April 14, 2025

Dave Crafa: Building a Studio, a Community, and a Career in Music

Dave Crafa: Building a Studio, a Community, and a Career in Music
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Season 6

What does it take to turn a dorm room studio into a New York City institution?

In this episode of No Wrong Choices, we explore the remarkable career journey of Dave Crafa, the founder of Cutting Room Studios—one of NYC’s most respected recording spaces. Dave shares how his love of music and science led him to Berklee, NYU, and eventually the creation of a studio that has recorded the likes of Shakira, Cardi B, David Byrne, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and John Legend.

But this episode isn’t just about big names—it’s about big decisions, hard-earned lessons, and staying open to unexpected opportunities. From navigating the collapse of the traditional music industry to innovating during the streaming era, Dave opens up about the pivots and sacrifices behind 30 years of creative entrepreneurship.

🎧 Whether you're passionate about music, creativity, or building something from scratch, this episode is filled with insights that go far beyond the studio.


To discover more episodes or connect with us:



00:00 - Finding Music Through Guitars and Girls

07:32 - Berkeley College Years and Career Pivot

16:22 - From NYU to Recording Studio Dreams

25:34 - Building Cutting Room Studios

38:11 - Managing Success and Industry Changes

54:22 - Future of Music Industry and Final Advice

01:22:03 - Hosts' Reflections and Episode Wrap-Up

WEBVTT

00:00:03.269 --> 00:00:14.234
Oh my God, when you discover the power chord as a young, you know, like 13 year old and the distortion box, you're like, oh my God, I figured it out.

00:00:14.234 --> 00:00:23.131
You're taught to, like, make the tough choices and you know, don't take the easy path, and sometimes the easy path is where you're supposed to go.

00:00:23.131 --> 00:00:24.166
Yeah, you know, madonna was hiring DJs to produce her record.

00:00:24.166 --> 00:00:25.120
Take the easy path and sometimes the easy path is where you're supposed to go.

00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:31.532
Yeah, you know, madonna was hiring djs to produce her record and djs are becoming like rock stars.

00:00:31.532 --> 00:00:37.829
You're watching the dream evolve and, um, what's better than that?

00:00:37.829 --> 00:00:48.308
I think I was making like 45, 50 000 at, like, my little space and I thought, oh my God, this is amazing.

00:00:48.308 --> 00:00:51.188
The next year we were making $450,000.

00:00:51.188 --> 00:00:58.183
Yeah, like, wow, creativity will prevail, even though the future is.

00:00:58.183 --> 00:01:04.439
You know, it's delicate and it's terrifying and it's fascinating.

00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:06.341
It's delicate and it's terrifying, and it's fascinating.

00:01:06.361 --> 00:01:10.427
Hello and welcome to the Career Journey Podcast, no Wrong Choices.

00:01:10.427 --> 00:01:16.072
Today's guest is the founder of the Cutting Room Studios in New York City, dave Krafa.

00:01:16.072 --> 00:01:20.861
I'm Larry Samuels, I'm Tushar Saxena and I'm Larry Shea.

00:01:20.861 --> 00:01:28.194
We'll be your hosts for what will undoubtedly be a fascinating conversation about breaking into and thriving in the music business.

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Before we kick things off, please be sure to like, follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening Now.

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Let's get started Now.

00:01:37.581 --> 00:01:40.531
Joining no Wrong Choices is Dave Krafa.

00:01:40.531 --> 00:01:47.546
Dave is the owner and founder of the Cunning Room Studios, a legendary recording studio based in New York City.

00:01:47.546 --> 00:02:01.447
That studio has supported countless great artists, including Grammy winners such as Shakira, cardi B, david Byrne, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, john Legend and the list literally goes on and on.

00:02:01.447 --> 00:02:03.311
Dave, thank you so much for joining us.

00:02:04.219 --> 00:02:05.243
Oh, it's great to be here.

00:02:05.243 --> 00:02:07.250
Thanks so much for having me.

00:02:07.500 --> 00:02:10.387
Hey Dave, what exactly is it do you do?

00:02:10.387 --> 00:02:11.770
What's your day-to-day look like?

00:02:11.770 --> 00:02:12.652
What do you do for a living?

00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:17.632
Well, I do own a recording studio called the Cutting Room Studios here in New York.

00:02:17.632 --> 00:02:39.758
It's 30 years this year, so our job really is to help the talent become the best that they can and be relaxed and record them in a way that allows the best part of their performances to be captured and shared with the world Right yeah.

00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:40.341
In doing so.

00:02:40.341 --> 00:02:45.651
We have a great team and we all really enjoy being the best at what we do.

00:02:45.651 --> 00:02:53.924
Yeah, we kind of are like a talent incubator in in certain ways, as well as like working with you know, uh, well-known artists, right, we have.

00:02:53.924 --> 00:03:05.171
We have actually uh, created through our ranks, record producers, uh, especially uh, you know when, when larry was with us, uh, in in the late 90s.

00:03:05.171 --> 00:03:30.651
It's very, I wouldn't say very common, but it's not surprising to have some of our staff go through the evolution of internship to getting a position with the company, whether it's an assistant, and then working their ways through the ranks to kind of realize their own dreams and their own careers.

00:03:30.651 --> 00:03:44.192
And you know, we've, we've had a good many examples of that, right, a lot of dimensions to you know, our, our studio and our, our, our generations of families that you know have come through, you know, the studio.

00:03:44.192 --> 00:03:47.460
Yeah, you, you're giving me away here, late 90s, you're giving my age away our generations of families that have come through this video.

00:03:48.199 --> 00:03:49.310
Yeah, you're giving me away here, late 90s.

00:03:49.330 --> 00:03:51.524
You're giving my age away here, dave, mine too, man, let's be careful with that.

00:03:51.524 --> 00:03:52.649
Was that a secret?

00:03:54.381 --> 00:03:55.586
You're looking pretty good, man.

00:03:55.586 --> 00:03:58.768
Larry's hair has been gray since the 90s.

00:03:58.768 --> 00:04:01.468
I've never seen his hair like his normal color.

00:04:02.241 --> 00:04:06.605
It's not as if people can't see the color of your hair, because obviously that doesn't give anything away.

00:04:06.605 --> 00:04:07.427
Who, do you think, gave me all?

00:04:07.467 --> 00:04:10.931
this gray hair, dave Krafa is who gave me all this gray hair yeah, I guess, that's a good point.

00:04:10.931 --> 00:04:12.764
So no full disclosure.

00:04:12.764 --> 00:04:14.310
We always talk about this.

00:04:14.310 --> 00:04:15.806
I worked for Dave.

00:04:15.806 --> 00:04:25.334
I managed Cutting Room Recording Studios from about 1997 to mid-2000, so about three and a half years I was there managing.

00:04:25.961 --> 00:04:27.367
It seems like so much longer.

00:04:28.382 --> 00:04:29.466
I know you always say that.

00:04:29.579 --> 00:04:34.702
I guess we've just been friends for many years, many years, that's right, except for those couple of years.

00:04:34.723 --> 00:04:35.365
So we worked.

00:04:36.528 --> 00:04:37.672
Yeah, we did have a couple of years.

00:04:38.901 --> 00:04:41.569
Not only were we not friends, we were kind of like oh.

00:04:42.021 --> 00:04:43.024
I'm never talking to that guy, ever again.

00:04:43.024 --> 00:04:44.949
That's how you know you're best friends.

00:04:45.050 --> 00:04:47.684
You know Trust me we know how that feels as well.

00:04:47.723 --> 00:04:48.826
Yeah, I bet Exactly.

00:04:53.281 --> 00:04:54.043
But yeah, it was.

00:04:54.043 --> 00:05:07.771
You know I had worked for Steely Dan and when that facility closed, you know Dave was really looking to take a step, you know, become more professional, become more hey, what are the big studios do that kind of thing.

00:05:07.771 --> 00:05:16.459
So I was able to, you know, put a mark on it for a couple of years and kind of come up with some brand new processes and things that we made a lot of money together.

00:05:16.459 --> 00:05:22.170
We did really well and we kind of took that step and it was a fun part of my career as well.

00:05:22.170 --> 00:05:27.630
So let's talk about your career journey and the dream, though let's start at the beginning.

00:05:27.630 --> 00:05:33.293
Sure, let's bring you all the way back to young Dave Krafa, however many years ago that is.

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I'm not going to throw you under the bus and give your age, but tell me what the dream was.

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What was the original dream?

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Where did you grow up?

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What was your childhood?

00:05:41.761 --> 00:05:45.687
like childhood well, I grew up in uh, in a suburb of new york city.

00:05:45.687 --> 00:06:01.353
I guess the music dream started probably in third grade when, uh, my best friend brought his guitar in for like show and tell and, um, I had this crush, you know, even in third grade.

00:06:01.353 --> 00:06:07.632
You know, on this, on this girl right and of course I could never, ever approach her.

00:06:07.632 --> 00:06:12.672
And then my friend brought his guitar in and played some song.

00:06:12.672 --> 00:06:16.401
She came and talked to him and I was like what I've?

00:06:16.422 --> 00:06:17.706
got to start playing guitar.

00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:22.180
This is like you know, power of music, yeah, power of music, man, it was amazing.

00:06:22.180 --> 00:06:34.896
So I went home and told my mom and dad I wanted to play guitar and they're like okay, and they signed me up for like classical guitar lessons, like flamenco guitar.

00:06:34.896 --> 00:06:37.060
I'm like, wait, not this kind of guitar.

00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:38.425
That's not getting the girl.

00:06:38.425 --> 00:06:39.689
No way that's not getting the girl.

00:06:40.220 --> 00:06:43.670
No, well, it could like maybe now.

00:06:43.670 --> 00:06:46.769
Well, I mean, you're very skilled, you'd be very skilled.

00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:48.848
So I was like I just got foiled.

00:06:48.848 --> 00:07:01.168
But at some point I, you know, I was just you know the whole electric guitar scene and I just I just fell in love with the Gibson Les Paul.

00:07:01.168 --> 00:07:04.634
That you know the, the shape of it, the sound of it.

00:07:04.634 --> 00:07:07.584
Gibson les paul, that you know the, the shape of it, the sound of it.

00:07:07.603 --> 00:07:16.509
By the time I got into like seventh grade, uh, in middle school, middle school is like a tough time for sure, right, uh, I felt pretty popular in elementary school, but middle school was like a whole nother story.

00:07:16.509 --> 00:07:20.886
And, uh, I remember there was this, this, this guy.

00:07:20.886 --> 00:07:24.771
He was in eighth grade and I was, uh, a year younger than him.

00:07:24.771 --> 00:07:32.471
His name is joshua christian, right, and this guy was like my idol and, funny enough, he's still touring to this day.

00:07:32.892 --> 00:07:39.353
But, uh, and he's like a guitar virtuoso and he's the one that really kind of started me on that path.

00:07:39.353 --> 00:07:55.146
I was like I think it was like I I saw him in the gym, and you know how the acoustics are in the gym, you know, and he, he knew some blues scales and he can shred a little bit, and I was just like, oh, my God, that's what I want to do.

00:07:55.146 --> 00:08:19.774
Wow, you know, I became friends with him and, uh, uh, you know, the the guitar really, uh, kind of saved my ass in middle school because I became pretty popular just because of it, whereas, you know, prior to that, people were picking on me and I was like having to you know, get into fights and you know, and it's tough.

00:08:19.899 --> 00:08:20.901
So you know that's a tough age for everybody.

00:08:20.901 --> 00:08:30.814
So that's a tough age for everybody and I think music really helped me get through that and find myself at a young age.

