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The One Man Band Broke Up

by Ceschi

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1.
The One Man Band Broke Up the one man band broke up the one man band broke up due to creative differences the one man band broke up and everybody mourned the passing by passing along oh fuck a simple requiem for the moments in the dusty record bins once lived in by kings now graveyards for great stars that will never reign again. these deserts full of fractured limbs and scattered instruments that can still sing like kids are rotting into nothingness and the abyss in dim. I remember when you kept time with the bass drum pedal while your left foot played organ melodies.... a harmonica... a banjo.... when you put an old hat out for the crowd passersby wearing suits and ties tried to hide but they couldn't possibly deny your banshee cries five decades in a wishing well only waiting for someone to toss a pail or a life vest or some type of help but your body failed and your mind failed and your career fell into oblivion with the rest of your peers loving what you did only got you so far through these years. the moral of the story is - no one really gives a shit but don't cry for the swatted flies - they loved what they did.
2.
Half Mast 04:03
Half Mast 4 years old, i was in a playground digging for bones underneath the wood chips, under the stones, searching for the dead and gone dinosaurs with their dead end songs and then when i was 7 i planted 20 peach pits in the backyard, one of them grew up to be a tree with 50 arms it bore the sweetest fruit i've ever tasted and the roots tore through the dirt tore through the pavement all these animals with their paws in traps all the animals in this bar make me laugh it's the way that their faces sink at half mast it's the way that our bodies stink (make noise) I already know them by heart. i've memorized their reflections and know the art. I've felt the rush of a big bet and got the scars covering each bit of this chest we'll play our parts but every performance will end so if this is really the start of the finish i guess I gotta go ahead and settle for chipping away at the infinite... only felt alive for a minute's time... all I ever wanted was to be significant - not losing in my prime sacrificing my body pocket and mind for a taste of it spitting in the face of it they love it when a man plummets i'd pray but I can't stomach that rubbish where do they really wanna go when they die? in the clouds with the most high? underground or the sky with clown-like "BIG GUY"? in a wooden box with a suit and tie so the bol weevils can hide with some maggots in between toenails while arachnids swim inside bone marrow? or would they prefer to go sterile? God Damnit Im locked inside this unforgiving planet where people chant of freedom and revolution but have never had it so I've been on a quest to find a way out of inevitable gravity and death and i'm at a turning point wondering if i should quit now but it's all in jest i feel i'm dick deep and the writer's block raping my brain is editing out all the ways I want to say "fuck you" in good taste this is an album about low living, sucking up dust and discovering quickly that the truth is unforgiving all these animals with their paws in traps all the animals in this bar make me laugh it's the way that our faces sink at half mast it's the way that our bodies stink 9 years old saw a man get shot in the road robbed a bank never made it home that's my fucking hero though a gambler with no soul took a risk - buried in a hole when i was 12 i dreamt abuelo never went to hell i dreamt he never shot and killed himself in that Puerto Rican motel where the cane rum sunk into the shelves i painted him in heaven 17 i made believe my father kept clean, that addiction wasn't built inside of me or david but the tree is still growing and it seems that the fruit it bore 10 years before just wasn't so sweet. Julius i must say i must say (SAY) i never thought you would you fade Julius i must say. i never thought you would
3.
No New York 03:42
No New York poor big baby you poor sad fucking baby poor poor poor poor poor big baby you poor sad fucking baby poor poor poor poor clichés are changing now there's nothing kitsch about you you're just a leather face with a hard cock blowing lines in a punk club bathroom dreaming of 1966 bitches the way they flocked to your dick and riches like a pack of dogs in a fried chicken kitchen now they're moms and leaders gone with the wind and you're just gonorrhea a fraud and a peon that never went beyond your own ego when the g's turn to c-notes you can just sit and wait for the lesser of 6 million evils this is not new york this is not a sold out crowd i am not a water boy i am not your conscience poor fucking baby this is not new york this is not a sold out crowd i am not a water boy i am not your conscience Good Grizzly God tell me this is not what I'll become because i can barely stand the backstage stench of cum that's dried on tagged couches and if I see another cock and balls drawn on this green room wall then i might quit. we slept in cold sweat across the midwest playing metal shows for drunken whores in clown suits who couldn't care less, lost girlfriends and jobs, all for the love of a song, all for the 15 minute moment of glory that's now gone. paid with fried cheese and bad beer, and i dont drink beer. we grew beards in those european vans where fruit flies fluttered on farm fresh pears and dead deer diaries began. so wrap yourself in the skin of frozen bison to protect