Annoying Alarm Clock

Do you know when you are dreaming and the alarm clock rings interrupting your flight or your diving or your ultimate psychodelic trip? Well, the alarm clock of times keeps ringing and waking up the dreamers and the last time it happened I could witness it. The alarm ring went off to the Sweet Silence studios where among other artists Metallica recorded Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and And Justice for All... albums. I went for a visit just one day before the studio was dismantled, taken by my -I hope still a dreamer- father in law Knut Henriksen who had himself recorded at the Flemming Rasmussen studio.The alarm bell was rung by the owner of the building who sold it so a PARKING LOT could be built and by the technological advances that made it possible to cut a record in one's own bedroom, dismissing this way the necessity of a proper studio for less elaborated productions. I enjoy the "do it yourself" idea of not needing to sell your mother to pay for studio time in order to record and produce, but I still think that places like Sweet Silence should be preserved because in the end it's not only a studio, a building shell with soundproff rooms and recording equipment, but a place where ballads that made couples get together were recorded, music that inspired people to create, to be happy, to celebrate, or even to be angry, to be sad and ultimately, to think, to feel and to dream before the clock rings again.


In the picture from the right to the left:
Me, Knut Henriksen and Flemming Rasmussen
while mixing the last band to record at Sweet Silence, Nerdville.