SLO County recording studio has a new owner after 3 decades. What are his plans?
There’s a new owner at the helm of Painted Sky Studios in Cambria.
While he wants to keep the recording facility’s long-established legend alive, Brad Stock plans to add some new, high-tech twists to the process.
Painted Sky Studios founder Steve Crimmel spent nearly three decades of recording professional musicians and hosting intimate, diverse concerts in three different North Coast locations. In addition, the sound engineer and drummer regularly donated his time, expertise and equipment for a host of local nonprofit organizations and school events.
Then Crimmel and his wife, Victoria, decided to retire to Hawaii.
“After almost 37 wonderful years living in Cambria, time to retire was creeping up,” Steve Crimmel wrote in an email. “I was planning on holding off for a couple more years, but we are sometimes not always in control of our fate.
In March 2020, “Victoria and I purchased an acre of retirement property with a amazing hand-crafted home at the top of Ocean View Estates on the Big Island,” Crimmel explained. “At 4,400 feet of elevation, it is a cooler climate, very similar to Cambria, including Monterey pines and eucalyptus trees. Yet, we can drop 3,000 feet down to the main highway that goes around the Big Island in about 15 minutes.”
Stock, a musician, composer, producer and singer, expressed interest in buying the studio.
With a working agreement in place, Crimmel spent the past few months introducing Stock to the studio’s equipment, operation, clients and quirks. Stock finalized the deal to buy the studio with Crimmel and signed the papers in late May.
“I feel very fortunate to have found Brad Stock to take over the operation of Painted Sky Recording Studios,” Crimmel said. “Brad brings a wealth of talent as a musician, producer, and engineer to take Painted Sky to the next level in the services offered by the studio.”
History of Painted Sky Studios
Before moving to Cambria in 1984, Crimmel spent eight years at a recording studio in the heart of Hollywood. During his time at Ocean Way Recording, which Stock called “one of the greatest studios in LA,” he worked with such high-ticket entertainers as Neil Diamond, Kenny Loggins, Lionel Richie and Talking Heads.
Crimmel then brought his years of experience to the North Coast.
By the 1990s, he was producing recording sessions for a wide variety of professional musicians — and hosting intimate concerts in his rustic studio in the tiny hamlet of Harmony.
Later, Crimmel moved his operations from Harmony to the former circa-1890s Bucket of Blood building at Center and Bridge streets in Cambria, where various professional musicians laid down tracks for their latest CDs.
Years later, after long, unsuccessful lease negotiations with his landlord, who eventually moved into the building, Crimmel closed his recording studio around 2011.
Eventually, he relocated Painted Sky Studios to its current location in the historic Woodland Garage/Fairey’s Antiques building at 715 Main St. in Cambria’s West Village.
In each spot, Crimmel had to customize the layout to his business, ensuring that sound quality was king and the ambiance helped set the tone. That helped cement his legacy in the music business and on the Central Coast.
Making music and memories
The list of the many musicians who recorded or performed concerts at Painted Sky Studios includes musical luminaries such as Jude Johnstone, Jill Knight and Charlie and Sandi Shoemake.
“I can’t say enough about what a treasure Steve was for not only Sandi and myself but for Cambria,” Charlie Shoemake said. “He was an integral part of again not only our musical careers but for so many other artists.”
“When we left the L.A jazz scene 31 years ago, we thought that we entering retirement,” Shoemake said. “But having a top pro like Steve around, we wound up doing six more albums at his studio … some of which gained national attention.”
Crimmel “was also a guiding force for the sound system of all of the 500 concerts at the Hamlet where international jazz artists performed and praised his work,” Shoemake said, adding that he and his wife are “happy for Steve, but also sad that he wanted to leave.”
The Shoemakes are continuing their Sunday jazz concert series at the Harmony Café in Cambria, performing every two weeks into the fall — starting with doubleheader Central Coast Jazz Institute fundraiser gigs set for 3 and 5 p.m. June 27. For details, go to www.talsanmusic.com.
