Insights In Sound 187 Jeff Greenberg, President, The Village Studios S19 E7 – Live from The Village

Welcome to Insights and Sound, where we
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We are live from the Village Studios
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with the illustrious Jeff Greenberg.
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Nice to see you.
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Pleasure. Watch that illustrious stuff.
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I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to curse you
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out like that. You know,
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it’s okay.
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All right. I would actually like to
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start with a little bit of your
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background because I want to find out
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what makes you tick and why you were fat
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crazy enough to actually buy a
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studio in the first place. Did you start
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out as a musician, rock and roller or
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what? I started out um
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unpacking sheer women’s blouses in my
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father’s chain of women’s clothing
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stores.
1:05
And a friend of mine asked me if I
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wanted to go see the Monterey Pop
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Festival and I went in the backseat of
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his convertible with the girl that was
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so pretty. She scared me to death. I
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maybe said two words to her all weekend.
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went up to Monterey, saw Otis Reading,
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the Jefferson airplane, Bob Dylan, um
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Jimmyi Hendris. It was unbelievable. And
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got back in a few weeks after that, he
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said, “How would you like to manage a
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rock band?” I found a band. And he found
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a band and we put them in a house in
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Laurel Canyon and walked around and
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asked everybody if they could help us
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because we had no idea what what to do.
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And it turned out the band was
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unbelievable.
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And we actually got into a bidding war
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and we got what still stands as one of
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the biggest record deals in history,
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which is a half a million dollars
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nonrecruitable from Liberty Records.
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And um shortly after that, a con man
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read about it in the paper and became
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friends with the band and my partner and
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um started swindling money from the band
2:13
and us. and he later went on to gain
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fame as the guy that the billionaire
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boys club killed, Ron Leather.
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Wow.
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Um, we toured back east with the Fugs.
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We did a tour, it was 1968,
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I believe, and uh, we were with the
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Fugs. We did a few dates with Hendricks.
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And there was a club on Sunset called
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The Experience, TE.
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And every night it was Eric Burton,
2:41
Jimmy Hendris, and Alice Cooper who uh
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the manager, Chef Gordon, and I became
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friends from then on. And one night the
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drummer walked out and back and got
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shot. And they came back and they shot
2:54
him two more times over the next hour.
2:57
And it was horrifying because suddenly I
3:00
thought that there may be a way out for
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me to actually have a life where I
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didn’t have to unpack share a woman’s
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blouses.
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And
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um the kid was in County General
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Hospital at the time. They’re training
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the surgeons for Vietnam.
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And uh the band
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uh was holding and we were about to go
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on tour with a very famous band. And so
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we started auditioning drummers and we
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had a young kid come in and it sounded
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so amazing. The young kid’s name was
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Russ Kungl.
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And uh the band was even better. There
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was a benefit I believe with Led
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Zeppelin and downtown Dorothy Chandler
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Pavilion, billboards all over town. Pray
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for Richard the drummer. So clearly
3:46
everybody felt if we went out he would
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die. So we stopped. I was heartbroken.
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The agent from William Morris was a guy
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named Jim Riss Miller who took over the
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company that Bob Eubanks started.
