane outfit Powderfinger piece together their debut Parables For Wooden Ears, while the next couple of years found him working with acts including The Blackeyed Susans, Mick Harvey, Hugo Race and Frenzal Rhomb.

After this mid-'90s heyday, Cohen largely removed himself from the temptations of the music scene, moving back to regional Victoria to help care for his mother, but his contributions to Australian music will continue to resonate through the ages. As tributes poured in on social media this week it was legendary guitarist Kim Salmon who covered the huge loss most succinctly, calling Cohen "a true great" before adding that it was "an absolute privilege working with him but an even greater honour to count him as a friend". RIP Tony Cohen.