Biography
Rusty Squeezebox, born David Ramsey, possessed scant formal preparation aside from childhood tinkering on a Radio Shack organ and brief third-grade trumpet instruction. Acquisition of a bass occurred solely to accommodate a friend’s intense Prince fixation, after which he launched the group Ach Nein while still a high-school junior. The ensemble survived barely beyond a single year, yet during its run Squeezebox shifted focus to guitar—destined to become his primary instrument—and began experimenting on his brother’s drum kit. In the mid-’80s Mike Randle recruited him as replacement drummer for the mod outfit Bad Press, forging a partnership that would endure for decades. Squeezebox stayed with Bad Press through 1988 before auditioning for the drum chair in Los Angeles ska-pop band the Untouchables, already known for several college-radio hits in both the U.S. and U.K. He joined in 1989 and remained, on and off, until January 1999.
Parallel endeavors kept him occupied throughout that decade. In 1989 he formed Treehouse with brother Eric Ramsey and ex-Bad Press colleague Garfield Wolfe; the trio later became Voodoo Love, cut a 16-track demo, and disbanded when Wolfe’s drug difficulties proved insurmountable. Reconnecting with Mike Randle in 1991, the pair began joint music-making and recording experiments that led to the 1992 formation of Baby Lemonade alongside David Green and Henry Liu (later replaced by Dave Chapple). The band gradually emerged as one of Los Angeles’s premier underground rock acts. A Troubadour performance drew the attention of ’60s cult figure Arthur Lee, who enlisted them to back him as Love on a 1993 European tour. Returning to their own project the next year, they released the Wonderful EP on Sympathy for the Record Industry. For what he assumed would be a one-off recording, the former David Ramsey adopted the pseudonym Rusty Squeezebox—taken from F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri line in the Academy Award-winning film Amadeus describing a Mozart phrase as sounding “like a rusty squeezebox”—yet the name endured. The first full-length, 68% Pure Imagination, appeared in 1995. In 1997 Squeezebox produced the album by former-Wondermint Brian Kassan’s band Chewy Marble and mixed several tracks for fellow Los Angeles group Yortise. Baby Lemonade’s second album, Exploring Music, followed in late 1998.
After its release, Squeezebox and Randle began new songwriting that sometimes strayed beyond Baby Lemonade’s established parameters, prompting simultaneous solo albums issued by eggBERT Records in May 2000. Squeezebox’s Isotopes explored fresh sonic ground by employing the studio itself as an instrument to generate a dreamlike texture. Once those solo efforts were complete, Baby Lemonade regrouped to develop the song cycle The High Life Suite.
Parallel endeavors kept him occupied throughout that decade. In 1989 he formed Treehouse with brother Eric Ramsey and ex-Bad Press colleague Garfield Wolfe; the trio later became Voodoo Love, cut a 16-track demo, and disbanded when Wolfe’s drug difficulties proved insurmountable. Reconnecting with Mike Randle in 1991, the pair began joint music-making and recording experiments that led to the 1992 formation of Baby Lemonade alongside David Green and Henry Liu (later replaced by Dave Chapple). The band gradually emerged as one of Los Angeles’s premier underground rock acts. A Troubadour performance drew the attention of ’60s cult figure Arthur Lee, who enlisted them to back him as Love on a 1993 European tour. Returning to their own project the next year, they released the Wonderful EP on Sympathy for the Record Industry. For what he assumed would be a one-off recording, the former David Ramsey adopted the pseudonym Rusty Squeezebox—taken from F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri line in the Academy Award-winning film Amadeus describing a Mozart phrase as sounding “like a rusty squeezebox”—yet the name endured. The first full-length, 68% Pure Imagination, appeared in 1995. In 1997 Squeezebox produced the album by former-Wondermint Brian Kassan’s band Chewy Marble and mixed several tracks for fellow Los Angeles group Yortise. Baby Lemonade’s second album, Exploring Music, followed in late 1998.
After its release, Squeezebox and Randle began new songwriting that sometimes strayed beyond Baby Lemonade’s established parameters, prompting simultaneous solo albums issued by eggBERT Records in May 2000. Squeezebox’s Isotopes explored fresh sonic ground by employing the studio itself as an instrument to generate a dreamlike texture. Once those solo efforts were complete, Baby Lemonade regrouped to develop the song cycle The High Life Suite.
Albums