Iain Burgess Has Died

[The MayorofRockNRoll]

Man, I was just googling him the other night, wondering what he was up to lately.

This is, indeed, sad news.

[Mark Hansen]

Wow, this sucks.

[Yngwie Einstein]

Thank you, Iain, for all the great recordings you worked on. I never met you, but your work has made a lasting impression.

[the corpo]

very sad indeed. only met him the once when recording at black box 3 or 4 years ago, and he cooked a huge and delicious meal for us. he was quite the raconteur

long may black box thrive in his memory

[A Fine Chaos]

Wow - nice to know it was peaceful.

I was lucky enough to record with him at CRC (about a million years ago) and stupid enough at the time to not realize how blessed we were to work with someone with his talent. We were doing an after hours demo and just figured he was a staff engineer guy. See - we weren't all that good and we never thought they'd give one us one of their "good" engineers. And then, this great guy comes in shows me how to make my crappy acoustic guitar sound like a Martin, convinced me (in the nicest possible way) that maybe my Peavey Bandit wasn't what I wanted to record with and made our incredibly overwhelmed singer feel like a diva. Never once did he make us feel that we were anything other than an important client worthy of his best effort.

Only later when I started seeing his name on all sorts of records that I considered outstanding did I understand what a class act he was with us.

I listened to those demos again today after I heard of his passing and, wow, we sucked and, wow, did he make us sound better than we ever actually were.

Salut

[Minotaur029]

I was surprised he wasn't in that "you weren't there movie."
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Iain+Burgess -not sure how accurate.

He had a hand in far more albums I enjoy than I ever realized. How sad. My condolences.

[Steve V.]

Rest in peace, good sir.

[Brad_Wood]

Iain recorded my crap band in 1984 & put up with my persistent nagging for years. He was the guy that vouched for me at CRC when they hired me in 1987 & was the guy that helped with construction & gear tips when we blindly built Idful Music Corp. in 1988. Simultaneously classy & base (he seemed to pass gas at will), he taught me a lot about how to conduct oneself in the studio. Bands loved him, his records kicked ass, he could hold his liquor & he would make you piss yourself from laughing. I regret not keeping in touch with him when he moved to France & I really regret never properly thanking him for his help early in my career. He will not be forgotten. Bottoms up tonight.

Best- Brad

[cesb]

This is a photograph I took at a club in Paris (Gibus?) in 1993. Iain's 2nd from the right, prolly had a few in him. To his left is Peter Diemel, who was at Iain's studio. It was the last time I saw Iain. It was way too long ago. Iain came out and ran sound for us that night. We didn't even call him. He just found out we were playing and showed up and assumed he should make us comfortable with the monitors, and sound loud and gigantic our front, you know, like he always did back when he lived in Chicago any time we asked. He was cultivating a French accent at the time. Years and years he lived in the US, decades I guess, and he couldn't be bothered to shed the Weymouth accent, but a year or two into the French countryside, and eet was, howyousay, 'alf froggy, alf teabag. But I digress.

The man was the shit.

Iain made a bunch of records for us. He'd get in the van and mix for us out of town for the benefit of the 30 people who would show up. He mixed ALARMINGLY loudly in the studio or live. It's a miracle he had any top end left on his hearing. Or he just knew how to compensate. He could dial in a scorching, balanced, in your face mix with everything clear as a bell, everything working together...in roughly the time it took you to play the song. Crazy.

Rest in peace.

[qrj]

Rest in peace sir.

[J. Burns]

Aw, man. He did Sexy Pee Story? That's like, one of the coolest sounding records ever. Huge bummer.

[Gantry]

The man's impact on the Chicago music scene will always live on, he recorded some of the greatest records in this fine city's history. RIP Iain...

[Ace]

Back for a moment to express my condolences - a friend sent me an email.

Definitely one of my favorite producers, and he went into making a lot of my favorite albums. I've heard complaints about his sound which all strike me as totally baseless. It's clear that he had an impeccable ear.

RIP.

[Robert G]

RIP.

[Sowley]

RIP Iain... I'm a big fan of your work.

[Justin from Queens]

RIP. The stories that people are sharing are really great. Please keep them coming if you've got one.

= Justin

[Hiwatt]

RIP Iain. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be half as interested in music.

[cenafria]

Very sad.

[isophase]

i am shocked,
i didn't know Iain was sick, this is very sad.
i learned tons of stuff from him every time i have been at his studio and i admired his lifestyle a lot.
Black Box is a dream place and to me, is the best recording studio in the world.
rest in peace Iain Burgess
jonathan

[Bill Swansea]

RIP. The stories that people are sharing are really great. Please keep them coming if you've got one.

+ 1. I only knew him from the records I heard, I have and had no idea about what an amazingly nice and friendly guy he was, I suppose I should have realised.