Stuart Sikes | TapeOp

Oak Cliff is mostly a working class section of Dallas, Texas. Many know it as the home of T-Bone Walker and the Vaughan brothers — Jimmie and Stevie Ray. In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald lived and was subsequently captured there. Errol Morris' documentary, The Thin Blue Line, partially takes place on Ft. Worth Avenue, down the street from Clyde Barrow's grave. A streetcar line ran in Dallas until the 1950s and today sections of track are visible in Oak Cliff through worn asphalt. Large parts of the area remain frozen in time. Some of the old buildings have survived through preservation efforts, but whole blocks of them remain because it doesn't make economic sense to demolish them. Clusters of one-story retail spaces, which built up around the transit stops, endure decades of indifference. Begun in 1924, Elmwood is a residential area within Oak Cliff. Development here continued until the 1960s so it includes everything from Craftsman bungalows to ranch-style homes. There's a small business section within Elmwood, which dates to the 1940s and runs along Edgefield Avenue. In 1988 Oliver Stone used several blocks there to recreate Ron Kovic's 1969 "Welcome Home" parade in Born on the Fourth of July. With only superficial changes the neighborhood played its role perfectly. In recent years Latino immigrants have moved into Elmwood. Taquerías now occupy some of the decades-old buildings. Stuart Sikes is standing in the doorway of his new recording studio in Elmwood. He likes to have a smoke and take in the neighborhood. He sometimes has lunch at nearby La Competidora. He says he settled in Oak Cliff because he lived in Memphis for a long time. The areas, he feels, have a lot in common. He has a friend who likes to say that, "Memphis doesn't give a shit what's going on with the rest of the country, and the rest of the country doesn't give a shit what's going on in Memphis."

Sikes grew up in Plano, a suburb of Dallas thirty miles to the north of his new studio. The two are in the same metropolitan area but don't share much else. Sikes says he learned to enjoy music back in Plano through an older sister and her friends. An uncle, whom he describes as "pretty good with electronics and a huge audiophile", helped get him started with critical listening. In high school his friends started learning to play music. Sikes himself took up drumming but didn't feel his skills were good enough. While his friends formed bands he discovered the 4-track cassette recorder. He found that he liked recording and did it well. He graduated from Plano East High School in 1991.

At that point he took one semester of a recording class at a local community college. Short of inspired, he fled to Austin for a year. It's a period that remains hazy. So, tapped out, he returned to Dallas. He found work at a copier repair company, in a warehouse as well as cleaning typewriters in area schools. There are a couple of versions of what happened next. Sikes' father was on a plane. Or was it his stepmother? He says both claim credit for what happened. One of them had a seatmate who related that his son had just started going to a recording school in Florida. It sounded like it was worth a look so Sikes and his father soon went to Winter Park and visited Full Sail. It felt right to him. Sikes enrolled in school, relocated to the Orlando area and moved in with two other students. He describes living with housemates who were very different as well as surviving without a car in a car-oriented city. Eventually he met people he felt connected to, but it was a struggle. Reflecting now he insists that kind of training gives back "whatever you put into it. They give you the basic tools to [avoid looking] like an idiot in a studio. Whether you can take that and do anything with it is another thing."

As graduation from Full Sail approached Sikes' sister again influenced him. She was in Memphis, attending graduate school. She knew that Sonic Youth had just recorded at Easley-McCain [Tape Op #44 ]. According to Sikes, she called and said, "Hey, there's this great studio here and that's where you should be trying to get a job!" The knowledge he'd gained at Full Sail gave him the confidence to call the studio. Coincidentally they had recently purchased a Neotek console. "One of those had been provided at school so I knew how to work on it," he explains. Also, the timing seemed right. Doug Easley was in Europe and the console was on its way. Davis McCain faced rewiring the room alone and Sikes came around in time to assist.

Sikes began as an intern at Easley-McCain in 1995. "I cleaned up, made the coffee and sat in the corner and didn't say anything until somebody said something to me," he remembers. Nevertheless, he says that during his internship there he learned "double" what he'd picked up in school. "But," he insists, "I can't bash [school] too bad because it still got me in the door." He made ends meet during his non-paid position. "In school," he says, "I took out a cost-of-living loan and didn't use all of it so I used that money to live on." The funds went further in Memphis than they would have in other cities — his first apartment cost $210 a month.