Johnstone, a former Cambria resident who has written for and performed with an A-list of entertainers, described Crimmel’s influence on her life and her art.
“From the moment Steve arrived in Cambria and opened his doors to the time he left, pretty much every musician in the area had worked with him,” said Johnstone, who now lives in Nashville. “He gave us all a place to go and put our ideas down. He has been involved with all eight of my CDs, some more than others.”
“His friendship has been immeasurable in my life,” she said. “He and Victoria hosted such unforgettable shows at Painted Sky. I’m not sure how many times I played in all three locations but it was a lot! I hope to play there again but I’m afraid I’m gonna have quite a lump in my throat without Steve there. He set a precedent for excellence and good-naturedness that will never be forgotten. “
“Vic and I will always consider Cambria as our second home,” Crimmel said. “We have so many close friends and connections there. It is where our tribe resides.”
He said he wants to “thank everyone in the community for their friendship and support over the years.”
The musical community and a host of fans feted the Crimmels at a festive but mournful aloha soiree in early May.
Who is new owner of Cambria recording studios?
Stock, who served in the U.S. Navy during Operation Desert Storm, said his life changed dramatically when he learned to surf in California and then rode and survived a 20-foot wave in Kauai.
“The next one broke my board and put a fear of God into me,” Stock said with a laugh.
Stock, whose uncle started Guitar Player magazine, plays instruments ranging from the guitar to the Armenian duduk, or, flute.
He also writes and performs his own music and songs, and produces recording sessions for other musicians.
Stock just finished his finals in a scoring-and-composition program at the Academy of Art University, where he’d been taking online courses full time.
Stock had been living in Half Moon Bay and Hawaii off and on for about a decade when his friend Johnny “Klaw” sent him a Craigslist video in which the studio was listed for sale.
“I started recording music on cassette when I was 15,” Stock said.
Since then, he said, “I’ve learned, working along, as the technology has evolved.”
After years of longing to set up his own recording facility somewhere in the Bay Area, Stock said, the vibe and lure of the Central Coast immediately hooked him.
The quality of the music that Crimmel had produced, and the sophisticated set-up required to help achieve that sound, sweetened the deal enormously, Stock said. “I listened to those drum sounds, and thought, ‘Wow! This is a huge opportunity.’ ”
The two men “got along really well,” he said. “We both have this great love of music.”
“After talking with Steve,” Stock said, “I realized that Painted Sky really is a sacred place for the community. The talent in the musical community here is just amazing, the talent level really high.”
He recognized that “this place was too awesome, with too much love in it, for it not to continue.”
“This is a massive, massive leap of faith,” he said, “buying a studio when people have spent the last year or so recording at home. But it’s been my lifelong dream.
“I’m not rich,” Stock said, “I had to work hard to come up with the funds. But, in the vernacular, realizing that dream is priceless.”
As the new owner of Painted Sky Studios, Stock said he’ll continue recording the music of other entertainers, as he has for about a decade with his own professional music production company, Brad Stock Music.
Eventually, after using Crimmel’s classic, high-end equipment becomes second nature and Stock has incorporated some of his own, he plans to do things a bit differently than his predecessor did.
“I’m coming from more of a new-school, new-tech approach, and it’s an intense challenge to integrate my equipment into Steve’s,” Stock said. “He was on Windows. I’m on MAC. His stuff is on floppy disks and CDs. So, I’ve brought a whole studio into a studio. I had nearly as many microphones as Steve had.”
The Utah native hopes to revive Painted Sky Studios’ concert series, but has to work out those details with his landlord. “I’m hoping that can happen soon,” Stock said.
At heart, he’s still a musician who wants “to help people find connections, get their music to a place where others can appreciate the vibe that their music is creating.”
He also hopes to “get back to my own music, in the way I like to do it. But what I’m learning at the studio is that it doesn’t matter whether it’s my music or someone else’s. The point is to make great music.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2021 at 10:30 AM.
