Sound UbuWeb

Ed Schneider 1. Spasapalooza 2. Motors and Such 3. Rapcure 4. Commercial Free Canada Notes Ed Schneider - Ed was an artist/all round eccentric who lived in Waterloo, Ontario Canada up until 5 or 6 years ago. (he died a few years ago ... I'm a little dismayed that I don't know when that was). Ed was primarily a painter of abstracts that adorn the original copies of his cassettes and were the subject of occasional shows around town (at one I went to he had hung his paintings 3 high around the entire room with no space between them). Sometimes on weekends he'd go to a friend's house in the country where, after a few drinks, he'd get out a cheap cassette recorder and improvise on some theme or other, then release the cassette to the local campus radio station and anyone else who would listen. They were entirely composed of him talking and doing sound effects such as Motors and Such ... that one being all Ed making car sounds and giggling. These things became cult objects around town and Ed became encouraged and put out about 10 of the things. Some of these are actually quite amazing as Ed spontaneously recites things in great detail (Commercial Free Canada is all old TV commercials off the top of his head). Ed had enough problems that he was on a disability pension but he was quite bright and had a bizarrely complete memory of virtually every day in his life. The one recording here that is a little different is Spasapallooza. At the height of his "fame" Ed was invited perform at a mini-festival of bands with no perceivable talent at CKMS in Waterloo ... (my talent-free band included). Nobody had any idea what Ed would do live ... he sat in front of the mic and proceeded to sing an entire "radio show" of Zappa, Tom Waits, the Ramones, Commander Cody and about 10 others, without notes. We all stared in amazement.