Recording bands and mixing live sound professionally since 1978 and I’ve worked with a long list of Australian and international artists. My first exposure to the inner world of bands was in the mid 1970’s when my cousin, Graham Owens, got me a job building a drum booth at TCS Studios, out the back of the old Channel Nine TV studios in Richmond. He and producer John French were recording HUSH there and I was impressed by the tape recorders, the giant mixing console and the interesting people. I started recording bands with John Rees (Men At Work’s bass player) in the mid '70s, in a share house in Box Hill in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne under the name Trees Music. Get it? John was playing in jazz/rock/fusion band Chetarca (should have been huge) and knew lots of musicians. It was a home studio with the bands playing in the lounge room and the TEAC 3340s 4tk tape recorder in my bedroom. One of the bands we recorded, THE PHONES, asked if i could do their live sound and my first live mix was at the Tiger Lounge in Richmond on the 11th of May 1978. I remember PA-owner Nic Reishbeth (Sacred Cowboys bass player) grunted at me when i asked how it worked. When the band started I pushed the vocal fader up and was pleased to hear Danny’s voice get louder. Soon after that I discovered that if you kept pushing it up the PA started to feed back. Piece of cake, never looked back.
In early 1979 I got a call to mix MODELS at Marijuana House in Fitzroy. Loved the gig, loved the band. At that time the anyone-can-have-a-go ethos of punk was producing bands exploding with fresh musical ideas without too much concern about technique and I spent the next few years in the smoky pubs and clubs of inner-suburban Melbourne. Bands ruled the music scene then, often playing five nights a week, sometimes doing doubles on a Friday or Saturday night and occasionally the triple. Bananas and the Crystal Ballroom were my favourites despite both being upstairs…I can clearly remember Mark 2 and i carrying Mick O'Connors full-sized Hammond organ up the back stairs of Bananas one night, it funny what sticks in your head. in those days there were no house systems, the PA, lights and band gear were all trucked to the venue then loaded in and out again at the end of the night.
In 1981 I went to London with the MODELS courtesy of A&M Records. An A&R person saw the band play once in Australia and signed them up. It was a great deal. The band and I were flown to the UK, had 2 flash apartments in Sloane Square on Kings Road, 60 quid a week each, and a car. The album (Local and/or General) was recorded at Farmyard Studios and produced by Stephen Taylor. Buster Stiggs replaced Johnny Crash (Janis Friedenfelds) on drums shortly before the trip and while Buster was good JCs unique style was a big part of the songs. It was a great album but not exactly what the record company were expecting with some songs made up in the studio. I stayed in the UK for a few months, in a 20 quid/week flat near Portabello Rd, looking for work…got a few small gigs, nothing serious although a weekend operating sound for a multi-coloured blow-up walk-through plastic structure at the "benign anarchy" themed Cornwall Elephant Fayre was amusing. Stayed with a friend near Munich for a month and returned to Australia in August 1981.
I was on a tour with SERIOUS YOUNG INSECTS in Oct 1981 when I got a call about doing sound for MEN AT WORK. I knew the band through John and had recorded an early folky version of “Down Under” a few years earlier in the home studio. At that time they were still a hippy/reggae/pub band but Canadian producer Peter McIan turned the songs into singles in the studio and they suddenly had a hit album on their hands. The first show i did with them on the 1st Jan 1982 they were filling venues around Australia while the album Business As Usual was taking off around the world. The album went on to sell 10 million copies around the world. I did their front-of-house sound for all their local and international tours for the next two years and it was quite a ride. The first time they toured the US was opening for FLEETWOOD MAC on one of their re-union tours…and did we walk into some American culture. The journey from the suburban pubs of Melbourne to the biggest stages in the world was successful accomplished but happened fast and took a toll on the band. MEN AT WORK lasted exactly two years as a big band before imploding. Given the personalities involved this is one band you always knew would not be reforming.
In early 1982, in between MAW tours, i did a S.E. Australia tour with MIDNIGHT OIL and thought they were the best band in the world at the time. They were more like a powerful punk surf band in their early days and great players with Peter Garretts manic presence like a jockey whipping the horse to the finish line. I would have liked to mix them full-time, and did ask once, but they were from Sydney with their own crew, i was just filling in for occasional Melbourne gigs but did a notable show in 1988, the Stop The Drop anti-nuclear show at the Myer Music Bowl.
