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Speaker 1: Welcome, Come, Welcome back to Bob Leftstats Podcast. My guests

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Speaker 1: today are Martin Porter and David Gogin, who've written the

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Speaker 1: book Buzzed Me In Inside the Record Plant Studios. Gentlemen,

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Speaker 1: what was the inspiration for this book?

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Speaker 2: Chris Stone Christone was here for inspiration of this book.

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Speaker 2: He was a character and he was one of the founders.

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Speaker 2: And not only did I know him, you know, twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty years ago, but now maybe about forty five years ago.

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Speaker 2: It's when we met when I was a journalist writing

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Speaker 2: writing about recording studios, and the guy could tell a

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Speaker 2: story and we would talk and he would talk and

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Speaker 2: I would and I would say, Chris, someday you gotta

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Speaker 2: write a story. And Chris would say, Marty, I'm never

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Speaker 2: writing a story. This is this is going to the

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Speaker 2: grave with me. These stories are go to the grave.

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Speaker 2: That was Everything took place in our record plan was private,

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Speaker 2: and we probably promised absolute privacy to our customers. And

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Speaker 2: I kept after him. I'm a journalist. I just kept

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Speaker 2: after him, after and after him. And then then about

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Speaker 2: ten years ago, you know, I was in a different

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Speaker 2: world and doing different things, and Chris was still working,

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Speaker 2: you know, he was always coming up with new ideas,

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Speaker 2: and suddenly he started soften and he had a house

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Speaker 2: in Hancock Park, and I went to visit him in

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Speaker 2: LA and we sat in the backyard. He always mixed

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Speaker 2: a great drink, and he said, and there was his buddy, David.

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Speaker 2: David Goggin and David and I know each other for years.

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Speaker 2: David was not only a columnist in the recording business

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Speaker 2: when I was an editor and a publisher, but he

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Speaker 2: and Stone were buddies, and he worked for Stone, and

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Speaker 2: Stone put us together. He said, all right, you know

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Speaker 2: what it's time, I'll write the book, right, But you

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Speaker 2: guys worked together, so you know, this book got published.

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Speaker 2: A Stone is long past but died in what twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 2: But we're the deal that Stone put together from the

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Speaker 2: grave basically.

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Speaker 1: Okay, David, how did you know Stone?

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Speaker 3: I first met Stone in the early eighties and I

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Speaker 3: just come to Los Angeles from a I was running

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Speaker 3: a recording studio down in Newport Beach, and we got

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Speaker 3: to know each other. I think he asked me to,

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Speaker 3: you know, see if I could do some promotion for

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Speaker 3: something that he was doing at the studio, and we

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Speaker 3: did that for a while. He's the only person who

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Speaker 3: ever yelled at me because I put out a press

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Speaker 3: release or something a story without checking with him. It

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Speaker 3: didn't cause any problems, but he I learned a lot

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Speaker 3: about Stone at that point, and then around nineteen eighty four,

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Speaker 3: he decided that they wanted to move the studio and

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Speaker 3: he asked me to reassure the public and the artists

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Speaker 3: and the musicians and the engineers that the story would

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Speaker 3: continue at the new record plan. So we together worked

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Speaker 3: on a grand finale. We had a big party in

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Speaker 3: December of eighty five. I dubbed it the Last Cham.

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Speaker 3: Many of the artists who had been there in the

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Speaker 3: past twenty fifteen years came. It was a concert with

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Speaker 3: Joe Walsh and Stephen Stills, al Cooper. The place was

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Speaker 3: just packed with you can imagine hundreds of people who

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Speaker 3: would work there. And then the groundbreaking took place and

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Speaker 3: the studio moved someplace else on Sycamore. So that's where

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Speaker 3: we started, and then I continued working with him until

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Speaker 3: he cashed out and sold it to Chrysalis and George Martin.

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Speaker 3: I photographed the guys having dinner and Stone was a

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Speaker 3: happy man. But he came up with a bunch of

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Speaker 3: other projects that he wanted to do, and I ended

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Speaker 3: I got roped into the World Studio Group, and I

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Speaker 3: and SPARS and a bunch of other industry organizations, and

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Speaker 3: we became friends. And he taught me how to make

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Speaker 3: a martini.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so Chris Stones put the two of you together.

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Speaker 1: What's the next step?

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Speaker 3: Take it away, Marty.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The next step was that we started talking to him.

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Speaker 2: And David's based in LA. I was in La in

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Speaker 2: those days once a week. I'm a New Yorker, and

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Speaker 2: we just would spend time with him, and he would

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Speaker 2: tell stories of Stone. You know, you know, not only

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Speaker 2: could mix martini, but he could but he could talk.

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Speaker 2: And he had a couple of things that were important

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Speaker 2: were important to him. Okay. One, I didn't know he

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Speaker 2: had a partner in the early days. I didn't even

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Speaker 2: know that what the deal was because I had met

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Speaker 2: him after his partner, Gary Calgrin, passed away, so I

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Speaker 2: never knew that. So he said, listen, you know what

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Speaker 2: the story's not about me. Here's the deal, right, if

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Speaker 2: you're going to write a book, I'll tell you. I'll

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Speaker 2: give you the framework for the story. I'll give you

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Speaker 2: the outline. I'll give you some great stories never been

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Speaker 2: told before. But you've got to not only make sure

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Speaker 2: that Gary is recognized and that people know who Gary

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Speaker 2: Calger was and Gary cut Kelger and was not only

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Speaker 2: the visionary, the engineer, but you know, but the co founder.

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Speaker 2: You got to make sure that people know who Gary was.

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Speaker 2: But also these albums, this studio doesn't didn't happen without

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Speaker 2: every everybody. So you got to get on the phone

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Speaker 2: and talk to other people. This can't be the Chris

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Speaker 2: Stone story. This has got to be the Record Plan story.

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Speaker 2: And the Record Plant story includes everybody, from the artists

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Speaker 2: to the producers, to the engineers, the assistant engineers, to

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Speaker 2: the truck drivers, the studio managers, the administrators. Talk to

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Speaker 2: as many people as you can, and that was Stone's goal.

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Speaker 2: So we just started talking and we talked. Ten years later,

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Speaker 2: we kept talking and already putting it together. So that

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Speaker 2: was the next step. It was just a lot of stories,

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Speaker 2: and yeah, there were people who didn't want to speak.

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Speaker 2: They said it was private, they said that. You know, listen,

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Speaker 2: you know the purpose of Record Plant was there was

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Speaker 2: a closed doors there with locked doors. We didn't want

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Speaker 2: to you know, we didn't want to tell those stories.

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Speaker 2: But suddenly as people time went on, people started talking.

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Speaker 2: And the more people talk, the more people shared, the

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Speaker 2: more open they were. And Stone also had a lot

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Speaker 2: of influence. Stone had a lot, you know, people trusted Stone,

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Speaker 2: they trusted us and to tell the real story. And gradually,

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Speaker 2: over time the stories were told and more people shared

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Speaker 2: their experiences.

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Speaker 1: How many people said, I got to tell you this story,

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Speaker 1: but you can't include it in the book.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know. That must be ten or twenty.

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Speaker 3: But they told us as much, and I just said,

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Speaker 3: let's keep talking. And then they say, well, let's not,

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Speaker 3: let's out. I'd like to mention also that this period

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Speaker 3: twenty fourteen before Stone's death. In twenty sixteen, Party and

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Speaker 3: I got the idea that we were trying to get

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Speaker 3: the Hall of Fame Tech Award at the NAM Show,

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Speaker 3: and so we started getting in touch with people to

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Speaker 3: participate in that. And Stone made his patio in his

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Speaker 3: place in Los Angeles Hancock Park available, so we had

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Speaker 3: people come in, we filmed them, and it was kind

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Speaker 3: of a tough thing. Part of it was reconnecting with

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Speaker 3: Gary Calgrin's widow, who had not been in touch with

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Speaker 3: the Stones for many many years. I'm not saying they

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Speaker 3: were ill feelings, but I was involved in kind of

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Speaker 3: bringing people together again for this Tech Award. They shot

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Speaker 3: a movie five that movie, we rallied for this award

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Speaker 3: and we got it and there was a big event

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Speaker 3: at NAM and I interviewed before the event for this award,

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Speaker 3: Bill Simsic, producer of the Hotel California, and Joe Walsh,

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Speaker 3: and they told stories and Stone was in the audience.

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Speaker 3: And at that at the beginning, Joe Walsh and Stone

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Speaker 3: had not seen each other for quite a while. There

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Speaker 3: was a rift not emotionally but for other reasons that

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Speaker 3: had to separate these two guys. But it was all

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Speaker 3: resolved and Joe jumped off the stage and came over

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Speaker 3: and bent over and hugged Chris Stone. And an hour

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Speaker 3: later Stone got the award and Calgrin got it posthumously

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Speaker 3: and it was presented by Simsic producer and Joe Wolfsh

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Speaker 3: So that actually accelerated the contact with people to rally

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Speaker 3: the groups of people that the individuals and the companies

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Speaker 3: and all the people that had worked for them at

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Speaker 3: Record Plan and then from there it was a lengthy

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Speaker 3: process tracking some of these people down. But I think

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Speaker 3: we got to a lot of people, some of them

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Speaker 3: who are no longer with us. So we were able

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Speaker 3: to scramble and get some stories from people that you

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Speaker 3: can't get anymore.

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Speaker 1: Okay, is this a labor of love or is this

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Speaker 1: something you actually said, Well, you know, this could catch on.

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Speaker 1: I could make some money here.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't about the money. No, We've got hopes. We

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Speaker 3: think the result is worthy of, you know, a huge

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Speaker 3: media empire.

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Speaker 2: Listen, Let's let's be honest. There's not a lot of

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Speaker 2: money in books. You don't spent ten years on a

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Speaker 2: book like this and expect to get rich. We put

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Speaker 2: a lot of time and money into it as well.

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Speaker 3: It came.

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Speaker 2: You know, remember this was a part of my life

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Speaker 2: and a big part of David's life for even longer.

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Speaker 2: You know, in the late seventies, when I was editing

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Speaker 2: a trade magazine called Proson News, I wasn't really aware

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Speaker 2: that I was in a very special time, in this

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Speaker 2: very special place. And as sort of as you get

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Speaker 2: older and as time goes on, I realized, wait a minute,

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Speaker 2: you know, there was something there. There was something bigger

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Speaker 2: than just a job writing interviewing studio owners and engineers

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Speaker 2: and producers. It was, you know, it was a special time.

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Speaker 2: And more I look back on it, you know, I

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Speaker 2: felt a bit of an obligation, a bit of a

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Speaker 2: you know, a feeling that you know what I was.

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Speaker 2: I had an obligation to tell some of these stories

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Speaker 2: to people and to really share it, because you know,

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Speaker 2: people didn't. If you ask people, you know, do you

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Speaker 2: know any recording studios, they'll say, yeah, I've heard, I

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Speaker 2: know Abbey Road. You know, not a lot of studios

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Speaker 2: are known by were named by a beatle or had

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Speaker 2: an album named after it. And then you ask them

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Speaker 2: what else do you know? They know elect electric ladies studios,

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Speaker 2: They know that, right, But then you go any deeper.

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Speaker 2: You got to be pretty tweeked out and pretty nerdy

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Speaker 2: to no recording. So is then you start talking about

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Speaker 2: the age of analogue, and you're talking about what it

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Speaker 2: was like in those days and how it worked and people.

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Speaker 2: I started hoping, and I realized, you know what, that

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Speaker 2: was a special time, and you know what, I was

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Speaker 2: there and I know people who were there, and so

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Speaker 2: it was a labor of love and it still was

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Speaker 2: a labor love. We're not done, you know. Yeah, do

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Speaker 2: we hope it turns into something bigger? Yeah, we want

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Speaker 2: to tell our story in the biggest possible way. But

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Speaker 2: and we're happy to that people like you want to

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Speaker 2: share share it with your audience. But it is a

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Speaker 2: labor love and that's my wife unless she gave up

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Speaker 2: a lot of time for us doing interviews, David me

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Speaker 2: on interviews and a lot of time writing this thing.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, now that the book is out, are you

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Speaker 1: finding that people are reacting coming out of the woodwork

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Speaker 1: and more people know we're interested or is it an

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Speaker 1: uphill climb to make people aware of the record plan

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Speaker 1: in your book?

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Speaker 3: Marty, I think you can answer this. But we've got

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Speaker 3: this book started out called record Plant Diaries for reasons

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Speaker 3: that we will get into maybe maybe not. We decided

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Speaker 3: that it was a better title, buzz me in, and

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Speaker 3: we have a Facebook page. But it's just growing what

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Speaker 3: are they called greatly every week with new followers and

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Speaker 3: people coming out of the woodwork and asking questions and

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Speaker 3: then saying, oh, I was there, you know, and it's

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Speaker 3: it's become quite the rallying cry for people. So many

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Speaker 3: people we try to figure out how many people worked

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Speaker 3: at the Record plan and in its history, and it

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Speaker 3: must be among the thousands, and some of them started

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Speaker 3: out cleaning toilets and today are billionaires. So that's that

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Speaker 3: was the proving ground for people.

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Speaker 1: I got to stop you for a second because we're

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Speaker 1: all prone to hyperbole. Billion dollars, there's a lot of money.

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Speaker 1: Can you tell me about somebody who really started cleaning toilets?

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Speaker 1: Was that successful?

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Speaker 2: Well? I don't, I don't know if well, listen, the

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Speaker 2: only billionaire that I know about who worked the record

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Speaker 2: was Jimmy Ivan, right, right, did Jimmy did Jimmy? Did

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Speaker 2: Jimmy start cleaning toilets? I know we started as a

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Speaker 2: runner a general. I know Jack Douglas started as janitor.

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Speaker 2: I'm not as sure exactly if that meant putting up

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Speaker 2: in the toilet and wiping it out, wiping out the bowl.

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Speaker 2: But you know what they did, some of they did

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Speaker 2: some pretty damn menial, crappy jobs. Right. So the only

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Speaker 2: billionaire that I do know is who started a record

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Speaker 2: plant was Jimmy Shoes IV.

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Speaker 1: Okay, those inside know that he was called Jimmy Shoes.

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Speaker 1: Can you explain why.

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Speaker 3: He had fancy shoes and that's where all his money went,

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Speaker 3: the small amount he was making as a general. I

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Speaker 3: love that term too. Uh. We called them runners, we

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Speaker 3: called them gophers, all sorts of things. But he was

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Speaker 3: a general. He started out at the bottom. He was

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Speaker 3: a pretty uh you know, feisty kid. When you know

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Speaker 3: his first one of his first big gigs was with

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Speaker 3: with John Lennon, and that was the lost weekend. He'd

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Speaker 3: never lived, stayed in a hotel. He'd never been in

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Speaker 3: an airplane. He ends up flying to Los Angeles and

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Speaker 3: staying at the Beverly Hilton and because Beverly Hills Hotel.

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Speaker 3: And he attributes his success as a businessman to the

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Speaker 3: way record plant was run. And that was run by

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Speaker 3: Chris Stone and Gary Calgren and Roy Cicala, New York.

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Speaker 3: Of course, they used to have buttons made that said

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Speaker 3: j F J jump for your job. The pressure was

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Speaker 3: on if you were in, if you were the second engineer,

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Speaker 3: and all you had to do was push the tape

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Speaker 3: machine button. Your job was on the line every minute.

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Speaker 3: They knew that these clients were the ones that were

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Speaker 3: staying around the clock, and there were no clocks at

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Speaker 3: their record plant.

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Speaker 2: Listen, they had a really good gig going the Stone

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Speaker 2: and Calgrin and Sicala, they knew one thing. There were

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Speaker 2: a lot of young kids who would work cheap or

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Speaker 2: free just to get in the door, to get close

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Speaker 2: to the artists. Right. And so when you have that

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Speaker 2: opportunity and you're an entrepreneur and you're running a business

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Speaker 2: and you have all this young hungry talent that are

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Speaker 2: working around the clock just to work in a recording studio.

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Speaker 2: What an opportunity from a business standpoint. And you know what,

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Speaker 2: you got to test those kids out. You got to

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Speaker 2: push those kids to the limit. And you know what,

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Speaker 2: some of them don't make it. Most of them don't

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Speaker 2: make it, but some of them do make it. And

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Speaker 2: that was that was the secret sauce of Record Plant

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Speaker 2: where those young kids who came in the door Kelgrin,

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Speaker 2: you know, Calgrin kid found out an amazing thing is

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Speaker 2: one thing to run a recording So you need fancy equipment,

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Speaker 2: You needed big consoles, you needed big tape machines, you

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Speaker 2: needed expensive microphones. What you really needed was a kid

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Speaker 2: who knew how to wheel a hammer and build shit. Right.

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Speaker 2: They needed to build gobos, They needed to tear down

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Speaker 2: walls to build take a door off, so you get

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Speaker 2: a piece of equipment off. So the truth of the

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Speaker 2: matter was that kids would do it. You'd had to

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Speaker 2: find a kid who was willing to do anything, and

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Speaker 2: there were plenty of them.

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Speaker 1: Okay, just you know, there's legends of people you mentioned

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Speaker 1: who started at the bottom. How many people washed out

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Speaker 1: that we haven't heard of.

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Speaker 2: I think most of them did. I don't have a number,

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Speaker 2: but think about it. It tough gig. You weren't making

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Speaker 2: any money. In fact, you know, in the early days,

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Speaker 2: Kelgrin had this concept that the kids would work for free.

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Speaker 2: You know, Brooks Arthur and Phil Ramon had a studio

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Speaker 2: up up in west Chester, New York nine went four

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Speaker 2: where Bruce Springsteen worked and a lot of other artists

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Speaker 2: work where they got all these kids paying them to

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Speaker 2: be assistants. So it was you know, it was a

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Speaker 2: great time. So how many washed out? A lot of them.

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Speaker 2: But the kids who stuck it out, and the kids

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Speaker 2: who worked and proved that they could serve the artist

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Speaker 2: who could had the right attitude and had ears and

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Speaker 2: learned could learn audio chops stayed and many became successful

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Speaker 2: and many became famous. We've talked about iveen as being

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Speaker 2: the billionaire, but not everybody was a billionaire. Some became

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Speaker 2: big artists. Todd Rumgrey was an assistant engineer in New York.

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Speaker 2: So not only did some become artists, but many became

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Speaker 2: producers as well, and obviously very successful engineers.

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Speaker 1: Let's start at the beginning with kelgrim One thing that

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Speaker 1: you emphasize in the book that I've never seen previously

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Speaker 1: is that he was a great engineer, an innovative engineer,

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Speaker 1: which he does not get credit for. Would you bring

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Speaker 1: up in the book can you tell me about that?

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Speaker 3: Well, I know Jim Keltner and he goes back to

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Speaker 3: the very very early days of working with Kelgrin. I

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Speaker 3: like to think of Jim Keltner as the heartbeat record

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Speaker 3: plan because he was there at the beginning, and he

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Speaker 3: was there till the end, and he was very close

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Speaker 3: to Kelgren. And you know, he speaks about the magical

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Speaker 3: ability of him, of Kelgrin at the console to be

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Speaker 3: able to rope together all these sounds, set things up

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Speaker 3: in the studio and make it happen like people were

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Speaker 3: just mesmerized at the way he he can wave his

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Speaker 3: hands over the console and move the faders and get

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Speaker 3: sounds out of what might have ended up as chaos.

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Speaker 2: Well, but you know, let's start at the beginning, because

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Speaker 2: the beginning was a studio called Mayfair on Seventh Ave

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Speaker 2: in New York. The Summer of Love nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 2: Algrin was working in the studio and he was working

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Speaker 2: for three bands at the same time. He was working

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Speaker 2: for lou Reed and Velvet Underground doing White Light, White Heat.

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Speaker 2: He was working for Frank Zappa doing We're only needed

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Speaker 2: for the money, and he was working with Jimmy Hendrix

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Speaker 2: on a couple of songs. And he he could keep

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Speaker 2: not only could he keep up with the artists and

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Speaker 2: work around the clock with the arts and juggle the

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Speaker 2: egos of all those three arts. Remember Zappa and Louie

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Speaker 2: didn't like each other in those days. And be able

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Speaker 2: to juggle those two artists at the same time in

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Speaker 2: the same studio was an art form. But Kelgrin had

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Speaker 2: worked for his producer, his producer, and that we could

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Speaker 2: there should be a book, there should be a movie

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Speaker 2: about him named Tom Wilson, and Tom Wilson was block

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Speaker 2: book Mayfair and he was working with his two artists,

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Speaker 2: which were Velvet Underground, and Frank Zappa at that time.

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Speaker 2: But Kelgrin knew how to record, and his talents were

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Speaker 2: you know, remember when you're an engineer, not only do

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Speaker 2: you need to know how to get a great sound,

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Speaker 2: but you know how to stay cool, stay calm, and

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Speaker 2: just work yourself to death. And Kelgrin had an incredible

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Speaker 2: work ethic. But through Tom Wilson, and we'll hopefully we

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Speaker 2: could talk a little bit more about Tom in a moment.

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Speaker 2: Through Tom Wilson, he it did an album called sky

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Speaker 2: Pilot for Eric Burton, all right, and that's a famous song,

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Speaker 2: and for a lot of reasons, obviously, not only because

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Speaker 2: of its anti war theme, but because of the sounds

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Speaker 2: that he was able to provide to Eric Burton. It

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Speaker 2: was a sound called phasing, all right. If you listen

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Speaker 2: to that record, if you really want to understand music

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Speaker 2: in the late sixties, remember you're dealing with a period

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Speaker 2: before there were digital effects, before there was any kind

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Speaker 2: of ability to press a button and make wacky sounds, right,

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Speaker 2: there was before even synthesizers. You had to be able

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Speaker 2: to jockey the sound the analog tape machine and play

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Speaker 2: around with with the reels and create and create sounds

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Speaker 2: one of those sounds that had been knocking around for

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Speaker 2: years was called phasing, all right, and what what the

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Speaker 2: what the engineer would do is it would take one

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Speaker 2: of the reels and and and jockey it almost you know,

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Speaker 2: almost like a disc jockey, but with the two reels.

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Speaker 2: And Kalgun got really good at phasing. And the work

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Speaker 2: that he did with Eric Burden got you know, got

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Speaker 2: him a lot of attention, and not only got him

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Speaker 2: attention with with a lot of the bands in Townies

378
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Speaker 2: particularly got him attention with with Chas Chandler who was

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Speaker 2: managing uh managing Jimmy. And when Jimmy heard heard that work,

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Speaker 2: and when the words started spreading that this kid knew

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Speaker 2: how to phase like he did, he got a lot

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Speaker 2: of attention because remember it was it was it was

383
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Speaker 2: summer love, it was psychedelic period, it was crazy effect.

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Speaker 2: Getting crazy effects, whether their visual or sonic, was what

385
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Speaker 2: it was all about. And an engineer who could do

386
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Speaker 2: that like Calgrin started to getting the business. And not

387
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Speaker 2: only was did he become an amazing engineer, but he

388
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 2: was innovative and he was fearless and true and that

389
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Speaker 2: was that was what made him special.

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Speaker 3: We got a back up here just a little bit

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Speaker 3: to explain how Kilgrin met Stone.

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Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, before we get there, when he's working

393
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Speaker 1: at Mayfeir, has he met Stone yet?

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Speaker 3: Yes, that was the moment actually, Dave, Okay, I just

395
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Speaker 3: want to I.

