My Dad Is Dead

This seems to be a one-person band, consisting only of Mark Edwards, although he does often use "we" when talking about the band--even when it was just him and a drum machine. Input, anyone?

[www.trouserpress.com] http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=my_dad_is_dead :
Actually the work of a person rather than a band, My Dad Is Dead's voluminous output has plainly explored the troubled waters of the soul, both personal and philosophical. Under his open-to-misinterpretation nom de disc, Cleveland (later transplanted to North Carolina) singer-writer-one-man-band Mark Edwards makes music whose appeal lies largely in its matter-of-fact handling of trauma. ... Leaving the Homestead label, Edwards borrowed the Prisonshake rhythm section and released an impressive eight-song double-7-inch, Shine...

[www.myspace.com] http://www.myspace.com/mydadisdead :
Band Members
Mark Edwards - Guitars, Vocals, Drums, Bass

Contributors over the years: Chris Burgess - Bass Jeff Curtis - Bass Tim Gilbride - Guitar Doug Gillard - Guitar/Drums Shayne Ivy - Drums Scott Lasch - Bass John McEntire - Drums Scott Pickering - Drums Matt Swanson - Bass

[www.crimewaveusa.com] http://www.crimewaveusa.com/pages/articlepages/mdid.html :
I've heard a rumors that you were thinking of calling an end to the band. Are they true?

As far as "the end of the band" goes, I’m kind of leaving it as a we'll see what happens thing. My main focus over the next couple of years is to get far enough out of debt that I can afford to purchase some decent recording equipment, and eliminate the issue of having to spend $3-5,000 every time I want to record something. After that, who knows, maybe technology will have advanced far enough that I won’t even need to manufacture anything. Maybe I can just put the songs up on the web. So, as a long winded answer to yr question, My Dad Is Dead (MDID) is not "officially" dead, but you won't see any new release in 1998 and probably not for at least the first half of '99.
...
All of my records represent my "vision" at the time they are done.

[frequencysquared.blogspot.com] http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2005/04/my-dad-is-dead-interview.html :

JE: Did you record it with a backing band as you did with Everyone Wants the Honey? Or is it one-man-band stuff like your first few albums with Homestead?

ME: This one was very much intentionally a band record. Past contributors to MDID records Chris Burgess (bass), Scott Pickering (drums), Tim Gilbride (guitar), and Scott Lasch (bass) all help out on this one. I went into some debt to record it, and hope that fans will see it as a sonic improvement over the last one.

...

I've been lucky to enjoy the help of a lot of people over the years who have endured my pompousness and released my records. The fact is, small as my current audience may be, no one at all would know who I was were it not for Homestead, and I'll always be grateful to Gerard Cosloy for signing the band back in 1986.

...

The last time we played live was almost 8 years ago, when we did the self booked tour for Everyone Wants the Honey. Audiences for that ranged between 35-150. We still made some money because we played almost every night and traveled on the cheap. But, there’s really no plan to tour at this point. It would have to make sense, and make money (at least enough to pay the band members).

When I did some of the research on this, I gleaned that the project was started as a one-man-band effort, then evolved into a multi-person band. Later releases did seem to be described with a definite band-ness about them that earlier ones did not. If that helps ...

That was my assessment at first too. He clearly started the band with him as the sole instrumentalist and then later hired guys to back him on albums and on tour. But the question remains whether the backing band members can be considered legitimate members of MDID or just "contributors," which is what he calls them in interviews and on his myspace page. It seems to me that he's making a conscious distinction between members (him) and contributors (everyone else).

I emailed Mark Edwards and this is his response:

---

Hi Mark,

I have always been the only songwriter in MDID, although backing musicians always had input into arrangements, tempos, wrote their own lead parts, etc..

So, while the basics of the songs would have still existed without the backing band members, they would have sounded quite a bit different.

I would consider those that have appeared on records "members" of the band for however brief that period may have been, as most of them took part in extensive touring as well as the above mentioned input..

Primary members (appeared on several records and were a stable part of the band for more than 2 years)

Scott Pickering
Chris Burgess
Jeff Curtis
Matt Swanson
Shayne Ivy

Secondary members (appeared on individual songs on some records and did some touring)

Tim Gilbride
John McEntire
Doug Gillard
Robert Griffin
Scott Lasch

To make a long story short, I am technically the only "permanent" member.. others come and go depending on availability, suitability to the tunes at hand, etc..

by the way, I see that your website mentions only 4 MDID releases.. if you have the time/inclination, links to the other 8 releases, including the latest, "A Divided House" would be appreciated.

[www.mydadisdead.com] http://www.mydadisdead.com/music/discog/index.html

Thanks for your interest!

Yeah, all the rest of the MDID releases are in the Q awaiting attention. Goodness, one of them's just gone in just now.