Mark Edwards/MDID is alive!

Seeing that I wrote a music-related post yesterday, I thought, hell, why not do it again? I spent most of yesterday in a sleep-deprived haze of work. Of late, I find myself listening to music again. For much of the difficult production and pre-press phase of When Towns Had Teams, I didn’t pay much attention to music in my life.

Before my son left for college, he uploaded most of my CD catalog onto his hard drive. In the process of doing that over his final few days of being home, I was aware of a lot of stuff I hadn’t listened to for awhile. Yesterday, with Mark off at college, my wife on the road and having the house to myself, I started digging out some of my old vinyl. I have a bunch of albums from my mid-90’s musical phase, the most cognizant I’ve ever been of new music. It was during that time that I was doing a radio show at Bowdoin’s WBOR and I accumulated some great stuff.

While a lot of the music from that period no longer interests and captivates me like it once did, a handful of bands and artists still seem as fresh today as they did a decade prior. One such musician is former Cleveland rocker, Mark Edwards, better known to his fans as My Dad Is Dead. Certainly, this moniker sealed all inclinations for any commercial success that Edwards might have envisioned. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t his own way of ensuring that he never joined the ranks of lame play lists on so-called “modern rock” stations.

Years ago, before blogging took hold, Edwards used to post his thoughts and and “rants” for fans to read on his website. I enjoyed reading his thoughts, opinions and views about life, music and other topics and looked forward to his irregular postings.

Listening to Edwards’ MDID album, Out of Sight, Out of Mind yesterday, I made a mental note to look up Edwards on the web. I thought he might have a blog, based on his previous penchant at posting his thoughts. As is common of late, my intentions often get sidetracked by my avalanche of pending duties, related to running an independent press and trying to work part-time to keep myself afloat, financially.

This morning, three hours into my morning, which began at 3:55 A.M., I found an interview done with Edwards by a blogger with similar musical tastes. Frequency Squared is a neat music-related blog and the writer is obviously a fan of Edwards. He conducted an interview, which led me to Edwards’ own site and blog. A reward of my search is that I am now aware of a new record coming out by Edwards, as well as finding out that he’s put his entire catalog up on his website.

He’s also got some tracks up from the new record, which sound might fine. Not a huge departure from his prior work, which I’m happy about. I always liked his distinctive vocal style, as well as his own unique guitar playing.

Stumbling across Edwards and his new record feels a lot like running into an old friend. For the uninitiated, I’d urge you to check out some of his stuff. If you like it, don’t hesitate to pick up a CD or two—the investment will reward you with hours of listening pleasure, plus you’ll be supporting an independent artist operating in the finest DIY tradition.

Here's a Pitchfork review of Edwards' previous record, Engine of Commerce, as well as an Eric Davidson (New Bomb Turks' frontman) snippet on Edwards from a Cleveland online publication, Clevescene.