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Speaker 1: Want to go sideways before we come back. Tom Wilson's

397
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Speaker 1: a fascinating story. A black man in white rock and roll.

398
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Speaker 1: It was way before there were so many images. But

399
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Speaker 1: he produced all the Bob Dylan records. He produced as

400
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Speaker 1: you say, Zappa, you know what was his special sauce?

401
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Speaker 2: Well, his special sauce was depends you talk to right,

402
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 2: h If you talk to some people, it was he

403
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:03,880
Speaker 2: He was the ultimate Schmuezer if you talk to others.

404
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:06,920
Speaker 2: He was a brilliant producer, what Stone told us, because

405
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 2: Stone knew him really well. He knew how to let

406
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 2: the artist do do their thing. He gave them room

407
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 2: and what what you know, But he was but the

408
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 2: thing that you know, remember he came to he was

409
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Speaker 2: working with Calgrin after he was already famous, right, he

410
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 2: had became famous by you know, by turning Dylan onto

411
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Speaker 2: electric you know, at Colombia. He you know, he saved

412
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Speaker 2: sounds of silence for Simon and Garfunkel, but you know

413
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Speaker 2: by going back in the studio and remixing it. He

414
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 2: was a famous dude man. And he was a black

415
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Speaker 2: guy who was working in white rock and roll at

416
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Speaker 2: those days, which was unique. It came back to hurt

417
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Speaker 2: him and later in his career when he got stereotype.

418
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Speaker 2: But at that time he was hot and he was

419
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:55,479
Speaker 2: not only did what he was working for, you know,

420
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Speaker 2: for Columbia, he went on, he did a tremendous amount

421
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Speaker 2: of folk music. Then he's then it was when he

422
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 2: was working with Zappa and working with with Uh, with

423
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Speaker 2: Lou Reed, he was you know, he was making some

424
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 2: great records. But what was amazing about when he was

425
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 2: so well connected? So when when Stone Uh? When when

426
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 2: Stone met Kelgren at Mayfair, when they when the two

427
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 2: of them met Kelgrin. Kelgrin had this idea that he

428
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Speaker 2: could build a studio. Not only could he build a

429
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Speaker 2: great studio that like somebody had never built before, but

430
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Speaker 2: he could get business. The way he was going to

431
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Speaker 2: get business was because Tom Wilson knew everybody in town.

432
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Speaker 2: And it was gonna be by cutting in Wilson, by

433
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Speaker 2: giving him a piece of the action, by giving a

434
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,679
Speaker 2: piece of the business that they knew that they were

435
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 2: going to be able to bill studio that was not

436
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 2: only going to uh serve Jimmy Hendrix, but was gonna

437
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 2: fill a void in the New York marketplace. And Wilson

438
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:58,159
Speaker 2: not only played a role in the history of music,

439
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,879
Speaker 2: but certainly there wouldn't have been a record Plant without

440
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:04,120
Speaker 2: without Tom Wilson.

441
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 1: Okay, just to stay here. It's a little different threat.

442
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: Once you hit the eighties, the record producers are really

443
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 1: handsomely compensated, whereas earlier some of them worked for the label.

444
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: How did it end for Tom Wilson? Did he have

445
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 1: any money? Did he burn out after his famous period?

446
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,360
Speaker 1: What happened to him?

447
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 3: It's kind of a sad story. Stone told us about this.

448
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 3: I mean, it got really bad for him. And he

449
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,920
Speaker 3: was one of the early investors when they when they

450
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 3: formed the business of record Plant on forty fourth Street

451
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 3: in New York, Kelgrin and Stone met because their wives,

452
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,439
Speaker 3: one was pregnant and one had just had a baby,

453
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 3: and that was the reason they had a little party

454
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 3: and Kelgrin, uh Well, Stone asked if he could come

455
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 3: by and see where he worked. He came in, he

456
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 3: found out that Kelgrin was making two hundred bucks a

457
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 3: week and he's working with those three or it is,

458
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:04,120
Speaker 3: and he said, look, you need a raise. First of all,

459
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 3: he got him a raise, and then they decided they

460
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 3: needed one hundred grant And where's that money gonna come from?

461
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 3: There's a lot of money in those days. Stone was

462
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 3: friends with Ankie Marty you tell the rest of the

463
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 3: Hankee story.

464
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were four partners when record Plants started. There

465
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 2: was Calgrin and Stone we talked about. There was Tom Wilson,

466
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:28,640
Speaker 2: but none of them had the money that it took

467
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 2: to pull this off, right. But Stone had a roommate

468
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 2: named Ben Johnson from college who was who had a

469
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 2: new wife. Her name was Ankie her originally Ankie Johnson,

470
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,880
Speaker 2: but original name before she was divorced from Charles Revson

471
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 2: of Revlon Fame. Right. And not only did Stone worked

472
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 2: for Revlon and before that, well before he started a

473
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 2: record plant, but he knew that he knew that Ankie

474
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 2: Revson really loved the New York hip be seen. She

475
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 2: was you know, remember she was a divorcede. She uh,

476
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 2: but she was loaded and she put her put her

477
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 2: money into interesting business ventures. One Uh that that you

478
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 2: that everybody will know was she was one of the

479
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 2: prime investors in hair, the Broadway musical Hair, and she

480
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 2: was making tons of money that time from this hippie world.

481
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 2: So when Stone came to her with the idea that

482
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 2: he was going to build a recording studio, Ankie was

483
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 2: ready to write a check. She was just you know,

484
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 2: why not. So it was one hundred grand to build

485
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 2: the studio. So it was the four partners and the

486
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,199
Speaker 2: main the main partners, the ones who owned most of

487
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 2: the business was Ankie Revsen, uh A Johnson and uh

488
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 2: and uh Gary Calgrin the talent. Stone was the business

489
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 2: brains and and Wilson was only in it for a

490
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 2: piece so he could so he could, uh you know,

491
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 2: bring in the artists. But when you talked before and

492
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 2: you asked the question Bob about about Wilson, Wilson's career,

493
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 2: you know, uh came to a pretty abrupt then by

494
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 2: the time we were we were into the seventies, you know,

495
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 2: its seventies. He just wasn't He was stereotyped, as you know,

496
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 2: as a black rock and roll producer. He he had

497
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 2: an idea and a dream to build to do a

498
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 2: a rock opera that that never came fulfilled. It became

499
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 2: a sad story and ultimately Built died early of a

500
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 2: massive heart attack. You know, So his career came to

501
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 2: an abrupt nd. And but boy, the early days rock

502
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 2: and roll wouldn't have been what it was without Tom Wilson,

503
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 2: and certainly there wouldn't have been a record plant.

504
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: Okay, we're ultimately going to get to the record plant

505
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: on Third Street. Los Angeles is a giant suburb in

506
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: most cases, but New Shirk is very dense. They put

507
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: the studio in an office building. How does that work

508
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, sound reinforcement, et cetera.

509
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 3: That's an interesting angle because Kelgrin was good at finding locations.

510
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 3: How you're going to finance it or what are you

511
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 3: going to do with it then is a problem. But

512
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 3: he was hanging out with Hendrix at a nightclub nearby,

513
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 3: and Hendricks wanted to have a nightclub studio. He wanted

514
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 3: to take that atmosphere of jamming with his friends and

515
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 3: into the studio and get it recorded properly so that

516
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 3: he could continue his career as a recording artist. So

517
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 3: now's your turn, Marty.

518
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 2: Well, remember there were studios in New York, you know,

519
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 2: but mostly they were label owned studios in those days, right,

520
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 2: and the times were changing, and the artists wanted freedom

521
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 2: to work in a private space away from their corporate overlords. Right,

522
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 2: so that you know, it was Jimmy had it. Jimmy

523
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 2: had it. It started. It all starts with Jimmy Hendrix.

524
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 2: Remember the record planning store starts with Jimmy Hendrick. It

525
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 2: starts in New York. Hendricks had done some recording on

526
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:09,479
Speaker 2: what would become Electric Electric ladyland in in England. He

527
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 2: came over to New York and he told Calgarn he

528
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 2: needed a studio to finish the album Stone Stone and

529
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 2: Calgrin already talking. The money came in from Aankee. Wilson

530
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 2: was involved, and the idea is are, okay, we got

531
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 2: to find a space. Now on the west side you're

532
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 2: talking about the west side of Times Square right now,

533
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 2: there was a nightclub called The Scene. Steve Paul's the Scene,

534
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 2: all right. Now. The Scene is another historic rock and

535
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 2: roll uh a facility whatever you're wanna call location, all right,

536
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 2: because that's where some of the most amazing jam sessions

537
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 2: ever took place. You have Jim Morrison jamming with Jimmy.

538
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 2: You have you know, you know the Winter Brothers Jammy,

539
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 2: you have you know if you Linda, Linda Eastman, Nay Turner, McCartney,

540
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 2: the house photographer, you have tiny Tim playing the Mandal,

541
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 2: amazing stuff. Rick Darren's you're playing. There was an amazing

542
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 2: place and it was a and Jimmy loved jamming there

543
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 2: and so and it became the Not only was it

544
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 2: named the scene, it became a scene. So kelgar knew, okay,

545
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 2: you know what I got Hendrix here, I got all

546
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 2: these musicians, like David said Kelgwun's a genius at finding

547
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 2: the location. You know, how do you become how do

548
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 2: you find successful business? How do you build a good story? Location? Location, location,

549
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 2: So so Kelgrit said, Okay, I gotta find a building

550
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 2: within a walking distance of the scene. Right, So the

551
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 2: scene was on forty sixth Street. He found this office

552
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 2: building on forty fourth Street, three twenty one West forty

553
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 2: fourth Street off eighth Avenue. Right Now, that that building

554
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 2: itself was historic. It was it was the old Vitagraph building.

555
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 2: That's the if you know New York, that side of

556
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 2: New York was the Film District that. You know, it's

557
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 2: not Hollywood, but there was. That's where the movie business started, remember,

558
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 2: and that's where all the the you know, the film

559
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 2: businesses had their building. So that was the Ftograph Building

560
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 2: and Fighter Graphs famous for a couple of reasons, but

561
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 2: one of it is they developed talking the talking technology

562
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 2: that Warner end Up used for al Joson. Right, So

563
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 2: that building had audio in its bones. Right. But you know, listen,

564
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 2: you could soundproof of any space with enough wood and

565
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 2: you know padding. It's not not unique. But Calgrin found

566
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 2: this space. And the tory story we tell in the book,

567
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 2: which is, you know which one of the great stories

568
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 2: that Stone told us early on about the really early

569
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 2: days was they didn't want to make a deal on

570
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 2: the lease on that building to build the studio unless

571
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 2: they knew that Jimmy was all in. So they came

572
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 2: up with his plan, right to get Jimmy over to

573
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 2: the forty fourth Street to show him the space. But

574
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 2: it was just an empty giant you know, you know,

575
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 2: it was an office building. It was an the office building.

576
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 2: So they get Kelgrin had a piece of chalk, right,

577
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 2: and he was a great salesman, so he walks walks

578
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 2: Hendricks into the space and he says, all right, you know,

579
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,439
Speaker 2: just imagine what the space is gonna look like. You're

580
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 2: gonna have beautiful hippie Moroccan cloths, and you're gonna have

581
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 2: paintings by Dolly and Warhol, and we're gonna have everything here.

582
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:23,480
Speaker 2: It's gonna beautiful. It's gonna be it's gonna be a

583
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 2: real living room. It's gonna be a beautiful space, and

584
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 2: it's gonna be unique. It's not gonna be like anything

585
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 2: you ever saw. People and Stone and he pitched. They

586
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 2: pitched each other and they worked on the pitch, and

587
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 2: Kelgrin basically sold Jimmy on this empty space with a

588
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 2: piece of chalk in his mouth and a sales pitch.

589
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 2: And once once Jimmy said I'm in, they signed the

590
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 2: lease and they went to work and they built the

591
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 2: place within about four or five months. By by the

592
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 2: spring of nineteen sixty eight, the place was ready to open.

593
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 2: So it was it was a unique story. It was

594
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 2: a unique place, but it was it was all built

595
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 2: on a fundamental premise that a studio needed to be

596
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 2: more a living room than a lab. It needed to

597
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 2: be a place where you could be comfortable, where you

598
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 2: could jam, where you could be relaxed, and nobody was

599
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 2: breathing down your neck. Remember in David, you know, you

600
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 2: know what the studios were like in those days. You know,

601
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 2: you've talked about it a lot. They were you know,

602
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 2: you know, maybe David whytn't you to share what was it?

603
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 2: What were they like in those days?

604
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 3: Well, they were like Abbey Road probably where everybody's wearing

605
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 3: lab coats, and that the sessions were regulated by the union.

606
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:41,840
Speaker 3: So if you were in the middle of a Hendrick

607
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 3: solo at noon and it was time to have lunch,

608
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 3: you know, the plugs would have been pulled and you said, no,

609
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 3: we have to continue after lunch. So this studio record

610
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:55,359
Speaker 3: Plant changed that. Kilgrin walked around with that shock and

611
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 3: he said, here's gonna here's where we're going to have

612
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 3: the control room, here's the isolation room, here's going to

613
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:05,759
Speaker 3: be the canteen. Whatever. That was part of the sales job.

614
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 3: But as far as the actual building of the studio,

615
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,240
Speaker 3: you know, kelgern knew what he wanted to have sounding

616
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 3: and record Plant always had the best acousticians that could

617
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 3: manipulate those spaces in the best way. Possible to capture

618
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 3: the music that these guys had in their heads. The

619
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 3: translation of what they had in their mind into reality

620
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 3: was what the record plant was all about.

621
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: Okay, when the record plant opens, how many studios in

622
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 1: how big a space? I mean every studio is different.

623
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: Some there's a very small lounge, a control room and

624
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: a room for recording. Others have multiple rooms, they have offices.

625
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:58,959
Speaker 1: When it opens, what is there?

626
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 2: There's one studio and an office. That's it, right, And

627
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 2: and yes it was unique. It had it had cool

628
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 2: uh you know, cool cloths, curtains on the wall, and

629
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 2: the concept was making make it like olivery. But it

630
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 2: had one thing that was very unique. It had a

631
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 2: twelve track recorder. Right now, remember you know it was

632
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 2: just the very beginning of multi track recording, right and

633
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 2: you know A track would had just come into town.

634
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 2: And Mayfair, which we talked about, had one of the

635
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,240
Speaker 2: first A tracks in town. In fact, it was the

636
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 2: first time Jimmy worked on an A track was over

637
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 2: at Mayfair. But the skull the Scully had come up

638
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 2: with a concept for a twelve track recorder and it

639
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 2: was a very unique idea. Not only did it give

640
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 2: give more tracks for the artists to record on. But

641
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 2: it also uh gave them a unique way of taking

642
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 2: an a track tape right, bringing it into the studio,

643
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 2: putting and be giving the artists a chance to add

644
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 2: four more tracks to the recording. So it was that

645
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 2: Scully that really was was a major draw for Record

646
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 2: Plan And they had a console that was called Data Mix,

647
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 2: which was also relatively new, but it was it was.

648
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:23,319
Speaker 2: It was the early days of multi track recording and

649
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:25,720
Speaker 2: having those more tracks was a huge draw.

650
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in the profound business setting the scene here.

651
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: We live in a completely different era. We talk about

652
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: Jimmy Shoes being a billionaire. At the time, you're talking

653
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: about if you were a successful musician, top tier, you

654
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: were as rich as anybody in America. Okay, that is

655
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: not the case anymore. They are starting this studio to

656
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 1: what degree are they economically driven We are going to

657
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,879
Speaker 1: start a studio, we're going to get rich, or they

658
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: just say we like to work. This is a business.

659
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 3: They're going to charge a lot and they're going to

660
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 3: keep the artist working twenty four hours a day and

661
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,919
Speaker 3: there's nobody's going to look at the clock because there's

662
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 3: no clocks. The money's going to be rolling in, and

663
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 3: there's money going to be made from all the tape

664
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:20,399
Speaker 3: that they're selling. These guys are going through two inch

665
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:26,879
Speaker 3: reels of tape, box loads, box loads of this, and

666
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:31,319
Speaker 3: the record company's sense that something is happening and they

667
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 3: want to make money too. So the money is flowing

668
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 3: into the studio and that doesn't stop for a long time.

669
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 3: And the record Plant was notorious for having budgets that

670
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,720
Speaker 3: so what it goes through the roof. The record company

671
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 3: didn't worry they're going to get the money back. When

672
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 3: you look at some of the record sales over a

673
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 3: Marty's got those figures better than me. One hundred million

674
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 3: records was not unheard of for one album.

675
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 2: Well, and again you're talking about one hundred million albums

676
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 2: from seventy six for the three albums that recorded Record Plan.

677
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 2: But let me give you let me answer your question

678
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 2: this way, Bob. The studio sold for over a million

679
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 2: dollars within fourteen months of being opened. There was a

680
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:24,719
Speaker 2: company called TVC. It was a cable company out of

681
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania that had a vision. Right, they said, we have

682
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 2: a cable television is coming in right. This is the

683
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: early Remember This is another revolution is happening at the

684
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 2: same time as STEREO's happening, and the record business is

685
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 2: taking off, starting to take off. Cable television is taking off,

686
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 2: and they had a concept. They said, you know what,

687
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:47,399
Speaker 2: we want to have music television. Somebody at TVC had

688
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 2: this concept for long before MTV for music television. So

689
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 2: how do we get into the music business. We got

690
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:58,280
Speaker 2: to buy a recording studio. Now, Ankee was pretty connected.

691
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 2: Ankye made some connections. They stole the Gary Kelgren became

692
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 2: a millionaire within fourteen months of having that studio open.

693
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 2: And it was that was that that money that poured in.

694
00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 2: A lot of the business came in because of Jimmy Hendrix.

695
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 2: The studio was busy round the clock. But it was

696
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:22,240
Speaker 2: that that purchase by TVC, who ultimately sold the Warrant

697
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 2: Communications and which became Warner Cable, was what really made

698
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,279
Speaker 2: the day. And answering your question, Stone was in it

699
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 2: for the money. Remember, so was Calgrin. Remember he was

700
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 2: working with Frank Zachsba on an album called We're Only

701
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 2: in It for the Money, right, Kelgrin and Stone were

702
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 2: in it for the money, and and yes, Kelgrin was

703
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 2: a brilliant artist and in his own way from a

704
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:49,919
Speaker 2: business standpoint, Stone was a brilliant artist, right. But they

705
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 2: both had ambitions. They wanted cars, they wanted big houses.

706
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 2: Ultimately they wanted boats, and they had found the way

707
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 2: for it to happen. And when that sale happened, all right,

708
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,720
Speaker 2: When that when that big sale happened, suddenly it opened

709
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:08,279
Speaker 2: opened the eyes of a lot of other would be

710
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 2: entrepreneurs in town and around the country that there was

711
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 2: money to be made in the studio business. And uh

712
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 2: and it led to a boom in development of studios.

713
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:22,320
Speaker 2: You know, it was not surprising that Jimmy Hendrick's management

714
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 2: wanted wanted me to build his own studio, Electric Lady Studios,

715
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 2: because clearly an outgrowth of the success of of Record

716
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 2: Plan and all the work Jimmy Hendrix did. There.

717
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: Okay, two things. One did they build to sell? Did

718
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:41,240
Speaker 1: they want to sell? Or was it just like, wow,

719
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: here's an opportunity. Also, you delineate in the book The

720
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:49,320
Speaker 1: Studio then goes to a number of chapters talking about

721
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania Cable Company selling to Warner warn or not

722
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: really wanted to own the studio. Can you play that out.

723
00:42:55,400 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 2: For us, Yeah, I could play that for you. Stone

724
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:05,640
Speaker 2: and Stone and Kelgrin knew something that that the cable

725
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,399
Speaker 2: company didn't know, right, you know, and if they didn't

726
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 2: tell them, one was their number one artist that was

727
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 2: keeping them fat and happy, was about to leave and

728
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 2: build his own studio. Right, you know, there was under construction.

729
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 2: So you could about to lose your biggest customer, right,

730
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:23,399
Speaker 2: your calling cards. So they were about to lose that.

731
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 2: And two they also were aware of something even more significant.

732
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 2: The record business was moving to the West coast, right,

733
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 2: it was moving out of New York. The business was

734
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 2: hurt heading to LA and they realized, you know what,

735
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 2: They made a trip out to l A and they

736
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 2: their eyes open what was going on out there, and

737
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 2: they knew there was money out there, and they knew

738
00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 2: that was their next move. So so they sold out

739
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 2: at the right time. And you know, it's all timing,

740
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:58,359
Speaker 2: you know, did they did they do anything wrong?

741
00:43:58,440 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 3: No?

742
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 2: You know what, the studio stayed incredibly successful for a

743
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 2: long time. Warner didn't want to be in the studio

744
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 2: business for a lot of reasons, but one of the

745
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,280
Speaker 2: reasons is it was a shitty business for a big

746
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 2: record label, and by the way. Their artists didn't want

747
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 2: to record in label on studios anymore. So it was working.

748
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 2: It was it was moving away from that that train.

749
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 2: But Stone and Kelgar knew one thing they were they

750
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,479
Speaker 2: wanted to move out west. The business was moving out west.

751
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 2: The opportunity for growth was out west, and there was

752
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 2: a There was also other problems with New York. It's

753
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 2: an expensive place to operate. It's tight space. You know.

754
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 2: They ended up building a second studio in New York

755
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 2: on the first floor, but then to save Jimmy's business,

756
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 2: they opened another studio on the tenth floor. It was

757
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:44,919
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't there wasn't a lot of room

758
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 2: to move in New York. La had a lot more

759
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 2: room to move and it was a lot. It was

760
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,280
Speaker 2: a whole you know, green field for the studio business.

761
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: Okay, talking about the studio itself, you ran prosund Audio News.

762
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 1: It became an arms race that lasted into the eighties. Okay,

763
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:06,400
Speaker 1: you got to have this first. It was yet to

764
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: have a better machine, had to have more tracks. We

765
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: ultimately get to twenty four. We want a stood oh

766
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: you know, we go through boards ultimately solid state you know,

767
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: sssal one with the you know, moving faders. How much

768
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: of a factor was the cost of this equipment and

769
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: keeping up with that cost.

770
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 3: That's where Chris Stone comes into the picture. He figures

771
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 3: out ways that they can satisfy Gary Kelgrin's lust to

772
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:39,799
Speaker 3: be a rock star. And one example is that, you

773
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 3: know Kelgrin. First he bought of Rolls Royce and the

774
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 3: license plate was greed. Stone goes shopping, says he's got

775
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 3: some cash too. He goes to the Mercedes dealership and

776
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 3: he's looking at their top of the line car and

777
00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 3: he's trying to figure out how he's going to pay

778
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 3: for it and finagal this and finagal that, and the

779
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 3: salesman says, you know, did you ever think about leasing

780
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 3: a car? And this nobody knew about this new opportunity.

781
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 3: Stone leased the car, his license plate red deduct and

782
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 3: then he pioneered leasing recording equipment. If the you know,

783
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 3: a million dollar console, a two hundred thousand dollars maybe

784
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 3: more tape machine, very expensive stuff. Leasing opened that up

785
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 3: so that you could keep refreshing this stuff. Because it

786
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 3: was a battle of the technology at the time, and

787
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 3: the artist knew about this, the producers knew about this.

788
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,800
Speaker 3: They wanted to be have access to the latest tools

789
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:56,240
Speaker 3: to keep making these million selling albums, and record Plant

790
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:59,240
Speaker 3: became the place where you could get whatever you wanted.

