Friday, October 8, 2010

2nd Annual 2piece Showcase DUALITY


This will be the 2nd DUALITY that I have put together. This year it lands a day after my 35th birthday so i will double it up as my birthday party.
PlanB hosted it last year also. I hope that they will continue to work with me on this showcase.
An edit to the show that the flier does not represent is that Lasers for Eyes will not be performing. Instead my good friends from ForkBomb will be dropping into the spot.
This showcase has become something that i look forward to and plan on doing every year. I really like seeing and hearing the different types of music that come together in 2piece form. The 2piece band has a simplicity to it. Sometimes raw, driven, epic, noisy, simple, direct, and to the point music come from just 2 people and their instruments of choice. This is what the showcase is made to spotlight. If i have ever asked you to go to anything else, this would be the one i wouldn't want you to miss.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Monday, September 27, 2010

Lots of shows lately.


It seems these things are back to back lately. Everyone is coming in from the nice summer days and out of the rain of Portland winters. The good thing about that is it brings the people together, indoors, for shows. The "scene" picks up a bit and bands like us get drawn into it. It gives us a chance to roll out new material, equipment, and test the boundaries again. Details for this show are a little hazy but we jumped on last minute. I may be piggy backing on the sound for Plan B this night and in the future maybe pulling a few nights running it here and there. I sure hope so. It would be nice change to do something i enjoy and believe i am good at for work.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Last nights show @ the Megaton House


Last night was the first outing with the, "new" equipment to play shows. Everything seemed to be going fine and then equipment failure. The 2x15" cabinet i have wasn't able to handle the volume and i burned up those speakers. It seems that it should have been able to handle it. I was driving them with the Phase Linear 700b and that claims to be 350 watts a channel. The cabinet was 400 watts @ 8ohms but notice i say was. I must now replace the burned speakers. This time to be certain that it can handle it i will double the wattage up to 800w @ 8ohms. This should make certain that this never happens again.
For those of you who caught us, sorry for the technical problems and i hope you enjoyed the set anyway.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Amp cabinet done.

Fans installed, preamp, and Phase Linear 700B
Pics of front and back. It isn't pretty until you hear it.



Monday, September 20, 2010

Phase Linear 700B


Completely rebuilt by a good man named Edward Blackwood. Here is his site.
http://web.archive.org/web/20071208055327rn_1/hometown.aol.com/PhaseTek/

The 700b had been left to me from someone years ago and has always been somewhat of a pipe dream to me. I had found someone to work on it here in portland and they couldn't fix it so i started searching the interwebs about this heavy thing. That's how i found Edward. Ed was an easy going fellow, amp smarts to the point of making your head spin kinda guy. All of our transactions were via email and telephone conversations. The great thing about this whole thing is that he lived close. Mailing this 65lb amp wasn't going to be cheap. I was in no hurry for this thing to be rebuilt because i had no idea if it could be done.
So i sent it to him. Several weeks later and about $300 in it arrived on my doorstep looking almost bran new. WTF! Amazing.
I tested it right away on a the 2x15, 400w, 8ohm cabinet right away. Loud, clear, and i was astonished.
If you ever come across any old Phase Linear stuff really consider investing in it. If it doesn't work, scrape some money together and talk to Ed. He is awesome.

Here is a copy of the Wikipedia article. It gives a little history.


Phase Linear was an audio equipment manufacturer founded by Bob Carver in 1970. While primarily known as a power amplifier company it also produced several innovative preamplifers, tuners and the Andromeda loudspeaker.

History
Its first location was a small building at 405 Howell Way in Edmonds, Washington. The first amplifier produced was the Phase Linear 700. With 350 watts per channel it soon became the standard amplifier used in recording studios, sound reinforcement companies, professional musicians and audiophiles. It had a retail price of $749.00, or a little more than a dollar a watt. The design was notable for its brushed aluminum front panel and large dual VU meters, and was made possible by the new high-power transistors designed for the high voltages of auto electronic ignitions. That original amp was replaced by the 700B and the 700 II. All of those designs were made to have extra power to run loudly the relatively inefficient sealed-box speakers like the Acoustic Research AR3/AR3a. The next product was the Phase Linear 4000 Series Auto-correlation Pre-Amplifier introduced in 1973 and manufactured through 1978. It retailed for $700.00 at the end of its life. It was a design collaboration by Bob Carver and Bill Skinner. The second amplifier released was the Phase Linear 400 with 200 watts per channel. It shared the same distinctive brushed aluminum, dual VU meters front panel style as the 700. It retailed for just under $500[1].

The company was known for the most powerful audio amplifiers of the era led by the Phase Linear D-500 introduced in 1978. It was a stereo power amplifier delivering 505 watts of clean (typically < 0.1% total harmonic distortion over 20 Hz–20 kHz) RMS power per channel. It had a retail price of $1395.

The company would later be bought by Pioneer Electronics and Bob Carver would go on to found Carver Corporation in 1979. Pioneer added a high end cassette-tape deck designed in house and CD players designed by Kyocera to the Phase Linear line. But by that time the company was in decline due to the increasing cost of research and development, and the departure of founder Carver. In the 1980s Phase Linear was sold by Pioneer to Recoton and is currently only producing car audio equipment. Bob Carver later switched from Carver to Sunfire taking the design and the price-tags with him.

There continues to be a loyal following of some of the older products. Many electronic parts are still available for repairs. Mechanical parts such as switches, meters and hardware are scarce.

The next show that Nostalgia is playing.