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So I always kind of knew that's what was going to go down and at the same time that was transpiring.

00:08:37.705 --> 00:08:52.193
I had this very big interest in science and rocketry and I wanted to design my own rocket and you know I I had like science kits all over my bedroom.

00:08:52.193 --> 00:09:03.784
So there was, there was this, this synergy between art and science from a very young age and I I didn't, you know, I thought I had to choose between one or the other.

00:09:03.784 --> 00:09:12.176
But come to find out later on in life it all starts to make sense for me where I've got both those things happening right now.

00:09:13.860 --> 00:09:21.849
Because the recording aspect and the engineering aspect sort of satisfies that scientific aspect of it.

00:09:22.428 --> 00:09:43.315
And you know, building a recording studio, uh, and you know, I, I, I think the word recording studio is really, uh, a really ultra generalized term because, you know, people have their kind of uh idea or or imagery when they think of recording studios.

00:09:43.315 --> 00:09:45.019
But a recording studio is a laboratory.

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That's what it is.

00:09:47.283 --> 00:09:59.828
And you know you're experimenting with emotions and you know sounds and you know, and you know that also gets girls too.

00:09:59.908 --> 00:10:05.854
So that's cool so it's kind of got everything at the theme here.

00:10:05.894 --> 00:10:19.370
Yeah, you know, of course, use the cool stuff, right, right, the big studio I always kind of wanted to be an astronaut to some you know extent and you know, look, it's kind of a very spaceship vibe in here.

00:10:19.549 --> 00:10:23.385
So always, so it kind of scratches all the itches, you know, know.

00:10:23.385 --> 00:10:38.115
And then add sailing into that and you know which is, pretty much, you know, the closest you can be to, as you know, being an astronaut on Earth in terms of, like open ocean, like you know, crossing thousands of miles of open sea.

00:10:38.115 --> 00:10:41.129
You know that's pretty space, like For sure.

00:10:41.900 --> 00:10:45.687
So we know that you became a heck of a player.

00:10:45.687 --> 00:10:49.553
So when did you I mean you became a pro?

00:10:49.553 --> 00:10:53.129
I mean there are these stories of you playing in recording studios.

00:10:53.129 --> 00:10:54.552
You almost went on tour, etc.

00:10:54.552 --> 00:10:54.692
Etc.

00:10:54.692 --> 00:10:56.164
So oh, yeah, yeah.

00:10:56.164 --> 00:10:58.231
When did you start to get good?

00:10:58.231 --> 00:10:59.515
How did you pursue that?

00:10:59.515 --> 00:11:03.687
Were you playing in bands in high school, like like, when did you begin to become a pro?

00:11:03.687 --> 00:11:04.669
How did you do that?

00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:09.788
So I became more of an ear player because I wanted to.

00:11:09.788 --> 00:11:19.413
You know, I wanted to play songs that I was listening to and mostly that was like Black Sabbath and the Bee Gees, so Interesting, it was weird.

00:11:19.559 --> 00:11:40.259
Yeah, I was like a big Bee Gees fan and, funny enough, like I was like one of the first records I ever had was like the Godspell, uh soundtrack yeah yeah, yeah, and you know, that's like in the 70s and there was this one song that had a major seventh chord in it and, uh, I just fell in love with the major seventh chord.

00:11:40.259 --> 00:12:02.025
I couldn't get enough of it, you know, like, uh, like, so you know, I started writing little songs on my own with the, with incorporating this major seventh chord that I could like play, cause it was like, you know, you can move it up the fretboard and it would you know, you wouldn't have to change your fingering or anything and it would you know, it just had it just resonated with me, that combination of intervals.

00:12:02.025 --> 00:12:06.494
At the same time I was, you know, I discovered the power chord.

00:12:06.494 --> 00:12:18.048
Oh my God, when you discover the power chord as a young, you know, like 13 year old, and the distortion box, you're like, oh my God, I figured it out.

00:12:19.210 --> 00:12:29.905
I can play Iron man you know like it's everything, every, every song that you like does a power chord and you're like, damn man, I'm like 75 there.

00:12:29.905 --> 00:12:46.552
And then when you figure out the blue scale and where to like, oh, if I start the blue scale here, like I'm actually a lead guitarist now, you know like, like that, that nobody had taught that to me, I I just kind of stumbled upon it.

00:12:46.552 --> 00:12:54.187
And then you know, by talking to other people, they're like oh yeah, that's the blue scale and this is like if you start here, you do that.

00:12:54.187 --> 00:13:01.470
So I just was like fascinated by that whole experience and I realized at some point I need some formal training.

00:13:01.470 --> 00:13:05.210
So I took lessons, but I was mainly self-taught.

00:13:05.210 --> 00:13:14.774
The formal training came a little bit later and it came in the form of committing to go to Berklee College of Music.

00:13:15.080 --> 00:13:17.327
Also, you were a student over at NYU.

00:13:17.327 --> 00:13:17.929
I was.

00:13:17.929 --> 00:13:19.947
You were a student over at NYU.

00:13:19.947 --> 00:13:28.251
Talk a little bit about your time at Berklee, because obviously you probably went through the classes about theory, yeah, and then obviously composing, etc.

00:13:28.331 --> 00:13:37.201
Arranging all those aspects, yeah, or arranging all those aspects of of music theory and of music composing like what was, how was that?

00:13:37.201 --> 00:13:38.907
What was that experience like for you?

00:13:38.907 --> 00:13:52.085
So, basically a self-taught guitarist who took some classes, but then when you actually saw, let's say, how the, how the sausage is made, so to speak, yeah, you saw, when you saw that portion of it, what did that really do to you as a, as a mad scientist of music?

00:13:52.085 --> 00:13:53.307
Did that kind of put things together?

00:13:53.528 --> 00:14:07.154
uh no, it kind of like really deconstructed what it was, that I, what, what I, what I wanted to do, and where A lot of things were happening at that point in time.

00:14:07.154 --> 00:14:33.374
I think what was really important at that point was I came into Berklee thinking I was the local guitar hero and realizing that I was not even close to the talent, a pure musical talent, that some of these players you know had and I it was really.

00:14:33.374 --> 00:14:50.874
It shook me up because I was like oh, like wow, I have to think in, like, in, in several different dimensions at the same time, in terms of like playing over chord changes and different you know scales and like, figuring it all out and then making it original.

00:14:50.874 --> 00:15:03.145
And, you know, practicing, practicing, practicing, and at the same time, technology was pulling me in a direction, all this new ways of creating music.

00:15:03.145 --> 00:15:24.773
I I really was humble in a big way, but I also, at the same time, found my place, realizing that, hey, I'm not going to be the next Steve Vai and I know what it takes to get there now and understand that.

00:15:26.361 --> 00:16:05.610
But there's something over here that I want to explore and maybe I can do some hybridization of traditional music, playing with my primary instrument, which was guitar, guitar and somehow, uh, you know incorporating, um, you know, sequencing and the technology that was emerging at the time, uh, to to come up with something that was my own, yeah, the idea of being able to layer a beat by myself and create a song, like layering rhythm track over top of melody and, and you know, coming up with a percussion track on a drum machine.

00:16:05.610 --> 00:16:30.427
And like I really got into that and I didn't have to be a virtuoso at any of those instruments to do it and the technology allowed me to do it and uh, so I started moving in that direction you know, this is, this is what the beatles were doing at abbey road, right, they were experimenting with music, and technology and all that stuff yeah um, just a brief description of Berkeley, though, because a lot of people who don't you know, aren't in the music business or what have you, don't know what it is.

00:16:31.059 --> 00:16:53.717
Berkeley College of Music is a music factory, essentially in Boston, massachusetts, and the players who go through Berkeley, you know they're the best of the best usually, and if you go there, you don't graduate because you're so good, so good, someone's gonna take you and pull you on the road so that you can play music for the rest of your life, because it's just yeah, you know it's not a standard four-year college.

00:16:53.717 --> 00:16:59.921
These guys are the best shredders in the world they really are, and they go there and form bands and get picked off.

00:16:59.941 --> 00:17:02.446
I mean it's, it's go with ozzy and whatever.

00:17:02.446 --> 00:17:03.047
You know what I mean?

00:17:03.106 --> 00:17:07.115
It's like one of those, I mean, and some of the best jazz players in the world yeah absolutely.

00:17:07.115 --> 00:17:09.828
It's really an honor to be there.

00:17:09.828 --> 00:17:17.332
And then when you stand in the face of that type of talent, you're just like oh boy, I got to up my game.

00:17:17.332 --> 00:17:18.413
I got to level up quickly.

00:17:18.413 --> 00:17:19.095
How am I going to do it?

00:17:19.602 --> 00:17:28.839
We used to call it berserkly Right.

00:17:28.839 --> 00:17:29.321
Call it berserkly right.

00:17:29.321 --> 00:17:30.403
I remember that crazy people um, but so, so that's cool.

00:17:30.403 --> 00:17:35.242
So you're, you're, you're a player, but you're also now mixing in all the technological aspects and getting the itch to do that kind of stuff.

00:17:35.242 --> 00:17:37.347
So how does berkeley end?

00:17:37.347 --> 00:17:38.410
Where do you go next?

00:17:38.410 --> 00:17:45.997
Well I know it was about a girl, because we've already established, but yeah, isn't everything.

00:17:48.865 --> 00:17:53.573
My wife may be listening, but uh it's it's, it's the 80s, okay, it's the 80s.

00:17:53.833 --> 00:17:58.184
It doesn't matter to her, that's right that's right but uh yeah.

00:17:58.224 --> 00:18:05.335
So, uh, I entered berkeley because, uh, uh, you know I was uh because I fell in love.

00:18:05.335 --> 00:18:17.866
I was 18, and I was going to head straight out to LA and follow in the footsteps of my friends who all got cool gigs playing in different bands and were touring musicians.

00:18:17.866 --> 00:18:28.049
And back in the 80s there was a guitarist called Randy Rhodes and I knew his dad and his dad was trying to set me up in LA.

00:18:28.049 --> 00:18:36.761
He kind of believed in me and that felt really good and I was gonna go out there and, you know, throw my hat in the ring, see what happens.

00:18:36.781 --> 00:18:39.565
Speaking of Ozzy, randy played for Ozzy Osbourne.

00:18:40.005 --> 00:18:42.047
What right oh yeah, what Right?

00:18:42.047 --> 00:18:43.428
Oh yeah, some people don't know this.

00:18:43.468 --> 00:18:48.172
Oh yeah, yeah no no, randy, we have a diverse audience.

00:18:48.613 --> 00:18:51.134
Right, right, yeah no, he did, he did.

00:18:51.134 --> 00:19:18.152
He was Ozzy's first guitarist and you know he was, you know, besides Edward Van Halen back in the day, who was just like this monster, you know player, who you know influenced so many guitarists, you know, randy was also like that and I felt very fortunate to, you know, have Randy's dad kind of go to bat for me and kind of make some connections in LA.

00:19:18.152 --> 00:19:21.984
She said well, you know you can do that, but why don't you?

00:19:21.984 --> 00:19:23.067
You?

00:19:23.106 --> 00:19:24.269
know, spend a year.

00:19:24.269 --> 00:19:27.194
You know why don't you apply to Berkeley?

00:19:27.194 --> 00:19:28.946
And I was like I'm not going to get in there.

00:19:28.946 --> 00:19:34.311
So I applied and I got in and I was like, oh shit, now what do I do?

00:19:34.311 --> 00:19:38.750
So I, you learn how to shred Right.

