JACK LEAHY

       Jack Leahy is somewhat of an institution in the San Francisco film and music industries. In the mid sixties. Funky Jack and two partners started up a graphics company, Funky Features, that produced very well-known posters and graphics, including work for the two eminent San Francisco ballrooms, the Fillmore and the Avalon. By 1969 he had morphed into a recording engineer, mixing and recording music in the famous Haight-Ashbury district for musicians such as Janis Joplin, Country Joe McDonald, Van Morrison, Clifton Chenier , and Arhoolie Records.

           In 1977 he co-founded Russian Hill Recording, a full-service recording studio and audio post-production complex for film and television. RHR had an illustrious run for over two decades. Their client list was a veritable who's who of the music and movie worlds...Michael Jackson, David Byrne, Keith Richards, on and on. Many great records and films were recorded and mixed here. Stories are legion of the after-hours goings on. As the ad business got bigger in town, a second facility, Crescendo, designed with John Storyk, was opened in the financial district. Sadly RHR was no longer getting the attention or the business as investments into the studio were curtailed for the sake of Crescendo.

           It's time had passed and none too soon. Given the proliferation of home studio technology only the largest acts spent money in studios and they were typically in LA or NY. A few years later Crescendo was sold and has new management and continues to do highly regarded production work primarily for advertising clients. This project deepened Leahy's interest in the design of acoustic spaces.

          In the 1980's Leahy began working on the soundtracks of feature films. He developed some of the first "small" rooms capable of mixing in surround sound formats that could accurately translate to large theatrical spaces.

         While living in Marin County and drawing on his studio designing experiences, he built a video screening facility in his home where he could review sound mixes before going to the mixing stage. Friends and colleagues, on experiencing this early "Home Theatre", asked him to design for their homes. The Media Room became a formal business in 1991, providing consultation, design, installation and project management services to hundreds of businesses and individuals seeking the highest quality in custom media and communications.