What We Do

That Old Car is Worth Money is a Chicago-based recording project that plays short, sweet, catchy and sharp music. Influences range from The Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen, Devo, Buddy Holly and The Beatles. We produce straight rock combined with gentle, acoustic song, sincere lyrics and strong hooks!

The Raspberry Jam Sessions

The name of this album comes from something I said to my wife on our honeymoon. No, get your mind out of the gutter! That's not what I'm talking about. Besides, we're more whipped cream people.

Seriously, it was the day after our wedding and we were eating breakfast at Drake Brothers. (You should really treat yourself to it sometime, by the way, they have an excellent breakfast buffet.) We had spent the night at the Drake and were basking in our marital bliss. Sometime while enjoying during the succulent and sweet medley on my plate, I looked and saw a miniature jar of raspberry preserves on the table. I had a piece of buttered toast and spread the preserves on it. When I took a bite, it tasted, well, perfect. The moment, and the whole day was perfect. It was bliss. I told Stace that when all of life is perfect it's like "raspberry jam". She laughed and took a bite of toast. Her eyes lit up and we laughed together. Ever since, it's been an inside joke for us. When we decided to get tattoos of the phrase, we each got one: mine on my shoulder and Stacy's on her wrist.

So, when I thought to put these songs out as a collection I thought of our inside joke. Our other inside jokes would make even less sense as an album title or anything else for that matter. "I never thought about chimps having families before" will have to wait for some kind of comeback tour.

You can see Stacy's ink on the inside cover of the CD.  To see mine, we'd have to set up some kind of meeting where I'd take off my shirt and I'm not into that kind of thing.

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The Songs

First Star

I wanted to write an upbeat song you could really sing along with and play loud. It told the story of an ideal night out. The chorus is the old trick of na-na-na on a melody. Plus it kinda says it all in saying nothing at all. It's just good Saturday night fun. I put some personal things in there with Stacy's favorite colors (purple, brown and silver).

Love is All

I had the music for this song for a few months. I had the melody but no words. Somewhere along the way I started singing All You Need is Love to this odd melody and it worked. Well, in my head it worked. Recording it was a great chance to play several guitars. Tom "Frankensteined" the solo together from two takes and Pat had the idea of a cowbell introduction.

Pi of the Future

Clarissa ("Claire") is my teenage stepdaughter. I wrote this song for her. When Stace and my relationship started to become more serious , I knew I wanted to get to know and love Claire. That was easy. Claire is a very creative and quirky girl, and at that time she was in a "pi" phase. She had learned about pi in school and it had become inside joke with her and her friends to randomly say "pi" until they were on the floor, laughing in the way only teen agers can do. So in an inspired five minutes, I wrote the song to impress my new friend.

In Sunshine

Finger-picking is my favorite way to play acoustic guitar. Once I had the basic melody for this song, I knew it would be very tender and gentle. At that time, I was also very much in the "wooing" stage of things with Stace, and the melody and the subject matter worked great. It was a very transforming time in both our lives for a lot reasons and we took each other's blues away. Pat, Bryan, Tom and Stace all sound great.

The Oak Lawn Rag

I had the music for this for a long time when I asked Tim and Pat if they'd like to play on it. We three played in The Dan Whitaker Country Band (now The Shinebenders) and I'd always liked the way Tim and Pat played up-tempo country. We had all the basic music tracks recorded before I had a single word. By the time Neil came over the play his blistering lead, I had the idea down. Writing about experience again, I looked around and found inspiration at home.

The Whistling Song

About three months after recording The Oak Lawn Rag, Tim, Pat and I recorded again. Stacy provided the lyrics and I always like to whistle. The ambiguity of the story is one of the things I really like about it. It's an unfinished tale about a brief slice of life and leaves a great deal of interpretation to the listener.

Let's Get On The Floor

This is another song written to woo . Stace and I are both Bob Marley fans so I wanted to write something in his style. It's a playful little story about life as parents: balancing responsibilities like getting the kids to bed with other parts of life. :) Musically, the song really came together.  Pat and Al nail the rhythm, Bryan's double-tracked vocals mixed with Stacy's sound rich, and the Jamaican keyboard tone Tom found just   made the fun mood.

The Ones We Are

I am Lou Reed fan and when I wrote this song, I knew I wanted to capture a distorted, gritty song with some of his style. "We're saints with sin/But I wouldn't change where we've been" was really how I saw Stacy and me at that time. We were together for better or worse, richer or poorer, warts and all. I think the band really knocks this one out of the park; in particular Bryan's vocal talents really shine.