00:19:38.750 --> 00:19:42.625
So then I got nervous and, you know, I started.

00:19:42.625 --> 00:19:46.513
I enrolled in Western Connecticut State University.

00:19:46.513 --> 00:19:53.113
I didn't enroll as a matriculated student because I had quit high school to play in a band.

00:19:53.113 --> 00:20:01.913
As a matter of fact, a band that I had been playing with had opened up for Metallica, like back in the day of the Killer Mall tour, which was nobody knew who the hell?

00:20:01.953 --> 00:20:02.694
Metallica was.

00:20:02.694 --> 00:20:07.088
So I had seen and tasted that was like 81, maybe.

00:20:07.088 --> 00:20:10.986
God yeah, so Don't give away your age.

00:20:12.121 --> 00:20:14.507
Oh, why not?

00:20:14.507 --> 00:20:15.830
That ship has sailed, I know.

00:20:15.830 --> 00:20:18.804
So no.

00:20:18.804 --> 00:20:33.604
So so she got me to apply there and I got in, and then I, I went to Western Connecticut State University to brush up on theory and kind of get ready, you know, as a pregame to go to Berkeley, and at the same time I got my GED.

00:20:33.604 --> 00:20:48.345
Funny thing is, like I didn't have to send my SATs which I never took, and I mean I totally backdoored the system to to, you know, to get into college.

00:20:48.345 --> 00:20:58.571
Um, you know, I, I w I wouldn't say like I, you know, scam my way in, but like I just never thought that I was going to go cause I thought I would be on the road.

00:20:58.571 --> 00:21:14.002
So, you know, my plans changed because I wanted to keep in close proximity with, you know, with my girlfriend at the time, and it all seemed to work out and it flowed.

00:21:14.002 --> 00:21:17.971
It flowed in a direction that you know.

00:21:17.971 --> 00:21:19.294
I just rode this wave.

00:21:20.280 --> 00:21:22.930
So how long was your time then at Berkeley in Massachusetts, a couple of years For you?

00:21:22.930 --> 00:21:23.833
Yeah, so you didn't in Massachusetts.

00:21:23.853 --> 00:21:24.674
A couple years For you.

00:21:24.935 --> 00:21:29.233
Yeah, so you didn't spend your quote unquote.

00:21:29.233 --> 00:21:31.522
Four years at Berkeley, no, no, when did you?

00:21:31.522 --> 00:21:33.589
What year then did you make your move over to NYU?

00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:37.066
Well, I broke up with the girl in.

00:21:37.066 --> 00:21:40.092
I think it was 1980.

00:21:40.981 --> 00:21:41.904
This is a running thing.

00:21:42.567 --> 00:21:42.807
It is.

00:21:42.807 --> 00:21:49.605
Oh yeah, no, when I broke up with her actually she broke up with me I lost my mojo.

00:21:49.605 --> 00:21:50.730
Man, I was lost.

00:21:50.730 --> 00:21:52.125
I quit Berklee.

00:21:52.125 --> 00:21:56.671
Wow, I was like I can't do anything.

00:21:56.671 --> 00:22:01.924
I was really pretty messed up and lost.

00:22:01.924 --> 00:22:11.494
I had not made the transition to the hybrid Dave computer guitar Dave guy yet.

00:22:11.494 --> 00:22:16.691
I was just like I need to take some time off.

00:22:16.691 --> 00:22:18.487
And so I did.

00:22:18.487 --> 00:22:26.085
I went home, I dropped out, I went home, I was out, I went home.

00:22:26.105 --> 00:22:40.060
I was depressed and coming back from Berkeley, I'm like I suck, I'm not really good at my instrument and I had a moment where I was just laterally drifting.

00:22:40.060 --> 00:23:04.169
Funny enough, some of the classes that I took at Berkeley like my liberal arts classes I really enjoyed the professors and I was learning things that I hadn't learned before that, you know, in high school, seemed to be out of reach and I was actually doing well in a lot of my courses really well of my courses, really well.

00:23:04.169 --> 00:23:23.301
And when I went back, when I quit Berkeley, I enrolled at UConn for a few semesters and I was taking philosophy classes and I was taking mathematics and I really enjoyed it and I was actually like, because it had never been something I felt that I was good at.

00:23:23.301 --> 00:23:28.874
And all of a sudden I was good at it and I was getting it because I had professors that cared.

00:23:28.874 --> 00:24:12.165
So that was my move to NYU, thought that I would ever be part of which was, you know, being part of a university, you know, level program, you know I always thought, well, those are different people, you know, you know, and I was, I was more blue, collar and and maybe you know collar and, um, and maybe you know, maybe they looked down on me, you know.

00:24:12.185 --> 00:24:16.962
So, uh, after taking a couple of years off, um, you know, between Berkeley and NYU, I started to think that I I wanted to go back to school.

00:24:16.962 --> 00:24:22.544
I wanted to, I wanted to do something now that was very, uh, not not music orientated.

00:24:22.544 --> 00:24:39.348
I wanted to really go to university and study like an engineering program this is the science part coming back Right and so I applied to several different colleges and universities throughout the US.

00:24:39.348 --> 00:24:45.445
I wanted to be on the West Coast, so I was kind of holding out to go to Berkeley, the UC.

00:24:45.946 --> 00:24:49.432
The other one, berkeley, the one with the Y, the other one it's spelled totally different.

00:24:49.432 --> 00:24:49.933
Yeah, exactly.

00:24:49.953 --> 00:24:50.634
Berkeley right.

00:24:51.900 --> 00:24:52.480
And you know.

00:24:52.480 --> 00:25:02.450
I went out there and you know, and I also applied to NYU and all the other you know schools that had, like you know, university of Miami.

00:25:02.450 --> 00:25:07.634
They had like an engineering degree coupled with a music technology degree.

00:25:07.875 --> 00:25:08.516
Great program.

00:25:08.655 --> 00:25:12.490
Yeah exactly, my dad was like no, you can't go to that, it's a party school.

00:25:12.490 --> 00:25:16.971
I'm like, but it's an E degree man.

00:25:19.040 --> 00:25:22.539
It's like number one or two in the country for sound recording I know.

00:25:23.261 --> 00:25:25.388
So that was kind of one of my first choices.

00:25:25.388 --> 00:25:35.266
But the thing was, nyu offered me some money to go and I was like, no, I'm not going to be in New York, I've grown up here.

00:25:35.266 --> 00:25:40.008
It was like I think this was like 89, 90.

00:25:40.008 --> 00:25:42.387
It was still kind of like an armpit.

00:25:42.387 --> 00:25:56.688
I just wanted to see someplace else and and start my future some somewhere else and, uh, anyway, decided to go to nyu, uh to to just visit for a weekend with some friends that were here.

00:25:56.688 --> 00:25:58.536
It was a beautiful fall weekend.

00:25:58.536 --> 00:26:04.929
I just kind of fell in love with the place and I thought to myself why am I stiff arming this whole thing?

00:26:04.949 --> 00:26:05.089
And why?

00:26:05.109 --> 00:26:11.463
am I holding back when everything is telling me to come here?

00:26:11.463 --> 00:26:14.630
And I decided to go.

00:26:14.630 --> 00:26:22.844
And that's really one of the biggest things that I learned was, sometimes you have to go with the flow.

00:26:22.844 --> 00:26:27.527
It's not selling out, it's actually following your destiny.

00:26:27.527 --> 00:26:34.111
And I mean, everything fell into place after I made that decision and I didn't want to go.

00:26:34.111 --> 00:26:39.713
And then I realized, once I succumbed to the whole, all right, I'll do it.

00:26:39.713 --> 00:26:42.355
And it wasn't like all right, I'll do it.

00:26:42.355 --> 00:26:46.278
It's like my 10th choice of where I want to be.

00:26:46.278 --> 00:26:48.467
But when I said it, I meant it.

00:26:48.467 --> 00:26:54.028
I was like I realized I'm supposed to be here and I'm just going to roll with it.

00:26:54.028 --> 00:27:04.942
And when I did that and committed to where I was and what resources were around me, everything started to come into focus and fast forward.

00:27:05.083 --> 00:27:06.689
35 years, you're still here.

00:27:07.882 --> 00:27:10.372
No wrong choices, right yeah.

00:27:10.807 --> 00:27:11.459
No wrong choices.

00:27:11.459 --> 00:27:25.701
So that was a big epiphany really for me to realize like, oh, sometimes you can just actually go with the flow, because I was taught like, as you're all you know, I don't know, I can't speak for everybody.

00:27:25.701 --> 00:27:30.932
You're taught to, like, make the tough choices and you know, don't, don't.

00:27:30.932 --> 00:27:39.904
Uh, take the easy path, and sometimes the easy path is where you're supposed to go yeah, you know, yeah, like and uh, I realized that.

00:27:39.904 --> 00:27:43.390
And uh, yeah, so that's, that's how n started.

00:27:43.490 --> 00:27:54.650
So you get there and you've come to New York and you're thinking about philosophy, You're thinking about engineering, you have all these other things on your mind, that's right.

00:27:54.650 --> 00:27:58.269
But you know, we know parts of your story.

00:27:58.269 --> 00:28:01.651
I mean, somehow you get pulled back into music.

00:28:01.651 --> 00:28:07.353
Somehow a recording studio starts to pop up in your dorm room.

00:28:07.353 --> 00:28:12.712
How do you shift gears and how do you start to pursue music again?

00:28:13.819 --> 00:28:20.233
Well, not to get back into Berklee, but before Berklee I had a bunch of recording equipment.

00:28:20.233 --> 00:28:24.210
Yeah, and my roommate at Berklee also had a bunch of recording equipment.

00:28:24.210 --> 00:28:25.613
So when I left Berklee I had a bunch of recording equipment.

00:28:25.613 --> 00:28:28.140
So, you know, when I left Berkeley I had a bunch of recording equipment.

00:28:28.140 --> 00:28:34.980
By the time I uh, you know moved to NYU, you know I had like a full studio.

00:28:35.140 --> 00:28:48.315
Yeah, I had a pretty cool studio wow 16 track half inch tape machine in the dorm room with, like you know, my Macintosh and I had like a Ensoniq Mirage sampler and you know a bunch of stuff all the stuff.

00:28:48.394 --> 00:28:57.491
Yeah and uh, you know I was programming stuff on digital performer and, uh, you know, and the guitar.

00:28:58.333 --> 00:29:15.539
It was really weird because, like in the 90s in New York, you know, hip hop was just starting to really hit hard and you know, club music, house music, techno, like all these things were happening that I was just like, why do I do?

00:29:15.539 --> 00:29:17.136
Like I don't know?

00:29:17.136 --> 00:29:49.997
You know, and and I, you know, being being generation X, as you know, larry, we were exposed to a lot, a lot of different genres of music and, and I think that's our strength as generation X, is because there was a, there was a a renaissance of music in the 80s, where, you know, you're listening to Fishbone and you're listening to, you know, bad Brains and you know Minor Threat and Nine Inch Nails and you know all these different.

00:29:49.997 --> 00:30:04.612
You know, and also jazz and also, like you know, I was listening to Alan Hallsworth and John Schofield and, like you know, and also jazz, and also, like you know, I was listening to Alan Hallsworth and John Schofield and, like you know, a lot of influences, the cure, you know like there was so many things going on back then.

00:30:04.632 --> 00:30:10.794
Yeah, it's true, it was an amazing moment, and that that's when alternative music was really kind of born.

00:30:10.794 --> 00:30:21.135
You know, college radio was like pushing out all these crazy red hot chili peppers and you know all these people were broken on like rem yeah on on college radio.

