Firewater was a supergroup formed by Tod Ashley (leader of Cop Shoot Cop), Dave Ouimet (Motherhead Bug), Duane Denison (Jesus Lizard), Jim Kimble (Laughing Hyenas), and Yuval Gabay (Soul Coughing), which debuted with Get Off The Cross (Jetset, 1997).

Unlike what usually happens with supergroups, this time the result is both captivating and unpredictable. Captivating because each song is set against a “noir” rock backdrop arranged almost baroquely (with instruments including violin, clarinet, trombone, accordion, and bouzouki), and unpredictable because the sound settles into a paleo-gothic purgatory inhabited by Tom Waits and Nick Cave, miles away from the hardcore (industrial or otherwise) of their previous bands.
The dazzling instrumental pyrotechnics showcased in tracks like Bourbon & Division and Circus are even used to enhance more conventional songs such as Some Strange Reaction and I Am The Rain, which in their original bands might have earned them relentless floggings. The hope is that this slightly more accessible effort at least draws attention to legendary bands like Laughing Hyenas and Cop Shoot Cop, who arguably shaped rock history more than Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins.

Tod Ashley’s religious conversion fuels The Ponzi Scheme (Jetset, 1998). The lineup was expanded with violinist Hahn Rowe (Foetus, Hugo Largo), saxophonist Kurt Hoffman (Jon Spencer), trumpeter Doug Henderson, cellist Jane Scarpantoni, and others—but in reality, this is essentially an Ashley solo album, composed almost entirely by him with help from a group of friends.
This is his confessional album, where he can unleash a soul torn apart by a deep existential crisis. Unsurprisingly, Ashley indulges his klezmer roots (Ponzi's Theme and El Borracho) and borrows the mood of gospel (culminating in the epileptic Knock 'Em Down, which would make even Nick Cave of Good Son shiver). Musically, the album is framed by two bookends: the apocalyptic garage rock of Green Light and the sardonic dance of So Long Superman.
After the folk ballad Caroline, Ashley drifts into a series of “noir” themes that form a kind of travel diary through depressing landscapes: in the tradition of Nick Cave and Tom Waits, he barks in Whistling In The Dark, intones the funeral march of Isle Of Dogs, rants in the macabre tableau of I Still Love You Judas, and fades in the decadent blues of Drunkard's Lament.
The arrangements follow the singer’s moral vicissitudes, with guitars, cellos, violins, keyboards, and other elements building atmospheres of suspense and contrition (notably the saxophone and Slavic rhythms of Another Perfect Catastrophe). The raw energy of Cop Shoot Cop has diminished into the agonized Dropping Like Flies. Firewater is no longer an avant-garde combo—they are a songwriter gasping in the dark.

The mood of Psychopharmacology (Jetset, 2001) is almost gothic, but the sounds are almost garage-rock. The arrangement is stripped-down (compared with the previous albums) but the emphasis is apocalyptic. Fell Off the Face of the Earth and Car Crash Collaboration are songs that feed on sonic contradiction. The good and bad news is that Tod Ashley's melancholia has become endemic, and, besides being pretty much the only theme of the lyrics, it downplays the horror-shock shtick and increasingly favors morbid and convoluted structures, as in 7th Avenue Static (with Hugo Largo's Hahn Rowe guesting on violin) and Bad Bad World (a duet with Elysian Fields' singer Jennifer Charles).

The Man on the Burning Tightrope (Jetset, 2003) abandons the conventional format of Psychopharmacology and returns to the eccentric arrangements of The Ponzi Scheme. Anything at All and The Man on the Burning Tightrope make creative use of instrumentation, while the bizarre dynamics of Too Many Angels, The Dog and Pony Show, Too Much, Dark Days Indeed, Ponzi's Revenge, The Song that Saved My Life create an insane vaudeville of ideas gone wrong.

Songs We Should Have Written (Jetset, 2003) is a cover album.

The Golden Hour (Bloodshot, 2008) is by far the most conventional and safe work of Tod Ashley's career. The songs are just that: songs. They are angry, but hardly anything that would surprise the average angry USA citizen in the Bush II era. Ashley has been traveling and spends a lot of time boasting (musically boasting) of his acquired world knowledge, and may have missed how the times have changed in his home country. Borneo is interesting. The rest is not repetitive but, alas, dejavu for anyone who has been listening to the music of the last decade.