4:00
Eubanks got a loan for $25,000 on his
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house and bought two concerts. He bought
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the Beatles at Hollywood Bowl and the
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Beatles at Dodger Stadium. And Jim
4:10
Rismore and a partner Steve Wolf started
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this company called Concert Associates,
4:15
which later became Wolf and Rissa
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Concerts. He felt bad for me and asked
4:20
if I would mind maybe helping him with
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his concerts. And my job was to put 50
4:25
lb bags of ice in the trash cans for the
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drinks for the bands backstage. And
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wound up working on every major live
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show on the West Coast with this group,
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Wolf and Miss Moore concerts. And uh
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then went from there to a company called
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Needleander where I booked and promoted
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the Greek and the Pantageous and Pine
4:46
Knob and Merryweather Post. From there I
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got uh uh hired by a man named Tom Ross
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who was the preeeminent agent in LA at
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ICM and went on later to found W uh uh
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CIA and we represented Aerosmith and the
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Kinks and Manalo you name it. Uh the
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biggest agency at that time and he is
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still revered as the greatest agent that
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ever lived. and every year of his life,
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every day it’s someone wanting to have
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lunch to talk to the oracle. When I was
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at Needleander, I met a really
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attractive young lady. And like every
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attractive young lady, she just became
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my friend. And um asked if I could save
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the place she grew up in, which was the
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village. And I said, I don’t know, we’ll
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go take a look. And I walked in here
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with my best friend Al Schmidt, one of
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the most legendary engineers and
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producers in the world.
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Absolutely.
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We found this huge building which was
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full of relatively embittered people
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because the founder Jordi Hormell who
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was truly brilliant and started this
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place because he was a pianist and was
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do needed to do cues for Renin Alassie.
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Word got out quickly. He bought the
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building which at the time was the
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headquarters for the Maharishi who was
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the guy the Beatles visited in India and
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took over this building and started
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transcendental meditation in this
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building. David Lynch learned here and
6:17
there’s pictures of the Beatles upstairs
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with the Maharishi.
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We came in, the lady was Julie and I and
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started calling people and saying, “Hey,
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we just took over the village recorder
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where Fleetwood Mac and Rolling Stones
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did their music.” And everybody said,
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“Well, that’s our parents’ music.”
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And I thought, “Oh my god, we’re toast.”
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And we got a postcard. It’s 1995, my
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first week here. And we get a postcard,
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“My name is Bill. Can you send me a
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picture of the studio?” And it looked so
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funky inside. I walked out and took a
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Polaroid. I borrowed Skunk Baxter’s
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Polaroid who had a studio on the third
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floor. He was the legendary guitar
7:00
player for Steelely Dan and Doobie
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Brothers.
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He’s a story in himself. Yeah,
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he is amazing. And um this guy Bill came
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and it was Billy Corgan who did
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Melancholy and The Infinite Sadness
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with Smashing Pumpkins.
7:14
Smashing Pumpkins. And we were put on
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the map very luckily uh because without
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that
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divine act uh this place would have gone
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by the wayside a long time ago. That was
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when a lot of people went home a lot of
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studios in LA going out of business. So
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it’s been a resurrection ever since and
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a long long answer to a short question.
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That’s how I got here.
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It’s interesting though. So you you were
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you came from the live and concert
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sector which is a completely different
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world in a in a sense
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totally different world
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and uh now I came up in the studios in
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the 80s. Um I worked at Cherokee 8687
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you know and so I watched that whole
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transition happen and what you were just
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talking about the whole sort of uh quote
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unquote death spiral with recording
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studios where a lot of them were closing
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and everything. This studio at the time
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was still pretty legendary.
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Legendary. Absolutely.
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But Jordi Hormill’s um Jordi Hormell’s
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tenure here was um I guess it had a peak
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and then it sort of descended a little
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bit as Jordy sort of started losing
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interest in things and also started uh
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really getting distracted by other
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stuff, I think, didn’t he?
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Jordi Hormell is
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uh a movie
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into himself.
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Yeah. Brilliant dude. He came out here
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really handsome, blue-eyed billionaire
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in those money in those days.
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Black sheep of the family in fact.
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Uh well, there were three brothers, all
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great pianists as well, by the way.
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And uh he married Leslie Corron, the
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beautiful actress that was the star of
8:51
an American in Paris. He bought the
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other half of the Will Rogers estate
8:55
across Sunset, which the original Will
8:58
Rogers log cabin is is in was in before
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the virus. He was very shy and
9:04
brilliant. And as with any extremely
9:08
wealthy person, there’s a phenomenon
9:10
that happens around them which I will
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choose to call dingleberries, which are
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people just hanging out like pilot fish
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waiting to catch the crumbs.
