f_o_r_t a_p_a_c_h_e

Bands play, but engineers render sound reproducible. Conduits for sale, they translate volatile amp voltage and voice to an archival equilibrium on tape. Studios crop up amidst demand for recording, ready ears amongst the throngs of musicians. Independent engineers begin in basements and loft rooms with however many tracks they can secure and earn a sound reputation from there.

Fort Apache studios has followed a similar track, evolving from a joint audio venture among friends to a national landmark. Their logo likely graces half your record collection: Throwing Muses, Sugar, Pixies, Buffalo Tom, Belly, Lemonheads, Dinosaur Jr, Come, Radiohead, Hole, Uncle Tupelo and fIREHOSE. "It's easy to say now," remembers Fort Apache's Paul Kolderie, "but I really think that we started the studio so we could support indie rock. That was what we were into, and we started as kind of a collective of people who just wanted a place to work. We pooled all of our equipment and some money and built the walls and had a commune at first. We didn't get paid, but we got a block of time each week"

The name they earned for themselves compensated in part for the little money they made; as "Fort Apache" became the fad, you could hear them beyond the soundproof walls. "We presented ourselves as a rock 'n' roll studio," Kolderie continues. "Around the fall of '87 or '88, we just had everything. They would do a local show, and it would be ten in a row from Fort Apache. WFNX would do the top 50 local songs, and we'd have 25 or 30 of them. We felt like we had a pretty strong effect on the scene."

The scene at the time subsisted on radio tapes. Commercial stations actually played unreleased tapes, establishing a band's name for local bookings. "I think it's harder now," says Kolderie. "It's ghettoized. They only play that stuff on Sunday night on the local ghetto show." Extending the DIY chord to their studio, they scouted and recorded according to personal tastes and self-taught methods that complemented the sound of the underground. "If you're looking at a movie, you'd rather see an interesting camera angle or maybe a shot that's a little messed up or not quite perfect, whereas the standard thing is the Hollywood thing with perfect lighting, correct color balance, good framing, nobody looks at the camera," says Kolderie. "We were always like independent filmmakers, we felt like we don't really have much money, so we have to make it as interesting as we can. And to be honest, we were really just teaching ourselves as we went. We were always picking up things where we could, we were always trying to get people to tell us how we do things. There are schools for this stuff, but we never went to them -- it wasn't quite in keeping with punk."

Minor money doesn't preclude quality and certainly won't prevent major label interest. But subverting the corporate quo does deliver the tingling sensations of a successfully executed, small-scale scam. "I think the first major label thing we did at the 24-track place was a Throwing Muses album called House Tornado," Kolderie recalls. "I really felt good because we took it to the mastering lab in New York -- the fancy place where they have John Lennon's autograph on the wall saying, 'Thanks, you guys always do a great job,' that kind of thing -- and the guy was really cool. He said, 'I can't believe you guys did this for this little money. It sounds good.' We worked really hard on that album, and I felt like we were winning. I felt like we had a plan, which was to do it cheaper but just as good and kinda guerrilla."

Since then Fort Apache has staked solid territory between bands and the industry, audio diplomats of sorts, between the bands who just wanna rock and the corporate market for music. In the past, their role was relatively casual. "Back then, there was no money in it," says Kolderie. "If you did a Big Dipper album for Homestead, nobody ever called us up or came to see us in the middle of the album or anything. We'd send it to them, and they'd go, 'Hey, nice album, thanks.' SST was another label they'd never tell you what to do. We handed in Dinosaur's Bug and they were happy, but they didn't hear a note of it before we gave it to them." That mediating role has become increasingly complex as the stakes rocket. The mechanics of making records is no longer that studio simple. Amplified label investment means less control over the final product. Kolderie tells all: "It got to the point where we were getting good records, but we still didn't have any power. Once you were done, you'd hand it over and say, 'Here, do a good job, please. I hope you sell some.' And sometimes you see these companies who are bonehead about it, and you don't feel like they do a good job and you don't feel like you were fairly represented. So that was the genesis of this deal, to try to get more power with the record with regard to what happens after its made."

The "deal" is an agreement between Fort Apache and MCA Records, the former scouting and producing new talent for the latter. The benefits are mutual: Fort Apache styles a new mixing board (brought over on a boat, bought from the BBC) and MCA scores a credible rock catalog. The deal reveals the practical face of the Fort: Although allies of the bands, they are for-profit professionals. "I'm not trying to put us on as a paragon of virtue," says Kolderie. "I think that we have foregone opportunities to make money, because we thought that would help bands. We have not raped bands, we haven't ever tried to take advanced publishing, we tell them, 'No, we won't take your publishing, and don't let anyone else take it, either. 'I really don't want to make it seem like we're do-gooders, but I don't think we're in business for the same reason that Columbia Records is in business. We do have some ideals, and I think we're the kind of studio that is like a band, a bunch of people that all have their roles to play."

For the un-scene, Fort Apache's national rank has caused rates to escalate beyond the budgets of the local fledgling bands they once promoted. It's no great tragedy. It's an inevitable fact of finance. There's no deficit of up and coming economical engineers. New, fresh ears sprout up around town, at places like the White Room, the Cold Room and BirdDog studios, urging new sound ideals into the midst.