16/61 is a set of conversations between my sixteen-year-old self and the more or less present-tense version. The sixteen-year-old gets veto power on all the music, so I designed it to impress. 

Not so much an archive, 16/61 arrives at an understanding between the two, an alienated runaway teen and an unexpected grownup. 

I’ve loosely drawn on sounds and music that I made and played as a teen to record now. Sometimes I had music but no words; sometimes vice-versa; sometimes scraps of each. Other times, it was just a sound—tone, really—that I had in my head that made me feel alive; Or maybe a story that was just true enough to run with. 

These interior sounds transform when they meet the air. Making them real is a live process, like guitar feedback that grows the tones into things wondrous or terrible (or both!). When they enter a space, the sounds in my head can be shaped and pointed in a direction, ridden like waves, or grown like gardens, but never actually controlled. The experience is more like traveling together than being the boss of it, and I love the trip. 

Music remains a place of refuge, a place for working things through, thinking and feeling outside the language box, for the sheer fun of playing to discover what I’ll hear this time. For this gift – perhaps to you, but foremost just to me—I owe a troubled kid who chose to dream and to dare.

16/61

rubber bridge

Rico's Place

Splonkitank

When I was sixteen, I used to think about 2020, saying to myself that I would be sixty then and that’d be strange, but it turned out way weirder than I could have imagined.

“Deadlight” launches the 16/61 Project, turning a teenage ear toward my life today.

Deadlight
Rich Rath
From the 16/61 project. Find out more at 
https://way.net/waymusic/2023/03/10/the-16-61-project/

Lyrics: 

When did you get so strange
Never thought you'd be here this long

When did it get so strange
Never thought I'd see a year like that

2020 was always a sort of talisman to me
It turned out way weirder than I could dream.

But its good
That I showed you how to play
Cuz you'd be dull as deadlight 
Any other way

When did you get so ... strange
Never thought that I'd see you here

At least you're not in marketing (interlude)

I never thought that you would be there
when I looked
	when I looked
when I looked
	when I looked

when did you learn how to navigate
all the trouble of this world

(break)
(Whoosh)
When did you learn to navigate
All the trouble of this world

They always gave such bad advice
They try to diagnose you still
Like that fool who said

It looks like
You present well

And it looks like
You present well

It's better to look good than to feel good 
They say •
It's even better to leave them all behind 
Anyway
Anyway

Deadlight

Buy HD on bandcamp

Trigger warning, describes in first person true story of police using torture methods on me and a fellow Rochesterian, the latter, Daniel Prude. He's dead for being Black, I'm alive for being white. From my forthcoming album 16/61, in which my sixty-one (ish) yr old self plays music that some part of was created by my sixteen (ish) yr old self. The only rule is sixteen-ish gets veto power, so whatever it is, it has to impress him.  Hope to have it finished before I have to rename it 17/71 ;)This is the first draft master and may not reflect the song that ends up on the album, although it will be pretty close so as to be hard to tell the difference.

Phonebook
Lyrics and Music, RIch Rath

who knew?
phonebook. 
It's not what it seems. 

For years I thought it was my fault,
must have been something I did
like have a psychotic break or
something, at least I'm
white or I'd be dead
Like say his name, 
Daniel Prude.
Same city, same police force, different day. 
off The deep end we go.

Below zero out --
freezing still inside.
Toilet ice weather.

Yanked out kleig lights
stripped naked by six cops
wrestled down pinned down
to the cold cement
one each per arm per leg.
Right leg lady cop.
Humiliation part of the plan,
laughing.
They all got off that night
for sure.

Number 5 stood on the ends
of my long hair
so I could still lift my head
just how they liked
I learned quick.
Cop 6 put a phone book on me
just below the ribs,
what the???