00:30:21.135 --> 00:30:23.145
So all that was happening at that same time.

00:30:23.145 --> 00:30:36.974
And here I am in new york and it's just like my dorm mate wants to make techno music and I'm like okay you know, and

00:30:36.994 --> 00:30:40.326
he takes me to like the limelight in the palladium on like techno.

00:30:40.326 --> 00:30:45.676
I'm like holy crap, this is out of control and it's a totally different culture.

00:30:45.676 --> 00:30:51.374
And you know, these are like wild clubs oh my god, in new york city, yeah, the wild right.

00:30:51.394 --> 00:30:52.115
Yeah, the wildest club.

00:30:52.134 --> 00:31:01.454
Yeah, especially back then, the wildest clubs at the tunnel and uh, yeah, you know, uh, vinyl and save the robots and all these freaking weird clubs.

00:31:01.454 --> 00:31:13.569
But, um, anyway, I like it was, you know, and it was like, uh, my my first real immersion in, like the gay culture of house and dance and you know it was.

00:31:13.569 --> 00:31:17.066
It was pretty wild and, uh, I felt like I was on a different planet.

00:31:17.066 --> 00:31:20.853
I didn't quite know how to what to make of all this.

00:31:21.354 --> 00:31:48.192
But, um, funny thing was is that my, my doorman and I put together a record label that, uh, uh, we had the idea of approaching some djs and in one of the main clubs, because, uh, he, he was more involved in the club scene than I was and I was kind of, you know, like he was my tour guide, and, uh, we decided to approach some djs and say, hey, we'll make you this cool techno track.

00:31:48.192 --> 00:31:59.920
And, uh, because you don't have a record out, and djs were starting to like, you know this, this is the era where Madonna was hiring DJs to produce her record and DJs are becoming like rock stars.

00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:05.738
So we figured we'd make a record for these guys and kind of ride their coattails.

00:32:05.738 --> 00:32:21.403
And it worked to a certain extent, but not the way, we thought we had an idea, you know, and it was kind of a cool idea and it got us started, it put us on a path, which is because they already had a name they're in name.

00:32:21.442 --> 00:32:27.779
Yeah, they were they were club kids and you know, yeah, that makes sense and, um, you know, I it.

00:32:27.779 --> 00:32:30.546
First of all, you have to put yourself on a path.

00:32:30.546 --> 00:32:45.875
Whether you know the goal is viable or not, it doesn't matter it, just you get on a path and the path leads you to other opportunities that you don't necessarily you can't see from where you're at at that moment.

00:32:45.875 --> 00:32:48.377
So we put ourselves on a path.

00:32:48.377 --> 00:32:52.240
Uh, these guys were really super excited about the record.

00:32:52.240 --> 00:33:05.807
They started putting money into it that we never thought you know to do and they were so excited they took vocal lessons and they hired like they had a lot of money.

00:33:05.807 --> 00:33:09.596
So they hired, like other producers, to help produce the record.

00:33:09.655 --> 00:33:19.576
And it was my first time I went to an SSL studio and I was like damn, like wow, I mean we totally lost control of the creative process of the record.

00:33:19.576 --> 00:33:30.099
But at the same time I was put in contact with people that I would never have been put it, you know, would never have ended up with before.

00:33:30.099 --> 00:33:34.186
Right, and they appreciated my programming.

00:33:34.186 --> 00:33:50.617
So other DJs that were big started hiring me as a ghostwriter to make tracks for them and that started this crazy, different lifestyle and career that I never expected.

00:33:50.617 --> 00:33:55.461
You know, and in career, that I never expected and and and so.

00:33:55.662 --> 00:33:57.623
so let's put a pin in that for a second.

00:33:57.623 --> 00:34:09.405
So so that one experience kind of leads to what them telling a friend like how does the ball get rolling before you move into anything let's say commercially?

00:34:09.726 --> 00:34:18.291
Well, you, you, you don't know it's going to happen that way and, um you know it starts with a gig, like someone says, hey, can you help me do this?

00:34:19.184 --> 00:34:20.309
So it's totally organic.

00:34:20.309 --> 00:34:21.253
Oh, it's totally organic.

00:34:21.293 --> 00:34:25.952
Yeah, you do it, and then you're like, okay, well, you know, I got paid.

00:34:25.952 --> 00:34:28.938
You know a certain amount of money.

00:34:28.938 --> 00:34:33.512
It's not that much, but like, that's cool, it's a little side, hustle side money.

00:34:34.233 --> 00:34:35.177
Especially in college.

00:34:36.005 --> 00:34:36.445
Yeah, that's cool.

00:34:36.445 --> 00:34:39.514
It's a little side hustle, side money, and then all of a sudden, yeah, and then another gig pops up and you're like, oh yeah, I'll do that Right.

00:34:39.514 --> 00:34:45.215
And then you start stringing them together, but you never really think like, oh well, this is going to be something.

00:34:45.965 --> 00:34:51.369
Lo and behold, I was going to say but when did you Right, exactly Right.

00:34:51.449 --> 00:35:01.507
Well, after you know, it's funny Cause, like you know, I knew that I was going to be graduating soon and I'll be kind of on my own.

00:35:01.507 --> 00:35:13.380
I mean, my, my parents did help, but I did also do a lot of it myself, you know, with with obtaining, you know, money from from NYU and scholarships and things like that.

00:35:13.380 --> 00:35:15.648
But you know they don't just give scholarships out.

00:35:15.648 --> 00:35:16.969
You have to go find them.

00:35:16.969 --> 00:35:19.594
And was this something I learned too?

00:35:19.594 --> 00:35:24.000
It's not like, you know, someone's going to just give you an award out of nowhere.

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:38.934
You have to make yourself known and you have to, like, go, you know, knock on doors of the, you know of the schools within the college and be like, hey, I'm going to have to drop out if I don't get X, y, z money.

00:35:39.505 --> 00:35:42.253
It's funny how like they're like well, we'll get back to you.

00:35:42.273 --> 00:35:43.076
And then they do.

00:35:43.076 --> 00:35:46.355
And you know, you don't get everything asked for, but you get something.

00:35:47.606 --> 00:36:04.476
And let me ask you this, dave During your time where you're having all these gigs taking place in college, yeah Was there ever a point where the school portion of the academic portion of it became secondary and you found yourself working more, working more, uh, in making music?

00:36:04.496 --> 00:36:06.744
than you actually did working in class, absolutely, absolutely, um but.

00:36:06.744 --> 00:36:11.329
But so here's another example of going with the flow.

00:36:11.329 --> 00:36:25.659
So when I decided to go back to school and when I decided to go to nyu, which is a, you know, reputable college, and I decided to go hard, I decided to be.

00:36:25.659 --> 00:36:28.306
I wanted to be an electrical engineer.

00:36:28.306 --> 00:36:34.914
With you know, I wanted to design musical equipment or something I I wanted to have.

00:36:34.914 --> 00:36:36.217
I was like full science.

00:36:36.217 --> 00:36:38.661
At this point, music was important, but I wanted to.

00:36:38.661 --> 00:36:40.190
I wanted to find some hybrid.

00:36:40.190 --> 00:36:44.471
I like like the University of Miami, and it was.

00:36:44.625 --> 00:36:51.358
It was hard to find that here at NYU, but, you know, I gave it my best shot.

00:36:51.358 --> 00:37:08.501
I was taking, like I was taking all these different courses, like like all these math courses that were leading up to, like you know, there were prerequisites for ee degree and I was like going all semesters and I I just wanted to catch up.

00:37:08.501 --> 00:37:24.117
So I was doing like double summer semesters and I burnt out and there was no way I was going to be able to do what we were just talking about, like working with other potential clients doing that work life Right.

00:37:24.297 --> 00:37:44.795
And, and it was, I was happy I was actually passing courses um, you know, with bees and you know yeah, with bees, but that to me was like amazing, like I'm in like this, you know this, this, you know calculus course that there's like 400 people in an auditorium.

00:37:44.795 --> 00:37:45.378
I'm like how?

00:37:45.398 --> 00:37:46.221
am I gonna do this?

00:37:46.682 --> 00:38:02.382
you know, I don't never want to go back to that, but the no, the thing is, uh, I did it and I I was like, but at one point I had to let all that go because I wanted to get the major and the science degree.

00:38:02.382 --> 00:38:07.931
But at some point again I let it go and I went with the flow and I decided to.

00:38:07.931 --> 00:38:14.240
I went into computer science and I decided not to major in it.

00:38:14.240 --> 00:38:15.288
I decided to minor in it.

00:38:15.288 --> 00:38:16.251
But you did finish, you did get in it.

00:38:16.251 --> 00:38:16.873
I decided to minor in it.

00:38:16.932 --> 00:38:18.639
But you did finish, you did get your degree.

00:38:20.505 --> 00:38:20.865
I did.

00:38:20.865 --> 00:38:31.121
But the bottom line is I let all of that extra course load go so that I could pursue these types of gigs.

00:38:31.121 --> 00:38:38.237
And when I did that it opened up a ton of time and cause cause.

00:38:38.237 --> 00:38:53.289
You know, the music courses at NYU and the tech music tech courses were, they were kind of easy for me, so I didn't have to spend too much time, so I could actually really, you know, drill down into, like my own clientele at the time.

00:38:53.668 --> 00:38:58.981
So that's, that's what happened, that's amazing, and so, at this point, you're getting busy.

00:38:58.981 --> 00:39:02.208
You're building a reputation, you're building a network.

00:39:02.208 --> 00:39:04.233
You've got more work than you can handle.

00:39:04.233 --> 00:39:07.219
When does the cutting room?

00:39:07.219 --> 00:39:14.251
I mean was there an intermediate step, like like, when does the cutting room come to life and what was that progression?

00:39:15.313 --> 00:39:40.286
Okay, so it's 1993, right, I've now moved out of this railroad flat on Bleecker and Thompson, right that I had, like, my little studio set up and I'm now at 25th Street, 328 East 25th, between first and second, and that's where it blew up.

00:39:40.286 --> 00:39:47.425
It was kind of a commercial space but you could live there and it was 900 bucks a month, which I thought I would never be able to afford.

00:39:47.425 --> 00:40:02.518
But I did it and, um, I could make all the noise in the world, no one would complain, and I put together a studio there.

00:40:02.518 --> 00:40:12.711
I've got to say this is pre-internet, and the internet for us back then was the village voice.

00:40:12.711 --> 00:40:19.009
The village voice was, you know, if you were looking for an apartment, you'd look there.

00:40:19.590 --> 00:40:22.976
If you for a roommate, you'd look there anything anything, everything, anything if

00:40:22.996 --> 00:40:26.172
you want to know where to go, what whose bands were playing.

00:40:26.172 --> 00:40:33.692
Everything right, everything that was the pulse of new york city and in the back of the classifieds were.

00:40:33.692 --> 00:40:41.434
It was a studio section and everybody, including the hit factory was was advertising back there.

00:40:41.434 --> 00:40:42.577
If you can imagine that?

00:40:43.521 --> 00:40:54.835
um, of course, the hit factory stats were really nice and then the rest of us were like you know, we have factory, just so people know is a high level studio.

00:40:54.835 --> 00:40:57.684
Michael, michael Jackson, bruce Springsteen, john Lennon, michael Jackson.

00:40:57.724 --> 00:40:59.853
Yeah, like God God.

00:41:01.146 --> 00:41:03.735
He records there, todd records there.

00:41:04.085 --> 00:41:17.400
It's funny because Troy became a friend later on and a mentor to me, which I never I just never saw myself in the company of these guys that are legends.