After Men At Work finished at the end of 1983 I moved to Los Angeles courtesy of Peter Troykovic who shouted me a ticket on account of the PA hire Men At Work has put his way. I shared a bedsit under the Hollywood 101 highway. The TV had to be up full to hear it and when you turned a light on at night the floor changed from cockroach black to beige tiles as they ran back into the cupboards. It was in good location though and I soon found work at nearby Studio Instrument Rentals (SIR) on Santa Monica Blvd, setting up bands for rehearsals and running the sound for showcase events. I met THE CALL there and got on well with the band leader Michael Bean and did a few shows with them. A couple of guys in the band were also playing with one Sonny Sassoon who was trying to get record deal. After rehearsals he would drive me back to my place in his white Rolls Royce and always gave me a $100 bill for my time. I went to his house once, it was in the middle of Hollywood and there was another Rolls in the driveway. The maid made us some lunch and he showed me round. My main memory was the dozens of Rolex watch cases piled up in one of the bedrooms, I still can’t think why they were there.
The showcases at SIR were very nervous events where bands would play to a booking agent or record company A&R man in the hope of getting a deal. It was at one of these that I ran into an LA-based booking agent I’d met with Men At Work . He connected me with TINA TURNER’s manager, Roger Davies (used to mix/manage Sherbert), and he offered me the job of doing her front-of-house sound. Tina was more of a middle-of-the-road R&B act when I first met her but quickly became a big pop star with the success of her “Private Dancer” album. The first tour I did was alternating between McDonalds conventions where Tina played to 600 regional store mangers and their wives at the end of a 2-day brainwashing session and super cool clubs better suited to an act on the way up the charts, like the Park West in Chicago and the Ritz in New York. The Ritz in New York was particularly memorable, great room and PA for sound...and Keith Richards hanging backstage with fag in mouth and bottle of JB in hand.
The album was huge and she quickly out-grew the clubs and moved into the sheds (3000 – 5000 capacity) before hitting the stadiums. Over that time the road crew grew from 3 to over 50 people on the road. There was a lot of shows but Madison Square Gardens with Mick Jagger and Roy Clair (owner of the worlds leading PA company) sitting behind me at the front-of-house position sticks in my mind...only a lot of pressure. I used to get nervous before the shows, could only eat carrots from the green room, but as soon as the show started and i could hear her voice clearly i quickly relaxed into it. Mixing Tina was all about her voice, she told me she had a vision of it sitting head and shoulders above the band and if i couldn't hear her clearly then don't be afraid to turn the band down until you can. Good advice, i still do it.
The shows used start with the band on stage vamping away, Tina would appear from the back corner and dance across the stage to reach the microphone in time for the opening line of the first song, Let's Get Married by Prince it was at the time. One night, at the Park West, full house, the showed started, she grabbed the mic and sang...and nothing came out, the mic was dead. I nearly dropped dead, the red intercom light from the stage crew was flashing as they realised it wasn't working...it had been earlier but wasn't now. Tina didn't miss a beat, she grabbed the guitarists mic and only missed a few words. We got the call to see her in her changeroom after the show. She was great, she said she was sure we felt worse about it than her about it and stuff happens,,,,but don't let it happen again.
On our first trip the Australia the band found themselves unable to sleep for a couple of days, Australian partying, and they were shabby for the first show at the Hilton Hotel in Melbourne. They still seemed to play ok to me and being from Melbourne i was off visiting relatives and missed the partying but we were blamed collectively. I got nice hand-written note under the hotel room door "You can party all you want to but you're here to do a job, you must be up to par, T" that i've kept and lived by. The crew got thanks at the end of the show, if she liked the sound she'd say thanks to Mark from Melbourne, if it was a weird room or sounded odd to her she'd say things like Mark from Timbuctoo or somewhere.
Birmingham NEC in 1985 with David Bowie as guest artist, again over 2 nights, was memorable. I've got tapes of DB and TT rehearsing and he'd wander out to the FOH position for a cigarette and a chat. He grew a foot when he hit the stage but was still in awe of Tina and the way she moved. A few days after the shows David's person Coco called Roger to see if i could mix him at Live Aid. I couldn't do it as i would have had to miss one of Tina's shows which i couldn't do but it was nice to be asked. Tina flew in and out in a helicopter for her Live Aid appearance and just made it back for her own show.
