WEDNESDAY FEB 19, 2020
529 & Speakeasy Promotions Presents:
Ceschi Ramos
The Contraverse | Gregory Pepper and His Problems | rickoLus
Ceschi Ramos
Ceschi Ramos is a rapper and singer from Connecticut who has been hopping genres and spilling guts for the better part of two decades. He has been seen outside venues at 3am in Germany playing an acoustic guitar and singing to people that didn’t want the show to end. He has written poems to fans from behind bars whilst locked up on bogus marijuana charges. He has suffered a spiral fracture of the humerus while arm wrestling a marine in Hawaii. He has recorded with and toured alongside some of independent rap music’s most influential figures, including Sage Francis, Busdriver and Astronautalis. He has been in bands described as hardcore, crunk rap, lo-fi synth pop, Latin progressive and psych-jazz-rap. He has crafted abstracted and personal narratives mining the depths of depression and heights of hope. He has slept on countless floors when hotels weren’t in the touring budget and lost girlfriends and jobs all for the love of creating and performing.
Ceschi was born with four fingers on his right hand, which served as partial inspiration for the name of his DIY record label, Fake Four, Inc. Those who have worked with him describe Ceschi as one of the most artist-friendly labelheads out there, a rare breed who values art over profit almost to a fault. Since 2008, he has curated a roster of wildly original and critically praised talent and put out albums from the likes of Open Mike Eagle, Buck 65, Sister Crayon and Dark Time Sunshine in addition to his solo records The One Man Band Broke Up and Broken Bone Ballads.
An engaging, theatrical live performer, Ceschi Ramos has treated entire venues like a stage, viewing the middle of the audience or an empty barstool as good a place as any to perform a soul-baring folk song or tongue-twisting rap track. Ceschi once described himself in song as “a martyr at most… a failure at least” and said that, “In the eyes of history I’ll be no more than a leaf on a tree.” He knows what it is to suffer for his art and is aware that music exploring the ugliness and sorrow of the human condition will always exist on the fringes of a game dominated by disposable escapism and expensive publicists. Yet he still pours everything he has into his craft, and on any given night you can find him tracking vocals at his cousin’s New Haven studio, warmly greeting fans and friends at a dive bar merch booth or rapping double-time in Japan or Europe for audiences that often don’t speak his language, but are able to see the giant heart at the core of it all.
Ceschi Ramos is a rapper and singer from Connecticut who has been hopping genres and spilling guts for the better part of two decades. He has been seen outside venues at 3am in Germany playing an acoustic guitar and singing to people that didn’t want the show to end. He has written poems to fans from behind bars whilst locked up on bogus marijuana charges. He has suffered a spiral fracture of the humerus while arm wrestling a marine in Hawaii. He has recorded with and toured alongside some of independent rap music’s most influential figures, including Sage Francis, Busdriver and Astronautalis. He has been in bands described as hardcore, crunk rap, lo-fi synth pop, Latin progressive and psych-jazz-rap. He has crafted abstracted and personal narratives mining the depths of depression and heights of hope. He has slept on countless floors when hotels weren’t in the touring budget and lost girlfriends and jobs all for the love of creating and performing.
Ceschi was born with four fingers on his right hand, which served as partial inspiration for the name of his DIY record label, Fake Four, Inc. Those who have worked with him describe Ceschi as one of the most artist-friendly labelheads out there, a rare breed who values art over profit almost to a fault. Since 2008, he has curated a roster of wildly original and critically praised talent and put out albums from the likes of Open Mike Eagle, Buck 65, Sister Crayon and Dark Time Sunshine in addition to his solo records The One Man Band Broke Up and Broken Bone Ballads.
An engaging, theatrical live performer, Ceschi Ramos has treated entire venues like a stage, viewing the middle of the audience or an empty barstool as good a place as any to perform a soul-baring folk song or tongue-twisting rap track. Ceschi once described himself in song as “a martyr at most… a failure at least” and said that, “In the eyes of history I’ll be no more than a leaf on a tree.” He knows what it is to suffer for his art and is aware that music exploring the ugliness and sorrow of the human condition will always exist on the fringes of a game dominated by disposable escapism and expensive publicists. Yet he still pours everything he has into his craft, and on any given night you can find him tracking vocals at his cousin’s New Haven studio, warmly greeting fans and friends at a dive bar merch booth or rapping double-time in Japan or Europe for audiences that often don’t speak his language, but are able to see the giant heart at the core of it all.
The Contraverse
Forged out of the fading underground hip hop movement, The ContraVerse is a project rooted in the independent era. These wordsmiths employ a focus on rhyme-schemes and lyrical content while drawing influences from golden age pioneers such as, A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharcyde and The Roots.
The ContraVerse full length debut, 'Inoculate' will be released through Substance Theory Recordings in the spring of 2013; featuring guest appearances from Public Enemy's own, DJ Lord, as well as Gift of Gab, voice of Bay Area hip hop legends Blackalicious. Production duties on 'Inoculate' were split between in-house cuts from Kid A, a Berlin based crate-digger named Batsauce and Atlanta's beat battle king, The Conspiracy.
With deep imagination and signature intensity, the music from The ContraVerse is an honest and genuine exploration into the possibilities of song and story. Somewhere, between an affinity for creativity in hip hop and a relentless hunger for expression, exists a balance of consciousness and execution referred to as The ContraVerse.
Forged out of the fading underground hip hop movement, The ContraVerse is a project rooted in the independent era. These wordsmiths employ a focus on rhyme-schemes and lyrical content while drawing influences from golden age pioneers such as, A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharcyde and The Roots.
