Iain Burgess Has Died

[Colonel Panic]

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

Amazing. So many great records on that list.

R.I.P. Ian Burgess

[flytox]

Bunch of great pictures of Iain and Black Box here:

http://www.iainburgess.com/

[mrdfnle]

I just want to echo the sentiment. And Steve's second post is HOF worthy. Thanks for the anecdotes. Wish I would have worked with him.

RIP

[BadComrade]

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

Amazing. So many great records on that list.

R.I.P. Ian Burgess

Am I the only person who hates the fact that discogs.com doesn't show the god damn band names and only shows the album names and the label?

[Ryan Electrocution]

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

Amazing. So many great records on that list.

R.I.P. Ian Burgess

Am I the only person who hates the fact that discogs.com doesn't show the god damn band names and only shows the album names and the label?

You're not the only one--i've found that to be super annoying. I usually just mouseover it in which it displays the name of the band in the link, but i'm thinking that people want to know artists first over the album name or track name.

[bfields]

Some great stuff here, people. RIP, Iain.

[gmilner]

Thanks for that great remembrance, Steve. And my condolences to everyone who knew Iain.

[b]

Bunch of great pictures of Iain and Black Box here:

http://www.iainburgess.com/

That studio looks amazing...sad to hear this news.

[Damian]

Wow...touching stuff from Steve. When i was about 13/14 and i was buying all those weird American noisy records, his name kept cropping up time and time again on the back of them, he was a legend in our time, ladies and gents! I just fuckin` hope this year ain`t gonna be like last year for losing people like this...it`s already goddamn February....fuck.

[sebastianb]

so sad to hear this.

peace and blessings to him on is future path.

sebastian / 18th dye

[Sly Bug]

RIP.

[bassman]

GodSpeed Iain...

hopefully Black Box will be able to keep the doors open,and the legacy will keep going

[electronaut]

I never got a chance to meet Iain when he lived in Chicago, but I grew up listening to records he recorded, and was finally fortunate enough to meet him at Black Box while on a trip to France around 2000. I was just getting in to tube electronics and wanted to meet Peter Deimel, and they put me up for three days while I picked their brains. They were unbelievably gracious hosts, feeding me copious amounts of home-grown potatoes, constantly refilling my wine glass, and staying up all night chatting about recording and recording equipment. I fell in love with France on that trip.

Iain left a huge impression on me, with his boundless energy, enthusiasm, and kindness.

Super sad to hear the news.

Here are some pics I took of his beautiful studio. (Can't seem to find the prints of the actual studio...)

Main house:


Guest Engineer's Quarters:


Studio:

[zom-zom]

Thanks for the postings Steve, I wasn't sure of the timelines of things, and remembering stuff like how his accent became progressively pronounced as the drinks went in was always hilarious to me.

Iain always did a fantastic job on our recordings, and it was always a whole lot of fun to be in the studio with him. One of the only people that could keep CJ under control as well as keep up with his consumption of poisons. I only got to see Iain briefly over the past ten years or so, he showed up at one of my enormous NYE parties in the early '90s with friends from Cows, and then a short visit to Black Box in the middle of the night. Always had a good word and a smart comment. I've got some photos I should scan sometime.

RIP man.

[gmilner]

This has little to do with music or recording, so maybe it's kind of beside the point. But it strikes me that deciding to move out of Chicago and set up a studio in the French countryside is a pretty bad-ass thing to do. I think a lot of us fantasize from time to time about packing up and setting up shop (whatever that means for each of us, depending on what it is we do with out lives) in some remote corner of the world that we can make "ours." But to actually do that takes a huge amount of wherewithal, so few of us actually make these dreams a reality. I imagine (maybe I'm wrong) that Iain ultimately gave up a certain amount of business by creating Black Box, but it looks like he carved out an amazing life for himself.

[Damian]

Too true...major move by a braver man than me!

[warmowski]

OK - thanks much to Greg Dunlap, co-publisher of THIS magazine for his scanner and OCR help over the weekend. Here's my 1989 interview with Iain. Lots of nerdery within.

http://warmowski.wordpress.com/2010/02/ ... n-burgess/

-r

[Daveksvplot]

Hey, that recording sounds great!

[Gantry]

I highly recommend everyone read Warmowski's interview with Iain, really good stuff. Covers a bunch of ground with a few Raygun / Big Black stories as well.

[Colonel Panic]

I hope at least a few of you old punk farts are writing your memoirs.