00:41:17.945 --> 00:41:19.152
You're in that world, Dave.

00:41:19.253 --> 00:41:20.480
I don't know if I'm Let me jump in.

00:41:20.480 --> 00:41:21.244
I don't know if I'm Let me jump in.

00:41:22.606 --> 00:41:29.539
So one of the things I always admired about you is, whatever money you made, you would dump it right back into the studio.

00:41:29.539 --> 00:41:31.672
Everything just kind of get turned around.

00:41:31.672 --> 00:41:32.956
What an idiot.

00:41:34.405 --> 00:41:38.097
No, it's true because, because this is a lifestyle, it's a passion, it is admirable.

00:41:38.746 --> 00:41:39.710
You would buy new gear.

00:41:39.710 --> 00:41:45.074
You would buy new whatever you kept pouring, even in those early days, dave, you like.

00:41:45.865 --> 00:41:59.818
I just know from knowing you that you, just you know it was, because it's just like you're watching the dream evolve and, um, what's better than that?

00:41:59.818 --> 00:42:13.454
You know, like, like I don't really know what I would spend it on other than trying to make something even cooler you know like I can make you a list of of things.

00:42:13.594 --> 00:42:14.797
Well, yeah, I listen.

00:42:14.878 --> 00:42:20.048
I I bought a sailboat and then I bought another one and then I bought another one, so I get it.

00:42:20.048 --> 00:42:40.929
I can make you a list of things putting together like mechanisms that can can generate their own uh existence you know in in terms of financial existence.

00:42:40.929 --> 00:42:54.016
Uh, that to me, you know, is a life hack, like if we can put together a place that we can all realize our dreams in, you know, like this laboratory that is the cutting room.

00:42:54.016 --> 00:42:55.478
Why not put more?

00:42:55.478 --> 00:42:59.947
This is a hobby gone insane.

00:43:00.128 --> 00:43:07.744
Yeah, but that's your brilliance of sustainability, dave, is that?

00:43:07.744 --> 00:43:09.269
That's how you've always been able to make these things work right?

00:43:09.269 --> 00:43:15.411
You keep putting profit back into the product to make it better, to let it support itself and, like you said, you did that with the boat as well.

00:43:15.545 --> 00:43:16.978
But I want to stay on the path here.

00:43:16.978 --> 00:43:19.411
It's a path Right of course, of course.

00:43:19.784 --> 00:43:22.976
So you're having, you're in the apartment.

00:43:22.976 --> 00:43:25.092
You have a studio, essentially built.

00:43:25.092 --> 00:43:29.510
I mean, I don't know if you're calling it the cutting room yet at this point, but how do you go?

00:43:29.510 --> 00:43:29.791
From there.

00:43:29.791 --> 00:43:32.170
You are calling it cutting room.

00:43:58.605 --> 00:44:01.929
Well, no, you are calling it Cutting Room generic name in a lot of ways.

00:44:01.929 --> 00:44:09.559
Uh, you know, it's it's fortunate that we became the owners of that kind of like realm in in new york city, but uh, you know, uh, I'm not sure how we actually.

00:44:09.559 --> 00:44:25.387
Well, I actually came to that point, but it was kind of like I had a bunch of names and then finally it was like I gotta just pick one, you know, because I, I was advertising and I was just like you know, like you know, I I like the idea of the playroom, but that was already taken right

00:44:25.668 --> 00:44:36.297
uh, because you know, my happiest moments as a kid was in my playroom, uh, so I I tried to do something similar, but you, you know, uh, uh.

00:44:36.297 --> 00:44:37.619
So the cutting room it was.

00:44:37.619 --> 00:44:42.639
And then, uh, the funny thing about the village voice was those ads.

00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:49.548
You know all the smaller studios, you know the mom and pop studios, like baby monster and like all these other studios.

00:44:49.548 --> 00:45:10.585
Back in the day they were all in there, but uh, yep, if you wanted to be first you had to put like number one or a, so everything had to be like a1, the cutting room, the a1 like a1111111 like there was a game we do it now with algorithms.

00:45:10.666 --> 00:45:11.947
It's the same right.

00:45:11.947 --> 00:45:13.548
Right, it's the thing.

00:45:13.548 --> 00:45:16.311
It was just so funny back then.

00:45:16.572 --> 00:45:19.715
But look that, put us on the map.

00:45:19.715 --> 00:45:25.221
Those stupid ads that were like, I don't know, 20 bucks a week or whatever.

00:45:25.221 --> 00:45:34.146
I mean it got a ton of calls and there was a lot of ridiculously stupid projects that I did and you know.

00:45:34.146 --> 00:45:42.653
But they, you, you know allowed me to buy another sampler or another piece of gear, another processor, upgrade my computer.

00:45:42.653 --> 00:45:47.548
You know from what you did man from from 10 megahertz to 20 megahertz?

00:45:48.851 --> 00:45:54.259
so those early days, early days, right, megahertz, right, yeah.

00:45:54.259 --> 00:46:08.592
So those early days for you when you, when you have the, the initial start of the of the cutting room, your work day, I would have to assume, was not a nine to five gig even if you tried to have it be that way, what was?

00:46:08.592 --> 00:46:11.945
What are the early days of that career like for you?

00:46:12.266 --> 00:46:27.168
you know, I, I, I did, I did the lion's share of the work and I was working with a lot of uh djs who are, you know, night owls, so they would you know, they'd get up at like 5 pm or6 pm and have breakfast.

00:46:27.168 --> 00:46:30.516
And then you know, uh 5 pm and have breakfast right.

00:46:30.835 --> 00:46:37.538
I mean, this is like when you say these are club kids man you, you know they were paying the bills and they had money to do that.

00:46:40.130 --> 00:46:48.376
And you know, that was the era back then of these super clubs and these DJs all wanted to have like the hottest you know mixes.

00:46:48.376 --> 00:47:08.317
And I was there to help them do that and that meant I worked from, you know, 9 pm to 9 am and you know, I was younger back then, I think I was still in my 25, so I could handle that.

00:47:09.945 --> 00:47:14.097
But eventually I had to bring people in to help me.

00:47:14.097 --> 00:47:47.492
So that's when the studio started taking some structure, where I, you know, funny enough, I ran into a friend of mine who I work with at Berkeley in Boston and hired him as an engineer, uh, trained up another engineer to, to you know, so that I could take some of the more higher profile gigs and not have to work with, like, I mean, larry, you know, you know, the the professional world is not always professional.

00:47:47.492 --> 00:47:48.766
You know, there's no like.

00:47:48.766 --> 00:47:50.465
We don't turn down anybody.

00:47:50.465 --> 00:48:00.695
Like, if they have money to come into the studio, you can come but, like you know, they could be completely insane and they are sometimes and you're like, all right, well, we'll try to make the best of it.

00:48:02.005 --> 00:48:04.143
It's a childlike business in that regard.

00:48:04.143 --> 00:48:06.333
Right, these are all just big kids basically.

00:48:06.393 --> 00:48:06.793
Yeah.

00:48:06.824 --> 00:48:10.835
Like playing with their toys and, yeah, it's a whole other world.

00:48:10.945 --> 00:48:17.317
But the ones who are never going to actually get anywhere you still have to work with.

00:48:17.317 --> 00:48:22.233
And yeah, so, yeah, exactly so.

00:48:22.273 --> 00:48:36.396
So, dave, just knowing your story, I know that one of the pivotal things that happened there was something that was totally innocent at the time, I guess some mike mangini, who's uh, became a great client of yours and really brought a lot of work to Cutting Room.

00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:37.458
Absolutely.

00:48:37.545 --> 00:48:39.590
He wanted to make a transfer, a tape transfer.

00:48:39.590 --> 00:48:40.512
Is that how this began?

00:48:41.396 --> 00:49:00.733
Yeah Well, you know I had a two-inch tape machine there which was like you know, if you wanted to get more work and get more professional work, you needed to have a two inch machine which allowed folks to take their their uh tapes from, you know, sony music or bigger studios.

00:49:00.833 --> 00:49:01.996
Any other studio really?

00:49:02.016 --> 00:49:05.452
Yeah, Any other well, any other studio that was, you know, worth their salt.

00:49:05.452 --> 00:49:12.385
Uh, you know, in the professional, uh, you know, realm would would have a two inch machine.

00:49:12.385 --> 00:49:35.958
So I put money into buying a two inch machine and of course I had the 16 track half inch machine which I put money into, buying a two inch machine, and of course I had the 16 track half inch machine which was there from, you know, back in the day and uh, well, uh, those formats were listed on my village voice ad and uh, Mike saw it, mike Mangini saw it and uh, he had a bunch of stuff he wanted to transfer from 16 track to 2-inch.

00:49:35.958 --> 00:49:40.856
And you know, Mike came over for a tape transfer and we hit it off.

00:49:40.856 --> 00:49:49.414
Mike came through and he said, kind of like what a lot of people say you know I'm going to bring a new place to work.

00:49:49.414 --> 00:49:51.545
You know I need a second home, blah, blah, blah.

00:49:51.704 --> 00:50:02.295
And you know, the most important thing is like you could be skeptical about that and and and negative, like, yeah, sure, whatever, everyone says this.

00:50:02.295 --> 00:50:04.106
But you got to stay open.

00:50:04.106 --> 00:50:09.175
It's really important to stay open and to take chances.

00:50:09.175 --> 00:50:16.358
And if I didn't take the chance with Mike and he didn't take a chance with with me, I would have never met you.

00:50:16.358 --> 00:50:17.974
That's probably true.

00:50:17.974 --> 00:50:19.425
You know what I'm saying.

00:50:19.425 --> 00:50:31.650
So, uh, again, I can't stress the fact of staying open is is really, really important because there's a lot to close up over.

00:50:31.650 --> 00:50:37.014
You know, everyone gets burned and this and that, but you gotta figure out a way to stay open.

00:50:37.014 --> 00:50:49.596
And he made it easy because he checked in on me and he wanted to see what was going on and you know when I would look at potential properties to.

00:50:49.596 --> 00:50:53.340
You know, move, of course, through the village voice.

00:50:55.405 --> 00:50:57.152
Because, that was what you did.

00:50:57.152 --> 00:50:57.572
That's right.

00:50:58.385 --> 00:51:13.596
You know, we would go and look at different places together and I don't know why he was hanging out with me or he never asked to like be business partners or like, but he was interested in seeing what would happen from all of this.

00:51:13.596 --> 00:51:21.173
He kept in touch while I found the place on, well, 678 Broadway.

00:51:21.173 --> 00:51:22.929
Yeah, I guess.

00:51:22.929 --> 00:51:31.690
Yeah, I mean I had some NYU colleagues that I was working with and you know we didn't have much money.

00:51:31.690 --> 00:51:37.400
I mean, we maybe had like 10 or 15,000 saved up.

00:51:37.400 --> 00:51:44.014
We weren't really planning on building a major recording studio ever.

00:51:44.014 --> 00:52:03.313
You know, it was just going to be a project studio and you know, just to kind of flash forward a little bit, I think I was making like $45,000, $50,000 at like my little space and I thought, oh my God, this is amazing.

00:52:03.313 --> 00:52:08.135
And the next year we were making $450,000.

00:52:08.135 --> 00:52:12.715
Yeah, wow, and that's what Mike brought to the table.

00:52:12.715 --> 00:52:15.231
Yeah, and I mean it was.

00:52:16.746 --> 00:52:19.626
So let's kind of define, like what Mike you know did I mean.

00:52:19.626 --> 00:52:23.670
So Mike is a producer, yeah, and you know Mike ended up bringing clients when I worked there.

