Fort Apache Studios
Encyclopedia
Fort Apache Studios is a New England
recording studio internationally renowned for alternative rock
sessions produced there since 1986. The studio is currently located in the village of Bellows Falls, Vermont
in space leased in an old hotel called The Windham, owned by the town of Rockingham, Vermont
, within which Bellows Falls is located. The studio was first located at 169 Norfolk Avenue, a warehouse in the Roxbury
neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Fort Apache relocated its facilities above the Rounder Records
warehouse and offices on Camp Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts
in 1988. An early business card of the studio showing its name as "Fort Apache Studios" is displayed on Joe Harvard's Boston Rock Storybook: Fort Apache South webpage, although the studio is often referred to as simply "Fort Apache."
Among the many major groups and artists who have recorded there over the years are the Pixies, Radiohead
, Superdrag
, Come, Juliana Hatfield
, Throwing Muses
, Belly
, Tanya Donelly
, Buffalo Tom
, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh
, The Lemonheads
, Volcano Suns
, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
, Elliott Smith
, Eleventh Dream Day
, The Connells
, The Specials
, Blake Babies
, Weezer
, Yo La Tengo
, Warren Zevon
, The Shods
, Spore
, Blameless
, and many more.
The studio was initially built by a collective begun in 1985 by musician/producer Joe Harvard and members of a band called the Sex Execs: engineers Paul Q. Kolderie, Sean Slade, and Jim Fitting. Harvard briefly became sole owner, and the studio became very active recording Boston-area indie-rock
groups in 1986. The studio soon upgraded its early 8-track Roxbury facilities to 16-track equipment.
Producers affiliated with the studio in the 1980s and 1990s included Lou Giordano, studio manager Gary Smith
, Sean Slade, Paul Q Kolderie, and Tim O'Heir. Smith brought the Pixies to Fort Apache to record their legendary 1987 demos later known as The Purple Tape and also produced several of Throwing Muses' 1980s albums there. Smith became a co-owner of the studio when it was moved to its 24-track Cambridge facilities in 1988. Eventually, in the 1990s, Harvard sold his ownership interests in the studio to partners Smith and Billy Bragg
and departed. Fort Apache also hosted a recording label in partnership with MCA Records
in the mid-1990s.
In 2002 Gary Smith, who by then was sole owner of the company, moved the studio from Massachusetts to Bellows Falls, VT, while continuing to operate it under the famous Fort Apache Studios name as well. Since then, Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade have continued to run the original Fort Apache studio location under the name Camp Street Studios. For fifteen years, Smith used "Fort Apache" as the name of a multi-faceted company that operated the studio business, a concert promotion business, and a business managing artists such as Juliana Hatfield, Tanya Donelly
and Natalie Merchant
. From 2002-2006, Fort Apache additionally operated a music venue in the lobby of The Windham Hotel, where it recorded and broadcast nearly 200 live concerts. The concert venue was originally the brainchild of Smith and Charlie Hunter, owner of the Bellows Falls booking agency Flying Under Radar.
In 2007 operations in Bellows Falls were suspended and Smith moved the studio and management offices to his farm nearby in New Hampshire
.
In late 2008 The Bridge Sound & Stage began recording in the second of the two Cambridge locations formerly operated by "Fort Apache Studios". The engineers at The Bridge are Owen Curtin and Janos Fulop.
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
recording studio internationally renowned for alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
sessions produced there since 1986. The studio is currently located in the village of Bellows Falls, Vermont
Bellows Falls, Vermont
Bellows Falls is an incorporated village located in the town of Rockingham in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,165 at the 2000 census...
in space leased in an old hotel called The Windham, owned by the town of Rockingham, Vermont
Rockingham, Vermont
Rockingham is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States, along the Connecticut River. The population was 5,309 at the 2000 census. Rockingham includes the incorporated villages of Bellows Falls and Saxtons River, as well as a large rural area west of Interstate 91.Rockingham has no formal...