Davis McCain says that with Sikes "it was a good match from the start." He believes that Sikes distinguished himself from most other interns through his work ethic and temperament. Furthermore McCain observes, "A lot of the interns couldn't relate to the music that we were recording but Stuart was right on top of it." McCain says that later it became apparent that Sikes also had people skills. With a client McCain points out, "You've got to try to figure out what they're hearing in their head and translate it. I think he learned that well."

Sikes converted his entry-level duties into an assistant's job in under six months. Through that period others came and went. He thinks the best thing he did during those first months was to stay quiet. "Nobody shows up at a studio for the intern," he says. Some beginners insisted on voicing their opinions during sessions. "Who cares what you'd do," he remembers thinking at the time. "You're not even getting paid!" The casual, artist-oriented atmosphere at Easley- McCain was genuine but its foundation was built on long hours. The two owners rotated on the schedule. "One guy would come in the first six hours of the day and the other guy would come in the last six hours of the day," Sikes explains. That allowed them to be rested for the work. Sikes, on the other hand, was there throughout.

The first project that came in with Sikes assisting was a band called Two Dollar Guitar, led by Tim Foljahn. For Sikes it meant something because Steve Shelley was the drummer. "I was a big Sonic Youth fan so to be able to meet him for the first time was pretty exciting." Gradually Sikes began to run sessions on his own. "One guy would have the whole day off and the other two guys would work," he says.

One of his first engineering jobs was the Promise Ring's Nothing Feels Good (1997) with J. Robbins [ Tape Op #13 ] producing. Robbins had already made a name for himself as a musician/engineer/producer. According to him the band wanted to work at Easley- McCain because of its reputation. "[Sikes] was just incredibly easy to work with," says Robbins, "and really good at keeping the apparatus of the studio out of the way of the music." About that session Sikes says, "I was still nervous and didn't want to fuck up. That's all." He remembers finishing a song's basic tracks and suggesting that they do another tune. After a playback of the previous song he'd stopped the tape on the song's outro and forgot to fast-forward. "I hit RECORD and erased over the outro," he grimaces. "I could've thrown up I was so disappointed." He had to admit his mistake. To his relief the band members weren't hostile. "I backed the tape up and they started playing along with it," he recalls, "and I punched them in." Sikes overdubbed a cymbal at the punch to mask it. He says that spot on the record is hard for him to locate today.

Subsequently Robbins went back to Easley-McCain for Jets to Brazil's 1998 release, Orange Rhyming Dictionary. They had more time in the studio than Promise Ring did. Robbins had gained trust in Sikes through that first experience and says having Sikes there freed him to function as a producer rather than as "ghost engineer." Robbins remembers getting stuck during the overdubbing phase looking for a specific guitar sound. Sikes insisted that he "just get a sound and go for it" which Robbins now recognizes as "total wisdom — not to get hung up but trust some things to happen in the spirit of the moment and let the recording reflect that." Robbins maintains that the best records are marked by those "unplanned details." For Robbins it helped that Sikes' suggestions seemed to come from a desire to further the project rather than out of ego.

From there a burst of activity began at Easley-McCain. Sikes and the owners scarcely had time to take a long view of their work. The list of artists who came through the studio included The White Stripes, Chan Marshall (Cat Power), Modest Mouse, The Walkmen, Jets to Brazil, Rocket from the Crypt and The Spinanes. Dozens of other clients of national, local and no renown worked there. "Mostly," Sikes explains, "a long recording during that time would be ten days." That's tracking and mixing. He says that bands would just show up and start recording "and so you were always kind of hauling ass and trying to do the best job you could. It's not like you're sitting around the studio hanging out with the band." Sikes figures the studio's popularity was due to at least two factors. One was the Memphis mystique. Studios such as Memphis Recording Service (Sun), Stax Records, Ardent Studios, Sam Phillips Recording Service and Easley- McCain had all made history and artists wanted to be a part of that. Also the studio itself made an impression. Easley-McCain was in the old "American East" building, "the first studio in Memphis," he says, "that was built as a studio. It had a big room and it had still-functioning live echo chambers." Furthermore clients found both Easley and McCain to be kindred spirits. The atmosphere they created while working also made an impression on Sikes. Through their mentoring he recognized that making a recording was more than having racks of gear.