00:52:23.670 --> 00:52:24.090
You know which is.

00:52:24.090 --> 00:52:27.581
You know mike ended up bringing clients when I worked there, you know which is.

00:52:27.581 --> 00:52:40.706
You know, a little after that particular version of the cutting room opened and joan osborne and bruce hornsby and like all these major artists he's bringing in david burn, david burn to produce their records.

00:52:40.786 --> 00:52:54.574
So you know, it just goes to show you how a partnership with somebody like that and it wasn't even a partnership, it was just an understanding hey, I'll bring you some work and I'll bring you more work, and you developed a relationship, a working relationship.

00:52:54.574 --> 00:52:55.657
That was amazing.

00:52:55.724 --> 00:52:57.851
Really benefited both of you throughout the years.

00:52:57.851 --> 00:53:02.007
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt, and we certainly had our differences at times.

00:53:02.648 --> 00:53:04.451
Oh yes, oh yes, you did.

00:53:04.451 --> 00:53:06.994
We we certainly had our differences at times.

00:53:06.994 --> 00:53:08.257
Oh yes, oh yes, you did.

00:53:08.556 --> 00:53:10.219
We won't get into some of those stories?

00:53:10.239 --> 00:53:11.320
No, no, no, no but they're awesome.

00:53:11.340 --> 00:53:11.942
They are awesome.

00:53:11.942 --> 00:53:19.327
Mike and I are still friends and I hope to see him soon.

00:53:19.327 --> 00:53:31.735
But the thing is that it could happen for anybody, as long as you stay open to it, and you just don't know how the future is going to unfold unless you're open to it.

00:53:31.735 --> 00:53:35.036
And I keep saying that, but like it's really important.

00:53:35.697 --> 00:53:38.860
But you literally built the place from Home.

00:53:38.860 --> 00:53:43.802
Depot runs and no work permit and like you, just like you just.

00:53:47.425 --> 00:53:49.731
Well, because you made it, I said I, I still do that.

00:53:49.731 --> 00:53:59.612
I was actually at home depot earlier today like flooring for like a certain room.

00:54:00.572 --> 00:54:01.974
All right, we got so much more to cover here.

00:54:02.414 --> 00:54:03.016
Yeah, I know, I know.

00:54:03.476 --> 00:54:07.541
So 97 is when you and I first crossed paths.

00:54:07.541 --> 00:54:08.161
That's right.

00:54:08.161 --> 00:54:11.231
I was working River Sound.

00:54:11.231 --> 00:54:28.632
As I said, steely Dan and I had closed and I was working for the Toy Specialists, which is an audio rental company, and I remember Eric Walters shout out to Eric Walters was the driver, and so you were renting equipment and he would be the driver that would run all over New York City and bring these pieces of rental equipment.

00:54:29.646 --> 00:54:50.385
And he came back to the shop and I was a tech, I was checking gear in and out, making sure everything worked, all that kind of stuff, and he's like hey, I just talked to this guy who needs a studio manager and I gave him your name and I'm like, right, good, your name.

00:54:50.385 --> 00:54:51.126
And I'm like, right, good job.

00:54:51.126 --> 00:55:03.548
And we had lunch and we hit it off and I remember you saying to me come in for a week and just take notes, just tell us what we're doing wrong, and then we'll have a discussion at the end of the week and we'll go from there and um, right, it was it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship for three and a half it.

00:55:03.568 --> 00:55:04.050
It really was.

00:55:04.050 --> 00:55:06.134
Yeah, it really was yeah.

00:55:06.134 --> 00:55:07.797
Look, you keep saying three and a half.

00:55:07.797 --> 00:55:10.869
I'm going to say it's three and a half.

00:55:10.869 --> 00:55:13.313
In my mind it's like five to ten years.

00:55:13.313 --> 00:55:14.335
It's three and a half.

00:55:14.335 --> 00:55:41.481
Well, because we, dude, I brought on a lot of people Billy Donahue, and I brought in a lot of people that I it was so much stuff and that look, that is really the most important part, because, like a studio manager who creates a culture at the studio, there's just no better way to make everything work.

00:55:46.905 --> 00:55:48.248
You've always said to me the most important thing is the team.

00:55:48.248 --> 00:55:49.914
Right, right like who you have there is more important than the equipment.

00:55:50.376 --> 00:55:50.998
Yeah, anything else.

00:55:50.998 --> 00:55:55.469
We used to have our uh, our staff meetings up on the roof with the barbecue.

00:55:55.469 --> 00:55:56.492
It was that.

00:55:56.492 --> 00:55:57.876
That was the kind of stuff that.

00:55:57.876 --> 00:55:59.347
But dave, you were the cool boss.

00:55:59.367 --> 00:56:05.141
You took us skiing and you took us you know we would go to Bill's games together at Tailgate.

00:56:05.641 --> 00:56:06.885
Oh dude, so we were friends.

00:56:06.885 --> 00:56:08.481
You made me buy Yankees tickets.

00:56:09.989 --> 00:56:12.371
That's right, yankees tickets, you name it.

00:56:12.525 --> 00:56:20.677
Yankees tickets, like the season tickets for the Friday Pass, which culminated in like two World Series that I got to see thanks to you.

00:56:20.677 --> 00:56:23.594
I mean, it's a lifestyle.

00:56:24.565 --> 00:56:28.532
Let me talk about that lifestyle a little bit so, while I'm manager of the cutting room.

00:56:28.532 --> 00:56:33.750
First thing Dave did is hand me an open invoice list right, all the people who haven't paid him.

00:56:33.750 --> 00:56:34.411
Oh, jeez.

00:56:34.411 --> 00:56:37.250
So I have to attack this list.

00:56:38.211 --> 00:56:39.414
Receivables man.

00:56:39.755 --> 00:56:48.059
The receivables it was a lot of young rappers coming in and paying $1,000 in $5 bills.

00:56:48.059 --> 00:56:51.213
There was a lot of that going on, even $1 bills.

00:56:51.233 --> 00:56:52.255
Even $1 bills.

00:56:52.945 --> 00:57:01.684
There was a lot of you know 4 in the morning phone calls of you know so-and-so wants to take their tapes and I'm like, by no means are you to give up those tapes, right oh?

00:57:01.704 --> 00:57:01.826
my God.

00:57:01.826 --> 00:57:05.684
And if I say there's a gun involved let them take the tapes you know,

00:57:06.387 --> 00:57:09.617
so there was a lot of that how can I package?

00:57:09.657 --> 00:57:13.728
that for you so managing a recording studio, was it hard enough?

00:57:13.728 --> 00:57:21.313
Owner, you take that stress on on a different level, but we were able to take steps and kind of develop the business.

00:57:21.313 --> 00:57:23.742
I think in a way that it wasn't probably.

00:57:23.742 --> 00:57:25.592
We started renting equipment to clients.

00:57:25.592 --> 00:57:27.664
We started making money in a way that it wasn't private we started renting equipment to clients.

00:57:28.545 --> 00:57:29.653
We started making money in other ways that were more important.

00:57:29.653 --> 00:57:34.028
We really made a bunch of money and that was awesome and we had a lot of fun doing it, we did, and then it ended.

00:57:34.128 --> 00:57:34.911
Terribly that really.

00:57:36.264 --> 00:57:37.608
Well, you know, because of a girl.

00:57:37.829 --> 00:57:40.336
Oh Jesus, Always there's a theme here.

00:57:40.565 --> 00:57:40.744
Because

00:57:40.804 --> 00:57:43.168
I decided to date the intern Because I decided to date the intern.

00:57:43.188 --> 00:57:44.210
That's right.

00:57:44.210 --> 00:57:53.353
Let's just put it out there, that's right, you know so you know, as the outsider, no one else was interested in me.

00:57:53.353 --> 00:58:00.989
What could I do as the outsider in this conversation who has not worked in a recording studio?

00:58:00.989 --> 00:58:08.215
You know, I'm curious about what goes on during a great session.

00:58:08.215 --> 00:58:11.998
I guess we could talk about a bad session also, but let's focus on the positive.

00:58:12.079 --> 00:58:29.704
Like you've had, so many legends come through and so many great artists Can you describe a like a moment, a session, a highlight from your journey that just really stood out to you.

00:58:29.704 --> 00:58:32.215
I'd have to say the Imani sessions.

00:58:32.215 --> 00:58:47.759
You know Imani Coppola was a artist that was signed to Sony and through Mike Mangini was producing it and you know Mike was very gracious with you, know your involvement in any session.

00:58:47.759 --> 00:58:54.557
He wanted me to be his engineer, assistant producer for a lot of the sessions.

00:58:54.704 --> 00:58:58.072
But I was just trying to get a handle on being like a.

00:58:58.072 --> 00:59:10.815
All of a sudden, like I said, we went from $ grand to 450,000 and I'm trying to wrap my head around that and figure out how to.

00:59:10.815 --> 00:59:23.335
There's a lot of responsibilities that come with that type of like influx of business and we couldn't even fucking order paperclips and know who where they were being.

00:59:23.335 --> 00:59:26.039
It was just, it was hard.

00:59:26.039 --> 00:59:44.215
So there was a moment where Mike said to me I want you to be the music director of Amani Coppola and take her on tour with like Jamiroquai, and I was just like oh, my dream is coming back.

00:59:46.586 --> 00:59:49.474
I can actually be a touring musician that could do this.

00:59:49.474 --> 01:00:05.443
But that's how I met Larry, because I couldn't run a studio and do that and do that.

01:00:11.164 --> 01:00:14.411
So you know, larry came in, you know under those pretenses and you know, just Blaze was working there.

01:00:14.411 --> 01:00:16.255
We had a crazy crew man.

01:00:17.197 --> 01:00:17.998
Yeah, it was fun we did.

01:00:17.998 --> 01:00:26.538
I always felt like the studio was a place that was like a magnet that attracted opportunities for the staff.

01:00:26.538 --> 01:00:32.054
You know, like not just for me but for everybody, and including you, larry.

01:00:32.054 --> 01:00:45.958
You know like, you know, through through I think you know, meeting Jake, and you know, like, like these opportunities you know were just not only for me, you know take it a step further.

01:00:46.038 --> 01:00:46.197
Right?

01:00:46.197 --> 01:00:56.454
I'm not working at Sirius XM if I'm not working at cutting room, because I never meet Jake Jake Clans, who ends up being the reason I moved to Sirius XM.

01:00:56.454 --> 01:00:57.295
So right.

01:00:57.295 --> 01:01:01.331
Yeah, there's a lot of dreams that are made there and things that happen.

01:01:01.331 --> 01:01:05.722
I want to talk about your sustainability, though, dave, because, dave, because.

01:01:05.742 --> 01:01:08.311
I already talked about how you kept pouring money back into the business.

01:01:08.311 --> 01:01:13.931
You decided to buy the SSL against my better judgment and I made that mistake.

01:01:13.931 --> 01:01:18.952
You're like I want to buy this huge, expensive console and I'm like don't do that.

01:01:18.952 --> 01:01:23.447
And you didn't listen to me and it was the smartest thing you ever did, so good for you.

01:01:23.467 --> 01:01:25.409
I don't know man Good for you.

01:01:25.429 --> 01:01:26.769
That was a lot of money, dude.

01:01:26.769 --> 01:01:29.873
But the pivot I want to talk about your art of the pivot.

01:01:29.873 --> 01:01:34.577
Like, even during COVID, like you opened it up for teaching purposes.

01:01:34.577 --> 01:01:36.800
You know you did things.

