In his early twenties, after stints in Bay Area rock outfits like Erasergun and the Vulvettes, he acquired an accordion, moved to Chicago, and assumed the pseudonym the Thin Man. Greenrod assembled a collective of some of the Windy City's more eclectic musicians -- Jessica Billey (Smog), Tim McConville (We Ragazzi), and John Stanton (Martian Electric) -- to record his debut, A Cloud in Trousers. The album was a hit with critics and local audiences, resulting in a flurry of sold-out shows with artists as diverse as Andrew Bird, the Blacks, and Jim White. In 2004 he released H.M.S. Mondegreen on Skin and Bones Records, a sinister and sparse collection of waltzes and dirges laced with country-soul that echoes the works of Tom Waits and Johnny Cash. ~ James Christopher Monger