791
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 3: And that expands into the hotel rooms and the other

792
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 3: concierge and five star accommodations that fit in with the

793
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 3: latest equipment and the idea of financing this stuff. That's

794
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:18,319
Speaker 3: where that's where Stone was. He was making it up

795
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 3: as he went along.

796
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's you know, they're in Los Angeles. We'll

797
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 1: get into the establishment that earlier. But picking up on

798
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: your theme, he leases his Mercedes, he approaches API, he

799
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: approaches stud or whatever, blah blah blah. Does he sell

800
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 1: them on leasing or have they ever thought of it?

801
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 3: Marty probably know the business angle, you're better than me.

802
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 3: But my impression is that this was the beginning of

803
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 3: that that type of creative financing.

804
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:53,799
Speaker 2: That's where it was an you know, we talked, let

805
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 2: me put it frame it this way to you, Bob,

806
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 2: audio was the technology revolution of the time. Living in

807
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:04,840
Speaker 2: a technology revolution now AI and you know, and but

808
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 2: those that was the audio revolution. You know, it was

809
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 2: a time where these guys were selling a lot of stuff.

810
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 2: People you know, Moran's was selling high fives and thrends,

811
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 2: and you know Pioneer, the high five was hot. Professional

812
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 2: equipment was hot. These guys were starting to make a

813
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:30,479
Speaker 2: lot of money and they were suddenly everything was new,

814
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:34,280
Speaker 2: everything was an opportunity. So if they listen, if somebody

815
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 2: came in and said I can lease the gear and

816
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 2: make payments, they were going to take it. You know,

817
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 2: we talked a lot about this book. You know, listen,

818
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:46,399
Speaker 2: Sex Drugs rock and Roll. Yes, record Plant. The story

819
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 2: of Record Plant is sex, drugs and rock and roll,

820
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 2: But there was really a much more significant part of

821
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:54,399
Speaker 2: the story that it should be should be added. When

822
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 2: we talked about this story, it was sex drugs, rock

823
00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 2: and roll and audio and it was that was the

824
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:05,840
Speaker 2: ultimate attraction of Record Plan. You had to have the

825
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 2: latest audio gear, the latest equipment, because that's what turned

826
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 2: on the artists. That's what really got the artists excited.

827
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,279
Speaker 2: Yes they wanted to be comfortable, Yes they wanted all

828
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 2: the amenities, but they really wanted the ultimate sound. And

829
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:24,960
Speaker 2: when when Stone and Calgrin moved to La there was

830
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 2: one other individual comes into play and significant character and

831
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,840
Speaker 2: not only the history of Record Plan, but the history

832
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:36,400
Speaker 2: of audio and professional recording. A guy named Tom Hidley

833
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 2: who passed away recently. Tom Hiley was an audio engineer

834
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,320
Speaker 2: in LA and he'd worked in New York at A

835
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 2: and R. But he was working out in a studio

836
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 2: called TTG in LA where he was working with artists,

837
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 2: you know, like a lot of Tom Wilson's artists on

838
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:59,359
Speaker 2: the West Coast were, you know, were TTG customers. And

839
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 2: this guy was a genius. He worked with He worked

840
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 2: in high fi with mad Men Months. I don't know

841
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:08,800
Speaker 2: if you remember that name, but he also Madman Months,

842
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 2: but he you know, he worked for months. His most

843
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:16,879
Speaker 2: famous product was he built a car stereo for Frank

844
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:20,240
Speaker 2: Stinastra so Frank could listen to his his his cuts

845
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 2: on the way out to Palm Springs, all right, So

846
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 2: that was Tom Hitley and Tom Hilly was a genius.

847
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 2: Tom Hidley not only could build was building sixteen and

848
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 2: twenty four track tape machines before anybody. But he had

849
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 2: a TTG these amazing, amazing loud speakers that he developed,

850
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 2: right and you know what really attracted Stone and Kelgrin

851
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:44,760
Speaker 2: to going out to the West Coast was that Jimmy

852
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:48,240
Speaker 2: came back from working out a TTG and told Kelgrin,

853
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:50,800
Speaker 2: you gotta go out to LA and meet this guy Hittley.

854
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:53,560
Speaker 2: He's a genius. He's got some speakers. I've never heard

855
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 2: anything like it. So Kelgrin and Stone got on a plane.

856
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 2: They went out there and they heard that. They not

857
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,760
Speaker 2: only they meet Hitdley, but they heard these loud speakers.

858
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 2: They knew those loud speakers in the right control room

859
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 2: would blow any artists and producer's mind and get their business.

860
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,840
Speaker 2: So they they not only did they decide to build

861
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 2: the studio at that point, they they hired Hitly Away

862
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,799
Speaker 2: and Hily. Hilly and Kelgrin as a pair were were

863
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 2: a brilliant pair. They build the revolution in the acoustical

864
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 2: environment of a studio. Hitley's Hitly's loud speakers were were

865
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:34,280
Speaker 2: famous and they became They became noted around the world.

866
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 2: He Hilly ultimately put put those speakers in over a

867
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 2: thousand studios. They became the reference monitors of not only

868
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 2: that time, but many of them are still in place.

869
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:45,439
Speaker 2: There's you know, David, you could tell the story about

870
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 2: you know about the James Gang in the and those speakers,

871
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 2: because it's one of the funny. One of the funny

872
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 2: stories of the early days of Record Plant was how

873
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:56,560
Speaker 2: Hitly went out and built those speakers for for Kelgren

874
00:51:56,600 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 2: and Stone.

875
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 3: Well, they're Bill Simsick is recording The James Gang with

876
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 3: his good buddy Joe Walsh. These guys want to play loud.

877
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 3: They want to record loud. They want to put to

878
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 3: the red line all the time, and when they hear

879
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 3: it back, they want to get blown away. I mean literally,

880
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 3: they just want to be blown away. So every day

881
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 3: they were in their playback, they had a rack of

882
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 3: these expensive I think tan Oi monitors in the studio,

883
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 3: and invariably, every day a couple of them would just,

884
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 3: I mean actually blow off the wall. They would demolish

885
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:49,600
Speaker 3: themselves and they'd call Stone and say, look, you know

886
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 3: we blew the monitors out again. Stone would say, oh,

887
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 3: that's okay, we'll get you some new ones tomorrow. The

888
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 3: record company will pay for it. So there was actually

889
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 3: an unlimited supply of speakers, but it just got out

890
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 3: of hand. It was like every day they got to

891
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:09,320
Speaker 3: replace the monitors. They called in Hitdley and said in

892
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:16,359
Speaker 3: his task Tom, can you build a monitor that can

893
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:20,960
Speaker 3: withstand the sounds of Bill Simsic and Joe Walls. She

894
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 3: was working on a song called the Bomber and it

895
00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:29,759
Speaker 3: was just it was just ruining every speaker. Hidley came up.

896
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:33,719
Speaker 3: One was a monitor that could withstand the levels that

897
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 3: they wanted to listen to and end of that chapter.

898
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 2: But they but not only did they build these monitors

899
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 2: and these big they were these big monitors with big

900
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 2: waffers and these big you know they call monkey monkey

901
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 2: lips monitors and these big protrusions in them, and they

902
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:56,400
Speaker 2: build them into the soffits. But Hitley knew how to

903
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:59,239
Speaker 2: build them in a control room, so they sounded amazingly.

904
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:02,760
Speaker 2: He built this was called the compression ceiling that really

905
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:06,800
Speaker 2: when the artist was sitting behind the console, that sound

906
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 2: was going right at the sweet spot right where they

907
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 2: were sitting. So the experience of a playback in a

908
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 2: hilly Calgrin control room was unlike anything else anybody had

909
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:22,560
Speaker 2: ever heard. And that's you know, not only do those

910
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:26,400
Speaker 2: monitors change the way people recorded record Plant, but like

911
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 2: I said, nearly a thousand studios later they were Hitley

912
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:33,840
Speaker 2: built studios after we left Record Plant all over the world.

913
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 1: So how did these two characters get along? Kel Grin

914
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: and Stone.

915
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 3: Oh they got along glorious Stone, Stone's wife, who advised

916
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:01,320
Speaker 3: Kelgrin's wife about how to have help her with the

917
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 3: birth of her first child. Uh told us that Kelgrin

918
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 3: just wanted to be a rock storm. He wanted everything.

919
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:16,640
Speaker 3: He wanted boats, he wanted new studio rooms, new monitors, everything.

920
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:22,040
Speaker 3: Their job was to satisfy Kelgrin and Uh, and they

921
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:25,279
Speaker 3: did it as far as it was. It was a

922
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 3: constant back and forth pool between Kelgrin wanting more and

923
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,879
Speaker 3: Stone going, how the hell are we going to pay

924
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 3: for this? They originally they wanted to have a he

925
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:38,759
Speaker 3: wanted we're going to have a record We got to

926
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 3: have a swimming pool at the Record Plant in la Well.

927
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:46,960
Speaker 3: Stone convinced him that maybe a jacuzzie would do. Uh

928
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:52,680
Speaker 3: the jacuzzi room, and the jacuzzie became a hot bed

929
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 3: what do you call it when it's wet hot a

930
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:59,359
Speaker 3: hot water bed of activity at the Record Planet. Legendary

931
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:02,880
Speaker 3: stories of people saying, Oh, let's go use the jacuzie,

932
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:06,160
Speaker 3: opening the door and going, oh my god, is that

933
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:10,160
Speaker 3: Rod Stewart, Who's that over there in the corner? Oh God,

934
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:12,960
Speaker 3: what's all that stuff floating? In the water. Oh no,

935
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:17,880
Speaker 3: thank you, not today. You know, Buddy Miles said that

936
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 3: many babies of his babies were probably berthed in the

937
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:25,440
Speaker 3: in the jacuzzie. I know this gets kind of raunchy sounding,

938
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 3: but these guys had a lot of money, the artists,

939
00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 3: the producers, the record companies, and they also needed to

940
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:39,840
Speaker 3: blow off some steam the pressure of making a record. Bob,

941
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 3: you've been in a recording studio, you know how exciting

942
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 3: it can be if you're just waiting in the outside

943
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 3: the vocal booth and you know that the guy in

944
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:52,160
Speaker 3: there is cutting a record that everybody in the world

945
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 3: is going to hear in two weeks or six weeks

946
00:56:56,280 --> 00:57:00,960
Speaker 3: or whatever how long it takes. It's a it's a

947
00:57:01,239 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 3: supercharged environment. And if you've just had a big hit

948
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:07,360
Speaker 3: and you got to hit another, get another hit, the

949
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:11,800
Speaker 3: pressure is incredible, and you know, emotions get out of

950
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 3: control and things just get crazy, and you know, there

951
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 3: were some sad stories, but there were many great stories

952
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:22,240
Speaker 3: and great records that we have today.

953
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:25,880
Speaker 2: But you're talking about the relationship between Stone and Calgrin

954
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 2: was an interesting really they were very complimentary but different personality.

955
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:33,400
Speaker 2: Stone was the businessman, Kelgrin was the brilliant visionary and artist.

956
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:38,800
Speaker 2: Calgrin was all about about creating new sounds, creating new visuals,

957
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:42,040
Speaker 2: creating new space, using spaces in an innovative way. Stone

958
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 2: was about paying for the paying the bills, making sure

959
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:49,439
Speaker 2: the artists were serviced, make sure that the business ran right.

960
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 2: Greed and deduct tell that tell us everything about the relationship.

961
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:57,280
Speaker 2: And they and they were complimentary. You know. Somebody once

962
00:57:57,320 --> 00:57:59,320
Speaker 2: said to me, you know what, they were so different,

963
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:00,960
Speaker 2: you know they how did they get along? It was

964
00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:04,400
Speaker 2: because they were different and because they compliment each other

965
00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 2: so well that it worked. And yes, they fought. They

966
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:12,360
Speaker 2: they had differences of opinions. There were times when one

967
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 2: was shut trying to shove one out, one was trying

968
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 2: to shove the other one out. But every time they

969
00:58:16,720 --> 00:58:20,560
Speaker 2: were they were uh, they were about to end the relationship.

970
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:23,040
Speaker 2: And that happened several times during the course of their

971
00:58:23,600 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 2: their business life together. Uh magic started happening. The money

972
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 2: started flowing, and they said, you know what, let's let's

973
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 2: not screw with this. We're making plenty of money. You know.

974
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,640
Speaker 2: There was there was a this story where where Calvin

975
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:39,320
Speaker 2: really wants, you know, really offended Stone and you know, said,

976
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 2: you know, if it wasn't for me, you'd be selling

977
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:44,400
Speaker 2: still selling Nail Pauls for Revlin, right, and don't tell

978
00:58:44,400 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 2: that to tell that story. And it took place years later,

979
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 2: but he really offended him, and Stone had a choice

980
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 2: either blow up and screaming him or or just turn

981
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 2: around and and and walk out the door. He turned

982
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:57,920
Speaker 2: around and walked to the door and he and I

983
00:58:57,960 --> 00:59:00,240
Speaker 2: asked him, you know, how'd you do? He said, you

984
00:59:00,240 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 2: know what I learned long enough to shut up and

985
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:05,400
Speaker 2: take the money, you know, and U And that was

986
00:59:05,440 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 2: Stone and Calgrin. And you know, we're talking a ton

987
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 2: in this interview about Stone and Kelgarn. They're really in

988
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:16,120
Speaker 2: the in this story of record Plant that we tell,

989
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:18,720
Speaker 2: which is really the origin story of record Plant. Record

990
00:59:18,760 --> 00:59:21,400
Speaker 2: Plant went on, it's still going on. There's a studio,

991
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 2: the studio in Sacelito, we'll talk about it is still functioning.

992
00:59:25,240 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 2: L a studio at a new location closed last year.

993
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:31,400
Speaker 2: And there is one room on forty fourth Street still

994
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 2: operating on the tenth floor of three twenty one West

995
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:37,520
Speaker 2: forty fourth Streets owned by Sony Music. So still to

996
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 2: some extent exists. But you know, the Stone Kelgren relationship

997
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:46,240
Speaker 2: brought a third character in because remember, as we said,

998
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 2: Stone and Kelgron got on a plane and sold the

999
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:53,120
Speaker 2: studio and got the hell out oft of Dodge, moved that, moved,

1000
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 2: moved to the West coast and sold sold out to Warner.

1001
00:59:56,360 --> 00:59:59,640
Speaker 2: They needed somebody to be Calgren in New York, right,

1002
00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:01,960
Speaker 2: They need need somebody to give to warn or to

1003
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 2: run the place. And they and Hitley knew a guy

1004
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:10,880
Speaker 2: from from A and R, A brilliant engineer, a great

1005
01:00:10,920 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 2: maintenance guy, a real character in his own right named

1006
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 2: roy Sakala. Right now, Royce Socali was the third leg

1007
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:23,240
Speaker 2: on the stool of record plant because he ultimately not

1008
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 2: only was hired by Stone and Kelgman to run New

1009
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 2: York when they left, but ultimately he ended up owning

1010
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:32,400
Speaker 2: it and running it. He was He's famous not only

1011
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 2: for mentoring great engineers like Jack Douglas and Jimmy Iveen,

1012
01:00:37,520 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 2: but he was most famous he was John Lennon's engineer

1013
01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 2: for almost his entire post Beatles catalog, so you know,

1014
01:00:48,000 --> 01:00:50,960
Speaker 2: and he was, you know, he's a whole another part

1015
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:55,959
Speaker 2: of the story. And while Kelgrin and and Stone were

1016
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 2: doing their doing damage to the LA market and eating

1017
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:04,040
Speaker 2: up that market. So Calla was running running New York himself.

1018
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 2: And so Cala was an interesting story because not only

1019
01:01:06,440 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 2: was he engineer, but he was married to a woman

1020
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 2: named Laurie Burton. Now I don't know if people know,

1021
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:15,440
Speaker 2: but great songwriter, you know, uh you know. The famous

1022
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:17,960
Speaker 2: song was that I Ain't Gonna eat at my heart anymore? Right,

1023
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:20,920
Speaker 2: that was her. She wrote some great songs. She was

1024
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 2: She was the brains behind getting getting Roy started in

1025
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 2: the business. She got him his first job at A

1026
01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:32,600
Speaker 2: and R with Phil Ramone, and it was Ramone and

1027
01:01:32,760 --> 01:01:36,160
Speaker 2: he and and Sicala got into a fight. He got fired.

1028
01:01:36,160 --> 01:01:38,440
Speaker 2: And when he got fired from A and R uh

1029
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:40,480
Speaker 2: Stone and Calgrin hired him up and said, all right,

1030
01:01:40,520 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 2: you know what, we got our calgarn from New York, Cicala,

1031
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 2: You're you're running New York while we're while we're running

1032
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:50,880
Speaker 2: l A and that It became the relationship between Stone

1033
01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:53,560
Speaker 2: and Calgrin was always rocky, but they knew how to

1034
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 2: work together. So Caala Sokala became New York became so

1035
01:01:58,800 --> 01:02:01,560
Speaker 2: Callo studio. It was for many years was his studio.

1036
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:04,600
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk good about about Soicla in the book

1037
01:02:05,120 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 1: who ends up in Brazil?

1038
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 2: How does that happen? Well, the story of Royce Sokala

1039
01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:17,080
Speaker 2: is his own book. And there are many people in

1040
01:02:17,120 --> 01:02:19,040
Speaker 2: New York who say, you know what you should have

1041
01:02:19,120 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 2: just you know, when we wrote this book, it was

1042
01:02:21,280 --> 01:02:23,720
Speaker 2: like cold, we write the story about all record plans

1043
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 2: or do we just focus on one? And we took

1044
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:29,800
Speaker 2: the task of trying to put it all into one story,

1045
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 2: which hopefully worked out. But Sakala's story was an interesting

1046
01:02:34,960 --> 01:02:38,760
Speaker 2: one because not only was he a brilliant engineer, but

1047
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:42,280
Speaker 2: he was not exactly the greatest businessman, all right, and

1048
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 2: he didn't have his stone, right, you know, Kelgrin had

1049
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 2: his stone, that relationship that frickin' frack business and commerce

1050
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:53,600
Speaker 2: relations The sex of the Record Plan is an ultimate

1051
01:02:53,640 --> 01:02:58,360
Speaker 2: example of commerce, art coming art and commerce coming together

1052
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:03,360
Speaker 2: for success. It didn't have that that partner. He tried

1053
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:06,880
Speaker 2: to find that partner many times, right, but he didn't

1054
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:10,720
Speaker 2: have that partner. And you know, unfortunately, you know, the

1055
01:03:10,800 --> 01:03:13,880
Speaker 2: studio started to get run down over the years. You know,

1056
01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 2: there was a big period when when John when Lennon retired,

1057
01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:21,400
Speaker 2: you know, yes, there was Aerosmith came in and yeah,

1058
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:24,240
Speaker 2: Kiss came in, and Yes Springsteen came in, and then

1059
01:03:24,280 --> 01:03:26,040
Speaker 2: Patty Smith came in. There was always an artist, but

1060
01:03:26,040 --> 01:03:29,200
Speaker 2: the place was always having trouble making money and for

1061
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:31,520
Speaker 2: whatever reason and something, it was because that was not

1062
01:03:31,640 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 2: Roy's skill set. And when the studio years later, when

1063
01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:40,200
Speaker 2: the studio started declining, the New York studio started declining,

1064
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:43,440
Speaker 2: specifically because the New York was a different operation. And

1065
01:03:43,480 --> 01:03:45,480
Speaker 2: I'll talk about that a minute. Remember they became two

1066
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 2: separate businesses. People thought it was New York record Plant

1067
01:03:49,360 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 2: East the Record Plant West. John Lennon used to even

1068
01:03:51,680 --> 01:03:54,240
Speaker 2: call record Plan La Record Plan West. They were two

1069
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 2: separate corporations. They were run separately. So Kala owned New York,

1070
01:03:58,640 --> 01:04:02,040
Speaker 2: you know. And when it started getting run down, Laurie

1071
01:04:02,080 --> 01:04:05,000
Speaker 2: Burton told us that, you know what, the worst business got.

1072
01:04:05,040 --> 01:04:09,920
Speaker 2: The more Roy started checking out and he started getting

1073
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:14,440
Speaker 2: he started getting interested in Brazilian music, started working with

1074
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:19,000
Speaker 2: Brazilian artists, and started traveling to Brazil and started and

1075
01:04:19,080 --> 01:04:22,960
Speaker 2: found found new love down there. Had had a child

1076
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:27,280
Speaker 2: down there and ultimately built a studio down there. And

1077
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 2: when he as he started checking out if record Plant

1078
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:32,560
Speaker 2: New York and spending more Brazil the studio to climb

1079
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:36,360
Speaker 2: into the eighties, you know, the studio declined even further.

1080
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:41,680
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go specifically to Kelgrin. You talked about speaking

1081
01:04:41,760 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 1: with his widow. What it says in the book is

1082
01:04:44,880 --> 01:04:48,040
Speaker 1: cal Grin is from the Midwest. He steps off from

1083
01:04:48,080 --> 01:04:51,200
Speaker 1: the altar with a pregnant kid, a pregnant wife. Then

1084
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 1: as a kid you talk about he comes to New York,

1085
01:04:54,040 --> 01:04:58,800
Speaker 1: he meets this woman. They ultimately moved to la She's

1086
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:01,520
Speaker 1: living one place, but he's got a girlfriends and we

1087
01:05:01,640 --> 01:05:05,360
Speaker 1: you know, what kind of character does this other than

1088
01:05:05,520 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 1: rock stars? And how did the widow feel about all this?

1089
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:14,440
Speaker 2: Marta Kelgrin has been very kind to us in the book,

1090
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:17,360
Speaker 2: and she and and some of the stories I'm sure

1091
01:05:17,680 --> 01:05:20,320
Speaker 2: were difficult, but she, you know, you know, she and

1092
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:23,440
Speaker 2: her daughter were supportive of the project and had a

1093
01:05:23,440 --> 01:05:26,360
Speaker 2: lot of changes and had a lot of stories to

1094
01:05:26,640 --> 01:05:30,720
Speaker 2: share with us as well. But I didn't dig into

1095
01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:33,880
Speaker 2: the details of how she felt. But you know, but

1096
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:37,640
Speaker 2: obviously there were you know, as things evolved, her relationship

1097
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:43,600
Speaker 2: with with Gary became even more difficult. She h, you know,

1098
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:46,480
Speaker 2: there was she lived in one house with the kids,

1099
01:05:46,480 --> 01:05:49,800
Speaker 2: he moved out. You know, Gary was living in a rock

1100
01:05:49,800 --> 01:05:52,840
Speaker 2: star lifestyle. He was, remember he was the rock stars

1101
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:55,840
Speaker 2: rock star at that time. You know, the rock stars

1102
01:05:55,920 --> 01:05:59,760
Speaker 2: wanted wanted Kelgren. You know, they were chasing Kelgrin in

1103
01:05:59,800 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 2: those days. So I've never really pushed on that point

1104
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:07,560
Speaker 2: and how she felt. I know that some things we

1105
01:06:07,600 --> 01:06:10,120
Speaker 2: wrote were difficult for her. We saw her recently at

1106
01:06:10,120 --> 01:06:12,320
Speaker 2: a book signing in la and she was very kind

1107
01:06:12,840 --> 01:06:15,400
Speaker 2: and generous to us. But I'm sure some of the

1108
01:06:15,600 --> 01:06:17,280
Speaker 2: you know, it was a tough period in her life.

