#Westlake audio studio manager in 1980 license#

#Westlake audio studio manager in 1980 license#

The quirkiness of the studio extended in many directions: For transporting musicians, Stone owned a limousine with the custom license plate DEDUCT, while Kellgren kept a purple Rolls-Royce displaying GREED on the license plate. KSAN, known as 'Jive 95', was the most popular radio station for Bay Area listeners from 18 to 34 years old, and the Record Plant broadcasts were widely heard. 'Live From The Plant' was the resulting radio show it was broadcast on Donahue's album-oriented rock station KSAN (FM) from time to time over the next two years, primarily on Sunday nights, and it featured various artists such as the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, The Tubes, Peter Frampton, Bob Marley & The Wailers, Pablo Cruise, Rory Gallagher, The Marshall Tucker Band, Jimmy Buffett, Bonnie Raitt, Link Wray, Linda Ronstadt and Fleetwood Mac. Miles and Donahue promised that their recording business would go to the new studio and that it would be promoted with a live radio show. The intention was to have a getaway studio, far from the pressures of the big city music industry. The expansion into Sausalito was the result of drummer Buddy Miles and radio pioneer Tom 'Big Daddy' Donahue asking Kellgren and Stone to put a studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. Following that, Flye helped Sly and the Family Stone make their album Fresh. When Studio B went online, engineer Tom Flye came out to California from New York and ran the room his first customer was New Riders of the Purple Sage who recorded The Adventures of Panama Red. The first recording on the books was under producer Al Schmitt who brought in Mike Finnigan and Jerry Wood as Finnigan & Wood, recording the album Crazed Hipsters. Kellgren and Stone sent party invitations out on slabs of redwood, and among the guests were John Lennon and Yoko Ono who both showed up dressed as trees. Studio B was more vibrant to the eye, having multi-colored fabric layers on the ceiling and swirls of color on the walls. Studio A was decorated with a sunburst pattern on the wall and white fabric draped from the ceiling.

Kellgren worked with Hidley to design Studio A and Studio B to have the same size and the same 'dead' acoustics, and both were fitted with Hidley-designed Westlake monitors. The 10,700-square-foot (990 m2) building was a former office suite covered with diagonal redwood siding in an industrial park near Sausalito's harbor facilities. Ginger Mews, ex-manager of Wally Heider Studios, was named studio manager of Sausalito Music Factory, doing business as Record Plant, and construction continued on the similarly equipped Studio B with completion expected in February 1973. On October 28, 1972, Kellgren and Stone opened the Northern California location in Sausalito, throwing a Halloween party to celebrate Studio A going on line. Dolby M-16 or M-16-8X units provide noise reduction with UREI LA3A and 1176 limiters, Eventide phasers, Pultec equalizers, Cooper Time Cube, United Audio's Little Dipper and Westlake monitors.'(1) The Sausalito studio featured 'API boards, 3M 24-track and 2-track machines, with extra Ampex 2-tracks and 4-tracks. The Los Angeles studio continues in business as 'The Record Plant'. The New York studio closed in 1987 and the Sausalito studio closed in 2008. Kellgren died in 1977, and in the 1980s, the New York and Sausalito studios ended up under different ownership and management. The first album recorded at the Record Plant in New York was Electric Ladyland by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, released in 1968.

The next year, they opened a studio in Los Angeles and then in 1972, the studio also opened up in Sausalito, California. The first opening of the Record Plant was in New York City at 321 West 44th Street map, in 1968. Record Plant Studios (also known as just 'The Record Plant') were three famous recording studios which were started and run by Gary Kellgren (who was the creative engineer, producer & studio designer) and Chris Stone (a National Sales Rep for Revlon Cosmetics).