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Yep.
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And uh he married
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uh a another wife
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uh who was very very young and very very
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beautiful. and she
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walked through here and saw
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which I think was the final
9:38
disintegration due to drugs and the
9:42
aforementioned
9:43
um dingleberries
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um and said we got to get out of here
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and they went to Phoenix. They bought a
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little 65,000 ft house there.
9:51
They bought the Wrigley mansion as I
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understand.
9:53
Well, they bought that as well so he
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could perform for brunch on Sundays.
9:57
Oh, okay. No, they bought a much larger
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house.
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And uh this lady that he married
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uh is truly one of the most wonderful
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people I’ve ever met. And she uh has
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I’ve watched her uh be one of the
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greatest mothers I’ve ever seen. And it
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was her instincts to get him out of
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here, which I believe allowed him to
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live a long and and and happy life.
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Yeah. Probably saved his life.
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And that’s when I came in. Uhhuh.
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Because I think there was talk about
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possibly liquidating it and the people
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here were completely disenfranchised and
10:34
waiting for the hammer to fall.
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Mhm.
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So where were we on that question? I
10:38
think I got lost. Oh, about Jordy.
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Yeah.
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When he built the place, he had the
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instincts to be state-of-the-art. He was
10:45
one of the first people to purchase a 24
10:49
track digital machine. he uh bought
10:51
state-of-the-art equipment and the word
10:52
got out quite quickly when he first
10:55
started in the late60s that this was a
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state-of-the-art place and so everybody
11:00
wanted to be here and that is the
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beginning of the story and when Julie
11:08
and I started to clean the place up we
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have kept with that tradition of having
11:13
absolute state-of-the-art latest
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equipment but also preserving the great
11:18
parts of the vintage um gear and the
11:21
actual infrastructure which he designed
11:23
with some of the greatest designers in
11:25
the world. So that it’s the best of both
11:27
worlds.
11:29
It really has been it has been legendary
11:32
for a long long time. What’s interesting
11:34
is that you know as the LA recording
11:36
scene sort of evolved there were sort of
11:39
epicenters and this place was never
11:41
really at the epicenter. was always out
11:43
here and yet it became a destination
11:46
because it was so different from the
11:48
studios in you know the Hollywood
11:50
corridor, the studios in the Burbank
11:53
corridor, you know, all of those
11:55
different places. This place was really
11:58
an island unto itself for the longest
12:00
time.
12:01
You know, I can’t speak to that having
12:05
not been here.
12:08
Uh Al Schmidt, a former roommate and
12:10
best friend who was way older than I, uh
12:14
produced the first album of that band
12:18
and uh taught me a lot about engineering
12:20
and I actually did some work uh at
12:24
Artist Recorders in Hollywood. I
12:25
actually did a Mama Cass record which we
12:28
did a bunch of stuff with that band as
12:30
well that I had.
12:32
Um and so I had some experience with
12:34
studios. Uh our first album was done at
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TTG, a legendary studio in Hollywood. Um
12:42
and uh so I was aware, but as a
12:45
promoter, it’s a completely different
12:48
world.
12:49
It’s a different
12:49
from the pro audio world and the process
12:52
of the food chain in a sense. So, I
12:54
think a lot of the training that I got,
12:56
a lot of the relationships I had as an
12:58
agent, as a manager, uh, were 100% based
13:02
on promoting. Obviously,
13:06
you want to fill the little squares of
13:07
your venue, which are empty spaces on a
13:10
calendar, right,
13:10
with uh artists that people want to see.
13:14
And I’ve got a lot of stories about the
13:17
good ones and the bad ones, the ones
13:18
that worked and the ones that didn’t.