I have been working on rounding out the sound with some "new" equipment that is actually kinda old. An amp that was made the year i was born, 1975, called a Phase Linear 700b. Using it to drive one 2x15 400w, and a 4x12 600w cabinets. This show should be the first time out with this set up. I will post pictures of the "
new" set up from the show. It's kinda insane and loud as all hell bastard!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

What's your damage?

Last nights show @ Goodfoot in a nutshell, "Turn down the suck knob!"
1)Pressed for time.
2)Broke a bass string and the new one wouldn't stay in tune.
3)Broke Pwr supply to fx pedals and borrowed one didn't power correctly.
4)The cherry, while packing up, someone spilled a beer into my gig bag.
I like The Gooodfoot though. The food is good and the downstairs little band venue is nifty. They give you half off food and drink for bands! You should go there and check it out sometime. I would like to try to play there again.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

This place 2night called the Goodfoot.


Playing our first city show since the Autonomous Mutant Festival at the Goodfoot this evening. I have never been there. I have no idea what it's going to be like at all. Hmm. We shall see. If all goes well, we can do it again.


Monday, July 19, 2010

Autonomous Mutant Festival XIV, 2010

If you know us we enjoy our outdoor activities such as scaring away all animal life within a 3 mile radius. We try to make a lil' ol' festival every year known as Autonomous Mutant Festival.
Collectives come from all over the west coast to join in a celebration of autonomy together out in the wilderness, hidden from most but the wildlife and occasional park rangers.
We attempt to play this every year if possible. It tends to be a dirty, dusty, howling into the cool night, set that we play. It's where we can peel back the threads of time constraints on our music and explore the valleys and peaks of mountainous terrain in the sound that in city venues strap into cute little boxes called hours. We pull out the stops, setting ourselves free to pour into the little cracks and fissures of space between.
The Autonoumous Mutant Festival is a place that i feel Nostalgia truly gets the chance to "shine". We hope to see you there.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

A snapshot in time.

Tommorow we begin our adventure in recording. Time has a way of making things relevant and/or irrelevant. In the current case of situations encompassing my existance, i am not certain which one it is.
Stresses in my life have come to a screaming forefront of my mind. I feel a great pressure coming from almost everything and every angle.
I view the current state of things as a trap, a corner, a hole, a rut, or a locked cage that has been holding me in place.
Maybe i will poke a hole in the whole of things in some sort of way. Make a lock pick from the tools that reside in here with me.
The idea being that i would rather be doing something i enjoy for making ends meet. Whether that be music, drawing, painting, print making, or digital design. Anything seems at this point far better than the current employment that i am in.
To put forth my foot that direction seems not only a tangible idea, but quite possibly a savior to my sanity. I only strengthen the bonds that hold me by ignoring what is nagging and gnawing at my brain.
I will not ignore it any longer.
Plot a course far away from here. Full thrusters.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

A little late on this one.

Next time i will try to be more on top of it and post the flier before the show:P

Friday, April 16, 2010

Breaking the silence.

Nostalgia will be playing our first show after several months of not playing out. We have decided to come out of the dark to help our friends raise some much needed money at Circadia.
I am not certain of the line-up yet or the time frames but it will be Friday, April 23rd. I will post details as i recieve them.

Friday, April 9, 2010

About recording.


I put some feelers out into lil' ol' Portland for a recording engineer and recieved several replies. One of those replies was an old friend of mine named David Fredrickson. You may know of him better as David Prid, singer and songwriter for, The Prids.
Long ago, half this nation away we met somewhat forcefully. That being, lots of our mutual friends of one another, thought we should really meet.
Some of the first things we talked about were recording and music. In fact he is the guy that turned me on to 4-track recording so long ago. He had me clean his Tascam 564 i believe it was, before i could try using it. Kinda like how your dad might make you learn how to clean and field strip a rifle before getting to shoot. We both have come a long way since.
Well, now we both live in Portland Oregon and we live quite close to one another. So, it just seems to make sense that he will hopefully be putting in some time with Nostalgia to record some of the material that we have.
Some of the technical things such as a budget and time must be worked out first but i believe he is who we will most likely having capture Nostalgia sonically.
I like David. He has a clear and precise outlook on the world around him. He knows how to enjoy his work and he also knows when it's time to buckle down and quit fucking around.
I am looking forward to see and hear what he will bring to the table.

SHIRTS! yay.



If you want one, contact me. $10 bucks, seemless sides, 100% cotton. Medium and small. Front or back. Only white on black. Limited to 50 shirts first print.

Monday, April 5, 2010

The sticky things to stick to such things.

These are the stickers we have available.

Nostalgia will return.

Thomas and i have taken a well needed break from the music scene. We have been coming up with new morsals of music to share with our peoples. We are almost done with what most would call a new set.
When we are ready, hopefully in the next month or so, we will be heading out to play shows again.
We plan on having stickers, patches, and t-shirts for merch.
We have yet to get a decent recording of Nostalgia for a "record" or "cd". We have plans for that but it seems to be slow moving. Hopefully by the end of summer we will be able to have a cd release of some kind that i actually approve of. We are always asked for something but have nothing to show of it. If you know of anyone that would like to record us for a reasonable fee, let me know. We need to get this done.

The time is now, now, now, ok. NOW! Damnit. Missed it again.

Time to start a blog. I have never done this before. Wish me luck. What exactly am i supposed to do with a blog anyway? I never read anyones so i don't really understand how this works yet. Here goes then.