Torture lesson pay attention
billie club bam to the book
double up head bounce til
lights out to six cops laughing
made their shift
pure pain no marks....
Concussion 
Unconscious
While I ingest this injustice
WombTombDoom

Your restless ghosts
I know them all by name

Come to, who knows when,
windowless bars cement
and a board
naked cold alone
no pot to piss in
guard slid a blow me sandwich
moldy bread fuck you too.
Guard keys cell clanks
How long? how long?
here's your clothes
see the crooked judge
Brother to another
crooked cop.
case dismissed.
White kid
might have rich parents
Consider yourself lucky
and I for a long time did.
Didn't even get what we deserved,
which was was actually some care

Your restless ghosts
I know them all by name
I know where you've been
You did it again
Say his name: Daniel Prude
He was Black, now dead.
ruled police homicide, 
but grand jury blinked, nobody tried
nobody tried to help
cuz they are 7 armed cops and afraid.
Mental health problems endanger the ill but 
we're treated like danger and if 
you are a Black man, you might not be coming back man, still....
and I'm left here to tell
some predictive policing:
they're going to do it again
Unless we stop them. 
Watch them right back.
Teens can do it
Watch them right back
Say her name, too
Darnella Frazier

WOMB TOMB DOOM
Your restless ghosts, 
You can look them up: 
The Scacchetti bros for me,  then in 2020, misters Magri, Harris, Ricotta, Santiago, Specksgoor, Taladay, Vaughn. Afraid indeed. Torture and death. Fuck you all.  
Phonebook, not what it seems.  

For reference:

Carl Scacchetti, Tony too. Mike Magri Josey Harris, Paul Ricotta, Frank Santiago, Andie Specksgoor, Troy Taladay, Mark Vaughn.

phonebook

Phonebook

Music and words written sometime around 1976 the day after taking a trip. Maybe after https://soundcloud.com/richrath/phonebook? Recorded 2022.

All Empty
music and lyrics, Rich Rath

Well and my head it is all empty
My consc(ious|ience) disappear
My brain, it's been all ravaged
Though my thoughts, they are still clear

Well and my dreams have all been broken
My plans all left behind
And I think that if I had one
I'd probably lose my mind

Dreams are Fragile 
To be floated with care
Down rock-sown streams
To dream is to dare

lead

Though my head it was all emptied
And my mind was barely there
My heart is fairly battered
But my dreams, I still hold near

I hold them near
I hold them near

All Empty

A little something from down in deep. This is a mostly instrumental with the Dr. John song I fell in love with as a kid listening to alternative radio. Thanks to the good Dr. as well as Mssrs #Stubblefield and #Petrucci, and the speaker, Leslie, too.

Gilded Splinters

Serious parody/satire of famous VU song by Lou Reed written for Hawaiʻi water protectors.

Rock & Roll (Red Hill Version)
Original by Lou Reed, as performed by the Velvet Underground
Music and Lyrics reworked by Rich Rath and played by same.

Jamie said when she was just five years old
There's nothing going down at all
not at all
Every time she turned on the 
radio station 
There was nothing going on at all
not at all
Then one fine morning she turned
on the Honolulu station
she couldn't believe what she heard at all
she started dancin' to that fine fine music
you know her life was saved by rock & roll
rock & roll

because of the deocccupation
she would just dance to The
rock & roll station
and it was alright

Jamie said when she
was just 5 yrs old
the US'll be the death of us all
Leaking jet fuel in the water supply 
& saying nothing's going down at all
not at all
Then one fine morning 
she turned on the Honolulu station 
it said the military left one & all
one & all

After demilitarization
she would just dance to The
rock & roll station
and it was alright

Jamie said when she was just 8 yrs old
There's nothing going on at all
Three years since the military left
& there's nothing going wrong at all
not at all
Each fine morning she turned the water faucet on, 
The water ran clear as day
clear as day 
she'd start dancing to that fine, fine music,
You know her life was saved
by rock and roll 
rock & roll
After the deoccupation, 
we would just dance to that rock and roll station

And it was alright
listen to me now....
[and it was alright - alright] repeat to ending