that pretty face from the ice wind. we try to win but we're just humans with vices and sins and time is spread thin like birthday cake icing. i tried to tell you backstage but the women got in the way and the drugs had already hit your brain x3 when they reminisce over you and speak as if your life is through it just might be true (pete rock and cl smooth) this is not new york this is not a sold out crowd i am not a water boy i am not your conscience this is not new york this is not a sold out crowd i am not a water boy i am not your conscience (and i wanted to tell you backstage but the women got in the way and the drugs had already hit your brain your chops just weren't the same and you forgot the words to my favorite song and then you forgot the chords to my second favorite i could see it your eyes you didn't really want to play you were thinking about the after party about the acid or maybe a double blow job from those japanese twins in green room)
4.
Lament for Captain Julius “it's me questioning julius and wondering if there's any good in the world” it's only a matter of time 'til we grow up to be just like you. worn out and dry. God's gifts don't give for too long do they? Captain Oh Captain are you swallowing salt? Captain Oh Captain are you swimming laps in blood? These stories are so damned long and most words are filler. As kids we want to change worlds with our songs but most of us are quitters. Captain Oh Captain please prove me wrong. Captain Oh Captain hope I'm wrong.
5.
Fallen Famous one round of applause for the dollar bill doldrums two for the bankrupt distributors three for the folding indies four for the fallen famous five for the lack of support six for the millions of kids who missed the mid nineties seven for the rappers telling me rap is dead selling out in their petticoats with their petty drama bourgeois fear from the rebels who once screamed in our ears about money and guns, about politics, wonder where they'll go? will they ever try to dig themselves right out of the comfort of their own homes when a life implodes fragments flow deep into the black, into the forgotten, swallowed whole in a landslide of kudos that turned to - who knows? what a shame to be taken right into the grave by the devil and his henchmen the same ones that took his pension and left him in a grave defenseless not to mention no attention to the messes just a box-set sitting next to a Smith and Wesson fingerprints still lingering on trigger metal heavy metal on a record spinning "It's the end of your era I tell you!" a publicist screams on a warped tape answering machine from the 80s silver lining never came the defining moments fade with radio play put away any stray bullet in your brain get it ready for that long play. every day something beautiful dies and nobody cries for the swatted flies because they lingered around insignificant living just distant of people's eyes disgusting vultures. circling around the bodies of my fallen heroes making jigsaw puzzles out of bones while lilacs limp from the stench as flesh erodes no need to worry about packing bags julius maggots don't care if you're dressed your mother's gone and the suit don't fit a 9 millimeter's gonna be your last kiss and no one's gonna be there when you take a final breath and even though you want to be remembered as an übermensch it's less it's less than ashes in the sea it's less than a fresh coat of makeup on your gray face at a wake with a catholic priest it's less than heaven less than irrelevant less than the most negative segment that you could even conjure up in your vast imagination it's tasteless it's dirt it's rotting organs it's worms and the perfect sounds are drowned out by the ground now by the cries of the few and far between by the record labels that are capitalizing on dreams and they'll repackage you as deluxe and they'll romanticize your death grunts but the dust on the dollar bin gatefold sleeve just screams that nobody gave a fuck.
6.
Bridge 01:52
Bridge julius don't set foot on that bridge everyone who did has lost a life or limb. temptation aches in your loins and grows on your face after the constant disappointment builds an edifice around boundaries you've developed over bottomless time. They are carefully hidden behind this invincible popular image that simply defies what you really are. you're no superstar. julius and the bearded savior is a lie. julius don't set foot on that bridge there are trolls under it waiting for revenge. julius don't set foot on that bridge those wooden planks won't hold a head growing so big. julius don't set foot on that bridge there are plenty of other options backroads and alternate highways julius don't set foot on that bridge everyone who did has lost a life or limb.
7.
Serious business i just want to know where the wonderous feelings go when you're all dried up, vaccum sealed, shrink wrapped and exposed a piece of flesh in a super market refrigerator poked and prodded soon to be chewed or garbage tasted or tested dissected or digested into the belly of a beast or breast fed by machines it's all the same thing julius
8.
Hangman 04:37