, within which Bellows Falls is located. The studio was first located at 169 Norfolk Avenue, a warehouse in the Roxbury
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868...
neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Fort Apache relocated its facilities above the Rounder Records
Rounder Records
Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...
warehouse and offices on Camp Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
in 1988. An early business card of the studio showing its name as "Fort Apache Studios" is displayed on Joe Harvard's Boston Rock Storybook: Fort Apache South webpage, although the studio is often referred to as simply "Fort Apache."
Among the many major groups and artists who have recorded there over the years are the Pixies, Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, Superdrag
Superdrag
Superdrag is an alternative rock band from Knoxville, Tennessee. The band had a hit with its 1996 single "Sucked Out" off their album Regretfully Yours, for which a video clip was broadcast regularly on MTV...
, Come, Juliana Hatfield
Juliana Hatfield
Juliana Hatfield , is an American guitarist/singer-songwriter and author from the Boston area, formerly of the indie rock bands Blake Babies and Some Girls. She currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts....
, Throwing Muses
Throwing Muses
Throwing Muses is an alternative rock band formed in 1981 in Newport, Rhode Island, that toured and recorded extensively until 1997, when its members began concentrating more on other projects. The group was originally fronted by two lead singers, Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly, who both wrote the...
, Belly
Belly (band)
Belly was an alternative rock band formed in 1991 by former Throwing Muses members Tanya Donelly and Fred Abong. The band was based in Boston, Massachusetts, though all of the original members grew up in Newport, Rhode Island. The band consisted of Donelly on lead vocals and guitar, Abong on bass,...
, Tanya Donelly
Tanya Donelly
Tanya Donelly is an American Grammy-nominated singer songwriter and guitarist based in New England who co-founded Throwing Muses with her stepsister Kristin Hersh. She then went on to work in The Breeders and Belly in the 1990s...
, Buffalo Tom
Buffalo Tom
Buffalo Tom is an alternative rock band from Boston, Massachusetts, formed in 1986. Its principal members are guitarist Bill Janovitz, bassist Chris Colbourn, and drummer Tom Maginnis. The band's name is derived from the band Buffalo Springfield and the first name of the drummer.-Career:Dinosaur Jr...
, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh
Sebadoh
Sebadoh is an American indie rock band, formed in 1986 in Westfield, Massachusetts by Eric Gaffney and Dinosaur Jr bass player Lou Barlow. Along with such bands as Pavement and Guided by Voices, Sebadoh helped pioneer lo-fi music, a style of indie rock characterized by low-fidelity recording...
, The Lemonheads
The Lemonheads
The Lemonheads are an American alternative rock band first formed in 1986 by Evan Dando, Ben Deily and Jesse Peretz. Dando has remained the band's only constant member....
, Volcano Suns
Volcano Suns
Volcano Suns was an American alternative rock band from Boston, Massachusetts formed by Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott in 1984.-History:...
, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are an American ska punk band from Boston, Massachusetts, formed in 1983. Since the band's inception, lead vocalist Dicky Barrett, bassist Joe Gittleman, tenor saxophonist Tim "Johnny Vegas" Burton and dancer Ben Carr have remained constant members...
, Elliott Smith
Elliott Smith
Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and resided for a significant portion of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity...
, Eleventh Dream Day
Eleventh Dream Day
-History:The band was founded by guitarists Rick Rizzo and Janet Beveridge Bean, who met at a place fondly known as 1069. This was a house/practice space/hang out in Louisville where at the time Janet was practicing with the band she was in with Tara Key and Tim Harris; the Zoo Directors. They...
, The Connells
The Connells
The Connells are an American band from Raleigh, North Carolina. They play a guitar-oriented, melodic, power pop style of rock music with introspective lyrics that reflect the American South. Though mostly dormant, the band continues to play to this day...
, The Specials
The Specials
The Specials are an English 2 Tone ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry, England. Their music combines a "danceable ska and rocksteady beat with punk's energy and attitude", and had a "more focused and informed political and social stance" than other ska groups...
