Someone's watching me...

Tower of Power horns in Sausilito Plant

"The Record that made everyone tired."

The intense creative/commercial social experience that was the making of "Hotel California" took its toll on everyone. By the end of the record, we were all fried physical wrecks. I took a week off from the Plant to rest. The band immediately began rehearsals for a very successful tour.

RP Sausilito...stuck in a time warp

I recently came across these pictures of the old Record Plant in Sausilito in 1974. Home to the infamous "Pit" of Sly Stone fame, it was a temple of Hippie decadence in a Yuppie Bayside town.

..but you can never really leave.

Although I worked on several phenomenal and successful records while I was at the Record Plant, (Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" and Boston's "More Than a Feeling") the peak experience for me was the 9 months we spent recording the Eagles "Hotel California" with Bill Szymczyk producing.

The band had only written a couple of complete songs by the time the recording began, and the rest were either written by the members in the studio or pieced together from individual members demos, with lyrics constantly being written and rewritten.

All of the band's equipment with many combinations of amps and instruments were set up and miked, ready to record all the time.
Since the studio was so large, in addition to the musical instrument set-up, we also had a ping pong table behind a wall of gobos in front of the mic. cabinets. We even moved a fridge into the control room. ( a peculiar Eagles' trait, I once saw them put one onstage in Amsterdam when they opened for Joe Walsh on his "So What" tour. I was mixing the P.A. for Joe's band. I believe Tom Nixon was the inspiration for cold beverages
in close proximity to the artist.)

I'd arrive around noon with the band's crew and we'd turn everything on.
Someone took breakfast orders in the control room and then went across the street to Gottfried's Deli for our greasy meals. We ate and began recording around 2:30 p.m. We were "on the clock" until 6:00p.m. when you could have a beer and a "break". The only other rule was that all five guys play on the basic track. We didn't always use all the parts. We'd do about 20 to 40+ takes of each song with a click track. We'd then listen and make lists of the best sections of each take and edit together a master basic. (...to be continued)

How I got Here

I was doing live audio for various artists including Joe Walsh and Stephen Stills. I had previously run the board for Bill Graham's Fillmore West in San Francisco. (1970-72) Joe Walsh was a friend of Chris Stone's, who was co-owner with Gary Kjellgren of the various Record Plants. Joe knew that I wanted to get off the road and into the studio. He called Chris and Chris arranged for me to work as an assistant engineer at the Plant in Sausalito. After several months in the Bay area, I was sent to the Plant in L.A. to assist Gary Olazabel on the Stevie Wonder album "Songs in the Key of Life". In the beginning, I slept in "The Sissy Room", one of the three themed bedrooms in the studio complex. I later moved to a house in Laurel Canyon on Mannix Drive.

The Place to Be

The Record Plant at 8456 W. 3rd Street, Los Angeles California opened on December 4th, 1969 with a grand opening party that featured a star studded cast of Hollywood's musical elite. Guests were invited with colorfully painted bricks that they presented for admission to the party. A Mason in a tuxedo fitted the bricks into a wall of the front office. The printing on the brick advertised "L.A.'s 1st Hunchy Punchy Recording Studios" and the dress code was "Bells and Ribbons, Satin and Spangles". The rest as they say "is history".