Hangman chorus: hang in there hangman swinging from a gallows pole that dust from your bones will help the flowers grow Ceschi: try to die with a smile on - your final fighting defiant song. long gone are the worshiping fans and entourage messiahs lost in a corporate sanctioned holocaust falling off is more than slipping from buildings or rocks. we'll remember the classic records forever those moments before hopelessness choked your focus and left you severed we can smell the death of winter it burns out our nostril hairs and tosses the frail fossils from here dropping entrails over yellow brick roads that are now covered in piss not gold riddled with potholes so rot slow with the rest of the apostles god knows what the world could have been with you before the mighty monster chewed your sinews and spit you into something so cynical and simple. Shoshin: There is a terror that plagues the bearers of veins barren of blood, but for the bitter fetor of liquid love. Oh child, undone, your time has come. In absolute awe, we stared as you fastened on to your fears fearlessly; peering into the mirror, then crafting songs from your experiences there. Such searing sermons on the self, delivered from an impermanent pulpit, built of heartwreck, regret, sex, bourbon, and bullshit. The crashing down was catastrophic; the sadness sounded from some seven hundred thousand heartbeats halting. Oh, entire cities retired to pity this liars departure. The fires it sparked were but sires to quiet hearths where aspiring authors made I and Irony mired martyrs. Sirens sang from the swells, secrets you swore you’d never tell. A closed casket to cloak your gross cadaver; bloated. Throat: rope ravaged. Your rigor mortise riddled corpse. This empty shell. MiC K!NG: They teach us pull ourselves together in a game of hangman firing blanks and empty the clip now hang in the balancing act - uality that the honor we have is not about us but the collars we sla - shhhh! ....and there's a hush over the crowd hanging heads holding the crowns unload silver cloaking the clouds while clothes make the mantra affix ya face to waistband take chance, risk inconsiderate vow(el)s line your liner notes by the throat, cuz this is a noun win lose or draw, go through withdrawals, perform to your credit be deified by the palindrome at the speed of life by pawning your ethics rise or fall in this life sentence by applied grammar talk is cheap til they hang on your every word like skybanners David Ramos: Give it up for once last time, yes, one last hurrah one final round of applause before our hero dissolves and when the clock hit ten there was no opening act no one to heighten impact the stage was fully intact for the one man band to react to the sold out crowd in his mind in 1999 no one could have ever thought there would have been a possibility of such a well adjusted wannabe celebrity to ever come to utter culmination like this so there wasn't any total bliss an imaginary pussy fest cause there's no outlets left for the one man band as he stands on the stage half naked covered in sweat so let backup tracks on your discman blast as you revisit the past and reinterpret the laughs.
9.
Bad Jokes 03:43
Bad Jokes he apologized to the folks in the back row who got splattered in blood at the last show he apologized for the spit and sweat that dripped off the skin on his chest but nonetheless he should have apologized for things that he never did when he should have and things he did when he shouldn't have all those sins that gathered up to form a 50 foot dragon sleeping in a labrynth inside of his brain cavity, stagnant GG Allin threatened to blow out his brains on stage but instead when death day came it was quiet and tame Then there's the one about the girl in Berlin who jumped out a window and had people convinced her suicide was performance bad jokes about bad people in bad bars make the bad worse and make the good crash cars bad jokes about bad people in bad bars make the bad worse and make the good crash cars so have you heard the one about the one man band ? the one man band? yes, the one man band so have you heard the one about the one man band ? I heard he sang like an angel before he hanged so have you heard the one about the one man band ? the one man band? yes, the one man band so have you heard the one about the one man band ? I heard it but it's too soon to laugh about his follies in the past about the way that he got fat and couldn't keep it in his pants.... and I remember lies about 5 figure record deals, headlining bills, and lines when he tried to convince me everything was real... but-it-was a crying shame seeing him lie in pain after realizing the way he wasted time on a game that dangled a prize in front of his tired eyes like arcade toy cranes with no claws to play bad jokes about bad people in bad bars make the bad worse and make the good crash cars bad jokes about bad people in bad bars make the bad worse and make the good crash cars and he used to sing, "God damn another one of God's bad jokes when he stabs and pokes at our last hopes. We were young once and wrote songs about not giving a fuck - acting like we had some guts." laughing on a barstool dumb drunk as one hand fiddled with some nuts while the other held a mug and every crease on his face was a fault line that looked like it had been drawn there at the beginning of time... but he was only 45 when he died with no family left behind just instruments and a mic and the story goes that he cried like a baby as he tied the noose waiting for someone to come and save him.
10.
For My Disappointing Hip Hop Heroes Most of us tried to jump of rooftops and threatened to slit our wrists at 14. Only some succeeded and missed out on the late nineties' underground rap scene. By 18 it felt beautiful to be man, to stick your dick in pussy holes 'til it got red. The college girls tasted like diner food and cigarette sauce. Now the grown girls taste like a dust and years of regret protein blend. Even whores won't touch you with a stick 'til you shave your face and lose the weight you gained in LA, 'til you start convincing people that you're not sick, and start to smile at the babies and the puppies and the passersby with symmetrical bodies and rhythmic strides hidden well beneath the fog of Guilford you've got nostalgia to kill tonight. It's been so fucking long since you've had a hero that didn't disappoint or die.
