Interview by Dan Fox

Photos by Chris George

It was a bittersweet day in 2004 when Chris George and Daniel Majorie powered down their Milton St. home studio in old Gretna for the last time. For years, the aptly-titled Living Room had earned a reputation for being the place for up and coming bands of all genres to record. Some of our most beloved performers, from Blair Gimma, Big Blue Marble and Community to Hawg Jaw and Outlaw Order cut some of their first recordings at the Living Room. It wasn’t just the rock bottom costs, which were always per project (never hourly) that kept it booked solid through the year, but the whole experience of tracking in an intimate environment (the control room doubled as George’s bedroom) with people who brought a fiery, passionate and personal approach to engineering. Majorie’s engineering skills, which he had honed at school and in Nashville, coupled with George’s creative abilities that ranged from mic placement and drum tuning to barbecue and photography made for an unforgettable experience for musicians otherwise feeling the stress of a recording session. Their success eventually exhausted the possibilities of that little house and it became increasingly evident that a new venue would be needed, one that would not only broaden the possibilities but suggest a full-time occupation instead of recording only after a day’s work in an outside world hardly sympathetic to the hours music keeps. For over two years now, the buzz has been growing over the work that Majorie and George have put into the church/machine shop sitting directly under the Crescent City Connection, which was little more than a shell and a prayer when they wrangled it away from the city’s coffers. The Living Room Studio, version two is about ready to open its doors again and the wait will have been well worth it. From the colorful paint choices to the crisp echo of the live room, it’s clear that the past couple of years have been a labor of love for Majorie and George. ANTIGRAVITY caught up with the duo as they worked in the control room, one of the last spaces of the studio to be completed, and talked about reviving old gear, keeping bands happy and, of course, the good ole’ days of four-track cassette recording. (more…)