1109
01:06:17,760 --> 01:06:20,280
Speaker 2: You know, it was certainly and certainly to Gary the

1110
01:06:20,440 --> 01:06:22,960
Speaker 2: end that was this particularly tough time for her. It

1111
01:06:23,000 --> 01:06:24,520
Speaker 2: was tough time for a lot of people.

1112
01:06:24,920 --> 01:06:29,240
Speaker 3: We should mention that there was a very unfortunate occurrence

1113
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:34,480
Speaker 3: that kind of altered his Kelgrin's life and probably the

1114
01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:40,560
Speaker 3: relationship with Marta. He fell through a glass shower door

1115
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:46,160
Speaker 3: before they had tempered class or safety class. He almost

1116
01:06:46,680 --> 01:06:50,840
Speaker 3: had his arm amputated. They had to wire him together.

1117
01:06:51,600 --> 01:06:55,520
Speaker 3: This was in the in the mid seventies. Technology was

1118
01:06:55,560 --> 01:06:57,960
Speaker 3: the best they had, but it was it was a

1119
01:06:58,080 --> 01:07:02,720
Speaker 3: terribly painful thing. He had to go for years with

1120
01:07:02,880 --> 01:07:07,040
Speaker 3: this device that elevated his arm like up like this

1121
01:07:07,760 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 3: and that was probably the beginning of some painkillers that

1122
01:07:15,080 --> 01:07:19,280
Speaker 3: were absolutely necessary. I mean, he was almost died and

1123
01:07:19,800 --> 01:07:23,439
Speaker 3: that may have had that probably. Marta told us that

1124
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:27,240
Speaker 3: he was never the same after that occurrence, So that was,

1125
01:07:27,640 --> 01:07:30,920
Speaker 3: you know, part of the transition or the change in

1126
01:07:31,000 --> 01:07:40,120
Speaker 3: his life. Sad but true, and eventually probably had a

1127
01:07:40,440 --> 01:07:43,880
Speaker 3: fat was a factor in his desk drowning in his

1128
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:45,800
Speaker 3: luxurious swimming pool.

1129
01:07:46,640 --> 01:07:50,160
Speaker 1: A couple of questions her stories like this, I hear

1130
01:07:50,240 --> 01:07:54,760
Speaker 1: my father's voice in my head. Yeah, he fell through

1131
01:07:54,800 --> 01:07:57,880
Speaker 1: the shower door. Was he fucked up or was he like,

1132
01:07:58,000 --> 01:08:00,040
Speaker 1: you know, a regular guy and he fell through the

1133
01:08:00,080 --> 01:08:00,680
Speaker 1: tower door.

1134
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:05,840
Speaker 3: Could have been a combination of both. It doesn't sound

1135
01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:09,920
Speaker 3: like it was an unusual time. You know, Calgrin could

1136
01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:15,480
Speaker 3: probably handle more drugs than anybody you could imagine.

1137
01:08:17,120 --> 01:08:17,360
Speaker 2: You know.

1138
01:08:17,960 --> 01:08:20,439
Speaker 3: Gloria said that once they were driving in a limo

1139
01:08:21,360 --> 01:08:25,320
Speaker 3: and he gave her a puff on a pipe and

1140
01:08:26,000 --> 01:08:30,720
Speaker 3: she got terribly sick and said she'd never get any

1141
01:08:31,360 --> 01:08:36,040
Speaker 3: smoke anything from Kelgrin. Again, some people could handle it,

1142
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:40,559
Speaker 3: some people couldn't, you know. I don't think we need

1143
01:08:40,600 --> 01:08:43,960
Speaker 3: to dwell on it. But there were many sad factors

1144
01:08:44,560 --> 01:08:47,639
Speaker 3: in his decline and.

1145
01:08:47,640 --> 01:08:49,240
Speaker 2: I can't answer that, quo, I don't we can answer

1146
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:51,519
Speaker 2: the question. We don't know that right, We don't know

1147
01:08:51,560 --> 01:08:54,600
Speaker 2: the answer to that question. But we do know that

1148
01:08:54,600 --> 01:08:58,600
Speaker 2: that the accident did impact not only his life, his

1149
01:08:59,479 --> 01:09:05,280
Speaker 2: use of uh of let's say pharmaceuticals uh and his

1150
01:09:05,360 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 2: experimentation with him, but it also affected his work, you know,

1151
01:09:09,080 --> 01:09:11,120
Speaker 2: his ability to work in the console. And that was

1152
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:13,400
Speaker 2: you know, we have I don't know if we've talked

1153
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:15,280
Speaker 2: about the Donna hues and we can talk about Tom

1154
01:09:15,280 --> 01:09:17,719
Speaker 2: and Rachel Donnie who play a role in this story

1155
01:09:17,760 --> 01:09:22,080
Speaker 2: as well. Uh. They you know, Rachel Donnay, who could

1156
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:25,320
Speaker 2: describe the story of watching Gary after his accident with

1157
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:30,120
Speaker 2: his weird contraptions on working at console. He never carried

1158
01:09:30,200 --> 01:09:33,600
Speaker 2: never despite this accident and despite his you know this

1159
01:09:33,960 --> 01:09:37,880
Speaker 2: what it transpired, Uh, he never lost his ability to

1160
01:09:38,280 --> 01:09:40,680
Speaker 2: function in the studio. He never locked his ears, has

1161
01:09:40,680 --> 01:09:45,679
Speaker 2: never lost his ability to create new environments, create new sounds,

1162
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:49,679
Speaker 2: and he certainly never lost his ability to to mix.

1163
01:09:51,040 --> 01:09:53,880
Speaker 2: And it was it's an amazing thing that that his

1164
01:09:54,280 --> 01:09:56,040
Speaker 2: you know, you could say he had great capacity, but

1165
01:09:56,080 --> 01:09:58,880
Speaker 2: he put you know, listen, you can't do what he

1166
01:09:59,040 --> 01:10:03,200
Speaker 2: does he did without being a very special creative individual,

1167
01:10:03,200 --> 01:10:12,479
Speaker 2: and he certainly was okay.

1168
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:17,240
Speaker 1: All these records had credits. We read them, studied them,

1169
01:10:18,760 --> 01:10:20,720
Speaker 1: you look at you know, at first it was just

1170
01:10:20,800 --> 01:10:23,599
Speaker 1: producer and engineer. Then at other times, and to this day,

1171
01:10:23,640 --> 01:10:26,320
Speaker 1: there's a third party who mixes the record gets a credit.

1172
01:10:27,280 --> 01:10:31,200
Speaker 1: I don't remember seeing his name in most of these credits.

1173
01:10:31,840 --> 01:10:36,320
Speaker 1: Is it that I missed them, or he was working uncredited,

1174
01:10:36,560 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 1: or he wasn't working as much as we think he was.

1175
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:45,000
Speaker 2: He was working a lot, but he was working. Remember,

1176
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:51,200
Speaker 2: they had an interesting business model. Stone tell us the

1177
01:10:51,240 --> 01:10:54,920
Speaker 2: story that he came up with his idea when he

1178
01:10:54,920 --> 01:10:57,280
Speaker 2: was in the dentist's office. How the dentist was hopping

1179
01:10:57,360 --> 01:11:01,400
Speaker 2: from room to room, right, and he had you know,

1180
01:11:01,479 --> 01:11:04,600
Speaker 2: they had the dental hygienus and the systems working in

1181
01:11:04,640 --> 01:11:07,360
Speaker 2: one room, and he had all these assistants. Stone said,

1182
01:11:07,400 --> 01:11:10,400
Speaker 2: you know what, everybody wants to work with Kelgrin, right,

1183
01:11:10,720 --> 01:11:12,599
Speaker 2: but I can't. You know, I can't have a multi

1184
01:11:12,640 --> 01:11:16,320
Speaker 2: room facility. I can't I can't clone Calgrin, right. So

1185
01:11:16,360 --> 01:11:18,400
Speaker 2: he had this idea that you know what, you'd go

1186
01:11:18,479 --> 01:11:22,559
Speaker 2: into a studio, the Kelgrin would start the session with

1187
01:11:22,640 --> 01:11:26,439
Speaker 2: an assistant and then he would just walk out and

1188
01:11:26,640 --> 01:11:29,760
Speaker 2: he'd leave that assistant to work with the artists. For

1189
01:11:29,840 --> 01:11:32,960
Speaker 2: the assistant, you know, might have been a very accomplished engineer.

1190
01:11:33,000 --> 01:11:35,120
Speaker 2: It might have been just a real runner or an

1191
01:11:35,160 --> 01:11:39,200
Speaker 2: assistant engineer or a tapeonk but Kelgrin knew that, you

1192
01:11:39,240 --> 01:11:43,120
Speaker 2: know what, He could bounce around from studio studio and

1193
01:11:43,240 --> 01:11:47,680
Speaker 2: sometimes different disappear entirely. You know, Royce of Kala was

1194
01:11:47,720 --> 01:11:51,320
Speaker 2: trained on that model as well. But kelgrind You know,

1195
01:11:51,439 --> 01:11:54,360
Speaker 2: Kelgrin has credits, you know, certainly, you know the Hendrix

1196
01:11:54,400 --> 01:11:56,200
Speaker 2: credits that we should talk about in a moment if

1197
01:11:56,200 --> 01:11:59,840
Speaker 2: you'd like. But you know, there are lots of Kelvin credits.

1198
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:04,040
Speaker 2: But but Record Plant couldn't have built the music factory

1199
01:12:05,040 --> 01:12:09,000
Speaker 2: that it became just on the back of Gary Calgrin.

1200
01:12:10,080 --> 01:12:13,719
Speaker 2: Calgrin trained these guys. He taught them a work ethic,

1201
01:12:14,160 --> 01:12:17,080
Speaker 2: but he also taught he also threw him into the

1202
01:12:17,120 --> 01:12:19,360
Speaker 2: deep end with some of the biggest artists of their time,

1203
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:23,719
Speaker 2: and he trained roy Zakala on the same the same gig.

1204
01:12:23,960 --> 01:12:27,280
Speaker 2: You know. That's that's the way they operate, you know,

1205
01:12:27,400 --> 01:12:30,080
Speaker 2: and it's something and years later you know that's what

1206
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 2: you know. Years later, Jimmy Iveen learned that gig bouncing

1207
01:12:32,960 --> 01:12:35,519
Speaker 2: between sessions with Patty Smith and Bruce Springsteen at the

1208
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:38,280
Speaker 2: same time. That's how you did it. He had really

1209
01:12:38,280 --> 01:12:40,000
Speaker 2: good assistance, could back you up.

1210
01:12:40,439 --> 01:12:43,400
Speaker 3: And you don't see Chris Chris Stone mentioned on any

1211
01:12:43,880 --> 01:12:48,519
Speaker 3: album credits either, but we both well we know that

1212
01:12:48,800 --> 01:12:52,439
Speaker 3: many of the greatest albums of all time would not

1213
01:12:52,560 --> 01:12:57,799
Speaker 3: have been finished without Chris Stone behind the scenes making

1214
01:12:57,840 --> 01:13:04,559
Speaker 3: sure that the studio operates correctly. Also, Stone knew how

1215
01:13:04,640 --> 01:13:11,479
Speaker 3: to protect the artists from any problems with the law.

1216
01:13:12,640 --> 01:13:17,799
Speaker 3: He had in San Francisco. He had the top Phil Ryan,

1217
01:13:17,840 --> 01:13:21,120
Speaker 3: who I interviewed the two of them together. These two

1218
01:13:21,160 --> 01:13:23,880
Speaker 3: guys were real characters, but Phil Ryan was the rock

1219
01:13:23,920 --> 01:13:27,920
Speaker 3: and roll lawyer. There were many artists that careers would

1220
01:13:27,920 --> 01:13:31,200
Speaker 3: have gone directly into the toilet if Phil didn't come

1221
01:13:31,200 --> 01:13:34,000
Speaker 3: in and kind of save the day and get them

1222
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:37,800
Speaker 3: out of town. While you know, people were trying to

1223
01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:43,000
Speaker 3: attack some of the artists and and and stars of

1224
01:13:43,080 --> 01:13:46,000
Speaker 3: the day in the sixties, So there was a big

1225
01:13:46,160 --> 01:13:51,719
Speaker 3: organization that was happening behind the scenes while the artists

1226
01:13:51,800 --> 01:13:56,280
Speaker 3: were working. Where Kelgrin was working, his magic, and Stone

1227
01:13:56,520 --> 01:14:00,759
Speaker 3: was making sure that everybody's safe.

1228
01:14:01,439 --> 01:14:05,280
Speaker 2: And and Kelpan's role also uh turned to sales, or

1229
01:14:05,320 --> 01:14:07,760
Speaker 2: remember he and sales in the record business, and the

1230
01:14:07,920 --> 01:14:09,920
Speaker 2: rock and roll business was different than going out and

1231
01:14:09,960 --> 01:14:13,080
Speaker 2: knocking on doors. You go to the go to the Rainbow,

1232
01:14:13,400 --> 01:14:16,240
Speaker 2: pulled greed up and you know, into the parking lot

1233
01:14:16,280 --> 01:14:18,840
Speaker 2: and spend an evening up in the Rainbow hanging out

1234
01:14:18,840 --> 01:14:21,479
Speaker 2: and drinking and partying until two a m. And then

1235
01:14:21,600 --> 01:14:24,280
Speaker 2: then when the Rainbow closed, he'd bring people back for

1236
01:14:24,320 --> 01:14:28,240
Speaker 2: an after party all night long at at at at

1237
01:14:28,320 --> 01:14:32,840
Speaker 2: Record Plan on Third Street. So it was his role

1238
01:14:33,160 --> 01:14:37,000
Speaker 2: was to bring not only spread the word about the

1239
01:14:37,040 --> 01:14:39,800
Speaker 2: magic that was going down down at the Record Plan,

1240
01:14:40,080 --> 01:14:42,599
Speaker 2: but to bring in the business. You know, when Jimmy

1241
01:14:42,720 --> 01:14:49,880
Speaker 2: left for Electric Electric Ladies Studios, Stone and Kelgrin you

1242
01:14:49,920 --> 01:14:53,880
Speaker 2: know had a void. They always needed a major artist

1243
01:14:53,960 --> 01:14:58,000
Speaker 2: to book a lot of time, right and thank goodness,

1244
01:14:58,240 --> 01:15:03,400
Speaker 2: Uh Stevie Wonder Uh left New York uh and moved

1245
01:15:03,400 --> 01:15:06,400
Speaker 2: out to la and needed a studio to work in,

1246
01:15:06,840 --> 01:15:09,960
Speaker 2: and and Stone went a Stone and Calgrin built studio

1247
01:15:10,080 --> 01:15:13,599
Speaker 2: B famous and probably the most famous Record Plant room

1248
01:15:13,680 --> 01:15:19,280
Speaker 2: because it did Stevie's entire classic period there. But they

1249
01:15:19,439 --> 01:15:22,080
Speaker 2: you know, Stone had had and Calgrin had a thing going.

1250
01:15:22,120 --> 01:15:24,880
Speaker 2: They said, you know, the joke was, hey, Calgrin, go

1251
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:27,599
Speaker 2: out on the street and find me another Hendrix. What

1252
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:30,400
Speaker 2: he meant was find me an artist who had money,

1253
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:33,599
Speaker 2: who could block book a studio for a year, who

1254
01:15:33,640 --> 01:15:36,120
Speaker 2: had no limits and how much money they want to spend,

1255
01:15:36,200 --> 01:15:38,400
Speaker 2: and just wanted to roll lots of tape because that

1256
01:15:38,439 --> 01:15:41,439
Speaker 2: tape was made them a lot of money. So you know,

1257
01:15:41,560 --> 01:15:46,280
Speaker 2: Kelgrin was out always finding another Hendrix. And not only

1258
01:15:46,320 --> 01:15:49,599
Speaker 2: did they find Stevie Wonder, but you know another art

1259
01:15:49,640 --> 01:15:53,800
Speaker 2: you know, Sly Stone became that other another Hendrix uh

1260
01:15:54,720 --> 01:15:58,000
Speaker 2: for the studio when they built Scelito up north in

1261
01:15:58,120 --> 01:16:02,000
Speaker 2: you know, near San Francisco. So Calgrin, you know, Kelgrin's

1262
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:04,479
Speaker 2: name is on quite a number of albums. But you know,

1263
01:16:04,960 --> 01:16:09,000
Speaker 2: his legacy is maybe not so much his own credits

1264
01:16:09,040 --> 01:16:12,800
Speaker 2: as the people he schooled and the records that his

1265
01:16:13,680 --> 01:16:17,360
Speaker 2: that were made, but based on his recording philosophy and

1266
01:16:17,400 --> 01:16:20,960
Speaker 2: these environments, creative environments that he created, that was his

1267
01:16:21,080 --> 01:16:23,640
Speaker 2: real that was his real trademark.

1268
01:16:24,120 --> 01:16:29,200
Speaker 1: Okay, tell us about the establishment of the record plant

1269
01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:35,000
Speaker 1: in Saucelito where sly Stone is the whale Fleewood Mac

1270
01:16:35,120 --> 01:16:40,240
Speaker 1: cuts rumors and they build this FORCCTA studio for sly.

1271
01:16:43,400 --> 01:16:49,040
Speaker 3: Right, Hey, whatever they whatever the artist wants, Okay, you're

1272
01:16:49,040 --> 01:16:51,800
Speaker 3: gonna get it. You want to pit, we'll do We'll

1273
01:16:51,840 --> 01:16:55,640
Speaker 3: do it. You want us to uh uh jackhammer at

1274
01:16:55,640 --> 01:16:59,360
Speaker 3: the bottom of the basement so that we can make it,

1275
01:16:59,479 --> 01:17:04,479
Speaker 3: make it. Okay, it's too bad the bay is flooding

1276
01:17:04,520 --> 01:17:07,120
Speaker 3: the bottom of the studio. That's okay, we can fix that.

1277
01:17:08,520 --> 01:17:12,960
Speaker 3: So that was the that was the scene in sALS Alito.

1278
01:17:13,080 --> 01:17:15,960
Speaker 3: And and Calgrin wanted boats too. That's where he had

1279
01:17:16,000 --> 01:17:20,280
Speaker 3: those cigarette boats, that those speedboats, so you know they

1280
01:17:20,360 --> 01:17:24,360
Speaker 3: could They had helicopters delivering people to the studio and

1281
01:17:24,479 --> 01:17:26,160
Speaker 3: once you got there, you want to go out on

1282
01:17:26,320 --> 01:17:30,679
Speaker 3: the boat. Yeah, you know, George Martin worked with America there.

1283
01:17:31,240 --> 01:17:36,800
Speaker 3: Georgia loved boats too. So whatever the artist wanted during

1284
01:17:36,840 --> 01:17:39,080
Speaker 3: Billable time, they got.

1285
01:17:41,000 --> 01:17:45,040
Speaker 2: The studio you're talking about, David Employs was called the pit,

1286
01:17:45,600 --> 01:17:49,080
Speaker 2: all right. And let me just back up a little

1287
01:17:49,080 --> 01:17:52,240
Speaker 2: bit for a second, because remember Jimmy left New York

1288
01:17:52,280 --> 01:17:55,720
Speaker 2: to build electrically his own studio, right, but before he

1289
01:17:56,040 --> 01:17:59,439
Speaker 2: before they built uh, he built a studio. Calgrin knew

1290
01:17:59,479 --> 01:18:02,840
Speaker 2: that Jimmy on his own room. So and they were

1291
01:18:02,920 --> 01:18:05,360
Speaker 2: they wanted to hold onto his business. They want in

1292
01:18:05,400 --> 01:18:07,559
Speaker 2: New York, so they built a studio up on the

1293
01:18:07,560 --> 01:18:09,760
Speaker 2: tenth floor. There was just an ordinary room in an

1294
01:18:09,880 --> 01:18:13,320
Speaker 2: ordinary office building. Jimmy was like an ordinary businessman. We'd

1295
01:18:13,360 --> 01:18:15,320
Speaker 2: get into the elevator in New York, go up to

1296
01:18:15,360 --> 01:18:19,080
Speaker 2: the tenth floor and work. Right. So they got this idea,

1297
01:18:19,160 --> 01:18:23,280
Speaker 2: we could start building studios for the artist all right

1298
01:18:23,360 --> 01:18:25,479
Speaker 2: and let him book it, let him pay for it,

1299
01:18:25,560 --> 01:18:27,800
Speaker 2: let him own it, but we would operate it for

1300
01:18:27,960 --> 01:18:30,040
Speaker 2: we would. They wouldn't have to own their own studio.

1301
01:18:30,080 --> 01:18:31,680
Speaker 2: It's a pain in the ass own a studio. Gott

1302
01:18:31,680 --> 01:18:34,120
Speaker 2: to hire people, gotta pay pay more, you gotta. You know,

1303
01:18:34,160 --> 01:18:36,799
Speaker 2: it's running a business. Watch an artists run a business

1304
01:18:36,800 --> 01:18:39,639
Speaker 2: when we can build it for them. Like I said,

1305
01:18:39,680 --> 01:18:42,040
Speaker 2: they built Studio B in La on Third Street for

1306
01:18:42,080 --> 01:18:46,280
Speaker 2: Stevie Wonder. It was a success. And and then they

1307
01:18:46,280 --> 01:18:48,120
Speaker 2: had their next whale as you call them, and they

1308
01:18:48,160 --> 01:18:51,679
Speaker 2: had they were building this building up north in Sauce Alito.

1309
01:18:51,760 --> 01:18:56,599
Speaker 2: Now Sauce Alito was their first attempt at a resort studio.

1310
01:18:56,760 --> 01:19:00,360
Speaker 2: If La got crazy and La got insane, you can

1311
01:19:00,400 --> 01:19:02,160
Speaker 2: get out of town and go up to this laid

1312
01:19:02,160 --> 01:19:05,880
Speaker 2: back area in Sacelito, right by the by the by

1313
01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:10,200
Speaker 2: the house boats by the bay. And Sly they had

1314
01:19:10,240 --> 01:19:14,679
Speaker 2: they had Sly as a customer. And you know, they

1315
01:19:14,760 --> 01:19:18,000
Speaker 2: they realized remember Sly had had a house for a

1316
01:19:18,080 --> 01:19:20,960
Speaker 2: time in the in bel Air, you know, with a

1317
01:19:21,000 --> 01:19:24,200
Speaker 2: studio in his house, right, you know, so he was

1318
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:27,560
Speaker 2: not against or you know, new to the idea of

1319
01:19:27,600 --> 01:19:30,360
Speaker 2: having his own studio. But Sly, being Sly, had a

1320
01:19:30,479 --> 01:19:34,160
Speaker 2: unique concept. All right, what if we could build a

1321
01:19:34,200 --> 01:19:37,160
Speaker 2: studio that was a hole in the ground instead of

1322
01:19:37,160 --> 01:19:40,000
Speaker 2: being a room on the same level. We'll dig a

1323
01:19:40,080 --> 01:19:43,120
Speaker 2: giant ditch in the in the place and at the

1324
01:19:43,200 --> 01:19:46,320
Speaker 2: bottom of the of the of this giant hole, we'll

1325
01:19:46,320 --> 01:19:49,760
Speaker 2: put this put the recording console, We'll put the the

1326
01:19:49,800 --> 01:19:55,360
Speaker 2: tape machines and around, moving around above the artists, the

1327
01:19:55,360 --> 01:19:57,960
Speaker 2: the the musicians would sit on ledges and play the

1328
01:19:58,000 --> 01:20:02,679
Speaker 2: guitars and hang out in and perform. So like David,

1329
01:20:03,360 --> 01:20:07,320
Speaker 2: you know, said before, they jackhammered the floor in the

1330
01:20:07,360 --> 01:20:10,280
Speaker 2: in the studio and Uh and Saucelito the water from

1331
01:20:10,320 --> 01:20:13,439
Speaker 2: the base started pouring in. They pumped it out and

1332
01:20:13,520 --> 01:20:16,880
Speaker 2: they built the pit. Now the pit was based on

1333
01:20:16,880 --> 01:20:20,000
Speaker 2: on Sly's idea for the for some for a studio

1334
01:20:20,080 --> 01:20:22,679
Speaker 2: where the artists could be on the on the below

1335
01:20:23,080 --> 01:20:26,679
Speaker 2: the performers. Now we asked Tom Fly who was Who

1336
01:20:26,760 --> 01:20:30,880
Speaker 2: was sly Stones engineer for Fresh and one of the

1337
01:20:30,880 --> 01:20:35,640
Speaker 2: more brilliant engineers at Record Plant. And Tom Fly is

1338
01:20:35,680 --> 01:20:38,240
Speaker 2: another one of those unsung heroes of the Record Plant

1339
01:20:38,240 --> 01:20:42,080
Speaker 2: that we could talk about. But I said to Fly,

1340
01:20:42,200 --> 01:20:44,880
Speaker 2: what was Sly's idea behind it? He said, let me

1341
01:20:44,880 --> 01:20:47,080
Speaker 2: tell you how I where he came that came from?

