26
Jan
Song of the Week: How Come No One’s Dancing?
Topic: TV, Movies, and Music
This week I bring you a song by Ed’s Redeeming Qualities, one of my very favorite bands. Here are a couple descriptions of what they’re like:
Ed’s Redeeming Qualities describe themselves as “a charming folk trio,” but that description fails to mention their quirky humor, odd instruments, surreal lyrics, or disrespect for genre conventions. They can go from silly to sad to poignant to really weird, all in the same song!
- Dave Mattingly
When I was twelve, I remember finding a big box of old photographs and cards in the street waiting to be taken to the dump. I took the box home and went through the whole thing slowly, getting to know a couple generations of this family’s history. It was a more intimate look than I was ready for and I quickly brought the box back outside. Listening to Ed’s Redeeming Qualities records is something like getting a close look at someone else’s life, in that the details seem too precise not to be true…
The songs are a mix of those of [Carrie] Bradley, Dan Leone and former member Dom Leone, who died of cancer in 1989. His spirit is very much alive here, having penned five of the fourteen songs on the album which are sung, mostly, by newest member [and children's book author] Jonah Winter whose resonant baritone calls to mind Dom’s own voice. Besides singing, Winter brings a variety of instruments to the mix, including accordion, tin whistle, clarinet and mandolin. Combining all those with guitar, violin, various ukuleles and a home-made one string bass makes for quite a disparate overall sound.
- HiFi’s Review of At the Fish and Game Club
The band was together from ‘88 - ‘96 (not counting the occasional reunion shows since then). They only ever had two brushes with fame: The Breeders covered their song Driving on 9, and four of their songs are on the soundtrack to the coincidentally titled Ed’s Next Move.
I saw them perform live three times, and it was always a very personal experience. Even though the shows were in nightclubs, they made me feel as if I was in their living room, and that we had all been friends for years. You will find no artifice or pretention in their music; just simple, honest feelings. And plenty to make you laugh.
Dave Mattingly’s Unofficial Ed’s Redeeming Qualities home page is the best (and, I think, only) web site for them. Dave and I got in touch when I was working at Georgetown in ‘96. At the time the only CD burner on campus was located next to my desk. Back then they were big, hard to use, very expensive machines. Blank discs were about $6 each, and our CD burner had a failure rate of about 20%. I had an original copy of the band’s cassette-only release Static and Weak Tea, and Dave had their early 45s and copies of their original demo tapes. He lent them to me so I could make digital copies and burn them onto CD. In those days I had time in my life for that sort of thing, so I probably have the world’s most complete Ed’s Redeeming Qualities collection - for whatever that’s worth 
If you’d like to get an Ed’s album, the one you’re most likely to find is their final album, At the Fish and Game Club - I do not recommend it. It is dull and lifeless compared to their earlier releases. You probably won’t find their first two studio albums (as I don’t think they’re being made anymore), but you probably can find the live album Big Grapefruit Cleanup Job. It has some excellent tracks and is a good introduction to the band.
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