Ceschi Keeps Hope Alive

Like the rest of us, Ceschi, a.k.a. Julio Ramos, had long since emerged from the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic. But he hadn’t forgotten.

Nor had he lost hope.

Fuck your neighbor to survive
Eat your neighbor to survive
We were hiding our faces long before pandemics arrived …

Ceschi (he performs under a familial nickname) was live on WNHH FM’s ​“Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51” program (watch the full episode in the above video) performing ​“2020 BC,” a powerful song he wrote in the early lockdown pandemic days. The sudden cancelation of touring dates left him time to pause and reflect about a unique moment that brought broader themes about American life into focus, the themes that have animated his decades of writing, recording and performing. Themes of deep-rooted injustice and despair wrestling with an unshakeable, revolution-tinged, clear-eyed optimism.

Many have broken backs working for some charismatic demigods
Who raised minimum wages to build company loyalty
Watched their employees die left and right
Bosses’ profits grew off of lost lives
As they smiled for media commending philanthropy

We’ve been glorifying wealth and greed and sociopathy
It was packaged and sold to us as the American dream
Splintered working class people to weaken our communities
Fed us our sibling’s meat and convinced us that it was healthy

Ceschi strummed furiously on his guitar, building to a scream as he worked through the cascade of syncopated-shouted lyrics.

Then he slammed a silent pause. His fingers crept up the neck of the guitar and picked a delicate chord progression, reaching for embers of clear-eyed hope beneath the ashes of despair.

Then told us that we were born free
We were born free

Many of Ceschi’s songs travel that up-and-down, furious-then-gentle, hopeful trajectory. Starting with hip hop and punk, he has over the years layered Latin music, rock, and folk into the mix to produce a musical style as singular as it is accessible. 

He has honed that approach over 20 years of producing solo albums, performing first here in the New Haven area and now internationally. At 42, he’s embarking on a second phase of his career. He has finished up his final solo record, Bring Us The Head Of Francisco False, and is focusing on work with his new band, the Codefendants. (“Everybody’s been in jail in this band,” he said.) You can see Ceschi perform at Space Ballroom May 5 in a double bill with Sage Francis. Then he and the Codefendants are off to perform in Vegas and Europe.

With his outrage and optimism intact.

“A lot of people read what I write as nihilistic. It’s deeply optimistic. It’s almost illogically optimistic,” Ceschi said in between songs during his WNHH performance.

“At the root of it all is a belief in humanity, which may be illogical. We’re always walking that fine line between nihilism and revolutionary optimism. We‘re very aware of what’s happening in this world … But it’s also coming from the perspective of someone who believes it can be better.”

He’s definitely, he said, ​“not giving up hope.”

If you, too, are a local musician interested in performing live on WNHH FM, click on the​“E‑mail the Author” button at the top of this story to learn more.

Previous​“Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51” performances:

• MJ Bones
• Johnathan Moore
• Charlie Widmer
• Sam Carlson

Ceschi’s​“Acoustic Thursday” set list:
Teach A Rat To Fish
2020 BC
Long Shot