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John Agnello | |
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Background information | |
Genres | Rock, indie, punk rock, garage rock |
Occupation(s) | Music producer |
Years active | 1979 - present |
Website | www |
John Agnello (born c. 1959) is an American producer, recording engineer and mixer who has been involved with many albums throughout the last 25 years. Most recently, John has been involved with Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, Alvvays, Sweet Apple, Dinosaur Jr., Thurston Moore and Jemina Pearl. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Agnello's life in the studio began in 1979 at the age of 19 while working as an intern at the legendary Record Plant Studios in Manhattan. He worked his way up the ladder and became the studio’s go-to-assistant. He assisted on a number of albums including those by Aerosmith, Twisted Sister, Scandal, John Cougar Mellencamp, and John Waite. John also worked briefly on “Born In the USA” with Bruce Springsteen. However, working on Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual! had the biggest recording and production impact on him at the time. [8] He worked with some of the great engineers and producers of that time, including, Jack Douglas, Jimmy Iovine, Rick Chertoff, William Wittman, Mike Chapman, Dave Thoener, Jay Messina, Roy Cicala, and Shelly Yakus.
He got his first true break engineering on the second album by The Hooters. He was involved with artists such as Patty Smyth, Sophie B. Hawkins and The Outfield. The Outfield's first record, Play Deep, had a #2 hit with "Your Love".
Around that time, he also got to do a one off session with Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, two of his favorite artists. The Bob Dylan song was “Series Of Dreams” which he co-mixed with Bill Wittman. That version was used by NARAS when presenting Bob Dylan with his lifetime achievement award. And the Mick Jagger song, "Hard Woman", was for a special made-for-MTV only video.
During the early nineties, Agnello began an association with Dinosaur Jr. and the Screaming Trees. This collaboration has extended through almost a dozen records. In fact, John recently mixed the heralded Dinosaur Jr. reunion record, Beyond, with the original lineup. He was also responsible for productions with artists such as Buffalo Tom, Chainsaw Kittens, Jawbox, Chavez, Redd Kross, Madrugada and Patti Smith, among others. He also worked with Alice Cooper on The Last Temptation Of Alice Cooper.
Agnello has worked with such artists as Sonic Youth, The Living End, Andrew W.K., Drive-By Truckers and Social Distortion. He has helmed both Boys And Girls In America and Stay Positive by The Hold Steady. [2] [3] [8] [9]
Even though he excels at the hard edge sound of many of the aforementioned artists, he's also adept at working with the subtler sounds of artists such as Son Volt, The Kills, Thurston Moore, The Walkmen, and Five for Fighting. [6] [10]
Agnello has also been involved with many newer artists including Scottish band The Hazey Janes. Agnello mixed one of their records in Spain in 2006. Agnello also worked with Jennifer O'Connor on her latest album, Here With Me, for Matador Records.
Agnello has had commercial success overseas. The three records he did with Norwegian band Madrugada have scored both critical and commercial success. In the press release for the current record, Madrugada, they describe Agnello as "the external creative force that has had the most influence on Madrugada’s artistic development.” Agnello has also had success with another Norwegian band, Turbonegro, on their last record, Retox. [11]
In October 2012, Agnello produced the sixth album from indie punk band The Thermals. [12]
In 2015, Agnello produced the album Manhattan for the anti-folk singer Jeffrey Lewis. [13]
Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo remained together for the entire history of the band, while Steve Shelley (drums) followed a series of short-term drummers in 1985, rounding out the core line-up. Jim O'Rourke was also a member of the band from 1999 to 2005.
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moore was ranked 34th in Rolling Stone's 2004 edition of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." In May 2012, Spin published a staff-selected list of the top 100 rock guitarists, and ranked Moore and his Sonic Youth bandmate Lee Ranaldo together at number 1.
