Buzz me in Inside the Record Plant Studios

Music journalists Porter and Goggin debut with a colorful chronicle of the first 13 years of the Record Plant recording studio. Founded in 1968 New York City by studio engineer Gary Kellgren with help from Chris Stone, a regional sales manager at Revlon who persuaded Revlon's founder's ex-wife to invest, Record Plant was the first living-room-style studio where rock stars weary from touring could relax while recording. The studio grew quickly thanks to Kellgren's knack for luring in superstars (he often left the recording itself to assistants, allowing youngsters--like Roy Cicala and now-legendary producer Jimmy Iovine--to move up quickly). Meanwhile, Stone ensured a steady revenue stream by booking studio time 24-7, making multiple backup recordings, and padding invoices sent to artists' record companies, in part to pay for the endless supply of drugs that kept performers coming back to the studio and engineers working well past exhaustion. In 1969, the studio expanded to Los Angeles, and then opened a location in Sausalito, reflecting Kellgren's desire to get artists away from record label scrutiny and corporate influence. Stitching together meticulous research, interviews with industry insiders and engineers, and ephemera (including album covers, studio posters, and even invitations to Record Plant parties), the authors provide an exuberant account of a chaotic studio culture that fed some of the artists' worst impulses while creating some of the 1970s' most memorable music, including records by Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen. Rock fans will find this irresistible. Photos. (June)

Inside one of rock music's biggest production outfits. While fans are more familiar with the bold-face musicians who flocked to the Record Plant Studios--which quickly expanded from New York to Los Angeles and Sausalito, California--music journalists Porter and Goggin take us behind the scenes where the sounds were created, sliced, and diced. Co-founders Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, known to industry insiders but not the public, created an environment where everyone from Frank Zappa to John Lennon, who recorded his last album at the Record Plant in New York, could find a home--sometimes literally. The Sausalito facility was especially successful, recording breakout hits for Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, and the Eagles. The partners, particularly Kellgren, were fanatical gearheads, offering unparalleled aural support systems. Sex and drugs were inevitably part of the package, with cocaine piled atop amplifiers. Infatuated with Hefner-esque excess, Kellgren had a jet-stream Jacuzzi and an S & M "Rack Room" installed in the L.A. studio. There are wild tales of Lennon locking horns with Phil Spector in L.A. during the making of "Rock 'N' Roll" and a DEA raid in Sausalito aimed at busting Sly Stone, who was nowhere to be found. (One of the lawmen was more interested in meeting an inebriated Joe Cocker.) Low-key producers like Bill Syzmczyk, who imposed discipline on the unruly Eagles, delivered the musical goods. With firsthand accounts from many of the players, it's a cautionary tale. Kellgren and Kristianne Gaines, his secretary and girlfriend, drowned in his swimming pool in 1977. After Kellgren's death, industry technology changed, with home studios and punk minimalism replacing elaborate production values. By the '80s, the New York and Sausalito studios were shuttered, and Stone sold his remaining shares of the L.A. franchise. An entertaining dive into a wild musical world. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.