Reconstructing Ralston

Oh well, I kept drafting the same sad story that had you and me meeting at a birthday party for Michael Blue. He was wasted, he was falling down stairs, I was confused, John got asked if he was sporting “emo hair” it was a jarring experience for the both of us. Dude was like non of the others that I had encountered; he seemed real, wound up, in terms of projecting, touching and feeling. I got offered a night in a sorority and I turned it down, a girl from Shaker Heights, Ohio no surprise. I made a stop off near the Davis Street ‘El’, above the Fish Market, inside a courtyard iced over in the paltry winter. Apartment 2B; ‘B’ for Bennum, as I channeled my inner Agatha Christie. So what did I spy inside this Studio: The same YAMAHA keyboard owned by Matteo (that came later), and Epiphone Songbird®, a Heritage Casino-Style electric, no bass (oh, really?), a closet of shirts and pant so organized that I actually stopped and thought that I was the most cluttered piece of shit that ever had the misery of seeing the light of day. A Chuck Klosterman suggestion sheet on how to talk manly; Rodney Rogers may god bless, that was an example of the power of rhetoric. He said make a data disc if you wish, I said that’s benificient. Then he let me choose ooooooh, there was finally choice in the matter of man. It was all that mattered, the strangeness of it all, man he was the man it was ridiculous, well he was a hero and I was some charlatan who could help chart his thoughts; I gave him on bridge on a track where we went G-Bm7-Bb-C; like this. So I was thinking, yeah I TOO find Ben Kweller’s brand of power pop to be particularly spellbinding. He makes suggestions, he too has been an 8-year plus reader of the All Music Guide,m REDEMPTION. In the land of the swampy armpits of the late, great Capone, I found someone who would do commercials. HE had band posters; I would later get annoyed at the poor grammatical skills of Grandpa’s “La noche es oscura pero tu es beautiful.” I am high. Oh, ok. Push-Pull, reactions happening all over my mind. He has a record player, and a stack of Beatles LP’s, as well as
2000 by the French Kicks, with some poster. Oh, yeah he seemed to be the coolest person who had ever made human contact with me. He suggested we share the space, that was eternally kind. He didn’t ask for anything, he just kept it going, I too was going insane; we kept each other happy, somehow I was always happy, sometimes sad, but that’s what happens when you feel like the walking dead, wandering of the mind, it’s a beautiful beast. Joel, he was a mutual acquaintance. I clicked on “One Chord To Another” and there was something magical happening, yeah man, yeah, that was a fucking great album, I had only heard one track from Shayne Weinstein’s lovely library of music, “Everything You’ve Done Wrong” a blast of horns and an ole-time feel progression that was changing my mind about what individuals were capable of in a group setting. So I sought to seek out the idea, 4 one man bands. Spinning like turntables with computers inside; not regurgitating, but leaving things to chance through the simplicity of the framework; 12 notes, chords, scales, that’s that. Also, I’d been reading Thoms Pynchon’s V. recently, that summer it was that theory book, the Vonnegut, the Greenwood Tragedy (the bloodiest race riot in the history of America in Tulsa, Oklahoma), Tom Robbins and Foppish Dandy Chuck Klosterman. Also, other random shit, books on the Beatles and related arts. He had two Powerbooks, an 8 track digital m-box type, but higher-def and, like some kind of modern snakecharmer, neatly organized cables of all types necessary in performing and recording; 1/4-1/4, XLR-1/4, XLRmale-XLRfemale, of varying lengths and color schemes. Joel had a PA, Mike had a kit, I had the bass, John had EVERYTHING else, it seemed like things were weighted a little funny; oh, they were. He had a close-knit musical belief structure to Nat, who may or may not be training to be a luthier as we speak; a profession I hope to follow one day. Graham Parsons, lead in “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” by the Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and solo-work with Emmy Lou-Harris singing harmonies, that guy was on to something, before he got derailed by a crippling drug addiction. So, what did he see before he found the abyss, wandereres wanted to know. We watched an informing documentary, his pops was a mover and a shaker amongst corporate/Washington (It was the post-war era, industry and government were like birds of a feather) and so he led a privileged life leading to his acceptance at Harvard, he wouldn’t last a year. He befriended Keith Richards, in a deep way, and like so many others couldn’t keep up with skeletor’s threshold for pain. So, he burned out eventually, in pretty sad fashion, getting in a bad way with heroin. He probably envisioned himself having more significance when he was dead than when he was alive; poor sap.