The Alley Studios building

At 5066 Vineland in North Hollywood, there's a boarded up storefront.  For 43 years, that building was home to The Alley rehearsal and recording studios.  Bands rented it by the week.  Kind of like Fight Club, the first rule was not to tell anyone about it.  The next rules were no photos, no film, no videos inside... ever.  From 1973 to 2016, bands rehearsed there, and recorded albums there.  It was called The Alley, studio and rehearsal hall.  

It doesn't look like much from the outside.  Musicians entered from the alley in the back, hence the name, The Alley.  Michael Jackson recorded four albums here.  Prince recorded two.  Jackson Browne told owner Shiloh he wrote her favorite song, "For Everyman," in this building.  The Alley was there and in operation long before the area became North Hollywood's NoHo Arts District.  #steveemigphotos

 Don Henley once said that the epic Eagles song, "Hotel California," was about the transition from innocence to experience."  The Alley was a place for artists to hide out, and be artists.  Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, and all that it meant to be a big band in the 1970's, and beyond, happened inside this building.  Legend has it that the scene at the Alley was the initial inspiration for the Eagles writing "Hotel California."  As best anyone can tell, over 1,800 hits were written or recorded in the non-descript building.  The piano that was in the rehearsal studio until 2020 is said to have belonged to Gram Parsons.  The Red Hot Chili Peppers auditioned 3,000 guitar players there in the 1990's, before going with Dave Navarro, who they'd pretty much already settled on anyway. 

Three Dog Night.  Paul McCartney.  Bob Marley. Tom Petty,  Motorhead, Frank Sinatra, Etta James, Fleetwood Mac.  Little Feat.  Warren Zevon.  Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.  Deep Purple. Jackson Browne.  The Eagles.  Black Sabbath.  Santana.  Stevie Wonder.  Roy Orbison.  K.D. Lang.  Bonnie Raitt.  Sheryl Crow.  Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins.  The Interrupters, Lucinda Williams, and on and on.  Hundreds, probably thousands, of the greatest musicians of the last 50 years practiced, wrote, hung out, jammed, and recorded music in this building.  Even in Hollywood, The Alley studios were legendary, but a secret at the same time.  The Alley was a place where musicians could be musicians, close off from the outside world, and let the magic happen.

To top it off, there are even ghost hunters who have put the building on TV.  At least one man died there, in a fall down the spiral staircase.  Supposedly there are ghost cats roaming the building as well.  

The brick walls with the musician and band signatures would probably go for tens of thousands of dollars to rich collectors if pulled out and sold.  Sometimes the great places in history are hiding right in plain sight.  Like Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, you had to be one of the chosen, the hardcore musicians, to enter this building between 1973 and 2016.  

It started in 1965, and a biker named Bill Elkins came there to shoot photos of Three Dog Night in 1972.  All of his friends were musicians and Harley type bikers.  He just had to own the place, and waited for it to go up for sale.  When it finally did, he tore down the For Sale sign so no one else would see it, and called the owner.  Bill bought the building, and started using scrap lumber he scrounged to build it into a rehearsal hall and recording studio in 1973.  He met Shiloh in the 70's, they married, and lived in the small apartment at the back of the property.  He built the business with word of mouth from band to band, musician to musician.  That kept the place busy for 43 years, from 1973 to 2016.  Bill died in 2015, and Shiloh died in 2017.  The Alley closed in 2016.  They had no children, so there were no heirs to pass it on to.  

One time Alley technician, John Strand, tried to get The Alley going again, but had financial and other issues, and had to sell it.  Here are a couple of the better videos that do exist from The Alley Studios.

2015 interview with Shiloh Elkins by a young woman from Ghost Cult Magazine -22 minutes

Spectrum News 1 (L.A.) News report from 2020- 4 1/2 minutes

Recording "Crying" with Roy Orbison and K.D. Lang at The Alley 

The music video: "Crying" Roy Orbison and K.D. Lang ( music/vocals partially recorded at The Alley)

Save The Alley video- 2019

Little Feat playing "Long Distance Love," believed to be in The Alley in the 1970's.

Red Hot Chili Peppers jamming in The Alley in 1990 

Ghost Adventures promo in The Alley- 2019