Buzz Me In

Inside the Record Plant studios

Martin Porter, David Goggin

$59.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

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English

Thames & Hudson
17 June 2025

Music; Rock & Pop music; Music recording & reproduction; History: specific events & topics; Music industry

The inside story of Record Plant studios - the real 'Hotel California' - that reveals how the greatest music of the seventies was recorded and why the artists checked out but rarely left.

In the 1970s, Record Plant Studios was ground zero for the largest boom in record production in music history. With complexes in New York, Los Angeles and Sausalito, and a fleet of remote recording trucks, Record Plant was everywhere there was music. In 1976 alone, the studio produced three number-one albums: Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, the Eagles' Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.

Written by two veteran music journalists, this engrossing book tells the incredible story of the evolution of Record Plant Studios tape by tape. Starting on the westside of New York in 1968 with the recording of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, Record Plant expanded to LA, where Stevie Wonder produced his greatest hits, and then to Sausalito where Sly Stone, Bob Marley and Fleetwood Mac encamped; John Lennon made New York his post-Beatles home, and the Eagles conceived Hotel California while working in LA. Each location showcased the founders' proven formula of combining state-of-the-art audio, fantasy bedrooms and group jacuzzis, with sex, drugs and celebrity jams.

Largely based on the memoirs and archives of studio co-founder Chris Stone, and supplemented by interviews with over 100 studio employees, music producers and recording artists, this is the untold story, in all its brazen glory, of the recording of classic rock'n'roll as told by the insiders who gladly toiled behind the locked doors of the most prolific recording factory of all time.

By: Martin Porter, David Goggin
Imprint: Thames & Hudson
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9780500028698
ISBN 10: 0500028699
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 17 June 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Martin Porter is an author, journalist and publisher who began his career as a technology writer/reporter in the mid-1970s for Rolling Stone, GQ and Premiere magazines. As editor and publisher of Pro Sound News, EQ, Guitar Player and Surround magazines, he has been one of the leading chroniclers of this golden period in music and audio technology. David Goggin, aka Mr Bonzai, is an award-winning author, photographer and music journalist. Together the authors manage the popular Record Plant Diaries Facebook page.

Reviews for Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant studios

Absolutely the best rock history book I've ever read, and I've read them all.--Bobby Owsinski, best-selling author, educator and recording engineer An entertaining dive into a wild musical world. . . . Music journalists Porter and Goggin take us behind the scenes where the sounds were created, sliced, and diced. . . . Sex and drugs were inevitably part of the package, with cocaine piled atop amplifiers. . . . There are wild tales of [John] Lennon locking horns with Phil Spector in L.A. [. . .] and a DEA raid in Sausalito aimed at busting Sly Stone. . . .With firsthand accounts from many of the players, it's a cautionary tale.-- ""Kirkus Reviews"" Cool book. I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in studio history. I got an advance copy last week and reading it was like reliving those crazy times.--Jack Douglas, producer/engineer John Lennon, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick Martin Porter and David Goggin's Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant Studios traces the extraordinary history of one of the music industry's most vaunted and influential institutions. During its heyday in the 1970s and beyond, the Record Plant served as the innovative hub for one landmark album after another. In this thoroughgoing and highly entertaining book, Porter and Goggin provide readers with a guided tour of the studios, along with unforgettable stories about the producers, engineers, and artists who made the Record Plant hum.--Kenneth Womack, author of ""Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans""