Smart RockTM

Exile on Journal Studios

(need i say "tongue-in-cheek"?)

If ever there were a transient establishment, this is it!

Being college students, we haven't the kind of money required to make the kind of recordings for which we're looking in a real studio which charges about $30-$40 per hour. Being adventurous and foolhardy college students, we decided instead to do-it-outselves.
The first such do-it-yourself adventure came in 1995 when we set out to record a demo. We borrowed a cassette-based 4-track recorder (the Tascam 424 PortaStudio, actually) from our good friend Chase K., and rented four microphones from the DooWop Shop; we plugged the 4-track into Neal's stereo, and recorded the master on Scott's Sony cassette deck (since Neal's was broken at the time). To isolate the tracks, we set up the amplifiers in the various other rooms of Neal and Kristian's house at 923 Journal Avenue.
Thus was born Exile on Journal Studios.

While a professional studio is open year-round, Exile exists only when we've rented or borrowed equipment - threfore qualifying as a trasient establishment... This doesn't mean, however, that its capabilities are diminished in any way. (no, of course not... not as long as our egos are at work here!)
As you might have noticed, the liner notes to Leave Bronx and Brad's Sleeping, refer to several different studios at Exile on Journal:

(this unfinished space for rent)