INTERVIEW WITH COLIN ABRAHAMS

Colin Abrahams worked for Alberts Studios in King Street, Sydney from 1978 to 1982 as both a technician and a sound engineer. His first job there was the installation of their brand new MCI JH-500 console, Australia's first automated console, in Studio 2. This was an amazing period to work in recording studios. These studios worked around the clock, seven days a week. He remembers queuing up to get into a studio
for midnight to dawn sessions and people throwing them out the next morning to start the next day's session.

No Nonsense: First off, you started to work for Alberts in '78. Did you got involved with AC/DC's Powerage album recording?

Colin Abrahams: AC/DC was finishing off their Powerage album when I first started at Alberts. There was often a delay between the time an album was completed and the actual release date.

NN: In January 79 AC/DC reheased at Alberts for the Highway To Hell albums and layed down some demos. How was their rehearsals? Were there only Angus and Malcolm. Or were there whole band? What kind was Bon in the studio?

CA: Shortly after the installation of the new MCI JH-500 console in Studio 2, AC/DC came into that studio several times to try it out. They did several sessions in that studio but they did not like it as much as Studio 1. Studio 1 had a much more open live recording room than Studio 2, which was heavily damped and had a drum hut. Studio 1 remained the "Rock and Roll" studio where most of the in-house Alberts artists recorded, whilst Studio 2 became the "high tech" studio where most of the
outside work was done, including many other major Australian bands signed to other record companies, major commercial productions, Australian country and religeous music.

AC/DC was in and out of the studios quite a lot at that time. Usually, the entire band was there. I was called in at one stage to look at some problem with the gear in Studio 1 and was introduced to the entire band. Bon went out of his way to be friendly and insisted that I stayed for a beer - life's tough in some jobs!

Being the junior engineer, I did not have a lot to do with AC/DC directly. Most of the engineering was done by Mark Opitz, under the watchfull eye of Vanda and Young. At one stage, they were experimenting with different producers. I was called in once to stand in for a set of demos produced by Glyn Johns.

NN: When did this happen?

CA: I think it was after the Highway To Hell album, during a period where they were in and out of the studio doing demos. It was definitely before the Brian Johnson days.

NN: As AC/DC always has stored their takes and out-takes at Albert Studios (nowadays two archive rooms filled with AC/DC material), do you know how much stuff was sent (to Alberts) after the mixing of the albums? Did you ever 'pre-listened' those recordings with Alberts staff?

CA: I do not know anything about tapes coming in from studios recorded elsewhere, but there were lots of tapes from the Alberts sessions. I do remember arrival of the master tapes for the "If You Want Blood" album - I had to do 24 track safety copies before they were mixed down. The tapes came in on massive 15" spools. While the tapes were being copied I

turned up the faders on the desk to have a listen and check things. The guitar tracks were recorded in pairs with different mic combinations. Each amp had at least one U47 mic on it - sorry I can't remember what the other mics were. Just playing it back with the faders almost in a straight line, I remember the sound was awesome! There was an unbelieveable sense of excitement in those raw recordings. I don't think much was done to them in the mixdown - everything was already there. Vanda and Young mixed them down onto 4 track (two sets of stereo pairs), to allow overlapping of the applause between songs before finally mixing it down to 2 track.

NN: Did you worke with George and Harry anytime? Or were they so close team, that they did do all by themselves?

CA: Vanda and Young did tend to work together virtually all of the time, often working on their own Flash And The Pan projects. I was often called in to set up special things for them and to create effects, but usually when they were in the studio they tended to work alone. There were many simultaneous in-house projects going on and they tended to leave people alone whilst they were recording and act as executive producers. Over the time I was working at Alberts, we built two more studios, bringing the total to four. With so many people in the one complex at the same time, musicians often helped out on each other's projects. For example, Ray Arnott played drums on the Flash And The Pan album Light In The Night. Vanda and/or Young often played on in-house projects.

NN: In 1979 you worked for Ray Arnott's Rude Dudes album? This album supposedly featured Angus as a guest musician. Up to this day there are not other known guest visits by Angus and Malcolm after they formed AC/DC, unless you know any?

CA: The Rude Dudes album was recorded over a long period of time. The bulk of the original recording was done by Ray and producer Les Karsky. We tried hard to capture a "big" sound from Ray's rock-solid drumming, recording additional ambience tracks. After Karskey had put together the basic tracks, various musicians came in to add tracks. In fact, only about half of the tracks on the final album came from these initial sessions (for example, Some Feelings and Shakey Knees). More tracks were recorded, this time more heavilly influenced by Vanda and Young (for example "On
The Run", "The World Needs A Shakeup" and "Need Your Love"). Unfortunately we had so many overdubs on some of the songs that our original ambience tracks got deleted!

By this time, AC/DC was spending a lot of time overseas and rarely came into the studio, even when they were in Sydney. Angus came in by himself for this recording.

NN: Were there often troubles with Albert amps? As you've told that when Ted Albert and Bruce Brown were in the control room doing a remix of Vanda and Young's "Down Among The Dead Men" - Studio 2 was a very well-built control room with a floating floor. In the recording area, you barely heard a sound, despite the fact that the main monitors were probably cranked up reasonably loud. Suddenly you heard an ear-piercing scream and looked up and saw two people in the control room with their
hair standing on end like something straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The noise just had to be loud!

Same kind of story was told in 1977 during Let There Be Rock recording sessions Angus blew his amp and George just nodded him to go on. Of course this might be just a story to create a hype. Poor engineers.

CA: [Laughs] No, we normally did not have much trouble with the amps. 300W amps combined with the relatively efficient Altec 604E drivers in reasonably live control rooms could produce sound levels that were truly ear-shattering! In my opinion, they sounded dreadful, with a barking mid-range, no tops and no bottoms. They did come in handy sometimes for pinning the musicians to the back wall during playback to stop them breathing down your neck though! But with that kind of power on tap, the
amps didn't really have to work that hard most of the time. I have never seen anyone blow up an Altec before or since then. It just doesn't happen!

What comes to AC/DC incident - I don't know - I wasn't there then. I'm sure it is possible. I must tell you the story about Sherbet who were made to complete a take whilst a fire was raging outside sometime!

NN: Do you have any photos of AC/DC or their rehearsals?

CA: No. One of my many regrets is that I did not take more photos. In particular, there was a wall in the large recording room of Studio 1 which was covered in graffiti from nearly every artist that recorded there, including AC/DC. I believe this wall was featured in a magazine once.

In general, I rarely saw anyone taking photos during sessions. These were the days when musicians went into studios to record music. I think bands were quite happy to leave the publicity with the screaming girls at the front entrance to the building and seek refuge in the studios. I'm sure the last thing they would have wanted would have been to have someone running around with a camera while they were trying to work.

NN: Thanks for your time!

CA: You're welcome!

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