, Blake Babies
Blake Babies
Blake Babies was an alternative rock band formed in 1986 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The three primary members were John Strohm, Freda Love , and Juliana Hatfield, with Evan Dando, Andrew Mayer, Seth White, Anthony DeLuca , and Mike Leahy each also performing as members of the band at...
, Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
, Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo, sometimes abbreviated as YLT, is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan , Georgia Hubley , and James McNew .Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential...
, Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon
Warren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...
, The Shods
The Shods
The Shods are a punk band from Lowell, Massachusetts who have released five albums and an EP to date. The Shods have a loyal regional following, and remain well known in their home state.-Origins:...
, Spore
Spore (band)
Spore was a noise rock band from Boston, Massachusetts formed in the wake of the early 1990s grunge movement. Spore were signed in 1993 on the Taang! Records label, the same label which initially signed The Lemonheads, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Mission of Burma, with whom the band released a...
, Blameless
Blameless (band)
Blameless were a rock quartet formed in Sheffield, England in 1993/94. The band consisted of singer Jared Daley, guitarist Matt Pirt, bassist Jason Leggatt and drummer Jon Dodd...
, and many more.
The studio was initially built by a collective begun in 1985 by musician/producer Joe Harvard and members of a band called the Sex Execs: engineers Paul Q. Kolderie, Sean Slade, and Jim Fitting. Harvard briefly became sole owner, and the studio became very active recording Boston-area indie-rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
groups in 1986. The studio soon upgraded its early 8-track Roxbury facilities to 16-track equipment.
Producers affiliated with the studio in the 1980s and 1990s included Lou Giordano, studio manager Gary Smith
Gary Smith (record producer)
Gary Smith is an entrepreneur, record producer, and artist's manager known for his work recording albums by alternative rock musicians since the mid-1980s at Fort Apache Studios...
, Sean Slade, Paul Q Kolderie, and Tim O'Heir. Smith brought the Pixies to Fort Apache to record their legendary 1987 demos later known as The Purple Tape and also produced several of Throwing Muses' 1980s albums there. Smith became a co-owner of the studio when it was moved to its 24-track Cambridge facilities in 1988. Eventually, in the 1990s, Harvard sold his ownership interests in the studio to partners Smith and Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg
Stephen William Bragg , better known as Billy Bragg, is an English alternative rock musician and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes...
and departed. Fort Apache also hosted a recording label in partnership with MCA Records
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...
in the mid-1990s.
In 2002 Gary Smith, who by then was sole owner of the company, moved the studio from Massachusetts to Bellows Falls, VT, while continuing to operate it under the famous Fort Apache Studios name as well. Since then, Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade have continued to run the original Fort Apache studio location under the name Camp Street Studios. For fifteen years, Smith used "Fort Apache" as the name of a multi-faceted company that operated the studio business, a concert promotion business, and a business managing artists such as Juliana Hatfield, Tanya Donelly
Tanya Donelly
Tanya Donelly is an American Grammy-nominated singer songwriter and guitarist based in New England who co-founded Throwing Muses with her stepsister Kristin Hersh. She then went on to work in The Breeders and Belly in the 1990s...
and Natalie Merchant
Natalie Merchant
Natalie Anne Merchant is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She joined the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and left it to begin her solo career in 1993.-Early life:...
. From 2002-2006, Fort Apache additionally operated a music venue in the lobby of The Windham Hotel, where it recorded and broadcast nearly 200 live concerts. The concert venue was originally the brainchild of Smith and Charlie Hunter, owner of the Bellows Falls booking agency Flying Under Radar.
In 2007 operations in Bellows Falls were suspended and Smith moved the studio and management offices to his farm nearby in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
.
In late 2008 The Bridge Sound & Stage began recording in the second of the two Cambridge locations formerly operated by "Fort Apache Studios". The engineers at The Bridge are Owen Curtin and Janos Fulop.