One of my first memories is staring at wires on telephone poles from the back of the family car. I became obsessed with electronics while very young, dismantling radios and TV's from the dump, building kits and projects, fiddling with circuits. Mom was a music teacher and dad was a structural engineer with a firm in San Francisco, doing projects all over the world. Occasional run-ins with the authorities -- an FCC visit to shut down my bootleg transmitter, Pacific Telephone showing up to confiscate my "phone freak" gear (they called it Interstate Toll Fraud) alarmed my father, but he was secretly tickled -- I guess it made for good stories at cocktail parties.
The real influence was my uncle, Leo Kulka. Leo's audio career went way back to the U.S. Army Signal Corps and then Radio Recorders and Gold Star, he later built International Sound at Sunset & Western. I remember watching Leo cut records on the Neumann lathe, he'd always show up at family get togethers with classical or sound effects albums that he'd done.
In my early 20's I was installing burglar alarm systems, which I really enjoyed. Leo, who had no kids then, often invited me to come work for him at his studio in San Francisco, Golden State. I resisted at first because it seemed nepotistic but finally decided to give it a try, then wondered why I'd waited so long. I repaired and installed gear and Leo taught me disc mastering, which I loved. There were all sorts of great sessions and projects-- classical, comedy, direct to disk, jazz, you name it. Working at a San Francisco studio in the mid 70's was great fun.
I was anxious to try my luck in the big city and landed a job at Bill Putnam's United/Western in '77. I moved to L.A. and became the lead night maintenance guy. At the time, Western had 5 24-track studios, and just about everyone recorded there at one time or another. There were more brilliant musicians, singers, composers, producers, and engineers than I could begin to list here. The number and variety of big sessions there was just unbelievable -- I stayed for 4 years, every day was exciting and special.
By '81 I wanted to earn more and do some freelance work. I wound up working for Steve Guy at Location Recording Service. LRS had 3 mastering rooms, I found myself cutting disks again and helping with maintenance. Steve was an industry veteran and like Leo, an alumnus of Radio Recorders. He was a highly respected perfectionist and a wonderful influence. Though LRS was lower key than United/Western, it was still a pretty happening place. Deanne Jensen and Wally Heider were associates of Steve's and would drop by to shoot the bull, Michael Verdick did album projects with Madonna and Ted Nugent in the back studio.
Within a few years my studio installation and repair business had taken off and I moved on from LRS. There were a lot of fun jobs building and maintaining L.A. studios, and working for composers, session players, singer-songwriters, and radio people. For the last few years our work has turned more to video. This seemed to happen by itself and I'm glad it did -- shrinkage in the audio industry would have made survival awfully hard and besides, video has provided a plenty of new challenges, learning experiences, and wonderful clients. But we get plenty of tube gear and vintage work too, so it's not all frame rates, HD, and MPEG.
I never thought of it as a "mess", though. It's been a privilege and I've enjoyed almost every single day!