11.
Long Live The Short Lived (feat. Sole) Ceschi : Nobody quite understood Andy Kaufman's finest jokes even years after all the cancer chewed away. Carmen Miranda's heart attack on the Durante show wasn't noticed until she faded the next day. when all our flesh disintegrates we'll perform for the worms, although the crowds will be letdowns at least we'll still perform. when you rub your eyes too hard and see spots those are only angels mixed with souls of the faded famous still putting on shows inside of a limbo, dearly departed, taken from a life early on these trifling swan songs don't last long the remains only stay in an eardrum coffin lost in dense fog it's funny but it's dead wrong to pluck the gray hairs right out of a corpse's beard and make a mask out of insignificance lingering around the stratosphere so throw your fists up for the fossilized apostles climb all over the graves of giants to make yourself feel close to colossal. long live the great short lived they all lived well long live the great short lived they all lived well Sole: i show that wear and tear on my face and my clothes i wear, they tear cuz im old like where my tears fell in a cauldron the elders stoned to death in world war 1 on french battlefields the avant guarde always died first die depressed, the way its gotta be down by booze clowned by shallow fools bitten by pirhanas in shallow pools im on a shadow run sippin my glass and for them im always tipping my glass it's half empty mostly gas but its still a drink long live the great short lived they all lived well long live the great short lived they all lived well Sole: rest in a lost cause find no peace in a fresco nobody loves you like worms do show you the light like holes do Ceschi: so rest in peace with musical pieces rotting around the guillotine. all of us remember something significant but you weren't part of the final equation. Sole: and thats dirt you cant go deep without discovering a body in cities you cant go deep without discovering a body you cant go deep you cant go deep Ceschi: the one man band it broke up before the world got choked up before anyone noticed, he dissolved into smoke and dust the one man band it broke up before the world got choked up and the few friends he gathered scattered ashes mixed with coke bumps Sole: we all know the drive is far when the tongue weighs a ton although they dont understand me i carry a speech for when the grammy's won torches dont get passed, they go out the winner dies of dementia and artists draw no pension its pecking your eyes while you're trying to read be the one to murder your faith while you're trying to believe but dont fret we all go down but look better in flames it means nothing if only the tombstones remember our names only by pissin in the wind will you know the way its going and only our fallen comrades know the true definition of revolution Ceschi: the one man band it broke up before the world got choked up before anyone noticed, he dissolved into smoke and dust the one man band it broke up before the world got choked up and the few friends he gathered scattered ashes mixed with coke bumps (the bigger the giant = the harder it falls it's simple physics idiots the bigger the knife=the bigger the scar)
12.
Swallowed Salt Poor big baby. You finally got your guarantee. Let your ashes mix and match with the bones of the burnt economy in an urn of little earnings. Learning never did a thing for me. They'll say Rest In Peace. They'll say Rest In Peace. But they really mean thanks for letting us be. Thanks for letting us breath. You swallowed salt and filled your lungs now there's no room for breathing now and there's no room for singing.
13.
Julius’ Final Song Do you remember how he walked onto the stage like the world was ending and this was his final song? The way the sweat dripped off his nose forming a swirly pool of colors on the cracked wooden club floor? Now I recall the way he moved back then before the bullet shattered pieces of his skull spreading him all over the carpet in that hotel room – they couldn't piece him back together to sing his last tune. No time machine exists quite yet and all those voices we once worshipped solely belong to the dead. Sleeping so comfortably for now between some gatefold sleeves and shrink wrap piled on record store grounds. We all imagined his last song a melody to help us forget that our God was gone to help us remember his face before the maggots crawled inside and out of his eye sockets such a perfect song (ahhh ahhh ahhh men yadi yadi yadi yay gummy gummy gum drops) we only wanted one last song a tune so we could sing along but he's gone into the abyss falling fast sucked through a giant black hole deep into the center of the earth far from anybody's ears just flung into oblivion forgotten by the world and the puppeteers that once put him on a pedestal are repackaging hoping advances reappear gone now there's no way that we could ever dig him out beneath the mountains of records that cover his dusty grave he's done and there's no ubermensch to soothe the senses truth is that we'll lose in the end everything dies soon it's helpless we only wanted one last song a tune so we could sing along so you have you heard the one about the one man?

