In the beginning Dubway Studios was just one big room on the third floor of a music rehearsal building on the west side of Manhattan. Al's recording equipment consisted of two reel-to-reel tape decks (one 4-track and one 2-track), a mixing board, a few effects boxes (including a 20 year old analog tape delay) and one really good microphone. The microphone and a noise gate were necessities because there were literally dozens of bands simultaneously rehearsing in the building at any given hour and at times it seemed you could hear them all. Sirens, horns, street fights and car crashes could all be heard pretty clearly through the room-sized window overlooking 8th Avenue that served as one wall of the studio. There was no control room: Al was in the room with you when you played and you were with him when he was doing his engineer-type things. Primitive? Yes, but it didn't matter. As the Cheepskates were to find out, this was no ordinary hole in the wall recording facility and Al Houghton was no ordinary engineer.
In 1983 Cheepskates needed to record some demos. Actually, we wanted to get all of our original songs on tape so that we could take the three or four best and try to get ourselves a deal somewhere. We needed to do it cheaply (cheeply?) and quickly. We didn't expect anyone to really get what we were about, but were just arrogant enough to think that it wouldn't matter. As it turned out it would've mattered greatly, but we had hit it lucky: Al "got it" in a matter of minutes. We ultimately were able to record 18 songs (I think) in one session and get them all mixed the next day. In anyone else's hands these recordings would've been labeled "hastily recorded demos" and shoved into a closet but Al had actually captured the essence of the band... these tapes became our first album "Run Better Run" - the first album ever to credit Al Houghton and Dubway Studios. And yes, if you listen real hard you will hear a siren or two leaking through the window into the music.
Over the course of the next 12 years The Cheepskates were fortunate enough to record at other studios (from Hoboken to Berlin), but we always returned to the place we felt most comfortable: Dubway. Throughout the '90s I recorded all of my solo material at Dubway, and it was always a pleasure to walk in and get to work.
It's now 2005, and Dubway Studios is one of the most highly respected studios in the New York area. New location, lots of rooms, state of the art hardware, a large staff, cappucino... but has it really changed? Well... I decided after an 8 year hiatus from recording that it was time to get back on the horse, and of course I knew where I needed to go to do it. I'm happy to say that where it really counts Dubway hasn't changed at all. If you want quality, intelligence, intuition, innovation, commitment and heart (did I mention quality?) then Dubway Studios has exactly what you need.
It's difficult for any undertaking to grow from a one-man show into a thriving business, and it is practically impossible to do that without sacrificing much of what made the one-man show special to begin with, but Al Houghton and his staff are just simply top of the line human beings who will make your music sound as wonderful as you think it should. Now I just wonder if he sampled the sirens from his 8th Avenue days...
Shane Faubert
March 23, 2005