If you time traveled back to any of the first five years of the 21st century, and you walked into the Mercury Theater, Davenport's, or Schuba's in Chicago, you'd have a really decent chance of walking in on Tony wearing a nappy red sweater vest and exhorting a room full of couples into fun and rousing singalongs about love, sex, taking out the garbage, and laying waste to the best thing that ever happened to you.
This unique experience was collectively known as POP PSYCHOLOGY, which Tony dubiously referred to as the world's first relationship seminar musical. With the show came another collection of original music, recorded by Scott Ramsayer, featuring a lot of usual suspects, as well as a makeshift choir and a small orchestra.
I have to say, I loved this show, and I love this music, in spite of the fact that it made me open up emotionally to my girlfriend of the time. Trust me, this wasn't a good idea for anybody involved.
The show was concocted with the assistance of director Michael Starcevich. Steve Kouba and Tyler Nash split piano duties over the years, with Tad Santos playing a fairly regular bassist role and Mike Mooney doing something with all those knobs and buttons in the sound booth. The Mercury Theater edition was produced by Broadway hotshot Darren Cole.
The show and the album earned rave reviews from the local press (it was "highly recommended" by both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times)... it even created a date and destroyed a relationship between two completely random people every night (not including mine). Some of those people apparantly went on to date for real!
The show is not currently active, but Tony has not yet razed its monument in cyberspace: PopPsychology.com
To listen to Pop Psychology music, go pound on the jukebox.