Ed preformed solo for 3 years traveling the country with his voice and a drum. He was asked to play a rave in Baltimore. Looking to expand his performance, he asked Devlin to join him onstage with his bass. Since then the two have been making rock music of the finest variety, with their sights on the world.
There are hundreds of songs about the struggling artiste, but few of them get heard when the artist in question is presently in those trenches of obscurity. Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, a wily punk duo from Baltimore, have nothing to lose and that’s why their third album “Riddles” is bursting with heart in all different ways — from the rubbery rattle of “Dunce” and “Rust” to fluttery, New Romantic numbers like “Kid Radium” and “Seagull.” These are anthems about perseverance, for people who deserve a little beauty at the end of a graveyard shift, by a guy who literally wrote the lyrics from the back of a restaurant kitchen washing dishes. The title track is a luminescent piano-driven gem (thanks to producer Dan Deacon) about breaking into a country club with your poor, weird friends, but the way Schrader and Rice perform, it’s straight-up “Thunder Road” from the gutter.
Devlin Rice,
The Fat Angel Sings 