13:21
But you understand
13:23
uh artists from a place of really taking
13:27
care of them. And when I got here and
13:30
really became a part of the studio world
13:32
at the time, pretty much the mindset was
13:36
uh hey, you go over there and I’ll see
13:38
you in a few minutes and thanks for, you
13:40
know, you know, don’t ask me too many
13:42
questions. And this was right at the
13:45
point that ProTools
13:47
had been unleashed upon the recording
13:50
community
13:51
which changed everything about
13:54
a lot of people that were somewhat
13:56
embittered.
13:57
Mhm.
13:58
And uh you know I characterize them as
14:01
the older balding people with ponytails
14:04
and that’s not fair to say because a lot
14:06
of those people are lovely human beings
14:09
uh I’m sure.
14:10
But there was a thing called harp. Do
14:11
you remember that the Hollywood
14:13
association of uh recording
14:15
professionals? They were they were
14:17
railing against the the growth of home
14:19
studios and
14:20
well that’s the same with the lites you
14:22
know it’s
14:24
uh although in reverse because the lites
14:26
were in homes weaving fabrics
14:30
uhhu
14:30
when I believe jakard
14:33
uh created the automated weaving and so
14:36
this guy named Lud organized the home
14:38
people against the factories and that’s
14:42
where the word lite came from
14:43
really kind of in reverse So, I think
14:46
that it it was a different paradigm for
14:49
me to come in and see how people were,
14:51
which the ones that I witnessed, okay,
14:54
it was, hey, you’re in our studio, it’s
14:56
our studio, you do what we tell you to
14:58
do and everything’s going to be fine.
15:00
Um,
15:01
and so I realized that that treating
15:05
talent well, uh, one of the first things
15:08
that happened to me as a promoter, uh,
15:11
was getting yelled at for having the
15:12
wrong color couch in a dressing room.
15:15
and uh but screamed at how dare you, you
15:18
know. So, I understood how sensitive
15:21
talent is and I’ve managed some great
15:23
talent. I was the manager of a guy named
15:24
Felix Papalardi who produced the Cream
15:27
Records and was the leader of a group
15:28
called Mountain
15:29
Mountain. Yes.
15:30
And
15:31
great bass player too.
15:32
Threatened to kill me if he heard any
15:34
feedback coming from the stage at the
15:36
Roxy.
15:37
He threatened to kill a lot of people.
15:39
He was uh from New York
15:42
and he was a uh olive skinned killer.
15:47
Yeah.
15:48
But also a genius musician.
15:49
Mhm.
15:50
So I really had training of how
15:53
important it is to take good care of the
15:55
artist which is I think is one of the
15:57
things that uh I I believe the village
16:00
is known for. So I think I got away from
16:04
your question again which was originally
16:06
you hit on it exactly
16:07
get back to what it was.
16:08
You hit back on it exactly because what
16:10
I was leading to here is the idea that
16:12
you in particular uh one of the things
16:15
that you resurrected I think was the
16:18
idea that this is a service industry
16:20
that we are here to serve the artists.