The ContraVerse full length debut, 'Inoculate' will be released through Substance Theory Recordings in the spring of 2013; featuring guest appearances from Public Enemy's own, DJ Lord, as well as Gift of Gab, voice of Bay Area hip hop legends Blackalicious. Production duties on 'Inoculate' were split between in-house cuts from Kid A, a Berlin based crate-digger named Batsauce and Atlanta's beat battle king, The Conspiracy.
With deep imagination and signature intensity, the music from The ContraVerse is an honest and genuine exploration into the possibilities of song and story. Somewhere, between an affinity for creativity in hip hop and a relentless hunger for expression, exists a balance of consciousness and execution referred to as The ContraVerse.
Gregory Pepper and His Problems
rickoLus
Rickolus was born in a sand dune and raised in the sparse pines of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. His father, an Army brat who lived in 22 states and 5 foreign countries before the age of 11, was the waiter at a beach side taco stand that was shaped like a sombrero when he met a dark haired Cajun Gypsy from the outskirts of New Orleans. Two weeks later they were married. Eight and half months later, Rickolus came out feet first into the world, almost dying in the process, saved by the life guard's quick thinking and quicker scapulae. He still wears the scar to remind him of the day he'd never forget, if it were a day he was old enough to remember.
The summer of his sophomore year, Rickolus wandered into the Pablo Nine Movie Theater and didn't wander out until the last sliver of silver screen was burned to ash and sent westward on an ocean breeze. He followed the ashes to another theater house, checked in and has yet to check out. Rickolus started scooping popcorn, moving quickly to a toy broom and butler. He found himself alone in a theater, sang along with the credits, reading each person's name in a chorus of half notes. Rickolus was the last film projectionist in Florida. When everything went digital, he broke down the last movie late on a Thursday night, then threw all the xenon bulbs off the roof and watched them explode against the pavement.
He married young, fathered a child and taught her to draw before he taught her to talk. He stashed over 1,000 illustrated conversations into a military foot locker, mostly about guinea pigs and doodles to pass the ketchup. His wife was a dark haired beauty, not unlike his mother. They met at a juice bar. They flirted in a King's courtyard. Fell in love in a hurricane. She sang quietly in traffic, danced with a broom. She argued over bottles of whiskey and made sure the coffee was brewed before the first knotty head fell off the pillow in the morning. She drew the families fortunes in charcoal flip books, painted portraits from photographs.
Rickolus had a guitar at age 7, learned every song in the Ritchie Valens catalog by age 8. He taught himself the piano, Bach and "Chopsticks" in D minor. He recorded an album a day for 13 years in a green shed, 4,748 albums. Most albums will never be heard.
He started a one man band, played run down bars with low ceilings. Played outdoor concerts. Went on tour and cleared the Bone Zone. He played empty fields, full cemeteries, and bleating petting zoos. He wrote songs on the spot, he dismantled guitars and deconstructed drum kits. He wrote "Youngster", an album from an old man about the youth he spent and wasted away on cigarettes and long drives."Coyote and Mule" was a return to the green shed's four track recording.
Rickolus was born in a sand dune and raised in the sparse pines of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. His father, an Army brat who lived in 22 states and 5 foreign countries before the age of 11, was the waiter at a beach side taco stand that was shaped like a sombrero when he met a dark haired Cajun Gypsy from the outskirts of New Orleans. Two weeks later they were married. Eight and half months later, Rickolus came out feet first into the world, almost dying in the process, saved by the life guard's quick thinking and quicker scapulae. He still wears the scar to remind him of the day he'd never forget, if it were a day he was old enough to remember.
The summer of his sophomore year, Rickolus wandered into the Pablo Nine Movie Theater and didn't wander out until the last sliver of silver screen was burned to ash and sent westward on an ocean breeze. He followed the ashes to another theater house, checked in and has yet to check out. Rickolus started scooping popcorn, moving quickly to a toy broom and butler. He found himself alone in a theater, sang along with the credits, reading each person's name in a chorus of half notes. Rickolus was the last film projectionist in Florida. When everything went digital, he broke down the last movie late on a Thursday night, then threw all the xenon bulbs off the roof and watched them explode against the pavement.
He married young, fathered a child and taught her to draw before he taught her to talk. He stashed over 1,000 illustrated conversations into a military foot locker, mostly about guinea pigs and doodles to pass the ketchup. His wife was a dark haired beauty, not unlike his mother. They met at a juice bar. They flirted in a King's courtyard. Fell in love in a hurricane. She sang quietly in traffic, danced with a broom. She argued over bottles of whiskey and made sure the coffee was brewed before the first knotty head fell off the pillow in the morning. She drew the families fortunes in charcoal flip books, painted portraits from photographs.
Rickolus had a guitar at age 7, learned every song in the Ritchie Valens catalog by age 8. He taught himself the piano, Bach and "Chopsticks" in D minor. He recorded an album a day for 13 years in a green shed, 4,748 albums. Most albums will never be heard.
He started a one man band, played run down bars with low ceilings. Played outdoor concerts. Went on tour and cleared the Bone Zone. He played empty fields, full cemeteries, and bleating petting zoos. He wrote songs on the spot, he dismantled guitars and deconstructed drum kits. He wrote "Youngster", an album from an old man about the youth he spent and wasted away on cigarettes and long drives."Coyote and Mule" was a return to the green shed's four track recording.