Fred Maher
SONIC PRODUCER

-- unknown, 1991

Words: Lynn Geller

Right Track studio on a Saturday night has some of the ambience of a submarine in port. You can foray out once in a while for junk food and be hit with the midtown tourist traffic. But if you're a producer in the final stages of mixing an album, say, Fred Maher, who is finishing up Lloyd Cole's new album for Capitol, from 12PM to 12AM six days a week you might as well be 2,000 leagues under the sea. Luckily, Fred and Lloyd were already pals, so there's a camaraderie, a male-bonding thing going on with tacked=up photos of Madonna, unblended scotch and plans for pool later that evening. In fact, it would all seem too casual were it not for the moment when Fred is called into the studio to evaluate a mix. Lloyd looks at him with masked expectancy and Fred's normally laconic posture comes to attention as he takes command.

Maher's youthful looks belie a decade's worth of work, including a seamless transition from successful drummer/composer to successful composer/producer. As a denizen of Manhattan's late-Seventies "No Wave" scene, he joined up with chum Michael Beinhorn, legendary impresario Giorgio Gomelsky, and Bill Laswell to form a band Giorgio named Zu. "He was convinced it meant something in another language," says Maher, "and we looked and looked, but never found anything." Zu became Material, which spawned Deadline with Robert Quine, through whom Fred joined the second Voidoids album which led to two Lou Reed tours. He then segued into Scritti Politti, led by the eccentric Green Gartside, a self-proclaimed Marxist with a genius for dance music. Fred contributed drum tracks, while gaining producing experience, on the massive selling Cupid and Psyche. "It took forever to do," says Maher of the transcontinental collaboration, "and unfortunately the second album, Provision, went nowhere. Maybe we've broken up--I don't know since it's never been that kind of band. We never performed live."

Maher's solo producing career started with synths--the Australian band I'm Talking, Marlon Jackson and Information Society, which went gold--but has gotten increasingly acoustic with Matthew Sweet, Lou Reed and Lloyd Cole's new albums. As for technique, "I like staying in the same studio the whole time," Fred admits, and things do look rather homey as Lloyd wanders in, rummaging about for a change of clothes to play pool in. "It allows more flexibility. Basically, I find no rules are good rules. On Lou Reed's album, we had a few rules--no keyboards and no extra instruments. But actually, we made those halfway through when we realized that was what was working, so we wouldn't be tempted to change.

"Since I began listening to Eno, producing is something I've always wanted to do. The whole idea of the studio fascinated me, being able to control that environment and to use it to create. But now that idea doesn't interest me anymore. Now it's just making sure that I know how to do everything to facilitate anything you want to create. For a lot of artists the studio is a barrier, and the more familiar I am with the technology, the better I am at helping them.