Leap of faith

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, October 09, 2008 Inthe summer of 2006, David Boyle spent a month on his knees in an old Baptist church in East Austin, but he wasn't repenting for his time as keyboardist in the naughty funk band the Scabs. The Australia native, who moved to Austin in 1991, was on all fours refinishing the pine floors of the former Providence Primitive Baptist Church, which he and his wife, Danika, had just bought for $58,000. After nine months of hard work and costly renovations, the 1920s church is now a recording studio, where the Fabulous Thunderbirds just recorded their next album, Tosca String Quartet did a piece for Philip Glass' Looking Glass Studio and musicians such as Justin Timberlake and Charlie Sexton have popped in to lay down a few tracks. The Boyles had a lot of help, hiring subcontractors... [read full story]