Music: I Told You So by Ed Roman – Shelburne, ON

Right out of the gate, with his freshman release in 2000, Special Ed and The Musically Challenged, Ed Roman defined his paradigm with inventive, infectious tunes that shook one’s marrow and stirred the spirit…This guy is unique! Three follow-up releases with SEMC continued to mesmerize and astonish, with music that both kissed and prodded, seduced and challenged, hypnotized and enlightened…
In May 2011, Ed released his solo venture, Oracles and Ice Cream, and has never looked back. It is 22 tracks that are an amazing marvel of songwriting wizardry, prodigious performances and contagious energy, with the mystery and magic of a lucid, tantalizing dream. The music both traverses and convenes broad music styles into the consummate collective of penetrating rhythms and canyon-wide harmonic explorations, glazed with lyrics that are both poignant and whimsical.
Now, in 2014, with Letters from High Latitudes, (an homage to his Ontario, Canada home) Ed Roman has done it again, creating an earthy, funky and magical mix of music to seduce the listeners’ ears! An accomplished musician, Ed performs 90 percent of the instruments on his album, recording drums, bass, guitars, organ, vocals and even sitar! The sound is rounded out with help from some of the top Canadian session musicians like Dave Patel on drums (Sass Jordan) and Mike Freedman on electric guitars (Tia Brazda.) Sit back, get mellow and listen to this truly skillful musician weave a tapestry of enchantment from an eclectic fabric of musical styles.
One can never get too comfortable however, as Ed will undoubtedly prompt the listener to examine their world and stimulate them to make it better! Ed asks us everyone to glimpse the world from his vantage point, offering up his vision and sometimes helping to point out the areas that need tidying. Like the janitor of conscience, he’ll frequently show the cobwebs and sweep the dirt from the corners of one’s perspective. The listener is left uplifted, invigorated and enriched by dewy new jewels of insight and permeated by a mosaic of musical mayhem. Funky, ethereal, grungy, luscious, rowdy, serene, provocative, clever, insightful and uniquely exhilarating, Ed Roman’s marvelous musings drop dollops of tasteful delight through our ears to our hearts. You can’t help but dance. You can’t help but smile.
Check out this great interview about his latest single.
Why did you select this song as your current single?
I choose “I Told You So” because it reflects what is going on in the subconscious of many people today. It suggests a satirical interpretation of the day to day metaphors that we succumb to but fail to release ourselves from..
How does this single relate to the rest of the Album, EP or Mix-tape?
The single is part of a body of work that is about looking at perspectives in different ways.. I could not see the forest for the trees in front of me. The song theorizes and complements the rest of the songs that are reviewing similar perspectives.
What was the writing process for the song?
I had been really thinking a great deal about the commercial enterprise that seems to infect our daily lives and after a brief stint of watching some great films like Brazil and Network, coupled with books like a Brave New World and Atlas Shrugged found myself mossy and ripe for subject matter such as this..
What does this song’s lyric mean to you?
You never miss your water till your well runs dry… “I told you you so” is not to say in a negative way, that is to say rubbing it in ones face, but more so the idea that we may come to lament the things that we take for granted..
What would it be like to see you in person performing this song?
I like to perform this song live. I think it would like a cross between a George Carlin bit and Richie Havens. What I mean by that is that it would be very soulful and at the same time I’d leave you with that itching suspicion that something’s not right…
Could your fans summarize who you are as an artist by this song?
Well I’m a singer and a songwriter. I’m a lover of many styles of music. I’m a bass player by trade but I play many instruments, and I would say my fans would recognize it because it sounds like my energy.. My stories… My humor… My music….
Is there a video planned and or completed and if so, what was the idea behind the video?
As of now there is a studio video of me playing the instruments that nicely illustrates my vibe and recording process.. I plan on a collage of ideas for a full video as the CD has progress in the next month. Don’t want to give away to much.. Lol
One last question, what is your motivation behind your music?
Communication… I’m all about people talking to each other.. Storytelling and allowing your dreams to turn into reality…