Rock & Roll

Jamming with Rico Woltz on the corner of kuamo'o and kuhio. I'm playing my homemade rubber bridge guitar.

some rockabillyish

Hello friends! things are heating up at Way Music. Tonight I want to introduce a new podcast, "Rico's Place" Where I sit in with guitarist and storyteller Rico Woltz, who holds space most nights infront of the ABC store where Kuhio Avenue splits off from Kalakaua Avenue (the actual corner is Kuhio and Kuamoʻo).  He is an outstanding guitarist, and a keen social commentator with a sharp eye and a ready ear that has allowed him to learn about people in the neighborhood, housed, unhoused, and tourists alike, who come back to chat and listen to the music again and again.  In Episode 1, "The Last Thing You'd Ever Think," we play some original music together, and Rico tells the the story of one of the neighborhood's street people, a Hollywood actor.  Here is the full set of music Rico and I  played that night, a sort of experimental jazz-blues improv.

Rico & Rich - what a lens

Rico & Rich - go back and listen

Rico & Rich - messin' with the blues

Rico & Rich - interlude

Rico & Rich -  mysterioso

From my 1988 one man band, rubberfish comes john-lennon-wannabe-with-a-cheap-casio-and-a-rhyming-dictionary cheery apocalypse, perfect for today, with tornadoes, floods, landslides, fires, and elections. Remember, the big wind's gonna come down and blow it all away, anyway. recorded on 4-track cassette. remind me to tell you the story of Rubberfish some day.

rubberfish - big wind

rreplay jamming with my DIY rubber bridge guitar.  

rreplay - 230707 01 rb (mstr 01)

rreplay - 230726 01 rb (mstr 01)

rreplay - 230716 02 rb (mstr 01)

rreplay - 230727 06 rb (mstr 01)

Latest in the 16/61 project (https://way.net/waymusic/2025/08/08/the-16-61-project/)

aimless

99 Percent Blues

OK, so what's a blues song without some words, so I finished my tribute to Jimi Hendrix's “Red House” by cutting some vocals for it dedicated to the (de)Occupy movement and the ninety-nine percent struggling to wake up from the nightmare the one percent is inflicting on us every day with corruption, oppression, and greed.  

Beretania and Ward is the location of the (de)Occupy Honolulu camp at Thomas Square.  Thomas Square was the site where on July 26, 1843, Admiral Richard Darton Thomas returned the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi to the Hawaiians after the first illegal takeover, by the British.  King Kamehameha III said “Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono” (meaning "the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness”)  in his speech at the ceremony marking his restoration. The sentence has become the state motto of Hawaii, incorporated into its seal.  The second illegal overthrow was of course the one under which Hawaiʻi eventually became part of the United States.  That is why we cross out “occupy” in our name, to show solidarity with the already occupied kingdom, otherwise known as the most heavily militarized state in the Union.  

Come down and show some love for (de)Occupy Honolulu if you are in town!   Food not bombs has a jam there every Sunday afternoon/evening


99 percent blues

Sampled Modems and Dialtones and Guitars under Words Inspired by Gil Scott Heron and Dub Poet Mutabaruka. Part of the Artists' Use of the Word Revolution Project from Alan Dunn.  Words written for the first class I ever taught at Oberlin College in 1998, recorded in 2002.

The Revolution will not be on the Internet

a quick one

The gnarly half of my S-Gear preset for slide.

s-gear slide blues - meanish.wav

S - Gear Slide Blues - Meanish

Demonstration of my new patch for slide guitar using the Scuffham Ampolification S-Gear VST amp.  This is the cleanish one, but it still has plenty of bite.

s-gear slide blues - cleanish

S - Gear Slide Blues - Cleanish

ambient punk
I listen back! if you listen to more than one song  @richrath or @rreplaymusic, make a comment, follow, or like, I will listen to your music. If I like it, I'll put it on the "all my relations" playlist.  If you share it with others, I'll listen to their stuff too!

rich rath

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