01/11/2019
Dear Friends.
It is with a wide spectrum of emotions that Nalin & I find ourselves announcing that we are moving out of Revolver Studios’ current location. The building known to us simply as "Revolver" has been home to us for the past 13 years. Countless hours of creativity have been logged here with artists, many of them dear friends, from the local Portland music scene and around the world. Each of these creative endeavors were entrusted to us in a way that we honor and cherish. So many wonderful folks have poured their hearts into this space, us included. This room is filled to the brim with memories.
The story of Revolver is really hundreds of smaller stories woven together. Here we wrote and recorded 5 Federale Records. We produced music featuring members of the Oregon Symphony for a Super Bowl commercial with Clint Eastwood that was nominated for an Emmy. Hosted several OPB Music sessions with the likes of And And And, Dr Dog, and Black Belt Eagle Scout. We recorded countless records for bands large and small. Hundreds of band rehearsals were had. Hundreds of thousands of beers were consumed.
When we moved into this space sometime in November 2005 this part of Portland was a very different place. The rundown brick building next door, known as Sally Mack, was a relatively vacant and unused building. Rontoms didn’t exist. This was a relatively undesirable and “seedy” area. Nalin and I had the idea to rent both the studio space as well as Sally Mack and start a business renting practice spaces to our friends for cheap. We built out our studio over the next few years with our own untrained hands and without the aid of a credit card, let alone investors. And we filled Sally Mack with an impressive group of creative folks. Those two buildings became alive with artistic energy. Bands such as The Helio Sequence and Blitzen Trapper used their creative spaces to self record records that would become catalog standouts. We kept rent as low as possible and maintained the ethos of being “The Nuggiest Landlords In Town.”
As Portland grew and the music industry shifted we found ways to adapt. Nalin started mixing records recorded at Pickathon. Collin began doing more custom music for ads and scoring music for film and TV. Hell, we even had a Federale song in The LEGO movie. Eventually we could no longer afford the Sally Mack building. We moved our rehearsal space business to other, more affordable locations. But we held on to Revolver, because it is a special place. Everyone who walks into Revolver for the first time remarks something like “Wow!” while scanning the space.
In mid-2018 it became apparent that we could no longer afford our studio space. Our need for that large, beautiful room had decreased year by year as our rent climbed beyond our capacity. It became apparent what we needed was a smaller, cheaper space. We’ve spent the last six months exploring many, many options for a solution. We’ve recently teamed up with Music Portland and are working to help usher in their concept of a music hub space where bands can have access to affordable creative spaces in Portland. However the timeline for that project hasn’t lined up with our needs to vacate Revolver in January.
Graciously, our friends at Type Foundry Recording Studio have offered for us to “shack up” with them. Of all the potential solutions to our conundrum this has proved by far to be the most appealing. This scenario allows us access to their amazing studio space when the project dictates, as well as the ability to create our own small mix and overdub room adjacent to the main tracking room. Revolver will live on! Type Foundry celebrated its 20th anniversary last year and has been responsible for some of the best records to come out of Portland in that span. We can’t thank them enough for inviting us into the fold!
We’d like to extend a sincere THANKYOU to everyone who has been a part of Revolver #2. Please post links to videos/music created at Revolver #2 on our wall. We’d also like to see your favorite photos!
Onward & Bongward!
