Yesterday the band was in Fort Wayne, Indiana. A lovely place. We weren't expecting anything special there frankly. We were happy with just another midwestern town. But then, we showed up at Sweetwater Studios and Retail Store and they proceeded to blow our minds. Are you fucking kidding me? This is like the greatest place I've ever been. It's like Disney World for musicians. Thanks to our good friend Mike McVay, we were picked to be on WAJI 95.1's 2009 Compliation Album (Volume 5). Past artists on the compliation included Five for Fighting, Sara Bareilles (before shw was big), Josh Kelly, REO Speedwagon, Daughtry, the list goes on. And there are only 12 - 15 tracks on the thing! Pretty sweet. It'll be just big names and us... oh to be a big name.
But I digress. Not that being on the album won't be cool. The Sweetwater facilities were truly unbelieveable. The studios themseleves were beautiful and virtually perfectly designed. You don't find that many studios with so much natural light and sight lines to all the isolation booths. But that wasn't all. Sweetwater is also the 4th biggest music retailer in the United States, but with only one location. That's it. Fort Wayne. They do a lot of phone/internet business obviously. On the beautiful campus they have the following things:
Retail Store (like a better looking Guitar Cetner)
Three Recording Studios
Guitar Luthier (someone who fixes guitars)
Custom Guitar Shop
250 seat theatre (every single seat has it's own amplifier!)
Big outdoor ampatheater
Resteraunt (crazy cheap, like 3 bucks for a meal, and delicous!)
Free arcade and virtual sports
Racketball Court
Full HUGE warehouse pictured here:
And many more crazy things. If you like music stuff, go to Fort Wayne and visit this place. Chet, thanks for being such a good host!Also thank to Barb, the Program Director at WAJI, Fort Wayne, for inviting us at all! Awesome lady.
This place was really that great. No hyperbole here. Is that how you spell that word? I suck.
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