1342
01:20:47,479 --> 01:20:51,439
Speaker 2: He said, one day, one day Sly told him that

1343
01:20:51,479 --> 01:20:54,400
Speaker 2: he wanted, uh, he wanted rhinestones on the brim of

1344
01:20:54,439 --> 01:20:57,960
Speaker 2: a hat. Right. He had this concept that you know,

1345
01:20:58,200 --> 01:21:02,360
Speaker 2: for beautiful rhinestones the deck or hat. But unlike everybody

1346
01:21:02,400 --> 01:21:05,400
Speaker 2: else who were to put the rhinestones on the top

1347
01:21:05,439 --> 01:21:08,719
Speaker 2: of the hat, Sly had a unique idea. He wanted

1348
01:21:08,720 --> 01:21:12,760
Speaker 2: the rhinestones underneath the brim. He wanted to so that

1349
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:16,360
Speaker 2: the hat was playing but underneath looking so he could

1350
01:21:16,360 --> 01:21:18,799
Speaker 2: look up. And I said to five, what was his concept?

1351
01:21:18,800 --> 01:21:21,599
Speaker 2: He said, if I'm gonna put rhinestones on a hat.

1352
01:21:21,960 --> 01:21:24,599
Speaker 2: I'm the one who wants to see the rhinestone, right,

1353
01:21:24,680 --> 01:21:28,240
Speaker 2: not everybody else. So I had the concept of looking

1354
01:21:28,360 --> 01:21:31,679
Speaker 2: up right, and that was Fly's well, that's what Fly

1355
01:21:31,880 --> 01:21:35,280
Speaker 2: said to us about. That was the genesis idea of

1356
01:21:35,280 --> 01:21:38,760
Speaker 2: that studio. Now, by the way, that studio sucked, right.

1357
01:21:38,840 --> 01:21:41,120
Speaker 2: That room was funny funk. It was a it was

1358
01:21:41,160 --> 01:21:43,639
Speaker 2: a it was a pit. It was a pit, literally

1359
01:21:43,680 --> 01:21:45,920
Speaker 2: a right, and it's you know, it was a money pit.

1360
01:21:46,360 --> 01:21:48,840
Speaker 2: Stone called it, you know, a white elephant. It was.

1361
01:21:48,880 --> 01:21:52,759
Speaker 2: It just said it was acoustically not a sound idea. Yeah,

1362
01:21:53,040 --> 01:21:56,160
Speaker 2: you know. Bill Wyman worked there, Van Morrison worked there,

1363
01:21:56,160 --> 01:21:59,759
Speaker 2: Al Cooper worked there. You know, Paris worked there. People

1364
01:21:59,800 --> 01:22:02,240
Speaker 2: were then. They couldn't get a hit out of the pit, right,

1365
01:22:02,960 --> 01:22:05,559
Speaker 2: sly couldn't even get a hit out of the pit.

1366
01:22:06,479 --> 01:22:09,040
Speaker 2: There was only one There's only one artist who could

1367
01:22:09,120 --> 01:22:11,240
Speaker 2: get a hit out of the pit, and that was

1368
01:22:11,320 --> 01:22:15,240
Speaker 2: believe it or not, Stevie Nicks. Right, So Stevie Nicks

1369
01:22:15,240 --> 01:22:17,679
Speaker 2: and the Fleetwood mac are working as a sauce leader during

1370
01:22:17,680 --> 01:22:20,160
Speaker 2: the famous rumor session. Then there's a whole book written

1371
01:22:20,200 --> 01:22:23,840
Speaker 2: on rumors up up at Sauce Alito by Ken kela

1372
01:22:24,439 --> 01:22:28,080
Speaker 2: uh And and there's a Broadway play that knocked off

1373
01:22:28,120 --> 01:22:32,000
Speaker 2: that story called Stereophonic, Right, but you know so but

1374
01:22:33,200 --> 01:22:35,479
Speaker 2: so they're looking for you know, Stevie has an idea

1375
01:22:35,520 --> 01:22:38,120
Speaker 2: for a song. She's breaking up with Lindsey Bucket Min's

1376
01:22:38,360 --> 01:22:42,559
Speaker 2: it's everybody's heard about the legends of the drugs and

1377
01:22:42,600 --> 01:22:45,439
Speaker 2: the breakups and the craziness of rumor sessions of record

1378
01:22:45,439 --> 01:22:48,760
Speaker 2: plant Sauce Alito, and she's, you know, she's getting away

1379
01:22:48,760 --> 01:22:50,960
Speaker 2: from the craziness of the band. So she wanders around

1380
01:22:50,960 --> 01:22:54,400
Speaker 2: the studio and she comes across the pit, right, and

1381
01:22:54,439 --> 01:22:57,360
Speaker 2: she Now the pit was not only the studio, but

1382
01:22:57,600 --> 01:23:02,200
Speaker 2: Calgrin built a sly of bed off the side of

1383
01:23:02,240 --> 01:23:05,160
Speaker 2: the pit. Now that bedroom had curtains hanging down with

1384
01:23:05,200 --> 01:23:07,519
Speaker 2: the big lips on it that looked like the rolling stone,

1385
01:23:07,800 --> 01:23:10,160
Speaker 2: you know, tongue and lips. You go in, and there

1386
01:23:10,200 --> 01:23:13,880
Speaker 2: was a big bed with a big you know, velvet bedspread,

1387
01:23:14,160 --> 01:23:16,280
Speaker 2: and there was a patch base so he could hang

1388
01:23:16,320 --> 01:23:18,679
Speaker 2: out and play and patch into the studio from there.

1389
01:23:19,000 --> 01:23:21,920
Speaker 2: And there was even an escape hatch so he could

1390
01:23:22,120 --> 01:23:24,280
Speaker 2: escape if they got it in problems which came in

1391
01:23:24,320 --> 01:23:29,480
Speaker 2: handy later on, So Stevie Nicks walks into a Sly's bedroom,

1392
01:23:29,800 --> 01:23:32,800
Speaker 2: gets on the bed, you know, crosses her legs, has

1393
01:23:32,800 --> 01:23:35,360
Speaker 2: a little keyboard, has a little tape machine, and within

1394
01:23:35,439 --> 01:23:37,760
Speaker 2: ten minutes, right, the biggest hit that came out of

1395
01:23:37,760 --> 01:23:41,200
Speaker 2: the pit. She wrote Dreams on the on that bed,

1396
01:23:41,360 --> 01:23:44,599
Speaker 2: on slies bedspread in the pit. One of the greatest

1397
01:23:44,600 --> 01:23:47,320
Speaker 2: songs of all time and certainly Fleetwood Max's biggest hit.

1398
01:23:47,479 --> 01:23:50,639
Speaker 1: Okay, ultimately was sold. It was called the Plant. It's

1399
01:23:50,640 --> 01:23:54,680
Speaker 1: still operating. Does the pit still exist now?

1400
01:23:54,720 --> 01:23:57,519
Speaker 2: The pit's long ago was filled and it's not in

1401
01:23:57,560 --> 01:23:59,160
Speaker 2: the new studio, it's gone.

1402
01:24:00,080 --> 01:24:03,880
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to la. You tell a couple

1403
01:24:03,920 --> 01:24:09,600
Speaker 1: of Phil Spector stories, can you, you know, give my

1404
01:24:09,680 --> 01:24:10,679
Speaker 1: audience a taste.

1405
01:24:12,240 --> 01:24:14,840
Speaker 3: Well, the word was if Phil walks in with a

1406
01:24:14,840 --> 01:24:19,559
Speaker 3: big Manila envelope and it's heavy, he's carrying a gun.

1407
01:24:20,000 --> 01:24:22,120
Speaker 3: And he was known for this. Sometimes he would come

1408
01:24:22,160 --> 01:24:26,240
Speaker 3: in with like, you know, a like a Western star,

1409
01:24:26,439 --> 01:24:33,560
Speaker 3: with matching silver pistols, with ivory things. You know, that

1410
01:24:33,920 --> 01:24:37,000
Speaker 3: weren't the only guns that most of the time they

1411
01:24:37,120 --> 01:24:40,840
Speaker 3: checked their guns at the desk after you got after

1412
01:24:40,920 --> 01:24:45,760
Speaker 3: buzz me in Gably and please leave your guns at

1413
01:24:45,800 --> 01:24:52,240
Speaker 3: the desk before you go into session. We interviewed many,

1414
01:24:52,320 --> 01:24:57,760
Speaker 3: many people about the famous gun shot by Phil Spector

1415
01:24:57,960 --> 01:25:03,320
Speaker 3: at Record Plant, at least ten stories, and they none

1416
01:25:03,320 --> 01:25:07,040
Speaker 3: of them coincide with each other. It's like the Raschamon

1417
01:25:07,200 --> 01:25:13,120
Speaker 3: movie from Kurosawa. Everybody had a different story. The culmination

1418
01:25:13,360 --> 01:25:15,800
Speaker 3: is that when they finally tore the studio down in

1419
01:25:15,880 --> 01:25:22,880
Speaker 3: eighty five, Marty interviewed one of the engineers who was

1420
01:25:22,960 --> 01:25:27,000
Speaker 3: responsible for dismantling the studio, Marty, why don't you tell

1421
01:25:27,080 --> 01:25:30,640
Speaker 3: them where the bullets ended up? Because there were bullets.

1422
01:25:31,400 --> 01:25:34,360
Speaker 2: There were people who said that, you know. Basically the

1423
01:25:34,439 --> 01:25:38,400
Speaker 2: story is Phil Spector almost killed John Lennon seven years

1424
01:25:38,439 --> 01:25:41,720
Speaker 2: before he'd ultimately was shot to death, all right, and

1425
01:25:41,760 --> 01:25:44,120
Speaker 2: that and he almost killed them the night one night

1426
01:25:44,360 --> 01:25:46,960
Speaker 2: during the lost weekend when he with Phil and he

1427
01:25:47,000 --> 01:25:49,559
Speaker 2: would work on a rock and roll album in La

1428
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:52,760
Speaker 2: at Record Plane. As David said, it was like a

1429
01:25:52,840 --> 01:25:55,960
Speaker 2: Raschamon story, a million different stories. Even some people said

1430
01:25:56,000 --> 01:25:59,559
Speaker 2: it never happened. May Pang said that she saw you know,

1431
01:26:00,600 --> 01:26:03,880
Speaker 2: John saying he was holding his ears. Other people said

1432
01:26:04,000 --> 01:26:07,320
Speaker 2: that Phil Spector was in the toilet. Others said they

1433
01:26:07,320 --> 01:26:11,200
Speaker 2: were in the chacuzzie together. But years later, uh and

1434
01:26:11,240 --> 01:26:12,960
Speaker 2: we told all the stories. We figured, you know what,

1435
01:26:13,160 --> 01:26:15,280
Speaker 2: We're not gonna tell one story. We let everybody's story.

1436
01:26:15,600 --> 01:26:17,960
Speaker 2: So and we told all these different stories. It's no

1437
01:26:18,120 --> 01:26:22,960
Speaker 2: but one thing was clear. A gunshot went out. John

1438
01:26:23,000 --> 01:26:26,200
Speaker 2: and Phil were together in one of the rooms, and

1439
01:26:26,320 --> 01:26:29,519
Speaker 2: uh and and but nobody could find the bullets. The

1440
01:26:29,520 --> 01:26:32,160
Speaker 2: bullet was gone. There was no bullets. But years later,

1441
01:26:32,280 --> 01:26:35,040
Speaker 2: the students Stone that they were tearing down the studio

1442
01:26:35,040 --> 01:26:38,439
Speaker 2: they were moving, and Stone had this beautiful wood paneling

1443
01:26:38,479 --> 01:26:42,360
Speaker 2: in his office and they and the carpenters were tearing

1444
01:26:42,400 --> 01:26:44,719
Speaker 2: down the tearing the wood because they were they wanted

1445
01:26:44,720 --> 01:26:47,360
Speaker 2: to save that wood and reuse it. And ultimately one

1446
01:26:47,360 --> 01:26:49,120
Speaker 2: of the carpenters took it home and put it in

1447
01:26:49,160 --> 01:26:51,839
Speaker 2: his garage. And years later, when he was building another studio,

1448
01:26:52,200 --> 01:26:55,760
Speaker 2: he said, I've got some great wood that that we

1449
01:26:55,760 --> 01:26:58,920
Speaker 2: can use for the studio. So he's took he took

1450
01:26:58,920 --> 01:27:01,519
Speaker 2: out a plane and started planing the wood, and you know,

1451
01:27:01,760 --> 01:27:03,280
Speaker 2: and doing the work on the wood, and all of

1452
01:27:03,320 --> 01:27:05,560
Speaker 2: a sudden, he hits something, and he hits and he

1453
01:27:05,640 --> 01:27:07,840
Speaker 2: hits another thing, and he digs into the wood, and

1454
01:27:07,880 --> 01:27:11,679
Speaker 2: there are these slugs, bullet slugs that were that were

1455
01:27:11,680 --> 01:27:14,559
Speaker 2: preserved all those years later in this wood from stones

1456
01:27:14,840 --> 01:27:19,400
Speaker 2: from Stone's office. So, you know, the important thing about

1457
01:27:19,439 --> 01:27:21,360
Speaker 2: John Lennon and I think it's you know and Phil

1458
01:27:21,400 --> 01:27:26,880
Speaker 2: Spector is the dydemic of Phil Spector and John are

1459
01:27:27,000 --> 01:27:29,879
Speaker 2: very much part of the you know, the the legacy

1460
01:27:29,920 --> 01:27:33,920
Speaker 2: of record Plan. John and Phil worked together on Imagine

1461
01:27:33,920 --> 01:27:38,040
Speaker 2: overdubs July fourth weekend in nineteen seventy one at Record

1462
01:27:38,080 --> 01:27:45,560
Speaker 2: Plant with Roy Sakala, his engineer, Shelleyakis, and Jack Douglas. Yeah,

1463
01:27:45,680 --> 01:27:49,920
Speaker 2: he Phil was there worked with George Harrison on on

1464
01:27:49,960 --> 01:27:55,040
Speaker 2: the Record Plant's first remote concert for Begladesh uh And

1465
01:27:55,040 --> 01:27:59,920
Speaker 2: and Phil went out to La with John when he moved.

1466
01:28:00,280 --> 01:28:04,240
Speaker 2: Began the last weekend and they started working at A

1467
01:28:04,360 --> 01:28:06,920
Speaker 2: and M. Now it's interesting if you look on Facebook,

1468
01:28:06,920 --> 01:28:10,040
Speaker 2: it's funny this week there's there's this famous console at

1469
01:28:10,080 --> 01:28:14,640
Speaker 2: A and M that was just just being preserved. Is

1470
01:28:15,000 --> 01:28:18,080
Speaker 2: go on the A and M alumni site on Facebook

1471
01:28:18,080 --> 01:28:20,080
Speaker 2: and you'll see this console was just was being put

1472
01:28:20,120 --> 01:28:25,040
Speaker 2: in storage, this famous Hako console. And John and John

1473
01:28:25,479 --> 01:28:28,800
Speaker 2: and Roy and Phil Spector who are working on the

1474
01:28:28,840 --> 01:28:31,680
Speaker 2: rock and roll Alem at A and M and suddenly,

1475
01:28:31,920 --> 01:28:36,160
Speaker 2: you know, uh, they get thrown out. There was years

1476
01:28:36,240 --> 01:28:41,719
Speaker 2: later there was a letter from John uh that said

1477
01:28:41,720 --> 01:28:45,639
Speaker 2: what happened? Explain what happened? That basically, Keith Moon peed

1478
01:28:45,760 --> 01:28:51,320
Speaker 2: on the console and then pissed off the management at AM.

1479
01:28:51,360 --> 01:28:54,160
Speaker 2: They threw him out. Right, who's gonna take you know,

1480
01:28:54,240 --> 01:28:56,559
Speaker 2: an artist who peed on one of these most expensive

1481
01:28:56,600 --> 01:28:59,680
Speaker 2: consoles and call and and by the way, gunshots also went.

1482
01:28:59,800 --> 01:29:01,840
Speaker 2: We're the guns were flying at A and AM also

1483
01:29:01,880 --> 01:29:04,760
Speaker 2: those days. So who was going to take these maniacs? Right?

1484
01:29:05,439 --> 01:29:07,439
Speaker 2: Only the record plant would take them. So they moved

1485
01:29:07,479 --> 01:29:10,800
Speaker 2: everybody over the record plant and uh and while John

1486
01:29:10,920 --> 01:29:14,720
Speaker 2: was there, Phil and he worked on the worked on

1487
01:29:14,720 --> 01:29:17,599
Speaker 2: on the rock and Roll album until Phil flip flipped

1488
01:29:17,600 --> 01:29:21,799
Speaker 2: out and stole the tapes and disappeared, and John stayed

1489
01:29:21,800 --> 01:29:24,040
Speaker 2: there working with Roy and Jimmy. I been with Harry

1490
01:29:24,120 --> 01:29:30,400
Speaker 2: Nielsen on Pussycats. But uh, the Phil Spector story of

1491
01:29:30,800 --> 01:29:34,160
Speaker 2: the gunshots is legendary, and it definitely happened because we've

1492
01:29:34,200 --> 01:29:42,400
Speaker 2: you know, we know the guy who found the bullets.

1493
01:29:45,400 --> 01:29:49,960
Speaker 1: Okay, another story that's well detailed is Stevie Wonder you

1494
01:29:50,080 --> 01:29:57,120
Speaker 1: go into Tonto the original megasynthesizer, Robert Marklof and Malcolm Cecil.

1495
01:29:57,520 --> 01:30:01,280
Speaker 1: I've heard Marklos's version. You would do a better take

1496
01:30:01,320 --> 01:30:05,200
Speaker 1: in the book of how Stevie actually meets them. I

1497
01:30:05,320 --> 01:30:09,120
Speaker 1: want to hear what your understanding of why the ultimate

1498
01:30:09,240 --> 01:30:13,400
Speaker 1: rupture between those two entities after a number of albums.

1499
01:30:13,920 --> 01:30:15,280
Speaker 2: You want to take debby, you want me to go.

1500
01:30:16,600 --> 01:30:22,320
Speaker 3: Look, I've I'm friends with Bob. Marty interviewed Malcolm before

1501
01:30:22,320 --> 01:30:28,439
Speaker 3: he passed away. It's an it's an uncomfortable conversation. Yeah,

1502
01:30:28,479 --> 01:30:31,800
Speaker 3: you take it and I'll back listen. It's rock and roll.

1503
01:30:31,880 --> 01:30:35,080
Speaker 3: So it all comes down to money, right, Well that's told.

1504
01:30:36,880 --> 01:30:40,000
Speaker 3: But but Mark and Bob's a friend, and we love Bob.

1505
01:30:40,040 --> 01:30:41,240
Speaker 3: We just saw him in a book signing.

1506
01:30:41,280 --> 01:30:43,479
Speaker 2: And you know, Bob's you know, one of the great

1507
01:30:43,479 --> 01:30:46,160
Speaker 2: engineers and produce of all time, and and and he's

1508
01:30:46,479 --> 01:30:49,719
Speaker 2: he's a friend. But he and he and Malcolm were

1509
01:30:50,000 --> 01:30:53,559
Speaker 2: an interesting, uh partnership, you know, the agreed and deduct

1510
01:30:53,560 --> 01:30:55,960
Speaker 2: Well they were their own, they were their own relationship, right,

1511
01:30:56,320 --> 01:30:58,559
Speaker 2: So let me let me take you take you through it. Right,

1512
01:30:58,960 --> 01:31:02,320
Speaker 2: they're in New York, Jim, you know, they're working at

1513
01:31:02,479 --> 01:31:06,599
Speaker 2: Electric Lady studios, filling Electric Lady after Jimmy Jimmy died

1514
01:31:07,280 --> 01:31:11,799
Speaker 2: and filling the time and uh and that's when uh,

1515
01:31:12,280 --> 01:31:17,400
Speaker 2: Malcolm shows, uh shows Stevie the magic of the synthesizer.

1516
01:31:17,520 --> 01:31:21,599
Speaker 2: Now the synthesizer is not just an ordinary synthesizer. He's

1517
01:31:21,680 --> 01:31:24,240
Speaker 2: come up with this concept that he concludes together all

1518
01:31:24,320 --> 01:31:27,479
Speaker 2: these odd pieces and make it work. So it's so

1519
01:31:27,520 --> 01:31:31,960
Speaker 2: it's almost created an electronics orchestra. But it took took

1520
01:31:32,080 --> 01:31:35,400
Speaker 2: basically three people to operate it. It took the musician

1521
01:31:35,479 --> 01:31:38,040
Speaker 2: sitting in a keyboard, you know. And it took two

1522
01:31:38,120 --> 01:31:42,800
Speaker 2: guys Malcolm and Margolf and Bob too uh to with

1523
01:31:42,880 --> 01:31:46,679
Speaker 2: a patch bay plugging everything in. Uh. They at while

1524
01:31:46,720 --> 01:31:49,639
Speaker 2: they were an Electric Lady, they were they they worked

1525
01:31:49,760 --> 01:31:54,840
Speaker 2: on on this and John Stork, who designed Electric Lady

1526
01:31:54,840 --> 01:32:00,000
Speaker 2: for Jimmy, built this magnificent this magnificent cabinetry for the synthesize.

1527
01:32:00,760 --> 01:32:03,720
Speaker 2: It only had one major problem. The major problem was

1528
01:32:03,800 --> 01:32:06,800
Speaker 2: no studio could house the damn thing. It was too big.

1529
01:32:07,240 --> 01:32:10,720
Speaker 2: They when Stevie wanted to move out to lay they

1530
01:32:11,080 --> 01:32:14,040
Speaker 2: moved in with Crystal for a time. But you know,

1531
01:32:14,160 --> 01:32:18,320
Speaker 2: nobody wanted to book a studio with you know, with

1532
01:32:18,400 --> 01:32:21,880
Speaker 2: this monstrous synthesizer, the Stevie that made all those early

1533
01:32:21,960 --> 01:32:25,599
Speaker 2: sounds of the classic period, but you couldn't house it.

