John Loder (April 7 1946 - August 12 2005) was a British sound engineer, record producer and founder of Southern Studios, as well as a former member of EXIT and co-founder of the Southern Records distribution company with his wife Sue. He was also the studio engineer of choice for Crass Records, and was often considered to be the bands' '9th member'. Loder died of a brain tumour.
Loder was born near Plymouth and educated at boarding school before studying electrical engineering at London's City University. During his post-graduate work here he became involved in early experiments in digital encoding of audio for the military. By 1970 he had joined EXIT, alongside Penny Rimbaud, utilising a one-track tape-recorder. This led to Loder eventually founding a record studio in his garage after the disbanding of EXIT in 1974. In 1977 Loder was recording advertising jingles when his path crossed once again with Rimbaud, who had by now co-founded Crass, and who now invited Loder to become the band's engineer and financial manager, roles Loder happily accepted.
When Crass founded their own record label, Loder was used as engineer on most of the label's releases, and when Loder saw potential in a number of bands turned away by Crass Records due to ideological differences, Loder set up Southern Records, a distribution arm with several record labels attached.
Loder engineered and produced for many bands other than Crass, among them The Jesus and Mary Chain, for whom he engineered the recordings of the Psychocandy album, PJ Harvey, Babes in Toyland, Fugazi, Ministry and Shellac.
John Loder was responsible for encouraging and establishing independent alternative internet ezines, donating the use of Southern's servers and bandwidth, taking part in pioneering online media streaming and simulcasting. http://web.archive.org/web/19970605012723/http://www.southern.com/CORE/
John Loder (3 January 1898 – 26 December 1988) was an English actor best known for his tall, debonair and suave looks and his marriage to Hedy Lamarr.
Loder was born in Selbourne, England. His father was General Lowe, the British officer to whom Patrick Pearse, the mystical Catholic zealot and lead rebel of the Irish 1916 rising in Dublin, surrendered, according to Colm Connolly's book about Michael Collins. John was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College and followed him into the army, first serving with the 15th Hussars as a second lieutenant in Gallipoli and at one point being imprisoned by the Germans. Upon being released, he stayed in Germany to run a pickle factory and also began to develop an interest in acting, appearing in bit-parts in a few German films. He left Germany to briefly return to England and then headed to Hollywood to try his luck in the new medium, Talkies. He appeared in The Doctor's Secret, which was Paramount's first talking picture - though his very English persona didn't win America over at this time and he returned to England where he co-starred in plush musicals and intrigue such as Love Life and Laughter and Sabotage. He was the male romantic interest in the original, 1937 film version of King Solomon's Mines.
When World War II started he returned to America where he seamlessly coasted into a career in 'B' movie roles usually playing upper crust characters with occasional appearances on Broadway. He occasionally did play roles, though supporting ones, in major 'A' films such as How Green Was My Valley, in which he was at the same time one of Roddy McDowall's brothers and Donald Crisp's sons. In 1947 he became an American citizen, his last screen appearance was in 1971.
Loder was married five times; two of his wives were actresses: French star Micheline Cheirel and Hedy Lamarr. Other wives were Sophie Kabel, Evelyn Auff Mordt, and his final wife, Argentinian heiress Alba Julia Lagomarsino, whom he was with until his death, semi-retiring to her ranch and writing his 1977 autobiography, Hollywood Hussar.