about

New Haven songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/rapper Ceschi Ramos (pronounced chess-key) and Berlin producer DJ Scientist initially connected around 2005 over a mutual adoration of rare 60s/70s psychedelic, prog and folk rock as well as 90s hip hop. On their first record together, „The One Man Band Broke Up“, both gentlemen evoke their influences creating a completely original sounding, melodic, dark and unabashedly progressive hip hop concept album.
Based around the ever revisited topic of the rise and fall of a musician, in this case one named Julius and The Bearded Saviour, „The One Man Band Broke Up“ is as much about Ceschi‘s own fear of failure as it is about personal experiences in a dog eat dog music industry. As Ceschi‘s voice moves from meticulous almost mathematical rhythms to aggressive nearly punk howling to scat like rhymes, Scientist layers
epic montages of samples, dynamic drums, along with chopped live instruments to compliment the diversity of styles. The album even slides in two of Ceschi‘s acoustic based tunes complete with violins, banjos and ukuleles. Friends including Sole, Astronautalis, Radical Face (of Electric President), 2econd Class Citizen, Cars & Trains and Mic King also contribute instrumentation and vocals. The combined outcome is
a post-modern hip hop project unlike anything else the two musicians have previously
released.

credits

released June 27, 2010

All Lyrics except guest verses Written by Ceschi Ramos (Julio F. Ramos, Fake Four Music ASCAP)
All Production by DJ Scientist (Günter Stöppel, Equinox Records)

Mixed by DJ Scientist and Christian Fischer (Playpad Circus)

Mastered by Jeff Smothers

Artwork By The Raincoatman

(01) The One Man Band Broke Up

(02) Half Mast

(03) No New York
(backing vocals by Astronautalis, additional guitar, bass, organ and synth by Ceschi)

(04) Lament For Captain Julius
guitar, bass, synth, banjo, ukulele by Ceschi
piano and accordion by Max Heath)

(05) Fallen Famous (additional drums by 2econd Class Citizen)
(06) Bridge (backing vocals by Tommy V)
(07) Serious Business

(08) Hangman (feat. Shoshin, Mic King & David Ramos)

(09) Bad Jokes

(10) For My Dissapointing Hip Hop Heroes
guitar, violin, glockenspiel by Ceschi
piano, steel pan, accordion by Max Heath
(11) Long Live The Short Lived (feat. Sole)

(12) Swallowed Salt

(13) Julius’ Final Song
(extra guitar, piano and bass by Ben Cooper aka Radical Face)
(additional vocals by Max Heath, Tom Filepp aka Cars & Trains, and Madeleine Johnston)

©2010 Fake Four Inc / Equinox Records

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Ceschi New Haven, Connecticut

Ceschi (pronounced chess-key) Ramos makes his own version of progressive hip hop spliced with elements of folk & indie rock. Although he has almost "mathy" technical rap abilities he's first and foremost a singer-songwriter at heart. Although one Ceschi song may consist of punk influenced machine gun fast raps, the next may be a quiet folk ballad played on acoustic guitar. ... more

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