16:22
Absolutely. And you have done so much of
16:24
that with this studio and with the work
16:26
ethic here that I think that’s been in a
16:30
sense kind of lost as people have
16:32
migrated to home studios and smaller
16:35
studios. when that happened uh I was the
16:39
president of an organization called Spar
16:41
Society professional recording
16:43
and uh with a guy named Andrew Couch
16:46
who’s now the president of Big Machine
16:48
and uh we devised an ad which showed a
16:52
neighborhood
16:55
nice house nice house nice house with
16:58
six SUVs on the grass in front of it
17:01
nice house nice house nice house and
17:03
welcome to the world of home recording
17:05
uh Another ad could have been an angry
17:07
housewife. My god, what happened to our
17:09
bathroom? But the bottom line is it
17:12
seemed relatively quickly realized by
17:16
many people that uh people like being
17:18
with other people. There’s just been a
17:20
study released that people even like
17:22
doing dishes in the company of other
17:23
people. No, no, I’m sorry. Doing dishes
17:25
was the one place that people
17:27
appreciated being alone
17:29
and everything else, eating, everything
17:30
else seems to be better with other
17:32
people. and people wound up. You know,
17:35
we get requests all the time. There’s 14
17:37
rooms here and nine of the rooms are
17:40
occupied by great composers and artists
17:43
and the main public studios are here and
17:46
thriving because people like working
17:49
with other people and especially they
17:50
want to be with professionals and so
17:52
what happens here is lots of
17:54
collaboration and stuff like that. So,
17:56
the village being kind of on the
17:57
outskirts, back to your original
17:59
question, west of the 405 and everything
18:02
else is in Hollywood, I think that
18:04
there’s so many great studios in town
18:06
still. And uh each one of them gets what
18:10
it is to take care of artists. And we’re
18:12
all in the business of making sure that
18:14
when somebody comes here or to any
18:17
studio that we’re ready to capture that
18:19
golden moment. There may be just one
18:20
great performance
18:23
that that person has in them possibly
18:25
for the rest of their life. And if we
18:28
can capture that and not be having
18:29
someone looking at a manual uh and you
18:33
know be ready for it, uh that’s the
18:35
magic of this game in my opinion. That’s
18:38
what we do.
18:39
I agree with you. And the other thing
18:40
that you touched on that I think is
18:42
really important, we used to have a lot
18:45
more of these multi-room complexes. What
18:47
I always loved about that was the chance
18:49
meetings, the collaborations that happen
18:52
through that. And that’s something that
18:55
um you know, I came up at Cherokee, same
18:57
thing. You know, you’d see these odd
18:58
combinations of people in the lounges. I
19:00
did a panel a few years ago at the NAM
19:04
show. Uh and in fact, I had Tina on the
19:06
panel. Uh and
19:08
Tina’s our manager.
19:09
Yeah. Tina Tina Mars, a wonderful
19:11
wonderful
19:12
I’m gonna have a sip of my coffee, Dan.
19:13
By all means, please do. Um, one of the
19:16
things that we um that we talked about
19:18
was the idea I called the panel get a
19:20
room.
19:21
And you know, the the point there was
19:23
when do you want to be in this kind of a
19:26
creative space as opposed to, you know,
19:28
the fact that everybody can record at
19:30
home now if they want to. That wasn’t
19:32
the case 20, 30 years ago, but now you
19:35
can. And there’s something that happens
19:38
in this kind of environment that I think
19:39
you really understand and appreciate.
19:42
And that is the the creative juices, you
19:45
know, just the whole the whole vibe, the
19:48
whole feeling of you never know who
19:50
you’re going to run into here. You never
19:52
know what kind of energies you’re going
19:54
to run into here.
19:56
Well, that’s quite true. But you can now
19:58
prompt AI to have all the people you
20:00
want to have here and to be in whatever
20:02
room you want to be in and to have
20:04
everything sound as if it’s here and
20:06
going down that way. Uh that is the new
20:09
world we’re in. And uh the one thing I
20:12
will tell you is that music
20:15
can occur anywhere and it can be
20:17
recorded anywhere. You can do a hell of
20:19
a great recording on an iPhone
20:22
uh of every bit of high quality that you
20:24
could ever need
20:25
on a beach.
20:26
Yeah. But there seems to be uh the magic
20:30
in the collaboration
20:33
or people playing in real time in the
20:36
same airspace. A lot of things that uh
20:40
we call music
20:42
uh are happening and have happened in
20:44
these places and uh it’s going to be
20:46
interesting to see how this shakes out.
20:48
But I do believe that humans
20:50
collaborating with humans can possibly
20:53
create something with a little more
20:54
gravity uh and a little more emotion
20:58
than possibly reading prompts in the AI.
21:00
I could be completely wrong. And if so,
21:03
um I’ve got my eye on some nice shopping
21:05
carts.