01:01:37.420 --> 01:01:45.173
Yeah, not during COVID, but the teaching thing was happening during, like, the implosion of the industry of commercial recording.

01:01:45.173 --> 01:01:50.949
So necessity is the mother of all invention, yeah, you know.

01:01:50.949 --> 01:02:12.594
And uh, uh, at some point in in 2006 or 7, you know, I had been listening to a lot of online radio, uh, and mostly, uh, the station that I really love was KXP, out of Seattle, and at a certain point in time I had a chance to really help them out and I did a lot of things pro bono.

01:02:12.594 --> 01:02:18.318
And what ended up happening from that pro bono kind of relationship?

01:02:18.318 --> 01:02:25.603
Because at that point I was like, well, you know, if it's all going to hell, I'm just going to start doing things I like to do.

01:02:25.603 --> 01:02:44.882
Yeah, and because of that, you know, it launched us in a different direction and got us a bunch of new clientele that I didn't really realize that were available to us.

01:02:44.882 --> 01:02:47.773
So, you know, smart move.

01:02:48.244 --> 01:02:49.431
It was a smart move on your part.

01:02:51.126 --> 01:02:57.135
I really can't say, like I planned it out, it was just a gut feeling and it was like I want to do this because it's cool.

01:02:57.135 --> 01:03:25.101
Yeah, when you know everything is looking, you know, not great sometimes it's really good to be able to do something that you love to do, like a passion project that can spur you know all kinds of good things that you can manifest, things that you don't realize that are there, that you can manifest things that you don't realize that are there.

01:03:25.842 --> 01:03:27.643
So you alluded to it a minute ago.

01:03:31.324 --> 01:03:34.025
The implosion of basically the entire commercial recording industry because home studios became the norm.

01:03:34.505 --> 01:03:44.856
Everybody could do what they needed to do, and it was really only high-end artists that started using commercial recording studios in a lot of ways.

01:03:44.856 --> 01:03:51.713
So not only have you been able to keep your head above water, but you've really thrived right, so you've been able to open a second space.

01:03:51.713 --> 01:04:03.028
Just talk about all the tough decisions that you had to make along the way to thrive in a business that was really closing when I started in the industry and when you were there, the recorded media was the industry you know.

01:04:03.210 --> 01:04:11.300
And when, when you were there, uh, the recorded you know media was the industry that was thriving.

01:04:11.440 --> 01:04:23.568
Yeah Right, I mean the, the industry made his money on recorded media and that all fell apart.

01:04:23.568 --> 01:04:34.561
You know, in, uh, in the aughts and um, you know, piracy became rampant and there was really nobody taking the lead and we just had to figure it out.

01:04:34.561 --> 01:04:44.414
I mean, not me figuring it out, but the industry had to figure out where it was going, and that was really dependent on bandwidth, was really dependent on bandwidth.

01:04:44.414 --> 01:05:02.471
Um, you know, I knew, as soon as bandwidth became, uh, you know, much faster, the distribution model would change.

01:05:02.471 --> 01:05:26.235
And, um, you know, we, we bought a place in the old tower records building and, uh, you know, we did that because, you know, we had a 11 year lease in the old place and I felt, like, you know, it was important for us to be able to uh own the property where the business was, because otherwise we we'd always be at the mercy of the landlords.

01:05:26.844 --> 01:05:37.556
You know, because when we first started the lease at 678 Broadway, it was like $3,000 a month and it was like a 4,500 square foot space.

01:05:37.556 --> 01:05:39.030
It was insane.

01:05:39.030 --> 01:05:43.096
And by the time the lease was over it was like $20,000 a month.

01:05:43.096 --> 01:05:45.251
So we didn't pay that.

01:05:45.344 --> 01:05:55.438
But if we wanted to renew, that's what we would have paid Because you know there was a super renaissance in the area you know of NoHo.

01:05:55.438 --> 01:06:04.110
I don't even think they called it NoHo back then, like NoHo was coined during the 90s and 2000s To shoot real estate up through the.

01:06:04.190 --> 01:06:12.128
Right, and it did 2000s to shoot real estate up through the right, and it did so.

01:06:12.148 --> 01:07:21.210
Uh, so by the time we were, you know, done with our lease, you know, I had saved up quite a bit of coin as a deposit and the idea was to be able to uh buy a place and make a long story short, we settled on the, the, the silk building, which is the old tower records flagship, and, uh, we built out at at the time, uh, you know, I, I, I put everything I had into it, and then you've always done that, and uh, always, yeah, and I think there's something to be said about that, and I also think, like there's an important point here Putting everything you have into something is a sacrifice, and the sacrifice that you make is, you know, maybe a relationship you know with a significant other, or there's no balance at this level, a relationship, uh, you know with a significant other or, um, there, there's no, there's no balance at this level, and, and that that is, you know, the sad part of it uh, to be competitive, you have to do things that uh take up a lot of your time.

01:07:21.231 --> 01:07:24.750
Yeah, I mean you're playing in the deep end of the pool, man, like right, right.

01:07:24.909 --> 01:07:28.675
so there's no, there's, there's really no work-life balance.

01:07:28.675 --> 01:07:57.420
Yep, uh, and I think one of the most important things to realize is like, at at this level, your, your work-life balance is essentially, uh, you're committed to the team that you're working with and they're your family, and you know that was the way we were when we worked, and you know there is really nothing else besides what you're doing.

01:07:57.860 --> 01:07:58.740
And families fight.

01:07:58.740 --> 01:07:59.521
Let's be real.

01:08:04.509 --> 01:08:07.112
They do and they make up and things are great.

01:08:07.112 --> 01:08:08.755
But that's a really important thing.

01:08:08.755 --> 01:08:13.320
When you're operating at this level, work-life balance is bullshit.

01:08:13.320 --> 01:08:24.018
You're committed to your lifestyle at work and your family is the people at work and at some point you might be able to turn that around.

01:08:24.018 --> 01:08:50.882
But when you're hungry and you're struggling and you're making a name for yourself, unless you're, a significant other is accepting of that or is involved in the same aspects of work that you are and is part of that work family, which can also cause problems yes, it can.

01:08:52.326 --> 01:08:53.449
No, but you're making a good point.

01:08:53.551 --> 01:09:13.971
I mean yeah, I mean you got to go all in at this level and I have regrets about doing that, but you know, the experiences I've had outweigh the regrets really, at the end of the day, talk a little bit about.

01:09:14.072 --> 01:09:17.728
You know some of the people that have been through there and built their careers through.

01:09:17.728 --> 01:09:19.150
You mentioned ken lewis already.

01:09:19.150 --> 01:09:25.893
We mentioned just blaze nasty, you, me, yeah, I mean there's so many of us who you know.

01:09:25.893 --> 01:09:41.970
This became not a stopping point in our careers but a real growing point in our careers where we really yeah, you know, became something else and saw that next level which allowed us to get to the next level, and you must be so proud of that I love that, yeah, I, I love that.

01:09:42.131 --> 01:09:48.680
And, uh, that to me is, you know, fulfilling in a deep, deep way.

01:09:48.680 --> 01:10:04.730
You know I didn't, you know I didn't have a family, I didn't have children and who knows, maybe that you know may still not, maybe that you know will change.

01:10:04.730 --> 01:10:07.453
This is your baby.

01:10:07.493 --> 01:10:08.573
Dave, may still not.

01:10:08.573 --> 01:10:11.836
Maybe that you know will change, but uh, uh, this is your baby.

01:10:11.855 --> 01:10:40.715
Dave but, but I don't yeah, it is, but but you know, each person that comes through, uh and makes their mark here, uh, you know, is it makes me really proud to be able to, you know, feel like I helped in some you know significant or insignificant way to, you know, help people find their way, cause, cause they helped me find my way.

01:10:40.715 --> 01:10:42.591
It's a two way street.

01:10:42.591 --> 01:10:44.649
It's incredible, you know.

01:10:44.649 --> 01:11:02.952
I, I, I hope that you know the business, you know the cutting room and you know the essence of what we do here continues long after you know I've retired, or you know I've just fallen off the boat in the middle of the ocean.

01:11:02.993 --> 01:11:10.048
I was going to say you're in the middle of the Caribbean, on your yacht.

01:11:10.069 --> 01:11:10.208
That

01:11:10.229 --> 01:11:11.010
sounds really really good.

01:11:11.010 --> 01:11:14.092
One day I hope that that is the truth but,

01:11:14.253 --> 01:11:20.501
like, like the studio, that boat I put into, you know it's, it's, it's a working boat.

01:11:20.501 --> 01:11:24.255
Yeah, you know there's a business model involved in that.

01:11:24.255 --> 01:11:25.667
You know there's a business model involved in that.

01:11:25.667 --> 01:11:34.439
That boat has helped us make the construction of our second space, you know, out in Chelsea a possibility, you know.

01:11:35.284 --> 01:11:44.296
So unlike you to make money and keep dumping it back into the business, I don't know what's wrong with me.

01:11:44.417 --> 01:11:50.157
Oh, you're good, you're good, so you know, dave, that sets up a timely question.

01:11:50.157 --> 01:11:58.654
I'm thinking about you're, starting by looking at ads in the Village Voice and then we've talked about you know, to be first in line, you need to be one.

01:11:58.654 --> 01:12:00.829
The cutting room A the cutting room.

01:12:01.024 --> 01:12:02.109
A111.

01:12:02.128 --> 01:12:02.810
Then we get to.

01:12:02.810 --> 01:12:08.108
There's so many like room a111.

01:12:08.127 --> 01:12:08.590
Then we get to.

01:12:08.590 --> 01:12:12.042
There's so many like yeah, I wish I had copies of the paper to show you all the ridiculous things people would do to become first on the list.

01:12:12.042 --> 01:12:14.551
Well, like it made a difference well, now it's.

01:12:14.652 --> 01:12:15.836
You know the algorithms.

01:12:15.836 --> 01:12:18.744
It's social media, it's podcasting, it's youtube.

01:12:18.744 --> 01:12:26.317
I mean, the world has changed so much in the time that you have been on this journey.

01:12:26.317 --> 01:12:28.645
I mean, isn't it so cool?

01:12:28.645 --> 01:12:29.908
Absolutely.

01:12:29.908 --> 01:12:32.353
But what does the future hold?

01:12:32.353 --> 01:12:40.650
You know where do you see things going for your industry, your business and for the people who are coming up behind you?

01:12:42.412 --> 01:12:55.666
Well, I think, well, I think, I think the best way to understand that is to actually talk, to chat gpt, have some deep conversations with it I've done that multiple times today on multiple different subjects.

01:12:57.106 --> 01:13:22.809
Yes, I mean, we're at the knee of the curve right now of of of technological insanity in in good and bad ways, and I think it's really one of the most important uh or exciting uh moments to be alive to see what's what's happening.

01:13:22.809 --> 01:13:24.711
You know good and bad uh.

01:13:24.711 --> 01:13:32.621
You know everyone's tried to like forecast what music is going to be like.

01:13:32.860 --> 01:14:06.368
You know, even you know, during the, the moments where uh Napster was disrupting the business and you know it's really hard to kind of say, well, it's going to look like this or look like that, but all I can say is like innovation will prevail and creativity will prevail, and authenticity and creativity will prevail, even though the future is.

01:14:06.368 --> 01:14:16.060
You know, it's delicate and it's terrifying and it's fascinating.

01:14:17.688 --> 01:14:18.813
Is it a threat to your business?

01:14:19.564 --> 01:14:22.829
No, not at all, not at all.

01:14:22.829 --> 01:14:43.792
Why at all not at all?

