Revered Australian musician Nick Cave has paid tribute to the late, legendary Tony Cohen, the renowned producer and sound engineer who had a hand in creating a panoply of The Bad Seeds and The Birthday Party's albums.
Referring to Cohen — who passed away in Dandenong Hospital earlier this week — as both "pure chaos in the studio" and a "national treasure", Cave wrote a heartfelt, honest eulogy for the man who first engineered for him when The Birthday Party were still The Boys Next Door, on 1979's debut full-length Door, Door.
"Like many geniuses [Cohen was] a nightmare to work with. But you came back again and again because he was just so good, everything he did was so unique and bold and startling," Cave wrote in his statement.
"He was a master at both what not to do in the studio and what to do in the studio. For example — don't set fire to the studio, don't sleep in the air-conditioning vents, don't not show up to the sessions for days at a time, but conversely — do record music like your very life depended on it, do create sounds that no-one has ever heard before, do mix records with a courage that put every other producer in Australia to shame.
"He was also the funniest guy I have ever met and rising up through the narcissism and rampant insanity he had a heart just as big as a house. Australia has lost a national treasure."
Cohen and Cave's professional relationship continued through The Boys Next Door's next two releases — 1979's Hee Haw EP and sophomore LP The Birthday Party, which saw its title get adopted as the band's name moving forward — as well as The Birthday Party's albums Prayers On Fire (1981) and Junkyard (1982) and 1983 EPs The Bad Seed and Mutiny!, which were eventually released as a single compilation album.
Tony Cohen worked on every Bad Seeds album between 1984 and 2001 with the exception of The Firstborn Is Dead (1985), The Good Son (1990) and The Boatman's Call (1997), otherwise lending his distinct, daring touch to every full-length release between From Her To Eternity and No More Shall We Part.
Read more tributes to his life and work here.
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