We tore down the studio today. The destruction blew my mind. There was tradition in that place. The thousands of little arguments that we had over the years had led to understandings about how things should sound and how music should be played. We all knew the strengths and weaknesses of the equipment and how to get excellent results when recording there. The way things were set up was probably not optimal in a theoretical sense, but it was the convergence of years of desire to make things sound good and the experimentation that went along with it. Although the studio was dirty and the equipment was outdated, it was the everyone's preferred place for doing important work.

It didn't surprise me that we got evicted. The hours of paid studio time had been decreasing steadily for as long as I had been hanging out there. People are still recording music, just not at our studio. They probably prefer newer places with younger staff and more computer-based recording equipment. For a long time, Serge had been saying that the place wasn't making it financially, but I never really thought about what that meant. Now it is all very real and physical, but still unbelievable, that the studio is wrecked.

When I got there Serge and Paul were already carrying stuff out to a dumpster, which wasn't there when I left late last night. I looked into the dumpster and saw the couch. It must have been the first thing to go since it was kind of in the way of the door when you come into the studio. I didn't want to obstruct progress, but it was weird to see the couch cut away from the room where it comfortably sat for at least fifteen years. It had always been the preferred spot, for napping, for eating, for sitting down and telling everyone how cool something is or how much of an idiot somebody is. It was the throne from which orders were given.

Nobody was saying anything.

The most fucked-up part was that Serge decided to put the mixing board in the dumpster. He said that nobody wanted it on Craigslist, even for free. I considered taking it for myself, but it was really big and, in truth, I don't need a 16-track mixer. Seeing the mixer go out was disorienting because for years it was the object of limitless fussing, both in terms of how music would be mixed and also in Serge's insistence that people not eat near the mixer. Two days ago we were using it for what it was made for and now it is seeing the outside air for the first time in decades. An soon it will be buried in the dump. I always took the mixer seriously since I knew that every record ever made in that place was made on that same mixer.

The tape room held all kinds of blank media as well as half-finished project reels. Lately we had gotten into the habit of burning sessions to one or more DVDs which saves a lot of space. But we still kept the project reels of stuff going back beyond anyone's memory. Many of the tapes were actually complete but were just stuck in limbo because record companies often pay for a recording but change their mind and cancel the distribution. In any case, we always kept the tapes in case the artist decides to come back and finish it or finally gets the rights to distribute it. Today everything had to be cleared out and that included the tapes. If I had known, I probably would have gone through at least some of them and tried to save the good stuff. Some of that music was probably really important. I always meant to try to listen to everything and write summaries. That will never happen because it is all in the dumpster now and they will take it away tonight.