March 18--Much like the bands who recorded their music there, it didn't really fit in. Smart Studios was an unassuming recording space inside a warehouse in an unassuming Midwestern town, Madison, Wis. In its three-decade existence, it was the birthplace of major albums by Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage, and indie-rock favorites by Killdozer, Tad and Rainer Maria.
Now the studio, which closed in 2010 due to financial difficulties, is the subject of a documentary film, Wendy Schneider's "The Smart Studios Story," which debuted this week at the South by Southwest Music Conference and was the subject of a panel Friday that included Schneider, Smart Studio founders (and Garbage bandmates) Butch Vig and Steve Marker, producer Kerry Brown and Sub Pop label owner Jonathan Poneman.
Poneman, whose label nurtured the early careers of artists such Nirvana and Mudhoney, took inspiration from Chicago-based Touch Go, an '80s indie-rock powerhouse that sent many of its bands to record with Vig and Marker in their studio. The modest facility was relatively inexpensive, conveniently located only a few hours' drive from Chicago, and excelled at getting clean sounds without watering down a band's essence. Touch Go bands such as Killdozer and Die Kreuzen "had a huge impact on the Seattle scene," Poneman said, and he sent Nirvana to Vig and Marker as the band began making demos for what what would become the trio's second album, "Nevermind."
"I think they could be as big as the Beatles, you told me," Vig said to Poneman. And later added, "You were right."
Brown, who was in the Chicago band Catherine and worked with Smashing Pumpkins, said the Pumpkins achieved a "hi-fi sound" by recording its debut album, "Gish," at Smart Studios. "How can people do that from my world?" he asked, and soon got a crash course in Vig-style production from the Pumpkins' Billy Corgan.
Vig said the sessions for the Pumpkins second album, the multimillion-selling "Siamese Dream," were among the most grueling of his career, five months of six and seven-day weeks and 14-hour days. Due to drug use within the band, there were "crisis interventions" involving the band's manager. But there was also an "insane attention to detail" that paid off in a landmark album.
"Billy pushed me as hard as I pushed him," Vig said.
Though Smart Studios closed, Vig says he doesn't see it as a sign of rock's demise.
He came out of an independent scene that had been ignored by the major labels and helped build it into a major force, and said he sees the same kind of dynamic playing out in the streets of Austin this week, where 2,000 bands are vying for attention. In the producer's view, the pendulum is swinging back toward performance-based authenticity rather than computerized perfectionism.
"There's something about the human condition when you capture a performance ... that speaks to people," Vig said. "It's overwhelming how many great bands are playing here right now. I don't think they want to get to the top of the charts, they just want to get out and play."
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