Reading a memoir released after its subject has passed is always a haunting experience. With Half Deaf, Completely Mad, the sensation is even more acute. Tony Cohen began the project in 2012, but it was John Olson - who had been brought in to help with the project - who finalised the manuscript following Cohen’s death in 2017.

I [John Olsen] interviewed Tony and his colleagues from May 2013 to July 2016 and the manuscript has been completed as envisaged, in Tony’s own voice.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

The result is a book written entirely in Cohen’s own voice: a conversational and irreverent tone that makes it feel as though he is sitting across from you. As Mark Mordue commented in his review:

You leave this book wishing he was still talking. But the tape runs out and it’s over.

Source: Saturday Review

---

I imagine that some readers might approach this book looking for technical secrets. While there are “clues” (like recording in cupboards or toilets), the real takeaway is Cohen’s devotion to experiential learning. As Cohen attests:

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. That works for me, but I’m not recommending it. Find your own way of working. Be unique, you’ll hear if what you’re doing sounds good.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

Cohen did not attend an audio school. Rather he learnt by doing. He dropped out of school when he was fifteen and managed to get work Armstrong Studios.

There was no such thing as audio schools, no one really knew this job existed. It was the other side of the glass, where all people did was fiddle a few knobs … I learnt from the best: Roger Savage, Ernie Rose, Graham Owens, Ian MacKenzie and Ross Cockle.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

He learned by “fiddling with knobs” and embracing trial and error.

Every new thing you do gives you more experience and knowledge that you can use in later work.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

His philosophy was a mix of “gut-level instinct” and the “secret” doctrine he learned from Molly Meldrum: exaggeration.

I listened to everything, working hard to understand his doctrine. And Molly’s secret? Exaggeration. If you listen to the White Album now on good speakers you’ll hear exactly what I’m talking about. There’s no flat bits, everything in the mix jumps out and grabs your attention. It hits you in the bloody face. When mixing, people get too sensitive, they fiddle about listening on studio monitors and get the balance sounding even. Don’t. Be dynamic. Keep the action up and push the extremes. Turn things up louder than is considered tasteful. It might sound like you should pull it back, but resist that temptation. Turn it up a bit more! You’ll find that when the song makes it to another medium, into people’s cars and homes, there’s a presence. The mix is moving, it’s alive.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

Cohen lived for the moving, alive quality of a mix, rather than clinical perfection.

You can hit the odd fucking foul note as long as you give a fantastic performance.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

For Cohen, the studio was a playground for inventiveness.

---

With all the tales, there is an undeniable “apocryphal” energy to the book. Cohen is, in many ways, an unreliable narrator. We are asked to accept an ironic sense of clarity in his recounts of driving down the Hume Highway while tripping on magic mushrooms:

I ran out of money driving back and found that eating the mushrooms destroyed my appetite so, as a result, was tripping the whole time. I know, I’m lucky to be alive, but Minis are like dodgem cars: you can hop out of the way of trouble, as long as your reflexes are working.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

Or tripping around the Royal Botanic Gardens:

A friend of The Ferrets sent over an envelope of ‘brown barrels’ from London. We were sitting around having breakfast when they arrived. ‘I’ll try one!’ I said. Oh boy, that was an intense couple of days. I can understand why some people think tripping is a religious experience. I wandered around the Royal Botanic Gardens and it was spectacular. The hills turned to liquid, rainbows shot into the air – just like The Beatles’ animated film, Yellow Submarine. When someone asked me where the duck pond was all I can remember is them running away in fear. God knows what I said. Maybe it was my eyes, big black holes staring back at them. I shouldn’t harp on about it. Don’t do drugs, kids, they’re very bad for you.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

Like Bobby Gillespie’s recount of tripping in his memoir Tenement Kid, I found myself questioning how someone could remember such vivid details through such a chemical haze? Yet, as a reader, you want it all to be true. Whether he is “scoffing” Split Enz’s champagne or dealing with the “leather man” Bono, the stories are told with a rueful laughter that makes the “gist” feel pure, even if the details are sometimes a bit blurry.

---

While some biographies of the era sanitise the lifestyle, Cohen places it front and center. His life was one of indulgence, and eventually, the bill came due. The book captures the stark contrast between the high-flying world of record executives and the reality of Cohen’s later years: living in a caravan, battling hepatitis, diabetes, and pancreatitis.

As the producer I was supposed to get royalties for The Cruel Sea, but somehow it didn’t happen. I received $1000 once – big deal. The only band that has consistently paid me producer royalties is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Mick Harvey always kept an eye on things. He was interested in the music business and it’s just as well because they could have been ripped off as much as every other band.
So it’s due to Mick I receive royalties. There was never an agreement with the band’s label, Mute Records, but he made sure I got included. I can’t thank him enough.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

Yet, Cohen does not present himself as a tragic figure or seek pity. He emerges as a figure of boyish mischief. Even as his health failed, the book suggests he was equally a victim of technological change. The shift from the “creative misuse” of analog tape to the “prissy” glitches and endless choices of digital recording signalled the end of the era Cohen helped build.

When digital recording first appeared I was keen, but I never took to it. I found it prissy. Misusing equipment was part of the creativity of recording. With analogue you could thrash the meters and natural tape compression would make the sound better. I miss that. Dare to slam a digital meter into the red and see what you get? It doesn’t distort, it glitches. Digital took away things that I enjoyed, but it did make recording cheaper and easier for artists.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

Interestingly, this is something that Susan Rogers captures in her own work, contrasting the warmth of analogue music, compared the abstract coolness of digital processes.

---

Half Deaf, Completely Mad offers a fascinating peek behind the curtain of the music industry. From the bizarre reality of “live but not live” performances:

I often wondered how people like Madonna managed to sing while dancing and leaping about the stage like a maniac. Lip-syncing, that’s how they do it. Ernie was alarmed to find that Madonna had eighty tracks of vocals prerecorded for the show. When she’d get puffed out, the front-of-house mixer would turn up the required vocal.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

To a discussion as to how ARIAs are decided.

I was told record company representatives would meet and say, ‘Well you had last year, we want this year’, then decide which one of their acts were going to win.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

Cohen demystifies the glamour.

Ultimately, the book does not pretend to have a deeper psychological meaning or a coherent artistic “arc.” It is simply the story of a man who worked on instinct, lived on the edge, and left the world of music sounding a lot more interesting than he found it.

I’ve always worked on instinct. It’s not a boast, I just never had a clear idea what I was doing. I would follow what the artist led me toward, and if not I’d make something up. Perhaps from memory.

Source: Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen

The post REVIEW: Half Deaf, Completely Mad (Tony Cohen) appeared first on Read Write Respond.