Capitol Studios, the building housing the Tesseract gallery, has a madly interesting history. Groundbreaking records have been made within these walls. Engines that traveled millions of miles were machined and tested in our building. Men learned, men produced, and now, 90 years old, it houses young people making art and music for the future.
We also have a tranny bar next door.
The equipment used to manufacture these records were extremely well made, a signature of Capitol Records: sophisticated perfection in every detail.
Here’s a story: A stash of pricelessly rare Beatles records was uncovered from a private collection a few years ago. It seems a worker at a pressing plant was a major Beatles fan, with after-hours access to the equipment. So he got a little crazy with the colored vinyl, mixed and matched some of his favorite Beatles tunes, hopefully while tripping balls, and inadvertently created one of the most coveted, unique pieces of fan art in the world.
I don’t have proof that this happened in our building… but I can imagine a young man, with hair a bit too long and unwashed. He’s hanging out on San Fernando, the sun’s setting, and he’s down the road smoking a joint, watching and waving as his coworkers straggle out and head to their shiny, bulbous 50’s cars. The sun’s glinting over the LA river. Some Beatles tune flashes through this fan’s head, and he tosses his joint into the dirt. He wipes his hands. And goes inside to mix some vinyl.
I won’t claim this story is completely real. But I will claim that a different type of Beatles rarity came out of our building: the Butcher record cover.
A photo by Robert Whitaker, supported by Lennon “as relevant as Vietnam,” derided by Harrison, “Sometimes we all did stupid things thinking it was cool and hip when it was naïve and dumb; and that was one of them,” the picture referred to the butchering of previous Beatles recordings and a commentary on the Vietnam war, was chosen as the cover of their 1966 release. You can find much more about how this cover came to be at the blog of Charlie Essmeier, RareRecords.net.
Scandal erupted! Such a vile image could never be distributed by a record label—the last vestige of propriety and America’s self –censoring standard implementer. Complaints came quickly. Some records made it to Hollywood Sears stores, but the majority were sent back to be pasted over with a pasty looking, dour replacement.
The mono copies of this record are rarer—the ones that came out of our building. Copies of the censored gaffe are still circulating.
But if you want to get your hands on the biggest score ever, get rich quick. Capitol Records also printed a super-rare edition, about 100 copies, of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. For sales reps and Capitol Records execs only, it featured cheesy black and white, cut-and-pasted pictures of studio people on the cover.
Most of them were likely chucked, but at least 3 or 4 still exist. Did they come out of our building? Hmm, the record execs lived in LA… the other plant was in Pennsylvania… would a silly last minute one-off record cover be created and printed on a whim anywhere that WASN’T homebase of Capitol Records? Just asking…
From Sinatra to Bing to Beatles rarites to L. Ron Hubbard. America’s history recorded and pressed with gigantic machines, in our space. Much more exciting than a tract house in Vegas.
We’re still stripping layers of paint down to the original 20’s rosy wood and uncovering building relics in attics and behind walls. We’re looking for information, too, welcoming all bits of knowledge, so LA natives, speak up if you know more!
