Reel to Real Tales

Inspiration to write these “tales” and assemble them into a book came about after the sudden loss of my business in January of 2013.

The closure of Sunburst Recording in Culver City, California was due primarily to West L.A.’s ongoing gentrification and its accompanying drastic rent increases. 

Being kicked out of one’s home is probably one of the few things I can think of that might be worse than losing a business and facility that you and your clients have called “home” for the past thirty years.  Closing up shop left a tremendous void in my life; it got me thinking about what those decades (from 1982 - 2012) had meant to a community of recording artists and myself.

Around 2015, after much coaxing from musician friends and family, I started constructing a journal of my experiences as a recording studio owner, engineer, record producer, and live performer.  As the stories took shape, I was surprised at how much I had remembered.  My propensity to save old recordings and printed materials was a huge help in jogging my memory, along with friends with whom I still keep in contact or have recently reconnected.

As the stories took shape and the collection grew, it started to look less like a journal and more like a book...specifically, “Reel To Real Tales...Notes From Both Sides of the Recording Console.”

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