1534
01:32:26,040 --> 01:32:31,759
Speaker 2: So they realized they had a book a studio around

1535
01:32:31,800 --> 01:32:35,280
Speaker 2: the clock. Magic is Chris Stone's ears. Remember, you know,

1536
01:32:35,600 --> 01:32:37,760
Speaker 2: I love a block book and I want to I

1537
01:32:37,760 --> 01:32:40,240
Speaker 2: want my new I want another Jimmy. Well, you know,

1538
01:32:40,920 --> 01:32:46,200
Speaker 2: Malcolm and Bob and Stevie became the next artist. So

1539
01:32:47,000 --> 01:32:50,360
Speaker 2: they they moved over to record Plant, and and and

1540
01:32:50,720 --> 01:32:54,400
Speaker 2: Stone built, you know, Stone let them build in their

1541
01:32:54,439 --> 01:33:02,200
Speaker 2: own studio, studio be a very mundane, ordinary record recording

1542
01:33:02,240 --> 01:33:06,080
Speaker 2: studio that just so happened to do inter visions, talking books,

1543
01:33:06,080 --> 01:33:09,000
Speaker 2: fulfilling this much of songs in the key of life, right,

1544
01:33:09,280 --> 01:33:12,000
Speaker 2: some of the most magical records of all time during

1545
01:33:12,000 --> 01:33:15,000
Speaker 2: that period those four years they were working there. You know,

1546
01:33:15,160 --> 01:33:19,000
Speaker 2: there were there were almost three hundred songs in the

1547
01:33:19,080 --> 01:33:23,280
Speaker 2: in the archive there all right, So the magical time

1548
01:33:23,360 --> 01:33:26,000
Speaker 2: for them, and it was a force. It was really

1549
01:33:26,040 --> 01:33:29,639
Speaker 2: four partners. It was Stevie the artist, It was Malcolm

1550
01:33:29,640 --> 01:33:33,200
Speaker 2: who built Tonto, and Bob Whew who taught him how

1551
01:33:33,200 --> 01:33:36,280
Speaker 2: to manipulate it and make these great sounds, right, and

1552
01:33:36,360 --> 01:33:39,160
Speaker 2: studio b was the room. It had the magic.

1553
01:33:39,360 --> 01:33:42,240
Speaker 3: It was it was it was a quad room. We

1554
01:33:42,280 --> 01:33:45,320
Speaker 3: should mention that quad was the latest thing. And this

1555
01:33:45,400 --> 01:33:47,479
Speaker 3: is the first time that Steve could be in the

1556
01:33:47,520 --> 01:33:52,000
Speaker 3: middle of all the music and with the help of

1557
01:33:52,800 --> 01:33:57,880
Speaker 3: Margolev and Cecil, the three of them operating it. He

1558
01:33:57,960 --> 01:34:02,040
Speaker 3: could think of things and those guys as a team

1559
01:34:02,600 --> 01:34:05,120
Speaker 3: could create the sound that was in his mind.

1560
01:34:07,600 --> 01:34:10,799
Speaker 2: But they so they were making hits. But remember Bob

1561
01:34:11,520 --> 01:34:13,479
Speaker 2: and Malcolm went out the greatest business that they do

1562
01:34:13,640 --> 01:34:16,400
Speaker 2: have a Stone. You know, they didn't exactly have the

1563
01:34:16,439 --> 01:34:19,880
Speaker 2: best deal. They had no points. You know, they had

1564
01:34:19,920 --> 01:34:22,400
Speaker 2: a good gig. They were making money. But then you

1565
01:34:22,400 --> 01:34:25,960
Speaker 2: know what uh they were, you know, things were coming apart.

1566
01:34:26,080 --> 01:34:29,600
Speaker 2: Now Malcolm and I've unfortunately before he passed away, I

1567
01:34:29,640 --> 01:34:32,639
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time on the interviewing Malcolm. Malcolm

1568
01:34:32,680 --> 01:34:35,400
Speaker 2: was a genius. He was a bass player from England.

1569
01:34:35,439 --> 01:34:38,680
Speaker 2: Worked with Jeff Beck work with the Rolling Stones, did

1570
01:34:39,080 --> 01:34:42,679
Speaker 2: you know, did some amazing work, you know, both both

1571
01:34:43,439 --> 01:34:45,479
Speaker 2: working an orchestra as well as rock and roll, and

1572
01:34:45,560 --> 01:34:49,000
Speaker 2: built and was was an inventor and built Tonto. But

1573
01:34:49,040 --> 01:34:53,280
Speaker 2: it could be a little difficult and uh he started pushing,

1574
01:34:53,680 --> 01:34:57,479
Speaker 2: you know, pushing Stevie a little bit hard. Remember Stevie,

1575
01:34:58,120 --> 01:35:00,880
Speaker 2: Stevie was very rich at the time, had made some

1576
01:35:00,960 --> 01:35:05,280
Speaker 2: really good deals with the with the motown and UH

1577
01:35:05,520 --> 01:35:08,519
Speaker 2: and he you know, at one point, you know, he

1578
01:35:08,640 --> 01:35:13,280
Speaker 2: started pushing Stevie to make, you know, to sing in

1579
01:35:13,320 --> 01:35:16,320
Speaker 2: a way that he wasn't comfortable, to make him sound angry.

1580
01:35:16,360 --> 01:35:18,559
Speaker 2: He was just pushing him, trying to make him angry.

1581
01:35:18,600 --> 01:35:20,519
Speaker 2: So he said, I'm not getting the sounds out of

1582
01:35:20,520 --> 01:35:23,639
Speaker 2: He started he started pulling the plug on him every

1583
01:35:23,640 --> 01:35:25,920
Speaker 2: single time, and he and more he pulled the pulled

1584
01:35:25,920 --> 01:35:27,840
Speaker 2: the plug on and the more Stevie get pissed off,

1585
01:35:27,960 --> 01:35:31,479
Speaker 2: and the more Malcolm got got the sound and got

1586
01:35:31,479 --> 01:35:34,000
Speaker 2: the vocal out of Stevie that he wanted, but it

1587
01:35:34,200 --> 01:35:38,559
Speaker 2: left it left damage between the relationship and UH, and

1588
01:35:38,840 --> 01:35:41,479
Speaker 2: you know, they started fighting, and it was really they

1589
01:35:41,520 --> 01:35:44,040
Speaker 2: started They said, you know what, our deal sucks. We

1590
01:35:44,080 --> 01:35:46,800
Speaker 2: don't have enough deal here. We need we need we

1591
01:35:46,840 --> 01:35:48,840
Speaker 2: need to make sure we're cut in on these three

1592
01:35:48,920 --> 01:35:51,000
Speaker 2: hundred songs. We got to make sure we're making some

1593
01:35:51,040 --> 01:35:53,519
Speaker 2: real money. So they hired a lawyer and they got

1594
01:35:53,560 --> 01:35:55,600
Speaker 2: they went they went to and they went to the

1595
01:35:55,640 --> 01:35:59,000
Speaker 2: match with Stevie. Uh, they spent about fifty grand I

1596
01:35:59,040 --> 01:36:01,200
Speaker 2: think in those days, and with lawyers, which is a

1597
01:36:01,200 --> 01:36:04,160
Speaker 2: big money in those days. And and you know what,

1598
01:36:04,840 --> 01:36:07,960
Speaker 2: Malcolm goes to Bob and says, this only way we're

1599
01:36:07,960 --> 01:36:11,799
Speaker 2: going to get the deal is if we take the tapes. Remember,

1600
01:36:12,160 --> 01:36:14,880
Speaker 2: the tapes in those d's were everything, right, They weren't

1601
01:36:14,880 --> 01:36:17,360
Speaker 2: digital files, they weren't all over the internet. If you

1602
01:36:17,479 --> 01:36:19,839
Speaker 2: had the tapes, you had the masters, you had everything.

1603
01:36:20,240 --> 01:36:22,800
Speaker 2: You know. Phil Spector stole the rope rock and roll

1604
01:36:22,880 --> 01:36:25,680
Speaker 2: tapes from John Lennon and held them out, held them

1605
01:36:25,680 --> 01:36:28,639
Speaker 2: out so he could get Capital Records to pay him off.

1606
01:36:28,720 --> 01:36:32,519
Speaker 2: Right for him, he wanted to protect those tapes. Frank

1607
01:36:32,640 --> 01:36:36,599
Speaker 2: Zappa used to travel with his tapes. Sly Stone had

1608
01:36:36,600 --> 01:36:40,960
Speaker 2: a Toyota jeep where he kept his entire archive with

1609
01:36:41,240 --> 01:36:44,280
Speaker 2: armed guards. Right, so you held onto the tapes. Well,

1610
01:36:45,080 --> 01:36:49,799
Speaker 2: those days, Malcolm and Bob had the keys to the archive.

1611
01:36:49,840 --> 01:36:52,240
Speaker 2: So Malcolm was Malcolm said, all right, the only way

1612
01:36:52,280 --> 01:36:54,639
Speaker 2: we're going to get our deals is is holding onto

1613
01:36:54,680 --> 01:36:59,240
Speaker 2: those tapes. Right. Well, before they were able to do that,

1614
01:36:59,680 --> 01:37:04,799
Speaker 2: guess what, Stevie's guys cleared out the tapes and Malcolm

1615
01:37:04,880 --> 01:37:08,640
Speaker 2: went crazy. He blamed Stone, and Stone denied it, but

1616
01:37:08,880 --> 01:37:10,840
Speaker 2: who knows what really happened, But he denied that. He

1617
01:37:10,920 --> 01:37:14,000
Speaker 2: gave it, gave Motown or Stevie's management the keys to

1618
01:37:14,040 --> 01:37:16,000
Speaker 2: the tape, but those tapes were gone. He lost the

1619
01:37:16,240 --> 01:37:19,320
Speaker 2: lost the leverage, right. So Malcolm said, all right, we're

1620
01:37:19,320 --> 01:37:22,120
Speaker 2: done with Stevie Wonder And Bob said, are you sure

1621
01:37:22,160 --> 01:37:23,960
Speaker 2: we want to be done with Stevie Wonder. We're on

1622
01:37:24,000 --> 01:37:25,960
Speaker 2: a ride here, man. He said, we're done with him.

1623
01:37:25,960 --> 01:37:29,519
Speaker 2: We're done with him now. He Malcolm and Bob had

1624
01:37:29,560 --> 01:37:32,639
Speaker 2: a had a deal. You know, one of them was out.

1625
01:37:32,680 --> 01:37:36,880
Speaker 2: They were both out, and they those two they had

1626
01:37:36,880 --> 01:37:38,960
Speaker 2: a falling out because because Bob didn't want to leave,

1627
01:37:39,840 --> 01:37:44,320
Speaker 2: and uh, and it ended. You know, it's there's no

1628
01:37:44,439 --> 01:37:47,640
Speaker 2: hard feelings anymore between Bob. Bob's worked everything out and

1629
01:37:47,680 --> 01:37:50,599
Speaker 2: I think everything was been taken care with Stevie long term.

1630
01:37:50,640 --> 01:37:53,240
Speaker 2: But at that time it was a very contentious relationship

1631
01:37:53,600 --> 01:37:55,880
Speaker 2: and it all came crumbling down. And the last album

1632
01:37:56,000 --> 01:37:58,519
Speaker 2: they did together was fulfilling this. They had a bunch

1633
01:37:58,560 --> 01:38:01,800
Speaker 2: of songs on Songs in the Kia Life, but Songs

1634
01:38:01,800 --> 01:38:05,400
Speaker 2: in the Kia Life was not was not a cecil

1635
01:38:06,400 --> 01:38:09,000
Speaker 2: Mark Lift Tonto Stevie Wonder production.

1636
01:38:09,479 --> 01:38:12,759
Speaker 3: And that was the emergence of a new engineer, Gary

1637
01:38:12,880 --> 01:38:17,040
Speaker 3: Olazabal whose name is now Gary A. Dante. I was

1638
01:38:17,080 --> 01:38:19,880
Speaker 3: just in touch with him for a couple of days ago,

1639
01:38:20,360 --> 01:38:24,479
Speaker 3: and they're still working together. So the saga goes on,

1640
01:38:25,120 --> 01:38:28,800
Speaker 3: and uh, I think the vibe now between Steve and

1641
01:38:28,880 --> 01:38:34,160
Speaker 3: Bob is just fine. Uh some thing's just received into

1642
01:38:34,200 --> 01:38:40,560
Speaker 3: the past. Because without a doubt that that three man triumvirate,

1643
01:38:41,120 --> 01:38:44,240
Speaker 3: that record plant in the room that was designed to

1644
01:38:44,240 --> 01:38:48,800
Speaker 3: be a quad room, well it without a doubt it

1645
01:38:48,920 --> 01:38:50,960
Speaker 3: made history. It's still with us now.

1646
01:38:51,520 --> 01:38:54,479
Speaker 2: You know, even even though Stevie Ultimate left record Plant,

1647
01:38:54,680 --> 01:38:57,360
Speaker 2: you know after you know, although you know, songs in

1648
01:38:57,400 --> 01:39:01,800
Speaker 2: the Kui Life was recorded, Uh much of it was

1649
01:39:01,800 --> 01:39:05,000
Speaker 2: recorded up in La and in Soslito. It was recorded

1650
01:39:05,040 --> 01:39:10,320
Speaker 2: crystal in other places as well. Obviously the important thing

1651
01:39:10,320 --> 01:39:13,120
Speaker 2: to know is he never left the record plant because

1652
01:39:13,240 --> 01:39:17,360
Speaker 2: he ended up buying or no leasing, he leasing the

1653
01:39:17,400 --> 01:39:20,720
Speaker 2: record plant truck and parking at it and parking it

1654
01:39:20,760 --> 01:39:23,280
Speaker 2: outside of his house. It was his house, you know,

1655
01:39:23,439 --> 01:39:27,000
Speaker 2: at Wonderland, and and uh I think it was stud

1656
01:39:27,160 --> 01:39:28,960
Speaker 2: his main studio for many years later.

1657
01:39:29,880 --> 01:39:32,639
Speaker 1: Now you talk about the truck in the book, how

1658
01:39:32,800 --> 01:39:35,679
Speaker 1: Wally Hyder, who had his own studios with his own name,

1659
01:39:36,240 --> 01:39:39,200
Speaker 1: ultimately teaches him how to do it and they split

1660
01:39:39,280 --> 01:39:42,840
Speaker 1: up the country. But then the record plant guys kind

1661
01:39:42,840 --> 01:39:44,840
Speaker 1: of finagel whatever. So tell us about that.

1662
01:39:46,320 --> 01:39:51,840
Speaker 2: The first record Plant remote was concert for Bangled Dish. Right,

1663
01:39:51,880 --> 01:39:54,879
Speaker 2: how do you how do you how do you top that? Right? Uh?

1664
01:39:54,920 --> 01:40:00,400
Speaker 2: And you know Kelgrin was working with George Harrison and

1665
01:40:00,560 --> 01:40:04,000
Speaker 2: uh In l A and Harrison told me needed a truck.

1666
01:40:04,040 --> 01:40:06,679
Speaker 2: He said, I'll get you. We'll do it. He didn't

1667
01:40:06,680 --> 01:40:09,880
Speaker 2: have a truck. You couldn't build a truck, right, couldn't

1668
01:40:09,880 --> 01:40:12,400
Speaker 2: build a truck. Hyder had a truck. He had an

1669
01:40:12,400 --> 01:40:15,920
Speaker 2: old truck, and that became known as the White Truck

1670
01:40:16,040 --> 01:40:18,640
Speaker 2: years for many many years. I think it rolled for

1671
01:40:18,640 --> 01:40:21,960
Speaker 2: about forty five years, you know, even after it went

1672
01:40:22,000 --> 01:40:26,240
Speaker 2: off independently. Right, But the deal was Calgown and Stone

1673
01:40:26,280 --> 01:40:29,160
Speaker 2: were good businessmen, so they, you know, like the mafia,

1674
01:40:29,240 --> 01:40:31,919
Speaker 2: you cut up the country, right, Like like concert promoters

1675
01:40:31,960 --> 01:40:34,400
Speaker 2: you can have you can have Philadelphia, I'll take New York,

1676
01:40:34,439 --> 01:40:37,439
Speaker 2: you can get Chicago. Well, Well, the deal was, you

1677
01:40:37,479 --> 01:40:40,599
Speaker 2: know what I'll leaseh you this truck or sell you

1678
01:40:40,640 --> 01:40:44,639
Speaker 2: this truck, but you can't do anything west of the

1679
01:40:44,680 --> 01:40:47,519
Speaker 2: west of the Mississippi. And of course they said, you know,

1680
01:40:48,000 --> 01:40:51,360
Speaker 2: we'll do we'll do it right. So there, you know,

1681
01:40:51,680 --> 01:40:54,760
Speaker 2: the you know, the Record Plan truck stayed in New York.

1682
01:40:55,240 --> 01:40:58,400
Speaker 2: White truck became the New York truck you know, did

1683
01:40:58,600 --> 01:41:02,160
Speaker 2: and rolled tape and rubber for many, many years. As

1684
01:41:02,160 --> 01:41:04,920
Speaker 2: I said, But sooner or later there was the demand

1685
01:41:04,960 --> 01:41:09,920
Speaker 2: for live albums became so popular, especially after Frampton and

1686
01:41:09,960 --> 01:41:13,519
Speaker 2: all the other live albums started happening, that demand just

1687
01:41:13,600 --> 01:41:16,679
Speaker 2: took off. And you know what, it was a handshake deal.

1688
01:41:16,840 --> 01:41:18,920
Speaker 2: There was no contract. There was no deal on this.

1689
01:41:19,000 --> 01:41:21,080
Speaker 2: It's like, all right, you know what. Suddenly you know,

1690
01:41:21,240 --> 01:41:24,040
Speaker 2: there were Record Plan trucks in Sos Alito. There's a

1691
01:41:24,080 --> 01:41:27,839
Speaker 2: Record Plan trucks in LA and the white truck remained

1692
01:41:28,240 --> 01:41:31,240
Speaker 2: in Maine Park outside on forty four seet when it

1693
01:41:31,320 --> 01:41:33,000
Speaker 2: wasn't rolling all over the East coast.

1694
01:41:33,479 --> 01:41:38,680
Speaker 1: Okay, just as a side note, Wally Hyder, what was

1695
01:41:38,720 --> 01:41:43,160
Speaker 1: his genius and why was he in lore eclipsed from

1696
01:41:43,280 --> 01:41:44,240
Speaker 1: by the Record Plan.

1697
01:41:47,000 --> 01:41:56,200
Speaker 3: I remember there there was no refrigerator at Wally's studio. Actually, Wally,

1698
01:41:56,439 --> 01:41:58,760
Speaker 3: I think I met him. He used to have a

1699
01:41:58,760 --> 01:42:02,479
Speaker 3: studio here in La long time ago. He was one

1700
01:42:02,520 --> 01:42:06,120
Speaker 3: of the legendary genius as of recording, well known in

1701
01:42:06,160 --> 01:42:09,720
Speaker 3: San Francisco. David Schwartz, founder of Mixed magazine, got his

1702
01:42:09,800 --> 01:42:13,360
Speaker 3: third working for Wally. Uh. He was a legend. I

1703
01:42:13,880 --> 01:42:17,160
Speaker 3: don't know too much beyond that really well, you know.

1704
01:42:17,160 --> 01:42:19,639
Speaker 2: Remember he was like like many of these early day

1705
01:42:19,640 --> 01:42:24,360
Speaker 2: recording studios. He was studio engineers and owners. He was

1706
01:42:24,400 --> 01:42:27,559
Speaker 2: a hobbyist, right. He He had a he had a uh,

1707
01:42:28,479 --> 01:42:30,920
Speaker 2: I guess a station wagon with a tape recorder, and

1708
01:42:30,920 --> 01:42:33,840
Speaker 2: he used to go around the country tape recording jazz

1709
01:42:33,920 --> 01:42:38,400
Speaker 2: bands and built a very large, uh and very important

1710
01:42:38,400 --> 01:42:42,200
Speaker 2: collection of tapes of of jazz grades around the country,

1711
01:42:42,200 --> 01:42:46,400
Speaker 2: and built the studio in Sarcelito that you know, obviously

1712
01:42:46,680 --> 01:42:51,200
Speaker 2: was pivotal to the success of uh, you know, of

1713
01:42:51,200 --> 01:42:54,400
Speaker 2: of the San Francisco bands, and then ultimately built built

1714
01:42:54,439 --> 01:42:57,360
Speaker 2: in l A uh you know where obviously where a

1715
01:42:57,360 --> 01:43:01,880
Speaker 2: lot of artists could could work. It was not as flashy,

1716
01:43:02,320 --> 01:43:04,960
Speaker 2: it was not full of the creature comforts that record

1717
01:43:04,960 --> 01:43:07,720
Speaker 2: plant was noted for. It had its following. And I

1718
01:43:07,720 --> 01:43:10,080
Speaker 2: wouldn't say record Plant the clips that maybe you know

1719
01:43:10,120 --> 01:43:12,840
Speaker 2: from it from a standpoint of money and success, I

1720
01:43:12,880 --> 01:43:16,240
Speaker 2: can't measure that for you. But certainly it had its following,

1721
01:43:16,280 --> 01:43:19,639
Speaker 2: you know, Cosby Stills in Nash loved, you know, loved.

1722
01:43:19,680 --> 01:43:21,800
Speaker 2: They didn't like record Plant, they loved, you know, they

1723
01:43:21,800 --> 01:43:24,360
Speaker 2: felt it was too flashy some people remember record Plant

1724
01:43:24,720 --> 01:43:27,240
Speaker 2: was too flashy for some people. It was too crazy

1725
01:43:27,479 --> 01:43:29,839
Speaker 2: party scene for people. You know, it was too public

1726
01:43:29,920 --> 01:43:32,719
Speaker 2: for some people. Uh, you know, a place like Hyder

1727
01:43:32,720 --> 01:43:34,920
Speaker 2: had its following it. Hyder was a great engineer and

1728
01:43:34,920 --> 01:43:38,479
Speaker 2: he taught some amazing people, but like David said, he

1729
01:43:38,600 --> 01:43:42,280
Speaker 2: wasn't full of serving the artists with the creature comforts

1730
01:43:42,560 --> 01:43:44,639
Speaker 2: that the record Plant was known about. And the story

1731
01:43:44,680 --> 01:43:48,519
Speaker 2: that the story that David's talking about the refrigerator is,

1732
01:43:48,880 --> 01:43:51,960
Speaker 2: you know, Calais and the room, Ken Calay and the

1733
01:43:52,040 --> 01:43:54,640
Speaker 2: rumors crew for Fleetwear Mac are working, you know and

1734
01:43:54,680 --> 01:43:58,839
Speaker 2: getting everything they want up in up in sas Alito,

1735
01:44:00,040 --> 01:44:01,920
Speaker 2: and they decide, you know what we need to change

1736
01:44:01,920 --> 01:44:03,320
Speaker 2: the place. We got to go down to l A.

