I Like Tony Rogers.

December 20, 2020

[pink album]

If you’re the kind of person who thinks it’s funny when a Belgian detective gets cock blocked by a French deep sea explorer through catchy keyboard funk melodies over vintage drum machine beats, you might just love the debut album by dem Buneez. It’s only sex, after all. HEAR DEM BUNEEZ HERE.

Featured November 30, 2020

dem Buneez, from A to XXX

In the early months of Covid quarantine, my good friend and talented Daytonics frontman Nik Krimm and I finally made good on a years-long pledge to start a keyboard sex funk band. The only adjustment was that instead of playing a bunch of covers like “Afternoon Delight” and “Jack U Off” to leery cabaret audiences,…

Featured August 24, 2020

Barbie: cue.

In the midst of the global COVID19 pandemic, Tiny Bit of Giant’s Blood decided to make our third music video from the “Gigantosaur” album a socially-distantly filmed opus all the same. Collaborating again with my film student son Lincoln Rogers, I designed and filmed a series of mini-sets, then asked some very talented friends…

Five Foot Heeeeeels.

When I launched the band Tiny Bit of Giant’s Blood, the stated goal was to make people feel 10 feet tall. Not one to shy away from a literal interpretation, I set to designing building a massive pair of five-foot-heeled shoes which, along with some massive stage lights built by my collaborator and resident…

Featured March 29, 2020

If you want blood, you’ve got (an enormous amount of) it.

In the early winter of 2020, my insanely talented son Lincoln and I shot this murderous and blood-soaked video in my cold and ramshackle garage. It’s a cover of AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)” by my band Tiny Bit of Giant’s Blood, it’s on the album Gigantosaur (available everywhere) and it stars…

March 29, 2020

Tiny Bit of Giant’s Blood – The GIGANTOSAUR album!

At long last, my new band has finished and released a full length labor of lust. We’re really proud of it… it’s glam punk heavy rock that wears its influences—Queen / Bowie / Van Halen to name a few—proudly. It was recorded in late 2019, and finished just in time for a global pandemic in…

November 2, 2018

Introducing: Tiny Bit of Giant’s Blood!

After the death of Devin Arkin, my lifelong friend and songwriting / business / creative / everything partner in The Good, I felt like it was time to do something altogether different. The Good will likely perform some day, but we don’t have plans to create new material without Devin. My new band is an…

June 30, 2017

I have a song on a freaking Sam Moore album.

In the Spring of 2017, I lucked into a dream project: write and record a song with the legendary Sam Moore for a film promoting the Warrior Games in Chicago. I have just about worn out the grooves on my Sam & Dave vinyl copies: “Hold On, I’m Comin’” and “Don’t Knock It” and the…

July 8, 2016

We Got Into a Submarine, or okay a cruise ship

For the first time ever I took my family on one of those crazy Caribbean cruise ship vacations, and let’s say I had some time on my hands and also a selfie stick, and it seemed like a pretty good idea to make my own music video for one of my favorite tracks off the…

July 3, 2016

The Being Where music video, a virtual Hollywood walk of fame.

I am no stranger to music videos, but when my band was roaming the earth, there was no point to spending a lot of effort on a music video because THERE WAS NO YOUTUBE. Alas, the release of our new Concessions album ushers the release of “Being Where,” the first ever music video by The Good, directed…

May 7, 2016

A brand new album by The Good

In 1996 a young college music critic named Manny Sanchez was so inspired by the Milky White album by my band The Good that he sought out its producer—Chris Shepard—and a new career in the music production business. Almost two decades later Manny approached us with an idea to complete the circle and return the favor:a new…

June 22, 2013

Thanks for the Ride

We shot the footage for this music video in the summer of 2011 with the gorgeous Karisa Bruin in gorgeous Lemont, IL. It’s the sister video to “ILOU,” the cousin video to “You wanna get in the backseat?” and if you can follow all that, you probably own the Sycamore album. Michael Starcevich directed this…

May 13, 2013

I.L.O.U.