The White Stripes were encouraged, as far as Sikes knows, to use Easley-McCain by their Memphis friends, The Oblivians. Independent of that Sikes had just recorded and mixed Rocket from the Crypt's Group Sounds, released in 2001. Sikes says that John Reis of RFTC also recommended him and the studio to the White Stripes. For White Blood Cells (2001) Sikes says Jack and Meg White were in the same room — baffles between them — during the recording of the basic tracks. White overdubbed his vocals and a second guitar on all songs. "[Meg] said she didn't really know the songs." Sikes remembers. "I think she knew the songs. We recorded it in like two days and then the last days we just did rough mixes. Some of those mixes I think are on the record. And then they came back for two more days and they did maybe one or two more songs." Of that record he says simply, "It got me a lot of work." He finds, however, that it's always necessary to remain busy. "I think usually people know you by the last thing they heard," he says. "But [White Blood Cells] helped. It was good."

Sikes was at Easley-McCain for seven years until late 2001. "I never thought I was going to leave there. I loved that place. I recorded all the bands for like the last three years." Speaking of both owners he says, "They were great. I learned everything from those guys." Sikes' wife, Diane, is an artist and sculptor. They got together in 1997 and married in 2001. She had earned a Master's degree from Memphis College of Art and wanted to teach but opportunities in Memphis were limited. Furthermore Sikes knew people in Dallas, his hometown, and realized there was potential opportunity there. So the Sikes moved to Dallas in October of 2001. Oak Cliff's locally-owned businesses and oozing history reminded them of where they'd been, so that's where they landed. Clearly, Dallas itself has an important musical history and recording studios have been there since the beginning. It's almost certain that Robert Johnson recorded "Hellhound on My Trail", among a dozen others, at the Brunswick Records Building in 1937. Bob Wills' first recordings were also made in Dallas. The city has simultaneously been known through the years as a place where jingle packages are produced.

John Congleton is a Dallas-based producer, engineer and musician. He also leads the band the pAper chAse, and now shares space with Sikes. He says that jingle studios are places that seek a neutral sound, "and that's exactly what you don't want out of a rock and roll studio." Consequently, he admits, "it's been tough for me and Stuart both to find a place to really feel comfortable working in Dallas. Don't get me wrong: there are good places and good people." He explains that it's just necessary to look for them. That was the environment that Sikes entered toward the end of 2001. "It was pretty bleak," he remembers. "'Cause you'd go around to studios and you'd have your little list of bands that you'd done, which you thought are pretty good bands, and they didn't know who those people were." Pro Tools wasn't something that Easley-McCain saw much of in the late '90s, but by 2001 "they'd ask you if you knew how to use Pro Tools. I would say 'No, but I can learn really fast.' So I didn't really work very much."

One studio owner Sikes contacted upon arriving was Gary Long of Nomad Recording Studio, which was located in suburban Dallas. After visiting with Sikes, Long was reminded of Congleton. "I noticed that they had similar taste in music, a similar approach to recording and mixing philosophies. [With them,] it doesn't have to be all lacquered and glossy and perfect." Sikes did a few sessions at Nomad. Long remembers clients being pleased, and not only with his knowledge. "He doesn't push himself on people," he says. "He works with it, not against it." Long sees Sikes as a person who's not afraid to take chances to get the sound he wants. Long believed that if Sikes and Congleton met they would hit it off. He was right, Congleton says. "My first real conversation with [Stuart] was about how he was completely blown away with how many people were using Pro Tools in Dallas. I think our first talk was about his adjusting to that." Congleton had been using the workstation and offered suggestions. Sikes decided to purchase a Digi 001 Pro Tools interface and to learn what he needed to know.

One Dallas band that Sikes worked with early on was the Happy Bullets. Member Jason Roberts learned of Sikes in 2004 through friend Marcus Striplin of the band Pleasant Grove. Roberts had just heard Pleasant Grove's latest CD, The Art of Leaving, and liked its sound. Roberts and Sikes were introduced and Sikes produced and engineered the Happy Bullets' 2005 release, The Vice and Virtue Ministry. Sikes, still looking for a permanent studio home, recorded the Happy Bullets primarily at Valve Studios and at Bass Propulsion Labs (BPL). They used other rooms, which could have resulted in organizational problems. But when they started to work, "he was comfortable moving in and out of different places," Roberts says. For example, the band wanted to try a particular room and Sikes explained that he liked the space for certain things but not for drums.

