The boys just announced they are closing the studio

Wisconsin's most famous music studio, Smart Studios in Madison, will shut down this spring, the Shepherd Express has learned. An employee of the recording space confirmed the news. No final date has been set, though March 1 has been discussed. The reason for the closing is "the same reason any business closes," the employee wrote the Shepherd. "Money out > money in."

The studio was a fixture of the Madison rock scene throughout the '80s before becoming a national destination in the '90s after resident producer Butch Vig recorded there with Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. Vig and fellow Smart co-founder Steve Marker made the studio the home of their own alternative band, Garbage, recording each of the band's albums there. More recently Fall Out Boy and Death Cab For Cutie have recorded albums there, as well.

The studio was still busy in its final years, and to the outside eye seemingly indestructible. Infamously in 2003, a wayward backhoe from outside street work on East Johnson Avenue tore through the studio's wall, but the owners rebuilt it and resumed operations quickly.

www.expressmilwaukee.com/blog-4753-madisons-historic-smart-studios-to-close.html

This isn’t a big surprise per se (it costs a ton of money to keep even a legendary studio in business), but we have a soft spot around here for some spaces and walls that once resonated with such classic records. And so, we sadly must report that Butch Vig and Steve Marker’s Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin plans to close up shop this spring, according to Milwaukee’s Shepherd Express.

Their source, a current studio employee, revealed that they simply couldn’t make ends meet, or as he put it: “Money out > money in.”

Not only were all the Garbage (Vig and Marker’s own band) records made at Smart Studios, but also eight demo versions of songs from Nirvana’s Nevermind were tracked there (the Smart Studios version of “Polly” made the final album), and then subsequently shopped to major labels. Also, Death Cab For Cutie’s major label debut Plans was mixed there, as well as the recording of the Smashing Pumpkins’ debut album, Gish.

R.I.P. Smart Studios. You will be missed.

www.twentyfourbit.com/post/324566386/butch-vigs-smart-studios-where-nirvana-smashing

Smart Studios, the Near East Side studio that recorded part of a Nirvana album, launched the band Garbage and gave Madison some of its coast-like coolness, is closing March 1.

The studio, started in a basement in 1983 by UW-Madison students Butch Vig and Steve Marker, has been located since the late 1980s in a two-story, red-brick building at 1254 E. Washington Ave.

A decrease in big-label bands in recent years made it hard for the studio to make money, studio manager and chief engineer Mike Zirkel said Saturday.

“Even when the music industry was healthy, it wasn’t the easiest business in the world,” Zirkel said. “But it’s become increasingly difficult. At a certain point, you realize you can’t pull it off anymore.”

Zirkel and engineer Beau Sorenson are the two full-time employees. The studio has two part-time employees and a “stable” of freelancers, Zirkel said.

Vig and Marker, members of Garbage who live in Los Angeles and Colorado, respectively, remain co-owners of the studio, Zirkel said.

Studio recordings in the 1980s of punk and skateboard bands such as Tar Babies and Killdozer caught the attention of producers on the coasts, according to a history on the studio’s Web site.

Nirvana recorded demo sessions at the studio for its hit 1991 album, “Nevermind,” featuring the lead single, grunge anthem “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Vig and the band produced most of the final album in Los Angeles, Zirkel said, but the album’s song “Polly” was recorded in Madison.

In the mid-1990s, the studio started creating remixes for artists such as U2, Beck, House of Pain, Alanis Morissette and Nine Inch Nails. Death Cab for Cutie’s 2005 album, “Plans,” was mixed at the studio, Zirkel said.

Garbage’s four albums also have been recorded at the studio.

http://host.madison.com/business/article_9ec23018-fd4b-11de-9f80-001cc4c03286.html

Madison's Smart Studios closing

The recording instution may cease operations for good by March

Confirming some Internet rumor chatter that was brewing Friday, an engineer at Smart Studios—the Madison recording studio co-founded by producer Butch Vig, and the site where many notable albums were recorded and/or mixed, perhaps most famously some demo sessions for Nirvana's Nevermind, as well as records from Sparklehorse and Fall Out Boy—has told us that the place is closing up shop. "We kind of came to this decision a couple days ago" for financial reasons, engineer Beau Sorenson told The A.V. Club this afternoon. Smart hasn't set an official closing date yet, Sorenson added, but might shut down for good around March 1. The studio still has recording and/or mixing sessions in the works with such artists as Freedy Johnston, Mr. Gnome, and Chris Walla.

Sorenson isn't sure yet what he and fellow Smart Engineer Mike Zirkel will go on to do after the closing, but says that making records is "kind of really all I know how to do." We'll follow up with more details as we get them, but for now, we're officially bummed to hear about it.

UPDATE: Zirkel says the studio will put out a call soon to artists who've worked at the studio so that they can pick up master tapes. To answer a question he's been getting a lot, the studio might sell off much of its highly enviable gear through a third party. But "we've got a fantastic grand piano that I'd love to sell locally," and maybe a couple of plate reverb units, Zirkel says

www.avclub.com/milwaukee/articles/madisons-smart-studios-closing,36900/