1737
01:44:03,439 --> 01:44:05,519
Speaker 2: You know, it's good to finish the album. So they

1738
01:44:05,560 --> 01:44:09,360
Speaker 2: go down to LA and Kelly's a former student assistant

1739
01:44:09,360 --> 01:44:13,000
Speaker 2: and engineer it for for a Hider. So he said, chooses,

1740
01:44:13,240 --> 01:44:17,040
Speaker 2: you know, he chooses working and finishing up the record

1741
01:44:17,080 --> 01:44:22,000
Speaker 2: rumors at at at Wally Hider Studio in la And

1742
01:44:22,040 --> 01:44:24,080
Speaker 2: at one point, you know what, the band says, you

1743
01:44:24,080 --> 01:44:27,880
Speaker 2: know what, we'd like a refrigerator in the studio. So

1744
01:44:28,000 --> 01:44:30,320
Speaker 2: kela Ay picks up the phone, calls the front desk

1745
01:44:30,400 --> 01:44:33,680
Speaker 2: and says, uh, uh you know, uh, couldn't you get

1746
01:44:33,720 --> 01:44:37,360
Speaker 2: refrigerator over here? He said? They said, what a refrigerator?

1747
01:44:37,640 --> 01:44:40,960
Speaker 2: And he said, yeah, get a refrigerator here said they didn't

1748
01:44:41,000 --> 01:44:42,640
Speaker 2: have refrigerator him, and they said, all right, you know

1749
01:44:42,680 --> 01:44:44,559
Speaker 2: what you want tofrigerate to get it, but you know what,

1750
01:44:45,160 --> 01:44:47,720
Speaker 2: you guys, come out here and carry it yourself.

1751
01:44:48,000 --> 01:44:51,280
Speaker 3: Right or that put or go to the record plant.

1752
01:44:51,760 --> 01:44:53,559
Speaker 2: Or go to the or go to the record plan

1753
01:44:53,600 --> 01:44:56,479
Speaker 2: where they'll and guess what they said, Okay, we'll go

1754
01:44:56,479 --> 01:45:00,439
Speaker 2: to the record plan because remember the record plan ends.

1755
01:45:01,240 --> 01:45:05,080
Speaker 2: Whole business model was serving the art. You want that

1756
01:45:05,160 --> 01:45:07,560
Speaker 2: you want to you want a refrigerator, we'll get your refrigerator.

1757
01:45:07,920 --> 01:45:11,200
Speaker 2: You want, you know, whatever you want, we'll get you

1758
01:45:11,520 --> 01:45:13,440
Speaker 2: because we want to keep your business.

1759
01:45:13,280 --> 01:45:15,479
Speaker 1: One point that you're making the book. They would get

1760
01:45:15,479 --> 01:45:19,840
Speaker 1: whatever they want, but they'd charge the label, of course.

1761
01:45:20,040 --> 01:45:22,080
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1762
01:45:22,240 --> 01:45:24,960
Speaker 2: It was by the way, nothing was nothing was free. Man.

1763
01:45:25,320 --> 01:45:28,400
Speaker 2: They were selling. They were selling service. It's like a hotel.

1764
01:45:28,479 --> 01:45:30,760
Speaker 2: You want, you know, go into the the mini bar

1765
01:45:30,840 --> 01:45:33,519
Speaker 2: in any hotel, man, and and how much you're paying.

1766
01:45:33,640 --> 01:45:37,360
Speaker 2: It's this was the hotel business, you know. They were selling.

1767
01:45:37,400 --> 01:45:40,600
Speaker 2: They were selling rooms in time and services.

1768
01:45:40,920 --> 01:45:44,479
Speaker 3: Yeah. Bill Simsick is working, uh, you know with some

1769
01:45:44,520 --> 01:45:53,280
Speaker 3: of the biggest acts imaginable, and a Stone asked them, hey,

1770
01:45:53,360 --> 01:45:55,400
Speaker 3: you know, hey Bill, you know, why don't you do

1771
01:45:55,479 --> 01:45:58,639
Speaker 3: this or something like this. Look, I'm working for the label.

1772
01:45:59,000 --> 01:46:01,479
Speaker 3: He says, do you have a what kind of a

1773
01:46:01,520 --> 01:46:04,519
Speaker 3: sound system do you have at home? So? I don't

1774
01:46:04,560 --> 01:46:07,880
Speaker 3: have anything, really I wish I did. The next day,

1775
01:46:09,200 --> 01:46:14,880
Speaker 3: a complete ultimate Hi Fi system is delivered to cimsics

1776
01:46:14,960 --> 01:46:20,200
Speaker 3: house and guess what it just ended up as a charge,

1777
01:46:20,240 --> 01:46:24,120
Speaker 3: a rental charge. So take care of the artists.

1778
01:46:25,520 --> 01:46:27,559
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit about the three

1779
01:46:27,760 --> 01:46:31,000
Speaker 1: rooms at the Record play in La where Shenanigans take place?

1780
01:46:32,439 --> 01:46:37,400
Speaker 3: Sure? Well. They were called the Rack Room, the Sissy Room,

1781
01:46:37,680 --> 01:46:40,639
Speaker 3: and the boat Room. The boat room was like kind

1782
01:46:40,640 --> 01:46:42,960
Speaker 3: of a if you wanted to get away, you could

1783
01:46:43,439 --> 01:46:48,040
Speaker 3: climb aboard the ss Boat Room and you've had a bed,

1784
01:46:48,280 --> 01:46:52,040
Speaker 3: you've had chairs, you've had probably your own sound system.

1785
01:46:53,120 --> 01:46:58,200
Speaker 3: They even had a special secret room in there called

1786
01:47:00,280 --> 01:47:08,080
Speaker 3: the Anne Frank Room. The Sissy Room was a big

1787
01:47:08,120 --> 01:47:11,040
Speaker 3: plush bed with curtains and you know, it was just

1788
01:47:12,200 --> 01:47:17,439
Speaker 3: very feminine and very comfortable and the ultimate in that direction.

1789
01:47:18,320 --> 01:47:20,960
Speaker 3: And then the rack room, well it did have if

1790
01:47:21,040 --> 01:47:26,560
Speaker 3: you wanted to get into that. It had mechanical gears

1791
01:47:26,600 --> 01:47:32,920
Speaker 3: and ropes and pulleys and probably velvet covered handcuffs and

1792
01:47:32,960 --> 01:47:35,680
Speaker 3: things like that. I don't think it was a serious,

1793
01:47:36,520 --> 01:47:40,479
Speaker 3: you know, torture chamber, but it added that kind of

1794
01:47:40,560 --> 01:47:45,400
Speaker 3: flavor of you know, the dark side of rock and roll.

1795
01:47:46,720 --> 01:47:49,479
Speaker 3: But it became part of the theme idea of Record

1796
01:47:49,479 --> 01:47:53,679
Speaker 3: Plant and the ultimate dream of Kelgrin and if Stone

1797
01:47:53,680 --> 01:47:58,280
Speaker 3: could finance it was to build a series of rock

1798
01:47:58,320 --> 01:48:02,760
Speaker 3: and roll hotels, ultimate five star hotels all over the

1799
01:48:02,840 --> 01:48:07,280
Speaker 3: country that also had the best recording studios, so the

1800
01:48:07,400 --> 01:48:09,400
Speaker 3: artists would always have a place where they could be

1801
01:48:09,439 --> 01:48:13,120
Speaker 3: comfortable and they could record anything they wanted to.

1802
01:48:14,520 --> 01:48:17,759
Speaker 2: You know, at these hotel rooms. And the back record plant.

1803
01:48:18,439 --> 01:48:25,599
Speaker 2: Not only were kinky and and artful and private. People

1804
01:48:25,600 --> 01:48:27,280
Speaker 2: could do whatever they want. You want to crash, and

1805
01:48:27,880 --> 01:48:30,240
Speaker 2: a session musician wants a crash as a bed. You

1806
01:48:30,280 --> 01:48:32,160
Speaker 2: want to you know, bring your girlfriend, your wife, whatever.

1807
01:48:32,200 --> 01:48:34,160
Speaker 2: In there. You can do whatever you want. You could

1808
01:48:34,160 --> 01:48:37,920
Speaker 2: write songs in there. They rented for fifty dollars an hour.

1809
01:48:38,280 --> 01:48:41,479
Speaker 2: They were rentable time, and people just camped out on them.

1810
01:48:41,880 --> 01:48:44,240
Speaker 2: The original idea was to help the artist, help the

1811
01:48:44,320 --> 01:48:47,520
Speaker 2: musicians have a place to crash between sessions. They obviously

1812
01:48:47,560 --> 01:48:53,360
Speaker 2: became more when Stone and Kelgrin wrote a business plan

1813
01:48:53,560 --> 01:48:59,080
Speaker 2: the very beginning. Frankie Revsen right, that was part of

1814
01:48:59,080 --> 01:49:03,160
Speaker 2: the business model. They were going to build hotels. It

1815
01:49:03,200 --> 01:49:05,559
Speaker 2: was Stone said it. From the earliest days. He and

1816
01:49:05,560 --> 01:49:07,639
Speaker 2: the Stone were talking about that not only were they

1817
01:49:07,640 --> 01:49:09,840
Speaker 2: going to rent studio time, but they were going to

1818
01:49:09,920 --> 01:49:13,479
Speaker 2: rent hotel rooms along with it. You know, in nineteen

1819
01:49:13,720 --> 01:49:19,240
Speaker 2: seventy five that Stone and Kelgrin we were, you know,

1820
01:49:19,280 --> 01:49:23,280
Speaker 2: having business problems. They were not getting along, but and

1821
01:49:23,320 --> 01:49:27,519
Speaker 2: they and they they ended up in People magazine. It

1822
01:49:27,640 --> 01:49:30,479
Speaker 2: was a it was a big photo spread. It was

1823
01:49:30,479 --> 01:49:34,559
Speaker 2: a big photo spread of the hotel rooms and at

1824
01:49:34,640 --> 01:49:36,680
Speaker 2: record plan you see you can see these photos in

1825
01:49:36,720 --> 01:49:40,360
Speaker 2: our book, and the People magazine in the in the

1826
01:49:40,479 --> 01:49:43,639
Speaker 2: in the mid seventies was huge, right, everybody saw these

1827
01:49:43,680 --> 01:49:46,840
Speaker 2: all right, every every musician and every house household in

1828
01:49:46,840 --> 01:49:49,839
Speaker 2: American probably had that People magazine. And there was Calgrin

1829
01:49:49,880 --> 01:49:52,360
Speaker 2: in the jacuzzi, and there was Marta Kelgrin on this bed,

1830
01:49:52,400 --> 01:49:56,160
Speaker 2: and there were women in another bed, and and in

1831
01:49:56,200 --> 01:50:00,360
Speaker 2: that In that mid seventies article in People magazine, again,

1832
01:50:00,439 --> 01:50:05,519
Speaker 2: Calgrin had the idea of building hotel rooms, right that

1833
01:50:05,600 --> 01:50:09,560
Speaker 2: they wanted to be in that business. And not surprisingly

1834
01:50:10,000 --> 01:50:11,880
Speaker 2: and we can if you want to dig into the

1835
01:50:11,880 --> 01:50:15,880
Speaker 2: Hotel California part of this story. You know what a

1836
01:50:15,960 --> 01:50:19,280
Speaker 2: band called the Eagles had been working in in this

1837
01:50:19,479 --> 01:50:23,240
Speaker 2: in the record plan during that period. And who knows

1838
01:50:23,360 --> 01:50:26,600
Speaker 2: where the title Hotel California came from, but there's no

1839
01:50:26,760 --> 01:50:30,839
Speaker 2: question about the fact that hotels for rock and rollers

1840
01:50:31,080 --> 01:50:34,479
Speaker 2: was very much part of the business scheme and the

1841
01:50:34,479 --> 01:50:35,080
Speaker 2: business plan.

1842
01:50:42,840 --> 01:50:45,400
Speaker 1: Okay, So tell me a story from one of these

1843
01:50:45,479 --> 01:50:50,400
Speaker 1: artists that didn't make the book.

1844
01:50:51,040 --> 01:50:57,479
Speaker 3: Hmmm, I don't. I think we got everybody in there

1845
01:50:57,520 --> 01:51:03,720
Speaker 3: that we could reach. No, I think I think we covered.

1846
01:51:03,479 --> 01:51:05,439
Speaker 1: Okay, let me put it in a different way it

1847
01:51:05,520 --> 01:51:07,160
Speaker 1: is sex drugs in rock and.

1848
01:51:07,160 --> 01:51:09,200
Speaker 2: Roll and audio.

1849
01:51:09,320 --> 01:51:12,599
Speaker 1: Were there stories, some stories that were great to hear,

1850
01:51:12,760 --> 01:51:14,559
Speaker 1: but beyond the piss that we just can't.

1851
01:51:14,400 --> 01:51:18,479
Speaker 3: Print that, No, I don't think so. I don't think

1852
01:51:18,520 --> 01:51:23,360
Speaker 3: there was any severe trait people were. You know, it's

1853
01:51:23,360 --> 01:51:28,679
Speaker 3: still happening today. We've got macho men and and uh,

1854
01:51:28,880 --> 01:51:31,639
Speaker 3: stuff like that going on. It's probably worse now than

1855
01:51:31,680 --> 01:51:35,720
Speaker 3: it was then. Uh No, I think we I think

1856
01:51:35,720 --> 01:51:40,479
Speaker 3: we told enough to to cover that that angle. Of course,

1857
01:51:40,479 --> 01:51:42,799
Speaker 3: we had to tell that part of the story because

1858
01:51:42,840 --> 01:51:47,519
Speaker 3: that environment really was a part of the music that

1859
01:51:47,640 --> 01:51:51,240
Speaker 3: came out at that time. You know, it was like

1860
01:51:52,240 --> 01:51:55,320
Speaker 3: it was. It was a time where it was it

1861
01:51:55,360 --> 01:52:01,600
Speaker 3: was you know, love INDs, There was birth control pills,

1862
01:52:02,160 --> 01:52:07,800
Speaker 3: there was pot, There was you know, before cocaine was

1863
01:52:07,840 --> 01:52:11,080
Speaker 3: found to be you know, more than just a recreational drug.

1864
01:52:11,720 --> 01:52:15,000
Speaker 3: But there was plenty of time where this the combination

1865
01:52:15,160 --> 01:52:19,680
Speaker 3: of these elements was very productive, was very creative, and

1866
01:52:19,760 --> 01:52:26,120
Speaker 3: it wasn't dangerous. As with all drugs and alcohol and

1867
01:52:26,160 --> 01:52:29,400
Speaker 3: things like that, there are people that will lose sight

1868
01:52:29,439 --> 01:52:34,600
Speaker 3: of where it's going and disappear. And but I don't know,

1869
01:52:34,640 --> 01:52:37,240
Speaker 3: I think we we touched on it the way it was,

1870
01:52:37,560 --> 01:52:41,280
Speaker 3: and we didn't overemphasize it. But it's part of the

1871
01:52:41,360 --> 01:52:46,240
Speaker 3: music that we love today from the from the seventies,

1872
01:52:46,600 --> 01:52:48,679
Speaker 3: you know, not being done again.

1873
01:52:49,600 --> 01:52:52,320
Speaker 2: I'm going to disappoint you with my answer to this question, though, Bob,

1874
01:52:52,400 --> 01:52:55,200
Speaker 2: because you want you wanted some desolations. I'm gonna give

1875
01:52:55,200 --> 01:52:57,559
Speaker 2: you somebody because I'm not gonna give you some solations,

1876
01:52:57,560 --> 01:52:58,880
Speaker 2: But I'm going to give you something that I think

1877
01:52:58,960 --> 01:53:02,479
Speaker 2: we we did put enough of a rapper around in

1878
01:53:02,520 --> 01:53:05,679
Speaker 2: the book. Okay that yes there were tons of groupies,

1879
01:53:05,720 --> 01:53:08,160
Speaker 2: and yes there was a lot of sex going around,

1880
01:53:08,320 --> 01:53:11,559
Speaker 2: and Howard Caitlin tells the story of groupies being passed

1881
01:53:11,560 --> 01:53:14,040
Speaker 2: around in the hotel room. So yeah, that's rock and

1882
01:53:14,120 --> 01:53:18,120
Speaker 2: roll in the in the seventies. Uh. What we didn't

1883
01:53:18,600 --> 01:53:21,920
Speaker 2: point out well enough, I think is the fact that

1884
01:53:22,000 --> 01:53:25,960
Speaker 2: women played a really big role in the successive record

1885
01:53:25,960 --> 01:53:31,719
Speaker 2: plant all right. Yes, Uh, Ankie Revson was the woman,

1886
01:53:31,920 --> 01:53:36,240
Speaker 2: was the was the book, paid the bills and put

1887
01:53:36,240 --> 01:53:38,280
Speaker 2: the money, put the money. She was the money bags

1888
01:53:38,280 --> 01:53:43,799
Speaker 2: behind the studio. Glorie Burton put put Roy Sakala in business.

1889
01:53:44,200 --> 01:53:49,839
Speaker 2: Marta Kelgrin, Gary's wife named the studio Gloria Gloria Stone

1890
01:53:50,280 --> 01:53:53,920
Speaker 2: ran the place. A woman by the name of Lillian Duma.

1891
01:53:54,640 --> 01:53:57,720
Speaker 2: Davis was one of the first rock and roll engineers.

1892
01:53:57,840 --> 01:54:02,200
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendrick had a woman engineer at Record Plant, New York. Right.

1893
01:54:03,280 --> 01:54:08,559
Speaker 2: Another woman, Denny King, was an engineer. Women, like fran Hughes,

1894
01:54:09,520 --> 01:54:15,120
Speaker 2: reinvented the way studio booking took place. Rose Man was

1895
01:54:15,200 --> 01:54:19,320
Speaker 2: a studio manager at Record Plan who reinvented book studio

1896
01:54:19,320 --> 01:54:22,439
Speaker 2: booking as well creative booking for Record Plan and ended

1897
01:54:22,520 --> 01:54:25,160
Speaker 2: up running the place for thirty five years. So I

1898
01:54:25,200 --> 01:54:27,040
Speaker 2: know that's not the story that you may have been

1899
01:54:27,040 --> 01:54:29,080
Speaker 2: looking for, but I think it's important to point out

1900
01:54:29,080 --> 01:54:31,519
Speaker 2: although I'm sure there were many women who may not

1901
01:54:31,560 --> 01:54:35,040
Speaker 2: have been treated well, but to Stone and Kelgrin, women

1902
01:54:35,120 --> 01:54:38,760
Speaker 2: were a very vital part of the business of making

1903
01:54:38,760 --> 01:54:42,600
Speaker 2: sure the business ran successfully, making sure was funded successfully,

1904
01:54:42,640 --> 01:54:44,880
Speaker 2: and they played a big role in the success in

1905
01:54:44,920 --> 01:54:45,440
Speaker 2: the studio.

1906
01:54:45,960 --> 01:54:49,440
Speaker 1: Okay, Kelgrin drowns in a swimming pool. There's a fire

1907
01:54:49,600 --> 01:54:54,160
Speaker 1: on Third Street. They moved the studio to Sycamore. How

1908
01:54:54,200 --> 01:54:58,000
Speaker 1: does it end for Stone? Does he get it off

1909
01:54:58,080 --> 01:55:01,240
Speaker 1: or he can't refuse or is he turned out? How

1910
01:55:01,240 --> 01:55:03,240
Speaker 1: does it end and how does he cope with being

1911
01:55:03,240 --> 01:55:04,600
Speaker 1: out of the business.

1912
01:55:05,320 --> 01:55:10,080
Speaker 3: Well, I coincidentally, Gloria Stone just called that was the

1913
01:55:10,240 --> 01:55:16,520
Speaker 3: ringing phone. I'll call her back, she described. I photographed

1914
01:55:16,520 --> 01:55:24,080
Speaker 3: the night that George Martin and his manager. I'll remember that.

1915
01:55:25,040 --> 01:55:30,720
Speaker 3: It was a great guy. They finalized the deal for

1916
01:55:30,840 --> 01:55:36,120
Speaker 3: Stone to cash out Record Plant to Chrysalis Records. And

1917
01:55:36,200 --> 01:55:40,600
Speaker 3: in the photos Stone is a very happy man. I

1918
01:55:40,600 --> 01:55:44,240
Speaker 3: think after after all these years he was he was

1919
01:55:44,240 --> 01:55:49,080
Speaker 3: getting he was bushed, and Gloria described as I think

1920
01:55:49,120 --> 01:55:52,600
Speaker 3: I can see the canary feathers outside of his mouth

1921
01:55:52,800 --> 01:55:57,839
Speaker 3: in the pictures where he's smiling. And I'd met George before.

1922
01:55:58,200 --> 01:56:00,760
Speaker 3: It was it was a good time and it was

1923
01:56:00,840 --> 01:56:05,360
Speaker 3: It breathed totally new life into the studio. Roseman, who

1924
01:56:05,400 --> 01:56:11,520
Speaker 3: started on Third Street, transitioned over became the president eventually

1925
01:56:12,240 --> 01:56:16,040
Speaker 3: of Record Plan on Sycamore, and it celebrated for many

1926
01:56:16,040 --> 01:56:20,160
Speaker 3: many years after that. You know, they had us talk

1927
01:56:20,200 --> 01:56:26,080
Speaker 3: about bedrooms. They had a special fluffy bed installed in

1928
01:56:26,120 --> 01:56:30,040
Speaker 3: one of the one of the studios for Guns n'

1929
01:56:30,120 --> 01:56:34,880
Speaker 3: Roses so that they could continue the tradition of sleeping

1930
01:56:36,160 --> 01:56:37,120
Speaker 3: and making music.

1931
01:56:38,120 --> 01:56:40,480
Speaker 2: So one of the thing they had is Stone was

1932
01:56:40,480 --> 01:56:44,680
Speaker 2: a serial entrepreneur, right even after record playing. You know,

1933
01:56:45,200 --> 01:56:48,200
Speaker 2: he kept on putting deals together. He built it, built

1934
01:56:48,200 --> 01:56:50,600
Speaker 2: a deal with an audio dealer. He built the World

1935
01:56:50,600 --> 01:56:52,960
Speaker 2: Studio Group. We got the greatest studios in the world

1936
01:56:53,040 --> 01:56:56,560
Speaker 2: and started marketing them. He invested in a lot of business.

1937
01:56:56,560 --> 01:56:59,080
Speaker 2: He was he was always putting deals together. The fact

1938
01:56:59,160 --> 01:57:02,320
Speaker 2: this book, to a great extent, is one of his deals, right,

1939
01:57:02,560 --> 01:57:05,920
Speaker 2: you know, his vision that put David and me together.

1940
01:57:06,040 --> 01:57:09,640
Speaker 2: So Stone never stopped hustling and never stopped making deals,

1941
01:57:09,800 --> 01:57:10,840
Speaker 2: even to the very end.

1942
01:57:11,560 --> 01:57:14,360
Speaker 3: I wrote a book with Stone called The Sound of Money.

1943
01:57:15,800 --> 01:57:17,840
Speaker 3: Actually Stone wrote it, I edited it.

1944
01:57:18,400 --> 01:57:19,760
Speaker 1: Okay, so what was that book.

1945
01:57:21,120 --> 01:57:24,600
Speaker 3: Oh? It's basically a step by step how to run

1946
01:57:24,640 --> 01:57:28,320
Speaker 3: a studio, how to make money, how to make it work,

1947
01:57:28,960 --> 01:57:32,240
Speaker 3: how to be smart and not stupid, how to communicate.

1948
01:57:33,000 --> 01:57:35,200
Speaker 3: We just you know, we did it like months by

1949
01:57:35,320 --> 01:57:40,400
Speaker 3: month and it was published in Marty's magazine. We'd get together, Okay,

1950
01:57:40,400 --> 01:57:42,000
Speaker 3: what are we going to tell the folks this month?

