Recording Studio

A Sonoma County estate with a recording studio that has been used to produce albums for Third Eye Blind, Tracy Chapman and Duran Duran, among others, has come on the market at $5.3 million. Encompassing more than eight acres, the wine country compound includes a gated main house with five bedrooms, five bathrooms and seven fireplaces built in a 1760s Colonial style.  There are also two guesthouses, a theater/entertainment building, a gym/cabana building and the recording studio.

Flynn Robinson Guard in Lakers 1971 championship team Flynn Robinson, 72, a flashy guard who was a member of the 1971-72 Lakers team that brought Los Angeles its first NBA title, died Thursday at Keck Hospital in Los Angeles from complications related to cancer. He had been battling multiple myeloma for about two years, according to the Lakers. His scoring binges with the championship team earned him the nickname "Instant Offense" from longtime Lakers announcer Chick Hearn.

That Phil Ramone was a musical force in the recording studio is undeniable, and the evidence lies in the range of his accomplishments. For example, within one three-year period in the early 1960s, Ramone mixed Lesley Gore's smash hit "It's My Party," recorded Marilyn Monroe seducing President John F. Kennedy in song on his birthday and engineered essential double-quartet recordings by jazz innovators Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. Ramone, who died Saturday in his late 70s or early 80s, depending on sources, would have been only around 30 at the time.

A Sonoma County estate with a recording studio that has been used to produce albums for Third Eye Blind, Tracy Chapman and Duran Duran, among others, has come on the market at $5.3 million. Encompassing more than eight acres, the wine country compound includes a gated main house with five bedrooms, five bathrooms and seven fireplaces built in a 1760s Colonial style.  There are also two guesthouses, a theater/entertainment building, a gym/cabana building and the recording studio.

"WE go until it happens," rap producer Dr. Dre says about all the time he spends in the recording studio searching for hits, once as long as 79 hours in a single stretch. "When the ideas are coming," says the man who is one of the half-dozen most influential producers of the modern pop era, "I don't stop until the ideas stop because that train doesn't come along all the time." Some hip-hop fans, however, must be wondering if this particular train isn't off the track.

When an artist goes into a recording studio to cut an album, the money for the session is usually paid by a record company in the form of an advance against the artist's royalties on the eventual sale of the record. The success of the studio business, therefore, is tied directly to the performance of the record industry at large. In recent years, that's meant hard times for studio operators. For example, according to the Recording Industry Assn.

Elvis Presley: "Loving You" (1957). This loosely biographical musical gave millions of fans around the world their first full glimpse of the magnetism that would make Elvis a cultural phenomenon. Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl" (1968). Five years after a debut album that earned her a Grammy, Streisand became a multimedia superstar by winning an Oscar for her portrayal of Fanny Brice. Prince: "Purple Rain" (1984).

Back in the 1970s, it was not uncommon for a rock band making an album at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles to be treated to free champagne and a catered meal at the start and finish of a recording session. "We even used to pick up their hotel bills and rent-a-cars, which is totally out of the question now," said studio manager Nick Smerigan. Nowadays, the bands get cookies and soft drinks, and the cost is added directly to their bill, Smerigan said.

Four gunmen entered a Costa Mesa recording studio, handcuffed 14 employees and their guests, and left with more than $100,000 in sound equipment, police and one of the victims said Saturday. The robbers spent nearly two hours Friday night taking wallets, rings and the sophisticated recording equipment, police said. When they left Front Page Productions in the 200 block of Avocado Street, the robbers reminded the victims that they had their drivers' licenses and addresses, a victim said.

A Woodland Hills man accused of illegally operating a recording studio in his home has been charged with evading taxes and breaking city zoning laws, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney's office said Thursday. Spokesman Mike Qualls said Charles A. Sandford, 37, was charged Wednesday with three counts of failing to register as a business and not paying city taxes on his studio, called Secret Sound.