I have a platinum album for Private Dancer; the “B” sides were live tracks and even though I didn’t record them, as the man who did record them said, I didn’t mess them up by having feedback in the house or any technical problems. Tina did not mess anything up and she remains an inspiration. She was fantastic the whole time and deserved every bit of her success. Down to earth in some ways but driven to succeed, everything she was she made herself. Every note and dance move was rehearsed and refined. She was also a magnet for the worlds other big pop acts who would regularly appear at shows and join her for a song in the encore…so I got to meet, and briefly mix, Mick Jagger and David Bowie among others. When she finished I knew she’d be hard to beat and after 5 years on the road, mainly in the US, during the undoubtedly excessive ’80s, I was ready for a break from touring. I'll mix a show anytime but the time in-between mixing was wearing me down.
I returned to Australia in the 1988 to concentrate on recording and over the next decade recorded many albums by inner-city/alternate/indie bands including STEPHEN CUMMINGS Lovetown album, ANDREW PENDLEBURY, THE SLAUGHTERMEN, BLUE RUIN and This Is Serious Mum (TISM). I produced their first album Great Truckin’ Songs Of The Renaissance as well as mixing their brilliantly manic live shows from 1989 – 1994. Most of my recordings at this time were done at Sing Sing Recording Studios in Richmond and I also sort of managed the studio from 1990 – 1993. Mark Woods Audio Productions managed a series of inner city indie bands during the early ‘90s as well as overseas tours with FRENTE and ARCHIE ROACH. I didn't record or manage them but did quite a few shows with the PAINTERS & DOCKERS.
In 1995, with Greg Ham, I was a founding board member of The PUSH, a successful Victorian state government youth music initiative supporting young bands and new music. Even though i was still recording and mixing, dance music and poker machine venues took their toll on live music and between 1995 and 2000 i spent more time with my wife Natalie’s business, FINDERS KEEPERS, a small clothing label and recycled clothing boutique in Chapel St, South Yarra. It was like a band in the way it took off, and then started to fade, but we got out while we were still in front and moved to the country to start a family.
Since 2000 Natalie and i have lived in an old farmhouse, on the side of a hill, near Castlemaine in Central Victoria. In 2001 I set up a studio in a couple of rooms of the house and learnt the ways of digital sound by transferring my collection of live recordings from cassette and reel-to-reel tape into digital files. This turned into E-POP, an archival web site containing a collection of Australian indie, pop and electronic music acts from the ’70s and ’80s. E-POP was shut down by Piracy Busters Inc (an ARIA initiative) for copyright problems in 2003.
BALD HILL MUSIC STUDIO has been operating since 2003 (see recording credits) but the troubles of 2021 and beyond have just about finished the recording. The recording room is now a mixing/mastering room.
Since living outside Melbourne I’ve been adopted by the acoustic, bluegrass and old timey music scene and v enjoy mixing regular acoustic music festivals including Maldon Folk Festival, Kelly Country Pick, MountainGrass, Foggy Mountain Bluegrass, Guildford Banjo Jamboree and others. At the other end of the volume meter I’ve mixed at the annual hot-rod driven CHOPPED since it started. I’ve also been the house sound mixer/tech at the THEATRE ROYAL CASTLEMAINE since early 2004. It’s a great venue and the current owners Tim Heath and Felicity Cripps have got the place jumping. I still mix the occasional touring band and particularly enjoyed the Brian Jonestown Massacre in Castlemaine and the Forum in Melbourne. My old mate from MAW days Ted Gardner was their manager until he died last year. I did some shows with Paul Kelly for his Love Is Stronger Than Death tour just before the plague hit.
The only positive i can think of from the last couple of years has been the rise of ARCA (Australian Road Crew Association) and their Desk tape Series. Ian Piggy Peel and Adrian Anderson are roadies who know roadies and look after them when they need help. The Desk Tape Series is an expanding collection of unique live recordings, mostly made direct from the sound board by the band's sound mixer, that capture raw moments in time from Australia's best live bands from the past 50 years. Money raised from streaming sales goes to Support Act or direct to roadies in need. There's a new release every month. So far i've contributed recordings by MODELS, MEN AT WORK, SPY v SPY, ARCHIE ROACH, MIDNIGHT OIL and TISM.
https://australianroadcrew.com.au/the-desk-tape-series/
I’ve also been a regular contributor to Audio Technology magazine, writing equipment reviews, mainly speakers, microphones and mixing desks. A long-running print magazine AT seems to have successfully transformed into a major international musical production equipment portal.
Please have a look at my recording/live credits for more details and contact me if you have any questions.
Mark Woods
Six minute video of some great career highlights -