Formats available: iPod (.mp4) | Audio (.mp3) My friend Jay Smooth does a video blog he named illdoctrine.com. When I first found out about ill doctrine, I was like Aw Man! It’s On NOW!!! I intended to battle Jay for the title of “THE Hip Hop Videoblogger”, like how people try to call themselves “THE Hip Hop Violinist”. Yeah. Right. There’s only one. :/ Sure. Anyway, the reason why that didn’t happen is that Jay actually CARES about what he’s talking about which gives him a distinct advantage when it comes to outputting material. So Jay kept making videos, and I kept sitting here saying (verbatim) “Damn. That shit was DOPE!”. So… If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The above is a mix I did, entitled “New Spirit”, from two of Jay’s videos, Beating The Little Hater and Ballad of The Little Hater. Check them both out to see if you can figure out what I did to them and leave Jay some comments!   Tags: Production & Post, Social Media, Video Less

A song about storms, levees, and floods. A new song. Three years ago, almost to the day, I found myself fleeing New Orleans. Now a new storm rises in the gulf and threatens to hit the city again, and I find myself revisiting some very bad days and a very bad storm. Lyrics: Chorus: When the levees bow And the water rise up And the water rise up Anr the water rise up Got no place to go When the waters rise up When the waters rise up When the waters rise up I hear the storm, man I hear it blow Ain't no storm can move me Got no place to go Wind whips the windows Storm's at my door Hurricane don't you blow now You ain't welcome anymore Flood at my feet now Ain't gonna scare me though Ain't no storm can move me Got no place to go Less

A tender ballad from my upcoming album Hi! I'm new here and I thought I'd introduce myself by posting a song from my upcoming album. It's a tender love ballad: Jim Offerman - Secret Love I’ve had to learn That to push is to push you away Your friendship comes to me of it’s own accord And I’m grateful for all that I’ve received But I can’t help Longing for more You are my secret love Not meant for me And I don’t mind backing off But I just want you to know How I love you so Like me you stumble and fall On your way to finding love And it breaks my hear that I can’t be the one you need That I can’t be for you What you are to me You are my secret love Not meant for me And I don’t mind backing off But I just want you to know How I love you so (solo) You are my secret love Not meant for me And I don’t mind backing off But I just want you to know How I love you so Less

With piano ivories, shimmering vocals and far too much sincerity, I have transmographied the Beastie Boys' energetic party-chant into a mostly miserable, quasi-beautiful, semi-epic, completely human piano ballad. I was compelled by fate itself to transform this 90s rap track into pure balladry - a ballad that could turn even the coldest, darkest heart into a flourishing rainforest of love. Folks, this is the piano version of Super Disco Breakin’. The money-making anthem has been given a melody, and I have viciously injected this tune with enough sap and sincerity that even the Beastie Boys wouldn’t recognize the song. Please have your ‘kerchiefs at the ready. If the concept itself doesn’t bring you to tears, then having to listen to my Alanis-like voice wailing about The Disco certainly will. [Click here for further storytelling, lyrics, and cover art.] Less

