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Ed Rashed

Last Updated: 11/24/2009

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Status: Single
State: Rhode Island
Country: US
Signup Date: 11/15/2008

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Monday, February 16, 2009

Lives and Times of The Repercussionists

The Repercussionists:

• Keyboardist Ed Rashed has been writing, arranging, playing, and singing professionally since the 1960s, and has performed on stages up and down the East Coast and on both sides of the Atlantic. Aside from ((((The Repercussions)))), he currently performs with Band of Brothers, funk band Wayz & Means, and is Music Director at Saint Thomas More Church in Narragansett, RI. Former bands include Blueswagon, Ragwagon, Tanoose, Contact, The Shamblers, Billy and the Kids, Bop-A-Gon, The Wanderers, and Kingsnake. Ed enjoyed a 20 year run with RI's unique statewide school dance program, A Chance to Dance, working as music director, class musician, and pit band member for the annual shows at Providence Performing Arts Center. He has written and directed music for more than twenty theatrical productions with Trinity Rep, Alias Stage, The RI Shakespeare Theater and others, has had his songs performed and recorded by several artists, and his orchestral compositions performed in concert. He has been a session player on several recording projects including Grammy Award winning artist Bill Harley's Big Big World, and has released two CDs of his own: Big Book Of Love and Wrong Side Of The Door. Ed hasn't decided what he wants to be when he grows up.

   • Guitarist Nick Smith, aka Nicky The Thumb, has also been writing and performing music since the 1960s, and although his paths have crossed with Ed's and Jack's along the way, this is the first time the three have collaborated on a project. Nick started with folk, blues and rock, and has continually expanded his repertoire. He plays and sings all the major musical genres, including jazz, classical, gospel, pop, standards and show tunes, country, Celtic and “old-timey music.” Current projects outside of ((((The Repercussions)))) include his jazz group The Patterson Smith Trio, and a classical act, The Ligia & Nick Guitar Duo. He also sits in occasionally with the rock ensemble Nasty Habits. Nick was a founder of the legendary Pop-Rock band Nicky & The Triangles, for which he wrote and collaborated on a collection of very catchy tunes. Nick is also an alumnus of the bands Slippery Elm, Mirage, The Beatniks and 9-1-1. An accomplished and award winning surfer, he is the only known human being who can simultaneously whistle "The Halleluia Chorus," and hum "Louie Louie" while riding a wave.

   • Bassist Bill Marrocco, alias Sonny Paradise, is another 40+ year veteran of the Southeastern New England music scene, and ((((The Repercussions)))) is his second musical collaboration with Ed Rashed. He is a founding member of Range of Motion and an alumnus of The Boys of Summer, Crazy Chester, and the Ken Lyon Band. He has shared the stage with such musicians as Molly Hatchett, Ian Hunter, and the Mamas and the Papas, as well as local favorite John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Bill is also a ceramics artist who has displayed at The Smithsonian. He likes nothing better than staying at home cooking gourmet Italian, and sipping fine wine.

    • Drummer Jack "Jaws" Ezikovich, also a well known veteran of the local and national music scene, has worked with Ed many times over the years in noted local bands and recording projects, including laying down most of the drum tracks for Ed's CDs. He currently drives the beat of the nationally acclaimed Cajun band Magnolia, recording and performing at dances and festivals throughout the US and Canada, and performs regularly with Louisiana legends Mark and Ann Savoy, Jesse Lege and Ed Poullard during their Northeast tours. Jack's former bands include Nova, Fat Man Wilson and the Sliders, The Other Half, Tanoose, The Shamblers, Bop-A-Gon, OK Chorale and The Ravens. Jack claims to have made "literally hundreds of dollars" in his 40 year musical career.

2:59 AM

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

12 Musical Excursions Every Musician Must Take!

It amazes me sometimes to learn that some really fine musicians I know have never sat and listened – really listened with full attention – to a single musical masterpiece by one of the all time geniuses of the musical art. Too sad, what they're missing. Doesn't matter what genre you prefer. Screw genres anyway. I'm getting a little tired of the whole concept of genres. Nothing but another way to keep people from talking to each other.

Maybe we've all been over-conditioned to associate orchestral music with movie backgrounds, easy listening elevator arrangements, and sonic wallpaper in general. Well, bad association. If you think that way, maybe you are missing out on some extraordinary beauty and wisdom, wrenching sadness, uplifting and sublime toe-tapping stuff that will move you because it is simply some of the most eloquent and powerful passages written in the language that you already understand best.

It is also stuff that requires you to stop and let it inside. That's the price you have to pay for the magic. I wish I could just give each of my musical friends an hour a week for the next year to do nothing but relax and listen to some great masterworks that have moved me over the years.

For now, here are the first 12 weeks worth. You can take it from there. Try one, and if that proves to be good enough, try another! Maybe you know me personally - would I steer you wrong? No way. Please! Life is short. Don't let it go by without hearing at least some of this genius! Then get back to me with something you've discovered that maybe I haven't heard.

Here are my 12 musical excursions that every (yes, Every!) musician must take, in my estimation - this means really listening, uninterrupted, un-distracted, live in a concert hall or through an excellent stereo system.

Of course there are many other choices, but this is my own personal starter list, and I have confidence that it would be a good starting point for others who have not yet fully discovered the world of the Masters. Find out why this music is still played, listened to, sought after, considered important, gushed over, bought, copied, recommended, danced, experienced, talked about, loved, repeatedly enjoyed, and why it continues to inspire countless others, hundreds of years after it was created!

Have you written music that will be listened to regularly 200 years from now? (Just asking.) Enjoy!

Mozart Symphonies 35, 40, 41

Beethoven Symphonies 3, 5, 7, 9

Brahms Symphony No. 1

Schumann Symphony No. 1

Ravel Le Tombeau de Couperin

Mahler Symphony No. 4, and for the more adventurous,

Stravinsky Octet for Winds

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