Townley invested in a building at 53 East 10th Street[3] and partnered with Matt Hoffman and Weiss jewelry fortune heirs Michael and Danny Weiss to remodel its 2-story loft space into a recording studio. Lou Lindauer, who would go on to co-found API with Saul Walker, not only advised the construction of the new studio, but designed and built the recording console,[1] which featured a separate performers' cue system that provided the monitoring necessary for facilitating overdubs--a feature not common on mixing consoles at that time. Townley convinced Scully to produce a prototype 1" 12-track tape recorder. Four additional tracks allowed for more recording flexibility than the 1" 8-track recorders that were state of the art at the time. Apostolic Recording Studio opened in 1967, its name alluding to its capabilities as the first 12-track studio in New York City.[4][2]
Access to the studio was via a freight elevator, whose 6-story elevator shaft was painted with a blacklight mural by Nic Osborn, who dressed in a Viking costume and worked as the studio's elevator operator. The building's six-story stairwell was utilized as a live reverb chamber in addition to the studio's plate reverb.[5]
In 1968, the studio produced The Family of Apostolic, a two-disc LP composed of performances from a variety of artists affiliated with the studios. Townley's daughter Diedre is pictured on the front cover of the album,[2] and a young Aida Turturro is pictured among a collage of numerous pictures of children on the back album cover.[7]
In March 1969, Townley returned to his original musical inspiration when he persuaded Reverend Gary Davis to his first recording studio session in five years. The resulting album, O, Glory – The Apostolic Studio Sessions would be Davis' final studio album, released posthumously in 1973.[8]
In 1968, Townley opened Pacific High Studios in San Francisco as a West Coast counterpart to Apostolic.[9] Apostolic Recording Studio and Pacific High Studios both went out of business in the early 1970s as a result of over-expansion and an economic recession.[2]
Legacy
Tony Bongiovi, who would go on to found the Power Station, worked as a recording engineer at Apostolic in 1967.[10] Other engineers who began their career at Apostolic Studios include Gary Kellgren and John Kilgore.