TONY PLATT, engineer and co-producer of PROG, is a freelance Music Engineer/Producer based in the U.K. His career in the music business started at Trident Studios in London. He made his name as an engineer at the now legendary Island Studios and he has subsequently worked in most of the best studios around the world recording some of the best artists including Bob Marley, AC/DC, Buddy Guy and more recently The Bad Plus.
Embracing the philosophy of enhancing music by the use of technology rather than allowing the technology to dictate, he has always kept very much apace with the rapid advances in audio and music technology that are taking place and a constant desire to try new recording techniques and musical styles has led him to involvement with artists from many musical genres.
This involvement often takes the form of artist development and to this end, he recently joined with Haydn Bendall, former Abbey Road engineer/producer to share a small studio at The Strongroom to enable them to more economically work with artists on limited budgets.
His full discography and biography can be found on his website 
platinumtones, along with examples of more recent work and contact info.
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TCHAD BLAKE engineered and co-produced SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY?, GIVE, and THESE ARE THE VISTAS. His extensive discography, includes work with Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Los Lobos, and Sheryl Crow. Tchad's work is a blend of lo-fi and high tech: he makes sure to leave the grit and sweat of a band intact, balancing the unnaturally clean quality of digital sound. One of his trademarks in the use of binaural microphones, which are literally heads (human in shape) that capture what two ears hear. Tchad received a Grammy nomination for Best Engineered Album (Non-classical) for GIVE.
DAVID REES designed the cover and booklet for SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY? Rees burst on the scene post-9/11 with a collection of political cartoons called GET YOUR WAR ON, which skewered the Bush administration's War on Terror. Soon to follow were the volumes MY NEW FIGHTING TECHNIQUE IS UNSTOPPABLE and MY NEW FILING TECHNIQUE IS UNSTOPPABLE. Rees' work explores the unsettling quality of everyday life gone amok: the everyday life can be doing office errands, practicing karate, or bombing Afghanistan, but in every instance Rees reveals the madness and hypocrisy that lurks just beneath the quotidian surface. This everyday quality is emphasized by Rees' preferred medium, clip-art. (In the case of SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY?, the fine artist/illustrator DOUG TALLALA supplied clip-art versions of the band.) Royalties from GET YOUR WAR ON and GET YOUR WAR ON II are donated to Afghanistan landmine removal. More on David Rees' website 'mnftiu'.
Saint Paul homeboy MATT FRIESEN drew the cover of GIVE. Friesen is most often busy as a cabinet-maker and furniture-builder, but has also produced artwork for some of his favorite musicians, including The Bad Plus, Happy Apple, Love-Cars, The Few Nice Words, and Halloween, Alaska. His work, which views the world through a fractured and distorted lens, can be seen on cotton-clad torsos everywhere (and in most of the rooms in Dave King's house). Matt also plays bass in Halloween, Alaska.
---American artist STEPHEN COLLIER created the paintings ROBONAUT, ORD, and BINARY UNIT used as album art for THESE ARE THE VISTAS. (ROBONAUT is the iconic cover painting.) His works have been exhibited at the Bronx River Art Center, New Orleans Museum of Art, the Lincoln Center in New York City and numerous galleries in the United States. He works in a wide range of media including photography, painting, sculpture, sound, and video. His work explores issues of identity, technology, trust, motivation, and fear, usually in a playful manner. Some of his works can be viewed on Artist Registry.
Since 2004, JAMES DIERS has been variously entangled with the Bad Plus as a tour manager, wrangler, guerrilla photographer/videographer, deputy publicist, third-string mix engineer, online paramedic, night watchman, goodwill ambassador and fry cook. To date, he has attended more TBP shows than any other living human who's not in the band. He is also a writer and musician who collaborates with David King in the indie-digi-rock group Halloween, Alaska.
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