21:09
Well, you know that you just led me to
21:11
the question I wanted to wrap with,
21:13
which was we now have this completely
21:16
different industry. We have this
21:18
completely different way of not only
21:20
creating music, but consuming music as
21:23
opposed to how you and I came up in that
21:27
sense. What do you see as the future of
21:31
spaces like this, our industry? What do
21:34
you tell 15y olds coming into the
21:36
industry now?
21:40
you know, uh,
21:43
it’s an interesting question.
21:46
I think that these places, the few
21:49
places that are around, like the hit
21:51
factory in New York, like the village,
21:52
like um,
21:55
Sunset and Conway and all these great
21:58
studios with these great legendary
22:00
discoraphies. Uh I think there will be a
22:04
need for places like this for a long
22:07
long time. One of the things that helped
22:10
us get through a lot of the slow times
22:12
was we’re doing a tremendous amount of
22:13
film scoring.
22:14
Mhm.
22:15
And we have a a a wonderful cadray of of
22:18
composers residents in the building.
22:20
Yes, you do.
22:21
Uh and the building is an attraction
22:23
itself. It’s a 1920 Masonic temple. uh
22:26
three stories and so there’s a lot of
22:31
interaction and collaboration.
22:34
So I would say to a young kid coming in
22:36
is that
22:39
the ability to record moments
22:43
and music and understand
22:46
electron flow. Okay. and to understand
22:52
the physical
22:54
process of the movement of molecules and
22:58
how they directly affect human emotion
23:01
by the mechanical rigs that we all have
23:04
inside of our ears which directly
23:05
stimulate nerves. There’s no telling how
23:08
deep and how far it can go. So that if
23:11
you are skilled in physics and
23:14
electronics and understand and speak the
23:18
language of music, there’s no telling
23:21
where it’s going. I truly believe that
23:24
uh the ability of tone to stimulate
23:28
emotion uh will be enhanced and it is uh
23:32
more and more every day and uh so that
23:37
you’re going to be you’ll be okay. I
23:39
tell them they’re all going to be okay
23:41
if you understand the world you’re
23:43
working in. And one of the reasons that
23:47
most of our graduates and or or
23:49
applicants that we hire, uh, I don’t
23:53
hire anybody that’s not pretty much a
23:55
consumate musician.
23:57
And as you know, if you go to Berkeley
23:59
and some of these schools, you have to
24:00
audition
24:02
against a lot of other kids just to get
24:04
in. And then you do four years and you
24:06
wind up in a place like that. I can
24:08
honestly tell you that most of our uh
24:11
engineers and I also am very proud we’ve
24:14
been responsible for a very large amount
24:16
of female engineers.
24:18
Yes, you have something that rubbed me
24:20
wrong too with the embittered old dudes
24:23
and stuff. Um
24:25
is that uh you’re going to be well well
24:28
taken care of in this business and
24:30
there’ll be a need for you. I mean, the
24:32
old guys like Al Schmidt and Ed Churnney
24:34
and Clear Mountain, uh, and who, by the
24:38
way, forgive me, Bob, you’re not old.
24:40
Um,
24:42
can take a razor blade and trim the kick
24:46
on a bass drum on a 2-in 24 track tape
24:50
with a razor blade. That in itself is
24:53
pretty much a dying art.
24:54
It’s true. Uh, but I would tell anybody
24:57
that’s interested in the business of
24:59
recording music that there is a future
25:02
and a strong one. Uh, depending on your
25:05
level of skill.
25:07
I like that. Just say yes to everything
25:10
basically. Right.
25:12
Almost everything.
25:17
Fantastic. Jeff Greenberg, thank you for
25:19
being my guest. I appreciate Well, as
25:22
many of our clients say, AMF.
25:25
Thank you.
25:28
AMF.
25:30
Adios.
25:32
Oh, thank you.
25:38
Hey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to
25:40
hit the subscribe button and join us
25:41