A quirky folk group who defy an easy placement in genre, Ed's Redeeming Qualities' instrumentation -- guitar, violin, ukulele, bongos, accordion, cardboard bass, and drum -- suggests folk music and the songs run the gamut of influences from rock, country, calypso, and klezmer. A reviewer described them as the "David Lynch of folk music," which is as apt a description as anyone has come up with. With a penchant for writing simple, affecting melodies with sophisticated wordplay that makes one either laugh out loud, smile, or scratch one's head in confusion (and sometimes all three simultaneously) along with live performances that ran the gamut from brilliant to painful, ERQ amassed a strong cult following, which hasn't subsided with the band's demise.