A new song. Sometimes you just find yourself writing a Johnny Cash song. FIRSTLY, let me say that I have never used cocaine. Now let me say that I have been around the stuff my entire life. My father had huge amount of cocaine in his office when I was a boy. And it was uncut. It had to be. He is a psychopharmacologist, and was studying the effects of cocaine on prenatal chicks, or something. I never really knew what he was researching, except that cocaine was involved. I went to high school in the Eighties, and, if you went to a relatively well-off high school, as I did, there tended to be cocaine floating around the school. The year I graduated, my alma mater, Minnetonka High School, was the subject of a cocaine bust that was supposed to be the largest in the country. When I entered the University of Minnesota in the fall, at orientation, I found myself in a group with a dozen of my fellow Minnetonka graduates. The group had a little mixer, in which we went around, introduced ourselves, named our high school, and said a little about our interests. Everyone from Minnetonka sniffed their noses meaningfully when they mentioned the high school; some rubbed their noses vigorously. Their interests? "Snow sports;" "pharmacy sciences;" "powder cosmetics," etc. In college, I was close friends with a fellow named Kenny, who had apparently gone on a cocaine-fueled multi-state crime bender in his late teens, but had cleaned himself up. He told me that to support his habit, he used to walk into the Dayton's department store, which then had a very liberal return policy. He would go into the electronics section, grab a high-end item, and then walk up to the counter and ask to return it. Although he could not produce a receipt, the store policy was to accept returns, and so he walked out with a wad of cash. He and his girlfriend would buy a large amount of cocaine and set it on a table, and then dare themselves not to use it. "If we can't keep from using all this tonight, we are addicted," the would tell each other. The next morning, looking at the table, now empty of cocaine, they would nod their heads somberly and say "I guess we're addicted." I worked on some projects with a fellow in Los Angeles, and he started using crack cocaine for some reason. One day I stopped by to visit him, and found him looking haggard. "I think I should stop with the crack," he told me. I asked him what had made him come to this conclusion. "Well, for the last hour, I've been crawling around on my apartment floor, trying to smoke grains of sugar or salt that I find. Finally, I was squatting over in the corner, going through the carpet, when I saw a cockroach. We stared at each other for a moment, and then it said, 'Hey! What are you doing??'" My experience with people who have used cocaine is universally bad. Sometimes, at a party, in the john, you get trapped next to someone who has just done a line, and they start talking. They will talk frenetically for a half-hour, sweating and bug-eyed, certain that they are saying something enormously important. To me, it always sounds like this "And if I don't makethisfuckignsale I SWEAR TO GOD I will go into Danny's office and I will tell him HEISNOTGIVINGMETHESUPPORTINEED." And on, and on, and on, until finally they tell you you're an all right guy and ask if you want to share a few bumps with them. I was once at a party where two of these guys stood on either side of me, each babbling at a manic pace into my ear, unaware of each other. It's not an experience I enjoy in mono; In stereo, it's unendurable. Coco and I were friends with a French fellow in New Orleans who had a coke problem. He was the piano player for a nightclub in the French Quarter, and we were the club's day staff. Every week, he would come into the club, exhausted and frantic, desperate for his paycheck, his hair matted to his head, his skin pale and shiny. An hour later, he would come back to the club, full of energy. He often rode up on a child's bicycle. "Where did you get that," we would ask. "Oh," he'd answer noncommittally. "I just found it." "COCAINE IS THE HARDEST DRUG" LYRICS: There's a white dog walking Down the middle of the lane There's a car that is idling Beneath the weather vane There is a debt that is owed And a man's come to collect And all the money's gone And all that's left it debt Oh cocaine is the hardest drug Cocaine is the hardest drug Cocaine is the hardest drug Oh Cocaine is the hardest drug I met a girl in Denver We spent a hundred at least per day A mountain of white powder And we sniffed it all away I struck her once in anger Then I struck her again for fun I woke up the next morning With all my money gone Oh cocaine is the hardest drug Cocaine is the hardest drug Cocaine is the hardest drug Oh Cocaine is the hardest drug I dropped a dime in Reno I did five years in Vermont I learned two things in prison What you need and what you want I'm clean sometimes for weeks But then dirty again for years I'll swear off the cocaine And then the cocaine just appears Oh cocaine is the hardest drug Cocaine is the hardest drug Cocaine is the hardest drug Oh Cocaine is the hardest drug Less

