Marty Monsalve was born in Glendale California on August 14th, 1963. His mother was a native from Oklahoma and his father immigrated to the United States from Colombia. He spent the first two years of his life living in La Crescenta, Ca. He was uprooted and moved 50 miles away to Thousand Oaks, Ca where he spent his first 15 years making friends, going to school, backpacking, kissing girls, and playing soccer. Another thing he did for 15 years was crowd his older brother Carl's stereo and record collection. Venture into the world of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Band, The Beatles, Elton John, and National Lampoon, he did. Describe this in linguistic pattern like Yoda, I have.

One particular evening, perhaps in late December of 1978, he visited his extremely long time friend (even at that point of his life) Alan Ewald in Alan's infamous "music room". On this particular evening Alan revealed to Marty that he had saved up enough cash to acquisition a 1978 Fender Stratocaster guitar. This bit of materialistic purchase angered Marty into rage where he vowed to have an axe of his own. He threw things about the "music room" and declared "you bastard. Your soul will be mine. I too will gets me one of them thar things and the blood will be sucked from your ears and eyes

Everything written is in the cyan color is over dramatizing the story, making it slightly not true

Marty took up working for the EMCA where he saved up enough money to purchase his own Fender guitar (excepting his was blonde Telecaster). Take note of the picture, we cut back on fancy microphone stands just so we could purchase our bleeping guitars. Marty then paraded around, in his own sadistic and tormenting way, his new fancy blonde guitar in my presence, Mike, Marty's brother. ha ha, I have a guitar, eat my sound waves and so on and so on

I went out and purchased up a burgundy Rickenbacker, model 4001. Touche, don't mess with me, I'll bass you up. In October of 1979 the four of us (Alan, Marty, Mike, and Rick) ponied it in together to get a drumkit. A garage band was born, as if garage land wasn't already overpopulated with garage bands. We ended up calling ourselves "The Ushers

So we started out playing with ourselves (mind your thoughts), and then the small parties, which eventually graduated into Los Angeles clubs. It's a natural transgression, one that occurs almost daily. Marty was a funny sort about playing the live shows. He got these things in his stomach called "knots" and at some points I thought he was going to throw them up (better get a bucket)

At one point he headed off to college (CSUC, CSUN) and then off to work. He continued to play with the band, expanding his musical horizons, deepening his emotional bond with words and songs. In my opinion he was the most religious about music in the band

A time came in his life where Marty had to wander off to the high country. His love of music was only rivaled by his love for the great outdoors. For Marty, it was time for him to go off to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Soon after his departure he had made Alan a mixed tape of the band but typoed .... er, poor spelling (he used a pen) he wrote "The Users" on the tape case instead of "The Ushers". And so that became our name

He would return to the Los Angeles area from time to time and when he did we would play with him. When he didn't we would play without him. He recorded the first album with us "Friendly", contributing with the "SPEAK TO ME NOW" demand at the beginning of Jam time, the construction of the song "The Meld", and an acoustic guitar track on the song "Vodka Wisconsin Orgy". Not to mention the big overall influence he had on all the tracks

He contributed even more on the second CD "Little Bag of Hope". He was a key element in the writing of "Hollow Head", an old Ushers song, he wrote the music , plays the acoustic, and sings backup in "Let It Go", is the sound guitar on 23726 (not lead but the other guitar. Think Jonny Greenwood), and wrote and sang "Something New"

We were returning to recording, of which I have other things he did stuck on a multitrack machine. Marty was making more trips when he could. Even sometimes when he couldn't. That's right, he couldn't come, he didn't arrive, and there was no playing. But he was still there.

While wedged in the Sierra foothills he met a girl named Natalie. They fell in love, then fought, then fell in love, then fought some other times, then finally they hated each other so much they decided to marry.

But sadly, 11 days later, Marty was killed in a car accident March 15th, 2005 on Highway 41, some miles out of the Yosemite National Park. It is a passing I think about every day, even moreso today as tomorrow would've been his 45th birthday.

He is survived by his mother and father, two older brothers, one younger sister, and a lot of friends who miss him very much. Even one who never met him yet misses him as well

Anyway, that's the take and that's what happens. If you ever think it doesn't happen to you then I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. I stand by that stand