Used to a quick set-up followed by rolling tape, the band walked in ready to record. This time the drummer set up his kit, hit one drum and Sikes said, according to Roberts, "This isn't going to work." Sikes began to assemble a kit from assorted drums owned by the studio. "It was really a Frankenstein piece." Roberts says. For Sikes, new drumheads were also necessary and Roberts says that Sikes helped with the cost. These were details that were not addressed in previous Happy Bullets recording sessions. As they moved through their recording the Happy Bullets appreciated Sikes' interpretation of their requests. According to Roberts, "I usually say [something like] I'm going for late '60s Abbey Road meets The Band. And he can get that." At Valve Studios, Roberts says they had access to "six or seven amps" and Sikes selected amplifiers based on the song. Sikes' mental catalog of bands and styles impressed Roberts. "He knew we loved the late '60s psych-pop sound. When we walked into the studio at BPL there was a Mellotron waiting for us."

Sikes is known to ask for multiple takes when time allows, his objective being to polish the performance until the players are happy. Marcus Striplin of Pleasant Grove says that a song on The Art of Leaving, called "Impossible", included an arpeggiated keyboard part, which thusly presented timing challenges. "He made us play it over and over until our drummer, Jeff Ryan, was completely into the pocket." He also feels that Sikes has a calming effect on people "and at the same time he's a funny guy and sharp as nails." Furthermore, he sees in Sikes a respect for the art. He says Sikes used measuring tape during their session to check the distance from source to microphone — "walking around like a mad scientist."

Sikes sought a base of operations in Dallas. After a rented space flooded (don't ask), he started looking for something more permanent. While driving through Oak Cliff neighborhoods that appealed to him he noticed a "For Sale" sign in the window of a former realtor's office. He was drawn to the place's size — at just under 1700 square feet — and location. After some negotiating a deal was struck. "It was half as much as any building I looked at," he says. That was in August of 2006. Once he moved in the real work began. "I talked to a couple of studio designers and I couldn't afford them," Sikes admits. The money to build it out would have cost more than he'd paid for the building. He moved to his second option, which was to do the work himself. He did lots of reading, sketched various ideas, "and just kind of went with it" he says. The framing, electrical and plumbing were the only jobs not covered by Sikes and his friends. The realtor's space had been an office and small warehouse. Sikes and crew gutted it. "We did it by hand," he says, "with sledgehammers and handsaws. My friend Brian was unemployed, so he could come over and get his aggression out by knocking down a couple of walls." Sikes created a tracking room that is roughly 28 by 22 feet. His goal was to make the space as large and comfortable as possible. He avoided parallel surfaces, making the opposing walls 28 and 27 feet, and 20 and 22 feet. The framers cursed as they worked, as there's only one 90-degree angle in the entire building. The walls are 5/8" double layer sheetrock throughout.

There are three isolation rooms, which vary slightly in size, adjacent to the main tracking room. Vocalists and amplifiers usually end up in those spaces but there are eight microphone inputs available. "If you wanted super dead drums you could do them in there" Sikes explains. The signal separation is controlled simply by the amount that the iso room's door is open when tracking a band live. In the control room is a 1982 MCI 636 console with 28 mono channels and eight stereo inputs. Sikes has been working with Terence Slemmons (Slemmons Music Services) to recondition it. "We've redone the master section [on the MCI] and now we're working one channel at a time" Slemmons says. The preamplifiers are not connected. For mic pres Sikes uses an eight-channel 34128 Neve sidecar plus preamps by Altec, Trident and six original Universal Audio tube models. Sikes also uses the pres in an Ampex 351 2-track tape machine. Slemmons has repaired several pieces of Sikes' equipment, including an EMT 240 plate reverb unit. The work wasn't complicated but taking it in for service was. "The thing is maybe only 36" by 24" but probably weighs 200 pounds" Slemmons says.