01:14:43.792 --> 01:14:57.742
Why, uh, because humans will always need a place to, a creative hub to, you know, to go to and to be human.

01:14:58.903 --> 01:14:59.483
A laboratory.

01:14:59.483 --> 01:15:01.511
A laboratory.

01:15:01.685 --> 01:15:02.831
Yeah, no, absolutely.

01:15:02.831 --> 01:15:28.646
A laboratory yeah, no, absolutely.

01:15:28.646 --> 01:15:35.814
I feel like we're kind of akin to sort of like a and I'm going to go way out on a limb right now but to, like you know, like a Andy Warhol factory style.

01:15:35.814 --> 01:15:55.188
You know, culture that people that work here and the culture that is resonating from the folks that work here is far reaching and I feel like we're part of a movement to a certain extent and that's exciting for, like you know, a 58-year-old dude who's, you know, like there it is.

01:15:55.247 --> 01:15:56.908
He gave away the age I am.

01:15:56.908 --> 01:15:57.811
Come on, man.

01:15:58.506 --> 01:15:59.368
But it keeps you going.

01:15:59.368 --> 01:16:01.587
It keeps you going, dave.

01:16:01.587 --> 01:16:21.137
Last question yeah, somebody coming into the work world today who has dreams and aspirations of getting to and who knows if it's even possible but getting to a similar place to where you've wound up.

01:16:21.137 --> 01:16:25.921
What advice do you have for a young person coming into the business today?

01:16:27.483 --> 01:16:34.965
Sure Well, where I've wound up today is in great debt, and I have to sleep on the couch once in a while.

01:16:36.627 --> 01:16:38.154
But I'm doing what I love.

01:16:38.154 --> 01:16:39.769
Don't follow in these footsteps.

01:16:39.769 --> 01:16:42.256
Apparently is the message right, yeah.

01:16:43.086 --> 01:16:45.654
No, I've willfully done it.

01:16:45.654 --> 01:16:51.158
I mean I could sell off all the assets and live like this cool life.

01:16:51.158 --> 01:16:54.835
I mean I don't even know what would be cool for me because like it's not what I want to do.

01:16:54.835 --> 01:16:56.131
Oh, you'd be so bored, dave.

01:16:56.131 --> 01:16:58.970
Yeah, my wife would be happy, fair enough.

01:17:00.505 --> 01:17:02.653
She'd be like finally, you know.

01:17:04.648 --> 01:17:19.356
But the bottom line is like this is a lifestyle, it's a lifestyle commitment and I just love doing what we do and I'm willing to sleep on a couch for that.

01:17:19.356 --> 01:17:27.579
I'm willing to go into debt, because I do see some amazing things.

01:17:27.579 --> 01:17:29.712
I want to see what's on the other side.

01:17:29.712 --> 01:17:42.597
You know, that was the whole thing why I didn't sell out during, like the you know the period where bandwidth wasn't fast enough to support a digital distribution model.

01:17:42.597 --> 01:17:46.913
I want to see what it's.

01:17:46.913 --> 01:17:50.105
What it's like like we sold physical media.

01:17:50.105 --> 01:17:56.738
Now we have a digital, you know distribution model and like, where's it going from now?

01:17:56.738 --> 01:17:59.408
Who would have like called the ai?

01:17:59.408 --> 01:18:14.395
Uh, you know we, we're just like recovering from, you know, from the piracy issue of downloads, and now we have streaming and that seems to have curtailed.

01:18:14.395 --> 01:18:21.913
We're starting to monetize recorded media again and then all of a sudden, ai hits and it's like what the fuck is this?

01:18:21.913 --> 01:18:28.877
But I'm psyched for it, man, like I, I really want to.

01:18:28.877 --> 01:18:36.617
You know, this is beyond my wildest dreams, really, and, uh, you know, I, I, I.

01:18:36.796 --> 01:19:01.539
I think anyone who wants to get involved in this has to number one stay open to the possibilities and opportunities that lots of people will kind of like go oh, that's nothing, but you got to stay open because some of the most ridiculous opportunities or propositions sometimes pay off, as we've discussed before.

01:19:01.539 --> 01:19:03.250
That's key.

01:19:03.250 --> 01:19:06.932
You can't waste your time with ridiculous up.

01:19:06.932 --> 01:19:21.037
You know you you'll learn how to identify what, what you should stay open for, uh, as you get better at it and uh, but but have fun, and and, because that's the only way you're going to stay in the game.

01:19:21.037 --> 01:19:22.872
Like, if you're not having fun, you won't be able to be competitive.

01:19:22.872 --> 01:19:25.381
Yeah, if you're not having fun, you won't be able to be competitive.

01:19:25.381 --> 01:19:35.805
If you're not competitive, you, you might as well do something else, because you know this is ultimately gotta be fun.

01:19:35.805 --> 01:19:42.479
You know, no matter what business you're in, it has to be something you love to do.

01:19:42.479 --> 01:19:46.055
It's not, it can't be like I gotta do this again.

01:19:46.376 --> 01:20:00.139
You know, it's just not going to work, you know, and fortunately the cutting room has been a place where people could, you know, kind of deposit their dreams and hopefully get interest on them.

01:20:00.139 --> 01:20:06.176
You know, uh, I know I did that's an incredible story.

01:20:06.567 --> 01:20:10.271
I mean what you've been able to create from where you started.

01:20:10.271 --> 01:20:21.510
I can't imagine the satisfaction, the pride, the joy that comes from all of that that helps when you're sleeping on the couch in the lounge which I'll be doing tonight.

01:20:21.591 --> 01:20:25.912
by the way, Look, we just got a nice refrigerator.

01:20:25.912 --> 01:20:27.266
We just bought a new refrigerator.

01:20:27.266 --> 01:20:28.548
I'm pretty happy with that.

01:20:28.548 --> 01:20:29.912
You know, it makes ice now.

01:20:30.393 --> 01:20:32.797
So big time.

01:20:32.797 --> 01:20:37.712
Well, Dave, this is just been absolutely remarkable.

01:20:37.832 --> 01:20:39.376
You know um you know.

01:20:39.376 --> 01:20:40.759
Thank you for the time.

01:20:40.759 --> 01:20:43.871
Congratulations on all of your success.

01:20:44.051 --> 01:20:45.314
Thank you so much for having me.

01:20:45.314 --> 01:20:48.190
I had such a great time tonight, thanks.

01:20:49.253 --> 01:21:00.145
So that was Dave Crafa of the Cutting Room Studios, a really incredible place that I had the opportunity to see not that long ago, and Dave clearly is a very interesting guy.

01:21:00.145 --> 01:21:07.439
Larry Shea, thank you so much for bringing him to us, and why don't you lead us into the wrap up of this conversation?

01:21:07.845 --> 01:21:11.279
Yeah, I've known Dave's story for a long time, obviously working for him.

01:21:11.279 --> 01:21:16.115
But really cool to share it with everybody else, you know, because it's a story that needs to be told.

01:21:16.115 --> 01:21:34.639
So many lessons, so many life lessons, so many lessons about building a business from the ground floor up, literally from his dorm room to what it is now, which is an amazing enterprise, multiple facilities, amazing what he's built, you know.

01:21:34.639 --> 01:21:38.372
But you could just hear the energy when he speaks.

01:21:38.372 --> 01:21:44.872
Right, it's contagious, right, it just his drive, his passion and everything gets poured into the business.

01:21:44.872 --> 01:21:50.220
You know he goes and says several times that it's a lifestyle, right?

01:21:50.220 --> 01:21:54.015
So you really see that he's putting everything into it.

01:21:54.015 --> 01:21:57.414
It's what he's done the entire time that I've known him.

01:21:58.145 --> 01:22:01.775
But the thing I really take away from this guys is the sacrifice.

01:22:01.775 --> 01:22:04.153
You know he works harder than anybody.

01:22:04.153 --> 01:22:08.148
I know I don't know how he finds the time to do everything that he does.

01:22:08.148 --> 01:22:13.806
He's on three different coasts, flying all over the place running his business.

01:22:13.806 --> 01:22:17.135
Really admirable what he's put together.

01:22:17.135 --> 01:22:19.766
I don't even know when he sleeps, to be honest with you.

01:22:19.766 --> 01:22:27.359
But lastly and most importantly, how much do we miss the village voice in New York City?

01:22:28.024 --> 01:22:30.293
Yes, I'm glad you said this.

01:22:30.293 --> 01:22:33.173
I really really miss that from back in the day.

01:22:33.173 --> 01:22:51.118
You know, the one thing I took away from this is that he really has performed a miracle with the cutting room floor, with the cutting room floor studios, because being associated with larry shea, that in and of itself is a just surviving that.

01:22:51.118 --> 01:22:53.042
It's like it's like going to war.

01:22:53.042 --> 01:22:54.666
It's like going to war.

01:22:54.666 --> 01:23:05.242
Of course I was, but but seriously, uh, you know, we talk a lot about the show, about, you know, following your passion, as you kind of mentioned, and obviously the passion he has for what he does.

01:23:05.242 --> 01:23:11.777
It absolutely exudes everything he says, every action he does, but the but the one thing I was, I was.

01:23:11.796 --> 01:23:24.337
I think the one thing we try to get across in the show is that, look, if you pick a career that you love, you'll never work a day in your life, and nothing can be truer than in the, than in terms of dave crave.

01:23:24.337 --> 01:23:29.256
I mean, he obviously, or honestly, he took a hobby and turned it into his career.

01:23:29.256 --> 01:23:33.595
Not many of us can ever say you know, I can't take comic book collecting and turn that into my career.

01:23:33.595 --> 01:23:34.396
It's not going to happen.

01:23:34.396 --> 01:23:40.997
He took a hobby where he was just really into music, really into technology, combined the two and see what he's done.

01:23:40.997 --> 01:23:50.256
It's really really miraculous, and the fact that he's able to continue to do this to this day at such a high level, he's one of the most respected people in the business.

01:23:50.256 --> 01:23:52.891
That in and of itself is very, very telling.

01:23:54.076 --> 01:23:58.868
Absolutely, and I think for me, the key takeaway was to be open.

01:23:58.868 --> 01:24:03.136
He came back to that concept or theme a whole bunch of times.

01:24:03.136 --> 01:24:26.496
If you're open and you let possibilities present themselves and you wrap your arms around them and just keep going, there's no telling what the future holds and what you can accomplish, and I just think that that's incredible advice, especially within an industry that has been flipping upside down and changing the entire time that he has been in it.

01:24:26.496 --> 01:24:34.757
So clearly, that is a philosophy that's worked for him and it's a philosophy that can work for everybody else, no matter what field they're in.

01:24:34.757 --> 01:24:40.677
So with that, Dave, thank you so much for joining this episode of no Wrong Choices.

01:24:40.677 --> 01:24:42.832
We also thank you for joining us.

01:24:43.364 --> 01:24:47.917
If this episode made you think of somebody who could be a great guest, we'd love to hear from you.

01:24:47.917 --> 01:24:54.158
Please reach out to us through the contact page of our website at norongchoicescom to let us know.

01:24:54.158 --> 01:24:59.396
While you're there, check out the blog for a deeper look at our takeaways from each episode.

01:24:59.396 --> 01:25:01.972
You can also connect with us on social media.

01:25:01.972 --> 01:25:05.836
We're on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and X.

01:25:05.836 --> 01:25:10.274
On behalf of Larry Shea, Tushar Saxena and me, Larry Samuels.

01:25:10.274 --> 01:25:12.081
Thank you again for listening.

01:25:12.081 --> 01:25:15.685
We'll be back next week with another inspiring episode.