Eric Lichter: The Reality of Reel to Reel

You never know where you'll be when you get some life-changing advice. Eric Lichter was in an elevator. He was on a break, going to get a sandwich, when he noticed famed rocker Elvis Costello riding in the elevator with him. Lichter confessed to Costello that he hated his desk job in the music business and wanted to be a performer.

"I told him that I felt like I was giving up part of myself," Lichter recalls.

Costello's advice was direct.

"He told me that I had to quit, that I had a conflict of interest," Lichter says.

Lichter did just that. And, a decade later, Lichter's music recording business, Dirt Floor Studio in Chester, is the result. In addition to recording others making music, Lichter also records his own material.

Don't expect to see state-of-the-art sound equipment hooked up to computer stations at Dirt Floor. On the other hand, if you are a certain age and once played in a garage band, you will get a feeling of instant familiarity with the set-up. Dirt Floor is a time-warp experience of vintage apparatus complete with such anachronisms as reel-to-reel tape recorders.

"I'm out of step with technology," Lichter admits.

The studio, nonetheless, reflects the way Lichter wants to record. The old equipment, he says, gives a more authentic, genuine sound, a background he calls the Dirt Floor sound.

When recordings are made with state of the art electronics, Lichter says, sound engineers can manipulate the final product so there are no imperfections at all. He calls the result a hard-edged, inhuman sound.

"It fatigues the ears," he says.

His method, on the other hand, preserves the imperfections; in fact, he thinks the imperfections are the key to creating the warmer sound that he wants to achieve.

The idea, he explains, is not to make recording a technical tour de force, but a reflection of the human beings who make the music. As a part of the retro experience, some of the sessions are actually pressed as vinyl records rather than CDs, though a packager does that step rather than Lichter himself.

Lichter grew up in Madison, where he credits music teacher at Daniel Hand High School Anne Clemmons with encouraging his interest in guitar. He has lived in Los Angeles and in New York City, but when he decided to open the recording studio, he felt Chester was the ideal place.

"The town has wonderful charm; I know people here. It just felt like the right place to start," he says.

Lichter and his wife Sandra, an art teacher, have a four year-old daughter, Inara.

Before recording sessions at the studio, Lichter begins his days with a run or a bike ride. It is as much a cerebral exercise as a physical one.

"A good run or a good ride is a great way to cleanse your mind," he says.

At the moment, Lichter is excited about recording sessions with two indie folk rock bands from Providence, Rhode Island, Brown Bird and Low Anthem. Both, he says, are earning enthusiastic followings.

"These guys knew they couldn't get the sound they wanted anywhere else," he says. "They're giving me credibility."

On the other end of the spectrum, Dirt Floor is a place where people who are not professional musicians can record their own performances. Among those who have used the studio are a 19 year-old from New Jersey, a professor of archaeology at Yale, and Fred Alford, dean of students at Trinity College in Hartford.

Lichter's acquaintance with Alford has led to his becoming an artist in residence at Trinity. Actually, Lichter says what happened is he brought the college students to his Chester studio to learn about the way he records.

"Lichter is not for everyone, but if you want smart, tasteful music with a soul and blood in its veins, you should find him before it is too late," Alford has noted, predicting word of Lichter's talents would ultimately propel him to far greater visibility in the music industry.

At Lichter's studio now, there are some 50 guitars, both electric and acoustic, as well as a score of pianos and drum sets, but there are no studio musicians; if someone comes without a backup group, Lichter does the job.

"I am the band," he says.

In addition to recording sessions, Lichter holds monthly informal concerts at Dirt Floor, details of which are available on the studio's Facebook page, www.facebook.com/dirtfloorstudio.

The studio is determinedly casual from the worn rugs (not dirt) on the floor to the colorful fabric hanging all over the walls.

"I like to create an environment to put people at ease; I want them to feel like they are entering a room," Lichter explains.

A rack of white lab coats hangs next to the door. Lichter has everyone who is making a recording put on a lab coat with a nametag. It's another one of his strategems for putting people at ease.

"I want people to have fun here," he says. "That's part of making a recording."

Once, in the mid-1950s, a young singer named Elvis Presley walked into Sun Records, a Memphis, Tennessee, studio where amateurs could make recordings. The young singer cut a disc as a present for his mother that launched his career as the king of rock 'n' roll. What if, a recent visitor asked, the young Presley were to walk through the doors of Dirt Floor Studio today? That is not a suggestion that fazes Lichter.

"I treat everyone who comes in here like they are Elvis," he says.