Through a friend Sikes has access to an Ampex MM1200 2" 16-track. It's down at the moment, needing a new pinch roller. When it's functioning Sikes has used it for entire projects, although he's gotten used to recording basic tracks to tape and loading them into a workstation for overdubs. For that he uses a Pro Tools HD2 system with Lynx Aurora interfaces. Sikes talks about gear to a point, then his interest trails. What seems important to him is that the electronics get incorporated into a larger whole. He finishes the discussion for the moment by saying, "The greatest thing about freelancing and getting to travel all over the place is you get to work in these different studios that have insane stuff. I like [using it], but it's too expensive."

In the tracking room Sikes displays what he calls the "bass traps" he's just made and installed. Their absorption has ended up being more broadband. They're on the wall, opposite a set of Roger's drums that serve as his studio kit (also nearby are several guitars, a vibraphone, Wurlitzer, Rhodes and a Hammond M3). He needed to make the room "less chaotic," and designed the traps mostly based on an old photo of United Western Recorders that appears in Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios by William Clark and Jim Cogan. His adaptation differs slightly from the picture, "but they're basically doing the same thing" he says. The absorptive material "is like four-pound insulation" mounted in a two-by-four frame and there are four of them placed at even intervals on the wall. "It tamed the room" he believes. Next he plans to install another design that controls low frequencies, but also reflects some of the high end. That way, he predicts, the room will retain some character and not be completely dead. "But I'm still just doing it until I like it" he says.

For the most part Sikes has worked in Dallas since his return. Occasionally, though, he travels. He went back to Memphis to mix Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose, which was released in 2004. He got a Grammy Award for that one which he doesn't discuss much. He's not sure exactly how he got involved with the record, although Jack White's participation is certainly a connection. He says he's happy he was asked. "I think it's a pretty cool record and it was pretty exciting to meet Loretta," he says. The recording was done in Nashville at Eric McConnell's studio. "It's like an old house," Sikes explains. "You know the front cover picture? That house she's standing in front of? That's where they recorded it." The songs for Van Lear Rose were done on an 8-track and McConnell took his tape machine to Easley-McCain in Memphis. Sikes and Jack White mixed it in two days. Dan Miller, a musician on the record, was also around Sikes says. According to Sikes, Lynn visited both days, parking her tour bus in the lot of the hotel the rest of them were in. At the studio Sikes recalls, "She would come for a little. She'd hang out and she'd just tell stories. She'd say, 'Boys, is my vocal in tune?' 'Um, yeah,' they'd answer. 'I'm going back to the bus.' she'd say."

Sikes also went back to Memphis to record and mix Cat Power's The Greatest (2006) at Ardent Studios. The band had never met Chan Marshall. To Sikes' knowledge they were assembled when Marshall mentioned to her label, Matador, that she'd like to work with Al Green's backing band. Sikes says that with Memphis-based writer Robert Gordon's help, they contacted the right players. They ended up with Mabon "Teenie" Hodges on guitar, Steve Potts on drums and Leroy Hodges and David Smith on bass. Marshall even chose to sing live in the room with the drums. "No one," Sikes says now, "was certain how the project would turn out. However they're all out there playing and it's like you're listening to the finished record. It just doesn't happen anymore." The total time on that project was three weeks, because there are horns, organs and extra guitars as overdubs. Sikes and Marshall mixed the record together.

Sikes traveled to Mushroom Studios in Vancouver to work on Hot Hot Heat's 2007 release, Happiness LTD. Co- founder Steve Bays [of Hot Hot Heat] says that they'd been fans of his work dating back to the Promise Ring's Nothing Feels Good and that "he was the number one guy on our engineer wish list." Bays liked that Sikes ran all their keyboards through Neve 1081 preamps. That path led to signals that were almost distorted, but not quite. Bays echoes many people when he maintains that Sikes' involvement often solves creative problems. He says Happiness LTD's title song was not coming together because they generally liked the verses and bridge, but not the chorus. He remembers that they tried several times to fix it without success. The band argued about the way out. Finally, Bays recalls, Sikes "just yelled 'HERE!' and cut out all the choruses and joined up all the parts. We ended up loving it and probably never would have thought of writing a song that was essentially just a bunch of verses."