Kim Althea Gordon is an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the bassist, guitarist, and vocalist of alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Born in Rochester, New York, she was raised in Los Angeles, California, where her father was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. After graduating from Los Angeles's Otis College of Art and Design, she moved to New York City to begin an art career. There, she formed Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore in 1981. She and Moore married in 1984, and the band released a total of six albums on independent labels before the end of the 1980s. They would subsequently release nine studio albums on the major label DGC Records, beginning with Goo in 1990. Gordon was also a founding member of the musical project Free Kitten, which she formed with Julia Cafritz in 1993.
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was formed in 1966 by Ginn at age 12 as Solid State Tuners, a small business through which he sold electronics equipment. Ginn repurposed the company as a record label to release material by his band Black Flag.
Daydream Nation is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on October 18, 1988. The band recorded the album between July and August 1988 at Greene St. Recording in New York City, and it was released by Enigma Records as a double album.
Dinosaur Jr. is an American rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1984, originally simply called Dinosaur until legal issues forced a change in name.
Steven Jay Shelley is an American drummer. He is best known as a member of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth.
Joseph Donald Mascis Jr., known professionally as J Mascis, is an American musician, best known as the singer, guitarist and main songwriter for the alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. He has also released several albums as a solo artist and played drums and guitar on other projects. His most recent solo album, Elastic Days, was released in November 2018. He was ranked number 86 in a Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists", and number 5 in a similar list for Spin magazine in 2012.
Hans Erik Dyvik Husby, also known as Hank von Helvete and Hank von Hell, is a Norwegian musician most famous for being the former lead vocalist of the punk rock band Turbonegro.
Be Your Own Pet was a four-piece punk/garage rock group from Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
Norwegian Wood is an annual music festival in Oslo, Norway held in Frognerbadet. The name of the festival refers to the famous Beatles song "Norwegian Wood ".
Rather Ripped is the fourteenth studio album by American rock band Sonic Youth, released on June 13, 2006 by Geffen Records. It was the band's first album following the departure of multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke, who had joined as a fifth member in 1999. Unlike its immediate predecessors, the album was produced by John Agnello and recorded at Sear Sound in New York City, the same studio where the band's 1994 album, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, was recorded. It also completed Sonic Youth's contract with Geffen, which released the band's previous eight records.
Donald Gene Fleming is an American musician and producer. Besides fronting a number of his own bands, Fleming has produced Sonic Youth, Screaming Trees, Teenage Fanclub and Hole.
Beyond is the eighth studio album by the alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. It was their first LP in a decade after 1997's Hand It Over, and the first album by the original lineup since 1988's Bug.
Retox is the seventh album by Norwegian band Turbonegro. This is the first release under the band's newly created Scandinavian Leather Recordings. The album was released on 11 June 2007 in Norway, 13 June 2007 in Sweden, and on 15 June 2007 in the rest of Europe. It was released on 23 June 2007 in Australia, 9 July 2007 in the UK, and 14 August 2007 in the United States.
The Hazey Janes are an indie pop band from Dundee, Scotland.
Awesome Color was a musical trio formed in Brooklyn in 2004. They disbanded in 2010.
Kurt Samuel Vile is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He is known for his solo work and as the former lead guitarist of rock band The War on Drugs. Both in the studio and during live performances, Vile is accompanied by his backing band, The Violators, which currently includes Jesse Trbovich, Rob Laakso and Kyle Spence (drums).
Sugar is the second full-length album from Athens, Georgia based band, Dead Confederate. It was recorded in Hoboken, NJ with producer John Agnello in early 2010.
Right on Dynamite is an indie rock band from Brooklyn, NY, and has been based in the Greenpoint section since their inception in 2006. Their lineup consists of guitarist and main vocalist Daniel Murphy, Nicholas Cirillo on bass and vocals and Jon Molina on drums. While touring with Frightened Rabbit in 2009 New York Magazine covered the band calling them "the Human Sexual Behavior of New York rock, perfectly adolescent yet surprisingly deep."