As a member of the band Mortal Fools, I compose and then sing lead/play rhythm guitar on rocks sets based on literature classics. We play them live only once before moving onto the next project.
Wonderland Revisited (2026)
Our newest (and ongoing) project is a retelling of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Here’s a demo of the song about her changing sizes (Poor Alice):
A Christmas Carol Regifted (2026)
Our second project this year is A Christmas Carol. Here’s a demo of the song in which Marley’s ghost appears to Scrooge (Cry):
The Odyssey Retold (2025)
Our 2025 Odyssey Retold gig included a song about Calypso having to give up Odysseus. Here’s the demo of She Troubled Said:
Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reborn (2024)
Our 2024 Shakespeare gig included a song about the presence of lust in all of our lives. The song, The World Well Knows, is based on Sonnet 129:
Paradise Lost Reimagined (2023)
Our first gig turned 60,000 words of Milton into a dozen rockers. The gig kicked off with the poem’s first book; here’s the demo of With Loss of Eden:
I also make music on my own in my home studio (using ACID Pro and now Logic Pro):
Poems (2022)
These are some early experiments putting literature and poetry to music:
Ludd’s Children (2021)
My novel Ludd’s Children started out as a musical (which ultimately never materialized):
Untitled (2020)
These are random experiments in multiple-pedal shoegaze and pop rock:
Measurement: A musical experiment about physics & love (2018)
An earlier version of Measurement was a musical. Here are some of the demos I recorded for it:
Daze Before (mid-2010s)
Songs:
Curious Songs (mid-2010s)
Ditto:
Alphonso Mozart (1985)
My first experiments making music (using a FOSTEX 4-track cassette machine):