It's the end of an era for the little studio that could on the top of the hill off Alameda Street, as Frogville Records has parted ways with producer and engineer Bill Palmer after 15 years.
The go-to studio of choice for acts like Joe West, Santa Fe All-Stars, Boris McCutcheon and too many more to list built something of a local empire with its own dedicated radio show (the aptly named Frogville Radio Show) through 98.1 KBAC, one-time local record sales and a now-defunct live music festival.
And somewhere, at the center of all that, was Palmer. A member of bands like 100 Year Flood as well as his own solo project and full band, Bill Palmer's TV Killers, Palmer had become synonymous with the Frogville sound, lending his talents to countless albums during the studio's run.
But maybe it was in the cards all along. After all, in an interview from 2015, Palmer told SFR that the label as we knew it was kaput, and that he and owner John Treadwell had doubled down on the recording aspects of the business. Still, it seemed like that was going strong, and Palmer's production has consistently been on point. So what happens now?
"I'm just thinking about the future and ultimately, I'm excited for what's coming next," Palmer tells SFR. "We've been doing Frogville for 15 years, and trying to run a studio in Santa Fe is not the most lucrative thing a person could ever do. But I have thoroughly enjoyed the last 15 years."
Palmer says he'll focus more on his own musical projects. He released a new single, "Dark Eyes at Dawn," just last week. For the time being, though, Palmer will be on the lookout for a new space.
But what does that mean for Frogville Records itself? According to Treadwell, they'll be open until at least this Christmas, and they're currently opening up to the idea of working with more engineers and producers. Engineer Jason Reed, who runs sound at Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery and has worked at Frogville for years, will take the main job.
"We're talking to a couple other engineer-producers who are very interested about using the fabulous room before it becomes the best-sounding living room in the state. We're just trying to see if we can improve our income," Treadwell says. "If not, we're talking about possibly closing the doors. But I have dreams of Frogville rising as the phoenix from the ashes."
Treadwell says the Wednesday night KBAC radio show will continue on at least until Thanksgiving, at which point he'll reassess the situation.
"I've done this all on my own dime for 15 years, and sometimes in order for a dream to live, another dream has to die. I don't how many dreams I can afford to financially support," Treadwell says. "In a world where everybody streams their music for free and no one buys physical copies of music anymore, and hardly anyone goes out to support music and everybody can record at home or on their freaking iPhone, I'm not sure how far into the future any recording studio will be financially feasible."
Palmer, meanwhile, remains resolute.
"A few years ago I read Daniel Lanois' book Soul Mining, and he was talking about when he was making Time Out of Mind with Bob Dylan at his Teatro studio in California," Palmer says. "So Dylan comes to him after a few days rehearsal and says he's not going to make the record there, that they'd make it in a studio in Miami. So Lanois drives down ahead of Dylan and this studio has all the treatment, all the gear perfectly in place, and Lanois says to himself that no amount of rock 'n' roll was ever made in the building, and none ever will be—it changed me forever."
As such, he's kicking around the idea of being a little less tethered to a physical space.
"If someone comes to me to make an album, maybe I'll say, 'Let's go rent a house on a hill,'" he says. "If I have a mobile rig, I can make records anywhere."
