Jim DeRogatis

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the year the Beatles arrived in America, Jim DeRogatis began voicing his opinions about rock ‘n’ roll shortly thereafter. He is an associate professor in the Professional Writing Program of the English Department at Columbia College Chicago, and he continues to write about popular music for WBEZ.org. Together with Greg Kot of The Chicago Tribune, he co-hosts Sound Opinions, the weekly rock ’n’ roll talk show heard on some 125 Public Radio stations nationwide as well as podcast on the Web.

DeRogatis spent 15 years as the rock critic at The Chicago Sun-Times and is the author of nine books about music, including Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic; The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side; Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips; Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock; and Milk It! Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the '90s. He has played in punk-rock bands since age 13 but jokes that he is a drummer, not a musician; his current band VORTIS has been going strong since 2000.

He lives on the North Side of Chicago with his wife Carmel Carrillo-DeRogatis. His daughter Melody is a junior studying theater at Drake.