Los Angeles Approves Condo Next to Capitol Records With Provisions to Protect Underground Studios

The city of Los Angeles has approved the building of a new development near the famed Capitol Records building. However, the planned condominium building must provide measures ensuring the recording studios underneath the building are not damaged. Both EMI and Hollywood conservationists expressed concern that the development and its planned underground garage, both to be built at 6230 Yucca Blvd., would affect the acoustics of the neighboring studios. Among the concessions the developers made were agreeing not to do construction after 10am within 40 feet of the property line, implementing a foam sound baffle to protect the studio's echo chambers and using an ongoing noise and vibration monitor. The underground studios at Capitol are noted for their "natural reverb" and have hosted legendary recordings from Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole to the Beach Boys and Green Day.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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