I wanted to make a road movie without cars. The result was this epic music video directed by Michael Starcevich for “I.L.O.U.” from the Sycamore album. It was shot in around Plainfield, IL in the sweltering summer of 2012, and features gorgeous cinematography by Miles Kerr as well as aw, snap editing by Kenan Legg…

May 1, 2013

Slip On Through

And it came to pass that the Rock & Roll Rabbi Seth Limmer organized a surprise tribute album for our great friend and Good bassist Dave Rothkopf, who, along with Dan Meyer, wrote this song for their band Down The Line. DTL was famous for soaring 3-part harmonies; I decided to replace those soaring harmonies…

September 11, 2012

The Apology Project

This is a music video for “I’m gonna do better” from the Sycamore album. it’s also an interactive website that allows you to inject your own message of atonement and send it privately (or publicly), in the music video, to somebody who maybe you done wrong. The website was designed by the crazy talented Brent…

September 4, 2012

The Septembeard Project

Over three months of the summer of 2012, I teamed up with director Lauren Loehr, animator Erik Mickelson, and illustrator Vanessa Palacio to make this epic time-lapse photography video for the charity Septembeard, raising money for prostate cancer research. The song is called “With a Beard,” and it features 30 manly Chicago men growing beards…

April 29, 2012

I Like

I wrote this song for my gorgeous wife. What can I say? I’m a sucker for happy endings. DOWNLOAD OR LISTEN TO THE SONG “I LIKE.”

February 19, 2012

Purina Pro Plan – “Great” TV spot

Not so long ago, people got bent out of shape because Nike used a Beatles song in a commercial. Now, it’s about the only way a relatively unknown music artist can get his music out to the masses. Doing a jingle is one thing (not a bad thing) but I loved the purity of this…

September 28, 2011

Wanna get in the backseat?

We asked a few musicians to drive and sing without looking at the road; of course they did it because musicians aren’t generally that cautious, and voila: the second music video for the new “Sycamore” album. No tricks or harnesses or driving rigs… we shot it all while using a not-exactly-patented 3-person driving system to…

June 16, 2011

The Father’s Day Video

On Father’s Day weekend, 2011, I released the first music video from my new “Sycamore” album. It’s in two parts: 1) a “making of” mini-documentary and 2) the music video itself. The filming process and the subsequent reactions were both overwhelming; it stands as possibly my most rewarding creative project ever. More than a video,…

April 15, 2011

The Sycamore Album

Years in the making, the Sycamore album is a song cycle that is meant to be consumed in one unadulterated blast. It’s based on an unpublished novel about a fifteen-year-old girl desperately trying to reconnect with her father, and it features moments quiet, bombastic, and just about everywhere in between. It was recorded by Chris…

November 1, 2010

The Saint Unborn

There are a lot of places I would eagerly time travel to: one of them is Leeds University on February 14, 1970, another is the breakneck stretch of days I spent reading Audrey Niffenegger’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife” for the first time. It made me a fan for life, and I wrote this mini-opera as…

January 11, 2010

Interstellar

In January of 2010, The Good broke a 10-year recording hiatus with the release of a new single, “Interstellar.” What made the track special was that it was recorded by Manny Sanchez, who was inspired enough by our “Milky White” album in 1997 to seek out its producer, Chris Shepard, for an engineering internship. Years…

October 6, 2009

Mustache Ride

This somewhat notorious music video (my first) has similarly-named competition from some pretty trashy fare. But this video, directed by Michael Starcevich, is a PG-rated (if even) affair that was created to help gain exposure for Movember, a terrific charity that encourages men to grow mustaches during the month of November to help fight men’s…

January 15, 2009

Alphabites

A is for AC/DC… W is for Weezer! I created this song and stop-motion music video with my children to help them memorize their ABC’s. I’m no educator, but I think cannibal pigs help in the learning process. And WTTW (Chicago’s PBS station) obviously agreed, since they picked up the video for use during children’s…

July 9, 2008

The Stopsign video

In 2008, I led the creative development of an internal client video (Coc—who shall remain nameless) that became a YouTube sensation. Millions of views later (it’s been posted and reposted in multiple languages), it’s clear that a lot of people know what it feels like to have something micro-managed all the way into hell. It…

February 11, 2005

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

When my super talented friend, author Amy Krouse Rosenthal, asked me to record a song to accompany her upcoming non-fiction book “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” (now a bestseller), I quickly and happily plowed through her manuscript and wrote a song I was pretty excited about. I sent a demo to Amy, and a couple…

July 28, 2003

Pop Psychology

Earlier this century, my friend and director Michael Starcevich and I staged a one-man musical called Pop Psychology: The Modern Relationship Seminar Musical. It played like a sing-along romance seminar full of mostly original music—plus all original overhead slides—and it garnered lots of positive attention from critics and theatergoers around Chicago and nationwide. The show…

June 11, 1998

Shiny Ass Pants

The Good is a band I formed with my great friend and frequent musical collaborator Devin Arkin in the early 90’s. By 1997, we settled into our current incarnation, which includes guitarist John Scholvin, bassist Dave Rothkopf, and drummer John Goodman (not that John Goodman). In our heyday we performed hundreds of shows all over…