We first met Daniel Ralston during the first year of Philebrity, when we bought a used digital camera from him off Craigslist. Back then, he was very active in the Kensington South CDC and its accompanying short-lived music venue, the Kensington South Forum. In the last year or two, though, Ralston has been focusing on his band, which started out as a group called Our Kid but eventually wound up being called Greyhounds. The band — which draws on blue-collar rock in an almost English way a la The Jam or Orange Juice — just released its first single, “No Slogans In ’76,” and plays this Sunday at a Khyber bash for the Girl About Town blog with Eastern Conference Champions, The Sky Drops and more. After the jump, Daniel talks about the song’s history, what he’s digging these days and his secret past as The Posi Guy.

Hi Daniel! Congrats on the notices of your band Greyhounds that are starting to come out. A lot of them mention your debut single, “No Slogans In ’76,” which I believe is a reference to a bit of obscure Philly history, right?

Correct. I used to manage a non-profit in North Philadelphia, and were part of a group working to do community outreach around Temple. At one of our meetings I got to talking to a group of guys who were part of Men United, the long-running anti-violence orgaenization here in the the city. They were telling me that in the mid 70′s gang violence was so bad that the city had these campaigns, with t-shirts, posters, etc… In 1974 the slogan for the campaign was “No War in ’74″ in 1975 it was “stay alive in ’75, and in 1976 it was “No Slogans in ’76″.
That is where the song started, it is actually about facing up to the fact that you are very far from the person you were when you were younger.

Tell me about how Greyhounds morphed from its baby self, the band you had with your brother, Our Kid.

Our Kid was started as an outlet for me and my little brother David, who is now conquering the restaurant world of Los Angeles. He is a chef at a restuarant frquented by guests of the Price is Right. He left town, and Mike Black (our kid guitarist) decided to leave. That is the short version, the long version is the same, xcept it features more backstabbing! Greyhounds in now myself, Jon (who I have played with on and off for 10 years), Peewee (bass), and Colin (from Remote Islands).

Can we reveal, at long last, that you are/were The Posi Guy?

So let it be written! I can now tell the world that I loved Live 8, dislike Sufjan Stevens, and listen to sports talk radio all afternoon. (I can’t believe you got Gargano for your movie night! amazing.
Some other things I have been Posi about lately:
- That new Destroyer song “Foam Hands”
- Idolator (which might irk you)
- The Best Show in WFMU
- Scrabble
- Popol Vuh

Why would Idolator irk me? Actually, I find it the perfect antidote and middle ground between, the Fork, the Gum and every other increasingly dumb publicist-fed mp3 blog out there. How’s that for an endorsement?

That is great…I feel like a lot of peple lump them in with the “music blogs”, and I thought you might be guilty of the same. No slight intended! I feel like Idolator gets it right, they bother to actually dislike things, which is a nice respite from the usual.
I don’t mind all positive (like the young ladies doing the show we are playing Sunday), but you can tell that it is publicist free, and they just like what they like.

Agreed. Last question: How’s the R5 basketball team doing?

We had a rough end to our season. Lost in the first round of the playoffs. New season starts next week, so we live to fight another day. Thanks sweetheart!

Make it great in 2008. Thanks, Daniel!

Greyhounds’ debut single will be available at their shows, and also on their MySpace page. It bears mentioning that it is on white vinyl, in a hand-painted/silkscreened cover, limited to 300. In case you like that sort of thing.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 3:39 pm.