Glenn Coleman: in Behind the Gear

BY KEVIN DOWNS, HOLLY LANE

I became acquainted with Glenn Coleman when we shared a week together at the Audio Engineering Society Convention (AES) in New York. Glenn's early employer, MCI, was a leading manufacturer of pro audio recording equipment from the '50s to the early '80s. Later he found work at Atlantic Studios and Martin Audio as well as founding his own Coleman Audio where he designs and manufactures top quality DAW monitor controllers, alternate speaker switchers, VU metering systems, surround level controls and surround switching modules. Coleman Audio gear is used by The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, The Dave Matthews Band, Atlantic Recording Studios, Sony Music Studios, Bose Corporation, Microsoft, NBC, CBS, ESPN, Warner Bros and many other facilities, large and small.

Liam Watson (bonus)

BY JOHN BACCIGALUPPI, LARRY CRANE

In issue #15 we ran a rather brief interview with Liam Watson about his London-based Toe Rag Studios. In the following 12 years I always remarked that Tape Op needed to revisit Toe Rag and chat with Liam again, as his profile has only grown larger with well-received albums by The White Stripes and James Hunter coming out of this 8-track, analog-only, retro-leaning (and looking) studio. So revisit we did, and Liam proved to be a lively gentleman. His studio was nothing short of fascinating; it is a special place, one that engenders a different way of working. Liam's attention to songwriting, playing, vibe and feel puts him in a classic producer's role. Toe Rag has seen sessions by Billy Childish, Hugh Cornwell, The Cribs, The Datsuns, Holly Golightly, The Kills, Madness, Pete Molinari, Supergrass, The Ettes, The Television Personalities and The Zutons come through its doors. Many more are to come, for sure.

Cellophane Rechordings: The Lost and Found World of Jesse Roy

BY LUTHER RUSSELL

Colin Newman: Wire, Gilthead and solo

BY MALKA SPIGEL, LARRY CRANE

"I'm fundamentally a musician, although I've fallen into being sort of... I hate to refer to myself as a producer because I think there's a lot of pretension around that name. But I've learned how to engineer." When I was in high school my friend picked up a copy of Wire's 1979 album 154 based on a review in Rolling Stone. Little did I ever imagine how the sonics of that album, and so many other records by Wire (and solo albums by singer/guitarist Colin Newman), would influence my own taste and record making over the following years. Texture, darkness, tension, odd precision and oblique lyrics have always filled Colin's work, much to my delight. Noticing that he also became more studio savvy as the years passed, producing, tracking and mixing many of his projects, I realized it was time to pay a visit to his home-based Swim Studio in London. Wire keeps making records and their last studio album, Red Barked Tree, is seriously among their best work. Along with other projects, Colin also has the enjoyable Githead — a band with his wife Malka Spigel, her former Minimal Compact band member Max Franken, and Robin Rimbaud of Scanner.