Studio Stories

For the chorus, [Roy] Halee was chasing a specific percussion sound. The drummer, Hal Blaine, took his kit to the CBS building on 7th Avenue (a street named in the song) and set it up by a lift. When the tape rolled and Simon & Garfunkel sang "lie-la-lie", Blaine came down on his snare as hard as he could. "Right next to this open elevator shaft it sounded exactly like a cannon shot!" he recalled.

Anything to do with the recording of 'Exile on Main Street'

Joe Meek, who lived the Englishman's dream and shot his landlady.

Are there any haunted studios? Headley Grange? The Manor?

yeah yeah, you and I know it's a myth, but let's not spoil it for the others...

* captain beefheart - the 'trout mask' LP sessions, kept the band in a house 24/7, basically he apparently had them rehearsing the album and transcribing the parts from his 'whistled' guide tracks and demos, the drummer reckons it verged on brainwashing... only allowed out of the house 1 at a time to go and shoplift food from the nearby store... and when they recorded it was mostly first take attempts live, which beefheart overdubbed without headphones so he couldnt follow the backing in sync... then there's the drum kit being covered in towels and cardboard to dead-en the sound...!!!

* the la's - countless remakes of their debut and only album... singing with a microphone inside a banjo skin to capture the reverb from the hollow body and skin... same with singing into a snare drum... putting microphones on wooden floorboards for some drum tracks

could go on forever...

oh, you wanted famous people's sto...

details?

Doesn't seem to be a best thread for this so might as well be this one -- and this story sucks:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-03-20/united-recording-layoffs-studio-closing-los-angeles-green-day-beck-sinatra

Earlier this month, its owners announced that it would cease day-to-day operations on April 3 and would instead rent out the studio for film shoots and special events.

Two days before that announcement, nearly all the studio’s 16 employees were laid off by Hudson Pacific Properties, the real estate investment company that purchased the building in 2013. Some staffers were asked to help wind things down, while the majority were shown the door immediately.

A United Recording spokesperson told The Times that the studio would require “longer minimum bookings” for recording sessions after April 3, but declined to provide the new minimum time requirement. The studio will also require clients to bring their own engineers, rather than employing a dedicated staff of technicians who knew the space best, according to a memo the company distributed internally that was reviewed by The Times.

“United Recording is one of the entertainment industry’s most storied and celebrated recording studios, and the changes we have made will keep that heritage intact by strengthening the studio’s financial position while ensuring our clients have the best possible experience,” the spokesperson said.

Multiple employees and producers, however, called the proposed plan a “joke” after the studio laid off all but one employee.

“It’s absurd to me to try and run a studio of that size, with no people on staff,” said one former employee who asked to remain anonymous due to the terms of their severance package. “You can’t just turn those consoles off and back on and hope everything works. It just seems like PR... If it is their actual plan, it’s ill-conceived and it won’t work.”

Ugh