Australia’s ‘Abbey Road’ produced a generation of musical genius. It’ll never happen again

Walking the hallways of his bright, slope-ceilinged Melbourne offices, legendary sound engineer Roger Savage says he’s never had much time for nostalgia.

Throughout a career spanning more than 60 years – which has included BAFTA Awards, an Oscar nomination and engineering the Rolling Stones’ debut alongside countless hits – he’s sworn by a mantra of looking forward, rather than back.

Roger Savage (centre), with fellow producer and audio engineer Ernie Rose (left) and researcher and author John Olson outside the former Armstrong Studios site in South Melbourne.Credit: Chris Hopkins

“What’s [already] happened is almost irrelevant,” Savage tells this masthead.

“But people died, and I’ve got together with people who talk about [the past, and say], ‘I remember that, that was great fun’.”

Slowly, Savage’s knot of nostalgia has unravelled, leading him back to the origins of Australia’s answer to the Abbey Road studios: a brick cottage in South Melbourne in 1965.

The cottage was the site of pioneer music producer Bill Armstrong’s first studio, which eventually swallowed up to five neighbouring houses on Albert Road, where twisted telephone cables illegally traversed backyards.

Savage joined the operation soon after marrying an Australian woman and migrating from London to Melbourne in his early 20s, fresh off recording the Stones, Mick Jagger and Dusty Springfield at Olympic Sound Studios.

Bill Armstrong outside his Albert Road studios in 1967.

In 1972, Savage and Armstrong moved into a behemoth former butter factory at 180 Bank Street, South Melbourne – nowadays, a four-level office space – and transformed it into the southern hemisphere’s largest commercial studio. At one point, eight in every 10 Australian chart hits were recorded there.

“When we went in there, it was a warehouse for butter … it was just a huge [space with] empty floor after floor,” Savage says.

“With local acousticians, we did our own design and built various studios.”

Armstrong Studios cut records including Daddy Cool’s Eagle Rock, Cat Stevens’ Another Saturday Night, John Farnham’s You’re The Voice, Little River Band’s Help Is on Its Way, Russell Morris’ The Real Thing and Turn Up Your Radio by the Masters Apprentices.

The studio also produced soundtracks for films, including the first two Mad Max films, The Man From Snowy River and Crocodile Dundee, all of which Savage worked on.

Savage, now in his 80s, says Armstrong’s early operation was at once homegrown and state-of-the-art.

“We couldn’t afford to buy the multitrack equipment from America, [where] most of it was coming from, and so we had it all made locally,” Savage says.

In 1974, a couple of years into the operation, Armstrong sold the Bank Street studios to The Age’s then publishers, and it became AAV (Armstrong Audio Video). The sound part of the business operated downstairs, while video operated upstairs.

Olson (left), Rose and Savage reminisce about their recording days. They will feature at a panel event on July 26.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Renowned producer and engineer Ernie Rose, who was instrumental in Armstrong’s development, ran the studios under the name Metropolis from the 1980s until financial difficulties shuttered them in 2006.

Armstrong’s enterprise is behind some of Australia’s most defining records and soundtracks, and it also fostered a generation of producers and engineers under Savage’s mentorship, John Olson says.

The researcher and engineer co-wrote Tony Cohen’s memoir Half Deaf, Completely Mad. Cohen was one of Armstrong’s most esteemed record producers and sound engineers, and had a celebrated career working with musicians including Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Go-Betweens and Paul Kelly. Cohen died in 2017, aged 60.

The studios at 180 Bank Street in an undated photo.

“Tony talked about watching Roger at work, and how spectacular it was, the sight of Roger’s hands gliding instinctively across the mixing desk,” Olson says.

“When he said that, I never saw Roger at work but I knew exactly what he meant, because anyone who witnessed Tony at his best, that’s exactly what [he] was like.”

Savage, Rose and renowned musician and record producer Mick Harvey were pivotal influences on Cohen’s career, Olson says.

Cohen spoke about wildly different bands coming together and finding common ground at Armstrong’s Cafe Bar – a 1960s instant coffee machine – while recording in each of the building’s different studios.

The dynamics led to funny moments – Savage recalls fellow music industry legend Molly Meldrum jumping the studios’ back fence to avoid the glare of visiting label representatives, who were wondering whether Savage was re-recording Morris’ The Real Thing.

There were also tense encounters, like when a group of punks descended on a clipboard-holding AAV administrator who tried to cull numbers in a studio, Olson says.

But there was a sense of community and, most importantly, collaboration.

“Tony felt that a best recording was capturing people in a moment, which involved everyone being there and playing generally at the same time,” Olson says.

“That would create a magic you can’t capture otherwise.”

Savage says whether something like Armstrong’s could ever exist again is a “mind-boggling” question, but the killer is in the collaboration. Studios no longer have the space, or desire, to bring so many people together, he suggests.

“Being in the same room, knowing the body language – there’s nothing really quite like that. You could be on a Zoom call, but it’s not the same,” Savage says.

“You could technically collaborate now … globally if you’re sharing the sound files, but having everyone in the one place – I think those days are gone because, financially, it doesn’t make sense.”

Savage will discuss the studios’ legacy at a panel event for Open House Melbourne alongside Olson, Rose and Harvey next Saturday.

These days, Savage is tinkering with AI at his nation-leading post-production company Soundfirm in Port Melbourne, and hopes to spend more time “pulling apart old cars”.

“To be honest, I’ve been a bit of a workaholic. I haven’t really had any hobbies, so I’ve probably been out on life balance, or life-work balance, whatever you call it,” he says.

“I’m just grateful. I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to get the first job.”

The heyday of Armstrong Studio’s may be lost to history, but Savage still has his nostalgia.

Open House Melbourne’s panel discussion about Armstrong Studios will be held in South Melbourne on Saturday, July 26. Tickets can be bought online.

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