Greene St. Recording
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Greene St. Recording was a New York City recording studio, located at 112 Greene St. in SoHo. until its close in 2001. It was one of the early headquarters of hip-hop during the 1980s and 1990s.
Artists who recorded there include: Run–D.M.C., Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Sonic Youth, New Order, Ice Cube, Riot, Bonnie Tyler, Chaka Kahn, James Brown, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Jenny Burton, John Robie, Afrika Bambaataa, Dave Matthews Band, George Benson, Roy Ayers, Black Eyed Peas, De La Soul, Beastie Boys, Mos Def & Talib Kweli, Black Thought, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, DJ Muggs, Tricky, Jungle Brothers, Propellerheads, IAM (french rap, album L'école du micro d'argent), You Am I.
Greene Street began in the early 1970s as Big Apple Recording, which was a partnership between the Philip Glass music director Michael Riesman and producer Steve Loeb. The first studio manager was Jonathan Katz who would later make a name for himself as "Dr Katz" a popular albeit cartoon figure on Comedy Central and the first studio chief engineer was Wieslaw Woszczyk now Dr. Wieslaw Woszczyk who holds the James McGill Chair Professorship in Sound Recording and is the Founding Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology at McGill University.
In 1983 Loeb bought out Riesman and became 100% owner of the studio which was renamed Greene Street Recording. Former Woszczyk assistant Rod Hui became chief engineer and Robyn Sansone became studio manager. In the first year as Greene Street under Loeb, Hui and Sansone, Greene Street recorded and mixed a number of records including the three groundbreaking hits Shannon's "Let The Music Play", Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" and Run DMC's "It's Like That".
In 1983 when Dave Harrington came on board as studio manager, Greene Street underwent renovation adding an additional two rooms installing NY's first AMEK APC 1000 mixing desk with Massenburg moving fader automation and also the first pair of Roger Quested tri amped main monitor system.
Over the years, Greene Street played host to scores of hits and at one time even had three of the top twenty hits simultaneously on the Billboard top 40.
Undoubtedly much of Greene Street's success had all to do with an assembly of some of the greatest engineering talent in the US at the time. The staff included Rod Hui, Nick Sansano, Jamey Staub, Chris Shaw, Phil Painson, Prince Strickland, Charlie Dos Santos, Chris Champion, Djini Brown, and Danny Madorsky.
[edit] Greene St after Greene St
Soon after the closing of Greene St Recording, owner Steve Loeb along with record producer artist John Robie launched The Combine at 112 Greene Street, which presented a multi-media urban art project entitled Work To Do which featured 52 urban / graffiti artists. With the assistance of former studio manager Dave Harrington they opened March 26, 2009 for one time only and featured Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force at the opening event.
In 2011 the space was rejoined with the upper floor to its original configuration and leased to fashion designer and daughter of Beatle bassist Sir Paul McCartney Stella McCartney.