Ex-Cop Shoot Cop member Tod A. founded Firewater in 1995 to pursue an amalgam of gypsy music, ska, cabaret, klezmer, and punk. After the group’s debut, 1996’s Get Off the Cross, We Need the Wood for the Fire, which announced the band’s wildly eclectic musical fusion, Firewater released several more albums, including 1998’s The Ponzi Scheme and 2003’s The Man on the Burning Tightrope. With Tod A. consistently at the helm, Firewater featured a rotating cast of musicians, including members of the Jesus Lizard, Soul Coughing, and Elysian Fields. As dedicated to adventure in life as he was in music, Tod A. traveled through south and southeast Asia in the 2000s; he wrote and recorded The Golden Hour, which was released in 2008.