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.
A Christmas Carol Regifted (2026)
Our new, ongoing project is A Christmas Carol. Here’s a demo of the song in which Marley’s ghost appears to Scrooge (Cry):
Wonderland Revisited (2026)
Our last project was a retelling of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Here’s a demo of the song about her changing sizes (Poor Alice):
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):