In terms of his process, Sikes likes to hear a band before starting to work. People send him demos, or he sometimes is able to hear them live. Beyond that he tries to stay flexible, with the project itself dictating the flow and the details. He prefers collaborating with a group of decision-makers. He says the project is not as rewarding for him if one person calls the shots unless it's a singer- songwriter. He enjoyed working with the Walkmen on Bows + Arrows (2004) and says, "They're a band that knows exactly what they want their instruments to sound like." Sikes finds that it's typically younger bands that aren't sure what they want. He doesn't like to exploit their inexperience or dictate how the session will run. "Because," he explains, "I think a lot of young bands don't realize [they have a say]. I mean, I can like it all I want but if they don't like it it kind of sucks." Also, he knows that recording "is not something people do every day. You've got that big window and people listening. So you've got to be able to make them comfortable to enjoy playing."

Sikes sees himself getting hired as a producer more these days. He's aware that the word "producer" has multiple meanings. It can be someone who writes songs or string arrangements for pop artists or someone whose name is included on packaging in an attempt to sell CDs. It can also be a person with an outside opinion who helps guide the songs or someone who mediates when the guitar players get into a tiff. For Sikes, "it means they trust me enough to help them make their songs as good as they can be." He's reluctant about self- promotion. That includes talking about himself for a magazine article. He believes that magazine profiles exist mainly for the purpose of marketing. "I mean, read the articles," he says. "It doesn't matter what audio magazine you're doing, they ask the same questions ('What mics did you use on that recording?'). They're not going to go into minute details, because maybe they don't want you finding out." He says that for one project, part of his contract dictated that he grant an interview with a major audio recording publication. The subject was The Greatest and the question was, "What kind of mic did you use on her vocal?" Sikes' answer was, "One of them that we used was a [Shure] SM58." Amused, he says, "Okay, I'm telling this guy we used a $70 mic. Well, it was the one that they had that kept a lot of the bleed from the band out, so what the fuck do you do? The good stuff nobody's going to tell you."

On the afternoon of March 2, 2005 a fire started at Easley-McCain. No one was injured and the suspected cause was a power surge. There was significant damage. "It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen," Sikes recalls. "I mean it was just charred." It's reported that the lounge was hit hardest, with the tracking and control rooms sustaining smoke damage. Sikes thinks the tracking room could have been salvaged, but everything else would need to have been rebuilt. The owners sold the building and, according to Sikes, now freelance.

Sikes' reputation helps him get work these days. He doesn't rely on that but he finds that his world is a small, well-connected one. Maritime's Heresy & the Hotel Choir in 2007, for example, ended up with him because of the band's link to the Walkmen. Sikes sees that as fortunate because he's not one to press a business card in someone's hand. "I don't know if I've ever walked up to a band and said, 'Hi, I'm Stuart. I would love to record you!'" He says that it's different if he's introduced to a musician through a third party and a conversation about music follows. Any work that results comes out of mutual interest.

Sikes recently finished a Cat Power project — recorded and mixed at his Elmwood studio. The record was made mostly live, in much the same way The Greatest was. That CD, Jukebox, is a collection of covers by Bob Dylan, James Brown and Chips Moman/Dan Penn among others.

Sikes sometimes gets help from his manager, Adam Katz, of Tsunami Entertainment. Katz usually assists on label work, anything that involves a contract or with a potential client who otherwise doesn't know how to reach him. Sikes likes the help with those details and finds that Katz brings him work that keeps with Sikes' style.

For Sikes, inspiration is never far, from seeing a band's positive reaction to the results they get from work in the studio. He describes one of the first sessions he did at Easley-McCain. He was making cassette dubs for the band and playing their songs back into the tracking room. First of all, he says, they were happy for the opportunity to record in Memphis. "They were having a blast," he recalls, "dancing around. And I'm just watching these four dudes, probably 40 years old, just acting like kids and it was amazing. To have that feeling, it's pretty easy to try very hard to make people's music as good as it can be." He reads a lot and is more interested in learning about how classic recordings were made than, as he puts it, "somebody doing eight drum takes and then the Pro Tools guy splicing them together to make the drummer sound really good." He wants to know "how the Kinks recorded, or how they did all the early records where technology wasn't freaking limitless."

In the end though, Doug Easley offers a reminder that it's about humans, working together. "Stu was a good fit for our style," he says. "I believe he has taken it with him and it has helped him get along great with the people he works with today. It's a people business. He gets on their level. When that happens, it works."