Fort Apache Studios is a New England recording studio focusing on alternative rock sessions produced there since 1986. History The studio was initially built by a collective begun in 1985 by musician/producer Joe Harvard and members of a band called Sex Execs: engineers Paul Q. Kolderie, Sean Slade, and Jim Fitting. Its first location was 169 Norfolk Avenue, a warehouse in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. As Bill Janovitz of Buffalo Tom noted, it was the height of the crack epidemic, and Roxbury was a dangerous place. As a result, Harvard gave the studio its name after the 1981 movie Fort Apache, The Bronx, which was set in a crime-ridden neighborhood. The team took a do-it-yourself approach. Drummer Billy Conway, Fitting's bandmate in Treat Her Right, framed the control room wall. The studio became very active recording Boston-area indie-rock groups in 1986. It soon upgraded its early 8-track Roxbury facilities to 16-track equipment. Fort Apache relocated its facilities above the Rounder Records warehouse and offices on Camp Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1988. Around then, Harvard briefly became sole owner. In 1995, a larger studio was built a block away, on Edmunds Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2002, the company moved the studio from Massachusetts into space leased in an old hotel called The Windham, in Bellows Falls, Vermont. In 2007 operations in Bellows Falls were suspended and Smith moved the studio and management offices to his farm nearby in New Hampshire. "Fort Apache" as a business name Smith used "Fort Apache" as the name of a multi-faceted company that operated the studio business, a concert promotion business, and a business managing artists such as Juliana Hatfield, Tanya Donelly and Natalie Merchant. From 2002-2006, Fort Apache additionally operated a music venue in the lobby of The Windham Hotel, where it recorded and broadcast nearly 200 live concerts. The concert venue was originally the brainchild of Smith and Charlie Hunter, owner of the Bellows Falls booking agency Flying Under Radar. In 2007, operations in Bellows Falls were suspended and Smith moved the studio and management offices to his farm nearby in New Hampshire. Artists Among the many major groups and artists who have recorded there over the years are the Pixies, Radiohead, Rubyhorse, Superdrag, Come, Big Dipper (band), Juliana Hatfield, Throwing Muses, Belly, Tanya Donelly, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, The Lemonheads, Volcano Suns, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Elliott Smith, Eleventh Dream