1951
01:57:42,040 --> 01:57:44,440
Speaker 3: And he'd come up with an idea, and I'd give

1952
01:57:44,480 --> 01:57:47,400
Speaker 3: him an idea and we'd knock it out and it

1953
01:57:47,520 --> 01:57:49,880
Speaker 3: all got collected in a book and it's you know,

1954
01:57:50,400 --> 01:57:54,240
Speaker 3: the studio situation is so different now, but all the

1955
01:57:54,320 --> 01:58:00,280
Speaker 3: basic business principles, many of these things personally affected me.

1956
01:58:00,880 --> 01:58:03,800
Speaker 3: When I met Stone, I had just moved to LA

1957
01:58:03,960 --> 01:58:07,160
Speaker 3: and I got started getting involved in the studio and

1958
01:58:07,400 --> 01:58:12,240
Speaker 3: at one point Stone said to me, because he's mister Bonds,

1959
01:58:12,240 --> 01:58:14,920
Speaker 3: he called he called me Bonds, he coined that name.

1960
01:58:15,000 --> 01:58:19,160
Speaker 3: I was, I was the Bonds. He said, Bonds, you're

1961
01:58:19,200 --> 01:58:23,200
Speaker 3: a fucking hippie. Come on, get your shit together. You know,

1962
01:58:24,080 --> 01:58:25,800
Speaker 3: you want to make some money, you want to have

1963
01:58:25,880 --> 01:58:29,760
Speaker 3: a business. You got to do this thing or forget

1964
01:58:29,800 --> 01:58:33,680
Speaker 3: about it. And so he taught me so much and

1965
01:58:33,760 --> 01:58:36,320
Speaker 3: I'm so grateful for that. That's what you talk about

1966
01:58:36,320 --> 01:58:39,520
Speaker 3: a labor of love. It's giving back to how much

1967
01:58:39,560 --> 01:58:43,760
Speaker 3: he had an impact on my life personally. And uh,

1968
01:58:43,840 --> 01:58:46,280
Speaker 3: you know he was. I asked him once if do

1969
01:58:46,320 --> 01:58:49,720
Speaker 3: you want to be loved or feared? You know the

1970
01:58:49,800 --> 01:58:54,040
Speaker 3: answer feared. But there are many people who worked at

1971
01:58:54,120 --> 01:58:58,040
Speaker 3: Record Plant that he bailed them out when they had

1972
01:58:58,080 --> 01:59:03,080
Speaker 3: health problems. He maybe bank rolled a down payment so

1973
01:59:03,160 --> 01:59:06,720
Speaker 3: they could get by a house. I know a lady

1974
01:59:06,760 --> 01:59:11,280
Speaker 3: now still lives in the house that was instigated by

1975
01:59:11,360 --> 01:59:14,800
Speaker 3: Chris Stone. So you know that's kind of the legacy

1976
01:59:15,400 --> 01:59:19,880
Speaker 3: that people don't know about Stone. I wouldn't say, you know,

1977
01:59:19,960 --> 01:59:25,400
Speaker 3: he was a pushover. No way, you couldn't pull the

1978
01:59:25,440 --> 01:59:29,600
Speaker 3: wool over Chris Stone's eyes. Because he could see through

1979
01:59:29,640 --> 01:59:36,880
Speaker 3: situations like like Kelgrin could see through music, Stone could

1980
01:59:36,880 --> 01:59:40,800
Speaker 3: see through business. That was the combination, that was the chemistry.

1981
01:59:41,880 --> 01:59:44,520
Speaker 3: Neither one of them would have been successful without the other.

1982
01:59:45,640 --> 01:59:52,000
Speaker 1: Okay, you mentioned the modern days. So many big rooms

1983
01:59:52,080 --> 01:59:55,760
Speaker 1: have closed. People might get basics in a big room.

1984
01:59:55,800 --> 01:59:58,000
Speaker 1: A lot of people just do everything at home. So

1985
01:59:58,200 --> 02:00:02,040
Speaker 1: what's the status today and is this an era just

1986
02:00:02,120 --> 02:00:04,920
Speaker 1: in the rear view mirror or is it something you

1987
02:00:04,960 --> 02:00:07,320
Speaker 1: can replicate if you have enough money to spend as

1988
02:00:07,320 --> 02:00:11,480
Speaker 1: an artist. Where are we today?

1989
02:00:11,600 --> 02:00:13,960
Speaker 3: Well, some of the big rooms are still doing well

1990
02:00:14,000 --> 02:00:18,040
Speaker 3: because they to get the sound of it, like an orchestra,

1991
02:00:18,440 --> 02:00:22,240
Speaker 3: you need a big stage. Stone towards while he was

1992
02:00:22,280 --> 02:00:26,960
Speaker 3: on Sycamore, he took over stage M at Paramount a

1993
02:00:26,960 --> 02:00:30,840
Speaker 3: Lot and ran that for about ten years because he

1994
02:00:30,920 --> 02:00:33,520
Speaker 3: knew how to make it work and he had the

1995
02:00:33,560 --> 02:00:39,240
Speaker 3: best technicians, the best engineers, and those rooms have to

1996
02:00:40,120 --> 02:00:46,000
Speaker 3: be around, probably for the film business mainly. I can't

1997
02:00:46,040 --> 02:00:48,880
Speaker 3: predict how long it's going to last. But we still

1998
02:00:48,920 --> 02:00:53,560
Speaker 3: have here in La a number of really well run,

1999
02:00:54,120 --> 02:00:59,720
Speaker 3: well maintained big rooms. One studio is probably going to

2000
02:00:59,720 --> 02:01:06,440
Speaker 3: be uh part of the of an educational operation. I

2001
02:01:06,480 --> 02:01:09,600
Speaker 3: can't get into the details now, but you'll be hearing

2002
02:01:09,640 --> 02:01:10,600
Speaker 3: about it for sure.

2003
02:01:12,040 --> 02:01:17,600
Speaker 2: So you know, Sasolito, which was Gary Keligrin's masterpiece, right, beautiful,

2004
02:01:17,800 --> 02:01:23,000
Speaker 2: beautiful walls and woodwork and designs, still was closed for

2005
02:01:23,080 --> 02:01:26,000
Speaker 2: many years. People tried to open and try to close it. It's,

2006
02:01:26,200 --> 02:01:31,560
Speaker 2: you know, finally some well bank rolled entrepreneurs got it

2007
02:01:31,600 --> 02:01:34,640
Speaker 2: back up and running, and it is running again, uh

2008
02:01:34,760 --> 02:01:37,080
Speaker 2: you know and again. Uh you know. So it's it's

2009
02:01:37,120 --> 02:01:40,800
Speaker 2: wonderful that it's up and running. Let's face it, you know,

2010
02:01:41,120 --> 02:01:43,080
Speaker 2: the big the days of the big studio is over

2011
02:01:43,400 --> 02:01:46,720
Speaker 2: by and large. There are some of that still exists fortunately,

2012
02:01:47,160 --> 02:01:49,680
Speaker 2: but by and large they're all gone. Sick of the

2013
02:01:49,720 --> 02:01:53,360
Speaker 2: studio on Sycamore. The Record Play closed last year, made

2014
02:01:53,440 --> 02:01:56,720
Speaker 2: huge noise. That was a hugely successful studio even after

2015
02:01:56,800 --> 02:01:59,920
Speaker 2: Chris Stone was gone. You're talking about you know, be

2016
02:02:00,640 --> 02:02:04,520
Speaker 2: Kanye West, Guns n' Roses, you know, endless amount of

2017
02:02:04,560 --> 02:02:10,000
Speaker 2: major artists recorded there. Closed last year. The record Business

2018
02:02:10,120 --> 02:02:12,000
Speaker 2: as you write about all the time, Bob, is not

2019
02:02:12,080 --> 02:02:15,040
Speaker 2: what it used to be. Digital change to everything, or

2020
02:02:15,080 --> 02:02:17,800
Speaker 2: not only changed the way music musicians make their money

2021
02:02:17,880 --> 02:02:21,640
Speaker 2: or don't make their money, the way labels make their money. Uh,

2022
02:02:21,760 --> 02:02:24,560
Speaker 2: that way music is distributed. But certainly the way music

2023
02:02:24,720 --> 02:02:27,880
Speaker 2: was was made, it was done. You know. The first

2024
02:02:28,040 --> 02:02:31,160
Speaker 2: digital recording studio was Steven Sills and an engineer named

2025
02:02:31,200 --> 02:02:34,800
Speaker 2: Michael Bronstein at Record Plan in in l a first

2026
02:02:35,080 --> 02:02:40,400
Speaker 2: first digital session. And and Still's is doing a recording. Uh,

2027
02:02:40,480 --> 02:02:42,080
Speaker 2: and they're doing a promotion for I think it was

2028
02:02:42,120 --> 02:02:44,360
Speaker 2: three m was the digital tape machine at that point,

2029
02:02:44,720 --> 02:02:47,560
Speaker 2: and and there and they're a they're running analog and

2030
02:02:47,640 --> 02:02:49,960
Speaker 2: digital tape at the same time. Right in those days,

2031
02:02:50,040 --> 02:02:54,080
Speaker 2: was it was digital tape. And Still's is listening. They're

2032
02:02:54,080 --> 02:02:56,800
Speaker 2: doing a playback and they're listening to it, and everybody's

2033
02:02:57,080 --> 02:03:00,320
Speaker 2: waiting for it. Stills looking at Stills in the through

2034
02:03:00,360 --> 02:03:02,520
Speaker 2: the in the control room. You know, how is he

2035
02:03:02,560 --> 02:03:06,240
Speaker 2: going to react to the new digital digital sound? It's amazing,

2036
02:03:06,280 --> 02:03:09,680
Speaker 2: he said, And and you know what, he takes a

2037
02:03:09,720 --> 02:03:11,800
Speaker 2: sharpie and writes on a piece of paper and holds

2038
02:03:11,840 --> 02:03:14,600
Speaker 2: it up and he points it to the engineer to

2039
02:03:14,640 --> 02:03:18,000
Speaker 2: the scientists or who had invented these new digital tape machines,

2040
02:03:18,040 --> 02:03:23,520
Speaker 2: He says, scientists, you failed not because the digital and

2041
02:03:23,560 --> 02:03:27,200
Speaker 2: those early sound of digital was not even as good

2042
02:03:27,520 --> 02:03:29,640
Speaker 2: as analog. And there are people to this day, you know,

2043
02:03:29,680 --> 02:03:32,640
Speaker 2: in the audio files as well as even some many

2044
02:03:32,680 --> 02:03:35,360
Speaker 2: recording engineers who were working on vintage gear who feel

2045
02:03:35,400 --> 02:03:39,080
Speaker 2: that digital doesn't quite live up to the sound quality

2046
02:03:39,120 --> 02:03:42,840
Speaker 2: of great you know, a great two track, two inch

2047
02:03:43,240 --> 02:03:48,720
Speaker 2: sixteen track tape machine. But there was one other, probably

2048
02:03:48,800 --> 02:03:53,240
Speaker 2: more significant change that digital made in the recording business.

2049
02:03:53,680 --> 02:03:57,400
Speaker 2: Are musicians don't play together like they used to, you know,

2050
02:03:57,440 --> 02:03:59,960
Speaker 2: they they mail it in, they email it in. They

2051
02:04:00,120 --> 02:04:02,880
Speaker 2: they remotely work. They were remote working. We're you know,

2052
02:04:02,920 --> 02:04:05,360
Speaker 2: we're doing this remote when musicians do the same thing.

2053
02:04:06,240 --> 02:04:08,600
Speaker 2: Bands don't play together like they used to be in

2054
02:04:08,640 --> 02:04:11,480
Speaker 2: the studio because those studios don't exist anymore. The space

2055
02:04:11,520 --> 02:04:15,400
Speaker 2: doesn't exist anymore. So that's changed the business forever and

2056
02:04:15,440 --> 02:04:18,600
Speaker 2: to change the art form and that's something that even

2057
02:04:18,720 --> 02:04:22,160
Speaker 2: you know doesn't exist the way it once was. And

2058
02:04:22,240 --> 02:04:25,760
Speaker 2: that's probably the biggest impact of digital was the remote

2059
02:04:26,080 --> 02:04:29,160
Speaker 2: production of music and the way bands now work.

2060
02:04:30,000 --> 02:04:31,840
Speaker 1: What do you think Bob, oh, this is a long

2061
02:04:31,960 --> 02:04:36,480
Speaker 1: conversation that we can like another two hours, and.

2062
02:04:36,560 --> 02:04:42,160
Speaker 3: So does our book encapsulate what the way it used

2063
02:04:42,200 --> 02:04:42,480
Speaker 3: to be?

2064
02:04:42,600 --> 02:04:45,520
Speaker 1: What people if I get into this discussion all the time,

2065
02:04:46,280 --> 02:04:49,480
Speaker 1: people say, oh, it's the same as it ever was.

2066
02:04:49,640 --> 02:04:52,960
Speaker 1: You're just too won't No, it is not the same.

2067
02:04:53,800 --> 02:04:57,000
Speaker 1: Just like in the Renaissance. They've painted and sculpted ever since,

2068
02:04:57,560 --> 02:05:00,880
Speaker 1: but there was only one Renaissance. You talk about everybody

2069
02:05:00,920 --> 02:05:03,880
Speaker 1: being I remember one of the first couple of times

2070
02:05:03,920 --> 02:05:06,200
Speaker 1: I was in the room. I remember once at the

2071
02:05:06,240 --> 02:05:08,960
Speaker 1: record plan. You know, in the early days in the sixties,

2072
02:05:08,960 --> 02:05:12,160
Speaker 1: you'd go to the studio, You book three hours and

2073
02:05:12,200 --> 02:05:13,320
Speaker 1: you work three hours.

2074
02:05:13,920 --> 02:05:14,480
Speaker 2: Okay.

2075
02:05:14,960 --> 02:05:18,280
Speaker 1: Then the Stone started to write the songs in the studio,

2076
02:05:19,160 --> 02:05:22,040
Speaker 1: as did the Beatles. But the Beatles broke up. People

2077
02:05:22,120 --> 02:05:24,520
Speaker 1: have no idea. Forget if you're you know, you have

2078
02:05:24,560 --> 02:05:27,720
Speaker 1: a lockout for months, that's the thing unto itself. But

2079
02:05:28,560 --> 02:05:32,440
Speaker 1: you would have twelve hour block, how much time would

2080
02:05:32,480 --> 02:05:36,400
Speaker 1: the people actually spend recording if you got eight hours

2081
02:05:36,440 --> 02:05:39,040
Speaker 1: out of that block. I mean, you know, oh, we're

2082
02:05:39,040 --> 02:05:41,120
Speaker 1: going to dinner, and you'd go to a dinner for couple.

2083
02:05:41,240 --> 02:05:43,040
Speaker 1: And if you were somebody counting.

2084
02:05:42,680 --> 02:05:43,480
Speaker 2: The dollars ago.

2085
02:05:43,800 --> 02:05:46,760
Speaker 1: This is insane. We're just burning the money.

2086
02:05:47,520 --> 02:05:50,280
Speaker 3: But oh we we we got to get that snare

2087
02:05:50,360 --> 02:05:51,880
Speaker 3: drum sound right.

2088
02:05:52,480 --> 02:05:56,840
Speaker 1: Well, you know, but there was money to burn, you

2089
02:05:56,880 --> 02:05:59,680
Speaker 1: know there. You know, other than a handful of artists

2090
02:06:00,080 --> 02:06:03,240
Speaker 1: you talk about playing together, they don't do that. They

2091
02:06:03,320 --> 02:06:07,160
Speaker 1: can't afford to do it that way. The economics don't

2092
02:06:07,200 --> 02:06:09,560
Speaker 1: work out. Record company won't give them that money. But

2093
02:06:09,640 --> 02:06:11,360
Speaker 1: the reason the record company won't give them money is

2094
02:06:11,360 --> 02:06:15,560
Speaker 1: they can't make their money back. So the other thing

2095
02:06:15,600 --> 02:06:21,920
Speaker 1: that people forget is these were professionals. These were not hobbyists.

2096
02:06:22,320 --> 02:06:25,080
Speaker 1: They may not have had a degree from an institution,

2097
02:06:25,840 --> 02:06:30,480
Speaker 1: but they had paid their dues and they were very

2098
02:06:30,560 --> 02:06:36,040
Speaker 1: intelligent in certain verticals. It's not the same anymore. The

2099
02:06:36,080 --> 02:06:38,160
Speaker 1: other thing I readly it is not the same was

2100
02:06:39,160 --> 02:06:42,040
Speaker 1: we have huge income inequality at this point in time.

2101
02:06:42,680 --> 02:06:44,880
Speaker 1: We have winners and losers. And if you have a brain,

2102
02:06:44,920 --> 02:06:48,520
Speaker 1: you talk to young people today. They want to start

2103
02:06:48,520 --> 02:06:50,520
Speaker 1: a career. They're afraid they're going to end up with nothing.

2104
02:06:51,040 --> 02:06:54,760
Speaker 1: Whereas during this era you could live on one hundred

2105
02:06:54,800 --> 02:06:57,320
Speaker 1: dollars a week, couldn't live like a king, but you

2106
02:06:57,360 --> 02:07:01,040
Speaker 1: weren't living on the street. Okay, if you made it

2107
02:07:01,080 --> 02:07:05,120
Speaker 1: as a rock star, listen, there's so many There's not

2108
02:07:05,160 --> 02:07:08,800
Speaker 1: only the studios. You know, the cell phone camera killed

2109
02:07:08,840 --> 02:07:12,040
Speaker 1: all the antics on the road. I mean, there's a

2110
02:07:12,120 --> 02:07:14,520
Speaker 1: lot of different things. And if you wanted to know

2111
02:07:14,560 --> 02:07:17,000
Speaker 1: which way the wind blew, you know, you turned on

2112
02:07:17,040 --> 02:07:19,160
Speaker 1: the radio put on a record. People haven't now this

2113
02:07:19,240 --> 02:07:24,160
Speaker 1: is people have no idea. Taylor Swift arguably the biggest

2114
02:07:24,200 --> 02:07:27,320
Speaker 1: artists in the world. I get into this all the time.

2115
02:07:27,760 --> 02:07:31,440
Speaker 1: Most people cannot name one song off the new album,

2116
02:07:32,360 --> 02:07:35,560
Speaker 1: never mind singing it. She has her fans and she's big.

2117
02:07:35,600 --> 02:07:41,040
Speaker 1: I'm only put it with a satisfaction Hotel, California. Unless

2118
02:07:41,080 --> 02:07:45,600
Speaker 1: you were deaf, you knew the song. These people were

2119
02:07:45,720 --> 02:07:48,840
Speaker 1: royalty in a way. You know, you talk about life

2120
02:07:48,840 --> 02:07:51,320
Speaker 1: in the Fastling in the book with the Eagles. They

2121
02:07:51,360 --> 02:07:56,040
Speaker 1: were living a life completely untouchable by us, and it

2122
02:07:56,160 --> 02:07:59,360
Speaker 1: was mysterious and they created these songs out of thin air.

2123
02:08:00,640 --> 02:08:08,560
Speaker 1: You know, it's not the same today. On that note, gentlemen,

2124
02:08:10,440 --> 02:08:12,040
Speaker 1: I think we've come to the end of the fielding

2125
02:08:12,080 --> 02:08:14,480
Speaker 1: We've known. I can get a lot more questions, but

2126
02:08:14,520 --> 02:08:15,400
Speaker 1: people can read the.

2127
02:08:15,440 --> 02:08:18,560
Speaker 3: Book started to cry, Oh no, Bob.

2128
02:08:20,040 --> 02:08:22,080
Speaker 1: Just to give a little sales pitch for the book.

2129
02:08:22,720 --> 02:08:25,760
Speaker 1: And I never lie. People send me books all day long.

2130
02:08:25,880 --> 02:08:29,560
Speaker 1: Drives my girlfriend nuts because they pile up. And I

2131
02:08:29,600 --> 02:08:33,520
Speaker 1: got a pre publication version of your book, but I

2132
02:08:33,680 --> 02:08:37,040
Speaker 1: was traveling and then they sent me the finished hardcover

2133
02:08:37,520 --> 02:08:38,200
Speaker 1: and I say.

2134
02:08:38,080 --> 02:08:39,400
Speaker 2: Well, I have to crack it.

2135
02:08:39,960 --> 02:08:41,440
Speaker 1: I mean, people don't know you.

2136
02:08:41,440 --> 02:08:42,160
Speaker 2: You live in La.

2137
02:08:43,160 --> 02:08:46,120
Speaker 1: It's all the psiconography, all this frame you moved to La,

2138
02:08:46,160 --> 02:08:48,480
Speaker 1: all this stuff from the Frank Zappa records. Oh there

2139
02:08:48,520 --> 02:08:52,600
Speaker 1: it is Pico and Sepulvida. Oh Monty Legion Stadium. You

2140
02:08:52,720 --> 02:08:54,880
Speaker 1: drove by the record plan. You know there was an

2141
02:08:55,040 --> 02:08:57,920
Speaker 1: entrance way, but otherwise it was all with this, you know,

2142
02:08:58,080 --> 02:09:01,600
Speaker 1: sort of psychedelic, said the recordend. It was happening in there,

2143
02:09:01,960 --> 02:09:06,800
Speaker 1: but you couldn't get in there. This book not only

2144
02:09:07,400 --> 02:09:09,360
Speaker 1: you know there are a lot of people who know

2145
02:09:09,440 --> 02:09:11,760
Speaker 1: a lot about this because we all read the credits.

2146
02:09:12,120 --> 02:09:14,760
Speaker 1: This adds fills in the hole some of these people

2147
02:09:14,800 --> 02:09:18,560
Speaker 1: I know, like Ezra in etc. You learn stuff you

2148
02:09:18,680 --> 02:09:23,240
Speaker 1: don't know. It's very readable if you have any interest

2149
02:09:23,320 --> 02:09:28,240
Speaker 1: at all. The book is totally satisfying. I highly recommend it.

2150
02:09:29,240 --> 02:09:29,960
Speaker 3: Thank you, Bob.

2151
02:09:31,400 --> 02:09:32,040
Speaker 2: Thanks Bob.

2152
02:09:32,320 --> 02:09:37,640
Speaker 1: But that's why we're doing this. It's honest. I mean, people,

2153
02:09:37,760 --> 02:09:39,880
Speaker 1: you know, you talk. I can tell the stories about

2154
02:09:39,880 --> 02:09:43,160
Speaker 1: being the studio, about being in the record plan. It's

2155
02:09:43,160 --> 02:09:45,080
Speaker 1: like when people go to a show, to the forum,

2156
02:09:45,440 --> 02:09:47,480
Speaker 1: but even better, you talk about Calgrim being the rock

2157
02:09:47,520 --> 02:09:51,440
Speaker 1: stars Fashia. You are inside the record plan, the person

2158
02:09:51,520 --> 02:09:55,840
Speaker 1: on the record, they're just walking by. You know, all

2159
02:09:55,840 --> 02:09:59,720
Speaker 1: this magic, it's encapsulated in this book. Anyway, gentlemen, thanks

2160
02:09:59,720 --> 02:10:03,800
Speaker 1: for doing this. Until next time. This is Bob lefts

2161
02:10:03,880 --> 02:10:04,040
Speaker 1: it

2162
02:10:25,880 --> 02:10:25,960
Speaker 2: Sh