That Phil Ramone was a musical force in the recording studio is undeniable, and the evidence lies in the range of his accomplishments. For example, within one three-year period in the early 1960s, Ramone mixed Lesley Gore's smash hit "It's My Party," recorded Marilyn Monroe seducing President John F. Kennedy in song on his birthday and engineered essential double-quartet recordings by jazz innovators Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. Ramone, who died Saturday in his late 70s or early 80s, depending on sources, would have been only around 30 at the time.

High-spirited, emotional and funny, "Sound City" is, of all things, a mash note to a machine. Not just any machine, however, but one that helped change the face of rock 'n' roll. That piece of equipment, the Neve 8028 sound board, was the crown jewel of Sound City in Van Nuys, a complete dump of a recording studio whose unkempt ambience and warehouse complex location didn't stop it from turning out more than 100 gold and platinum records, including epochal work by Neil Young, Tom Petty, Pat Benatar, Cheap Trick, Rage Against the Machine, Fleetwood Mac and Nine Inch Nails.

Actor-screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton has sold his estate in Beverly Hills for $8 million. Built in 1929, the 11,012-square-foot Spanish-style mansion retains its period details and features a two-story living room, a recording studio, a gym, a library, nine bedrooms and eight bathrooms. The walled and gated property of more than a half-acre includes a swimming pool, a spa, fountains and a paddle tennis court. Thornton, 57, directed, wrote and starred in the movie "Sling Blade" (1996)

"American Idol" winner David Cook has sold his house in Hollywood Hills for $1.365 million. The Beachwood Canyon-area house has views of the Hollywood sign, a recording studio and a custom-designed dog yard. There are three bedrooms and three bathrooms in nearly 3,100 square feet. Cook, 29, won the seventh season of the singing competition show in 2008. Since "Idol," he has released the albums "David Coke" and "This Loud Morning. " The singer paid $1.318 million for the property in 2010, public records show.

In 1978 on a 1,600-acre farm in rural Washington, Don Emerson Sr., one of a long line of builders, loggers and sawmill workers whose livelihood was earned in the timber surrounding them, noticed that two of his teenage sons, Joe and Donnie, had taken a liking to music. He'd see them doing their chores while listening to radio from Spokane 70 miles to the southeast and encouraged them as they began writing and playing their own music. They even went into a studio to make a record but were disappointed with the experience.

The Occupy movement galvanized protest singers to assemble in public spaces and shout their grievances last year. In Los Angeles, the potential arrival of a ChinatownWal-Martmay do the same. Wal-Marthas already begun construction on the controversial store at Grand Avenue and Cesar A. Chavez Boulevard, but this Saturday a bevy of union organizers and local and national acts known for social activism will lead what they're billing as "the largest protest against Wal-Mart ever held in the U.S. " Acts that include Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and adventurous folkie Ben Harper (who headlines the Hollywood Bowl the next night)

Chas Sanford, producer of hits for such recording stars as Stevie Nicks and TV's Don Johnson, was looking forward to spending most of June working in his $1-million Woodland Hills home recording studio on an album by newcomer Billy Branigan. But Sanford may be spending much of the coming weeks in meetings with attorneys and city building and zoning officials. His goal: reversing a Los Angeles City Department of Building and Safety order to shut down the studio by Wednesday because the studio violates city zoning ordinances that restrict the commercial use of residential property.

Two musicians and the owner of a recording studio were handcuffed and put in a storage vault early Monday by a pair of gun-toting thieves in ski masks, who stole recording equipment worth $75,000, police said. The three were leaving the Sound Affair at 2727 S. Croddy Way about 3:30 a.m. when two men confronted them, Police Sgt. Dick Faust said. Lisa Haley, a manager at the studio, said later that the three men had been herded into a storage vault for recording tapes.

Singer and actress Julie Andrews has listed the Brentwood house she owned with her late husband, director and screenwriter Blake Edwards , for $2.649 million. Less than a month after coming on the market, the tidy white home with gray shutters is already in escrow. The traditional-style house features a family room and living room with French doors opening to a fanciful garden that appears to be "practically perfect in every way" to borrow a phrase from "Mary Poppins. " The formal dining room has a cathedral ceiling and glass walls.