We stayed one night at Joe's studio, and it was fantastic. It's in an amazing location, high on the wall of a tree-filled valley in the eastern hills of Oakland. It's definitely a place where one needs to have a car, because it's quite far from the middle of the city, but it's a great quiet retreat. The studio itself is fun -- very 1970s, retro-feeling -- with instruments to play, not to mention that full mixing console. With Joe's encouragement and help, we did patch one of our laptops into the system so that we could see a movie project that we're editing on the big screen, and hear it over the studio speakers. Joe is a very easy-going, helpful host, who was not at all troubled by a slight delay in our arrival time. We let ourselves in using a key that was in a lockbox, but Joe later stopped by to say hello (and even brought us a big bag of fresh plums!) It is a really hilly location, with lots of outdoor wooden stairs going down to the studio, which is something potential visitors should know, in case they have any problems with that. Would recommend staying with Joe!