Lafayette songwriters group lands community recording studio

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) - Scott Greeson, old enough to be retired from a career at Arconic but young enough to still be going with shows with his Lafayette-based band, Trouble with Monday, tells a story about being a high school kid with a handful of songs in the early-'~80s.

Greeson was playing his songs out in a band called Lunatic Fringe and figured they were pretty good. He'd heard about Rick Thomas, who ran Zounds, a Lafayette recording studio. Thomas was game to give it a go. Greeson said he walked into the studio, nervous about his songs and even more intimidated by the equipment and not knowing what he was even supposed to do first.

'œI didn't have a clue,'ť Greeson said. 'œWhat Rick did for me that day made all the difference. He believed in me and wanted to help me out. He talked me through it, showed me what to do. '¦ It was just an opportunity that it fueled my songwriting for the rest of my life.'ť

Fast forward to 2019, when the Songwriters Association of Mid-North Indiana, a group Greeson and three others founded 27 years ago, scored $93,891, the lead award among $300,000 in North Central Health Services grants awarded through Tippecanoe Arts Federation's Bravo for the Arts program in October.

The money will be enough to set up a non-profit recording studio on the ground floor at Tippecanoe Arts Federation's home in the former Wells Memorial Library, at Sixth and North streets in Lafayette.

The plan, Greeson said, was to use the space and the equipment as a teaching studio, both for performers and recording engineers. It also would provide space for members of some 200 artists and organizations that make up Tippecanoe Arts Federation to use in their projects or for people looking to capture interviews, podcasts or spoken word performances. There also would be portable equipment available to take into the field to capture live recordings in surrounding counties.

The plan is to have the studio running by June.

'œThis really is a game-changer,'ť Greeson said. 'œThis is all about the community we've been trying to build here for years. '¦ What Rick did for me all those years ago, teaching me what to do and how to go about the business of putting something out there, we want to do for everyone else.'ť

Tetia Lee, TAF's executive director, said Tippecanoe Arts Federation had set aside space for a recording studio in renovations that finished earlier this year. She said the SAMI application, which went through a juried grant-awarding process, dovetailed with that. She said the studio wouldn't replace professional studios in and around Lafayette, but instead would complement them.

'œThis really is about getting the right tools and making the accessible, especially for young performers,'ť Lee said. 'œThat can really stoke their careers and get them out there with less financial burden '“ which is what we try to do for all sorts of artists. It's what we're all about here.'ť

The Songwriters Association of Mid-North Indiana started in 1992, with Greeson and fellow Greater Lafayette musicians Anita Wood, Brian Koning and Kenny Kingston.

The four were writing country and folk songs and were looking to create ways to showcase for other songwriters. They set up workshops and assorted gatherings to share new work and get frank, constructive feedback about ways to hone their craft and to find stages to play to larger audiences.

'œBack in 1992, I don't think the four of us that started SAMI ever imagined this group would even last a few years, let alone into 2020 and beyond,'ť said Koning, who lives in Westfield now and is a regular performer there.

'œI think the reason we had success back then was that we were so passionate about what we were doing,'ť Koning said. 'œWe literally fought and argued about the direction and purpose of SAMI.'ť

By 2001, the group had established the Shirley Martin Scholarship for Young Songwriters, named for an early SAMI member who traveled the area playing bluegrass and helped the group set up a music camp for young players. The songwriting contest winner, age 14 to 19, gets $500 to put toward an instrument, music education 'œor other songwriting endeavor.'ť

Greeson said the contest typically fields 10 to 20 entries a year.

'œThink of all the songs we've heard in that time,'ť Greeson said. 'œWhat we see year after year is that each time someone enters, you can hear them get little better. '¦ What we also hear is how rough their recordings can be. We're already helping with the, '~You know, you might try this or try that next time,' on their songs. We think we can do the same for their recordings, too.'ť

Jay Thoennes won the Shirley Martin Scholarship in 2018. The Lafayette native records under the name Jay Alan and started at Berklee College of Music in Boston this fall.

'œGrowing up in Indiana, it was often hard to find ways to express myself musically, but SAMI gave me a supportive community to do so,'ť Thoennes said. 'œI think it's incredibly progressive for them to put in a studio, and I would've loved '“ and still would love '“ to work in it. It's refreshing to see people at home actively engaging local musicians with opportunities like this.'ť

TJ Rosa, who grew up in Tippecanoe County and is studying at Purdue, won the Shirley Martin Scholarship in 2016 and helped coordinate the contest for a few years after that.

'œI think it's an awesome idea to make it available to artists in the community,'ť Rosa said. 'œRecording can be so expensive, and there are a lot of local artists with really great music that could benefit from a local studio.'ť

Greeson said the studio '“ being installed by Matt Call of Lafayette-based Simplified Acoustics, with Ethan Bates as the facility's lead sound engineer '“ will pull its mantra from the record button on an old cassette deck: REC.

'œRecording. Education. Community,'ť Greeson said. 'œThat's what this is all going to be about. ... We've been about building this community of songwriters. This is a huge step in that. Just wait, you'll see.'ť

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Source: Journal & Courier___Information from: Journal and Courier, http://www.jconline.com