A new song. A New York holiday song from a drunk. PROPERLY, this is not a new song, but a radical rewrite of an older song. I wrote the essential melody back in 1998, but never liked the lyrics and shelved it. Today I wrote new lyrics for the thing. It was always a Christmas song, and always set in New York, and about a drunk, but the way I express that lyrically is entirely different. I've been meaning to write about New York for a while. Although my experiences as an adult has found me moving around between Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Omaha, and New Orleans, I spent a lot of my childhood in New York. Both of my parents are from the Burroughs, and, for quite a long time, most of my family lived there (many have since migrated to New Jersey or Florida). I would generally spend a few weeks in New York with relatives every year, and sometimes would make two or three trips, with my family, to the city every year. For several summers, I spent extended periods with my grandfather in the Catskills Mountains, going to what remained of Borscht Belt summer resorts, listening to comedians tell jokes in Yiddish, and learning to dance the cha cha. I probably still get out to New York about once per year, sometimes for a week or more, when a play of mine is produced there, which seems to happen annually. I was quite frightened of the city when I was a boy -- which was, admittedly, in the Seventies, when New York could be pretty frightening. But I was also afraid of getting lost, because the city seemed to huge to me. Nowadays, I realize that Manhattan, at least, is a very hard place to get lost, as there are maps and unexpectedly helpful natives everywhere. But I think my childhood fear of getting lost has been replaced my a more adult sense of just getting swallowed up by the city. It's a magnet for midwesterners with outsized senses of their own importance, and the city is regularly flooded by waves of ambitious, all of whom shook the boots free of the dirt of their crummy little hometowns and headed for the big city, just knowing their destiny is there. And some of them just get eaten up as a result, and some just disappear. I remember a fellow I knew who would wake up every morning, dress himself in a suit and tie, and declare that he was about to head out into the city and have an adventure. Then he would sit down in front of the television, smoke marijuana, and just remain there all day. I suppose this song, as a result, is about being lost in a big city, in the way that you get lost when your experiences don't match your ambitions, and you end up barely staying afloat, your presence barely registering on anyone else. And this can happen anywhere -- I know a young woman who was just eaten up and spit out by Minneapolis, which hardly seems possible to me, but it happened. Perhaps I should have written this song about Minneapolis. But, then, I've never been afraid of getting lost in Minneapolis. "A BOWERY CHRISTMAS" LYRICS: All you Times Square sailors All you Bowery punks I've a bottle of sherry And I want to get drunk There is snow on the ground And the tree's strung with lights It's Christmas it's Christmas It's our Christmas night I loved a New York girl once She lived in battery I had moved up from the Midwest She danced a dance with me But I was just a poor man She had her eyes set on the Heights And it's Christmas, it's Christmas It's our Christmas night I've meatpacked Gansevoort I've stevedored the dock But I've spent up every penny And put all my things in hock I invest now in the cheap wines I'm not happy unless I'm tight But it's Christmas, it's Christmas It's our Christmas night She saw me once in August On a bench in Sherman Square She pretended not to see me I pretended not to care I'm in a city filled with rovers They're all my gang tonight And it's Christmas, it's Christmas It's our Christmas night Less

A new song. An Irish-ballad inspired soldier's tale. For some reason, for the past week or so, I have been thinking that after I have written and recorded, say, 10 or so of these country and blues inspired new songs, maybe I would try my hand at doing a handful of melodies that borrow from Irish folk traditions. After all, ballads from the British Isles are one of the main influences in early country, and, as far as I can tell, I'm an Irish-American. Well, I'm not very good at holding off on trying something once I've got it into my head, and, last night, when I was writing "A Widow's Prayer," I also wound up noodling with this melody. Today, over the course of the day, I found myself hanging lyrics onto it. It's a war song, and, in fact, references and older war song called "No More Soldiering For Me." I didn't set out to write a political song, but simply to try to tell a wartime story -- specifically, a tale of the death of a number of Irish soldiers in North Africa during World War II. Despite the fact that I reference real places, this story is fiction. Really, what got me to writing it was a sense I have had for a long time that there are few deaths lonelier than going someplace strange, very far from your home, when you are very young, and being killed by someone you have never met and perhaps never even see. "THE BOYS OF THE 10TH" LYRICS: He was a good soldier once He could speak of Tripoli He marched across the Sahara And to the Barbari The bells they all were ringing When he returned to Offaly The boys of the Tenth started singing "No More Soldiering for Me" He lost his eye in Tunisia He carries shrapnel from Mizdah There were fourteen boys from Moneygall And six died on the road to Nismah The bells they all were ringing When he returned to Offaly The boys of the Tenth started singing "No More Soldiering for Me" Billy fell in Quaryat And Pat he fell in Birzar They lost three more in the next two days Only three went home to Tullamore The bells they all were ringing When he returned to Offaly The boys of the Tenth started singing "No More Soldiering for Me" Less

A new song. A ballad of a rowdy man and a bad end. Another murder ballad. I wrote it tonight after fooling around on my ukulele until I came up with a riff that sounded old-timey and mournful, and then I started pasting lyrics across it. Pretty quickly, I realized it was going to be about someone's death. I've been thinking a lot about those folks that you meet every now and then for whom violence seems to be a sort of first language for them: You look at them at the wrong moment and they push you up against a wall, and you can just tell they're hoping you'll take a swing at them. I don't meet people like this often, and, when I do, I stay as far away from them as I can. I suppose I'm a drinker rather than a fighter. It's been quite a long time since I got into any sort of fight at all. In fact, the last one I remember was in about 1996. I was walking around behind St. Anthony Main late one night, just minding my own business, when I saw a car stopped in the middle of the street, headlights still on. Behind them were two figures, one slumped on the ground, the other standing. As I got closer, I realized that the figure on the ground was a woman, and the figure above her was a man holding a hammer. The woman did not seem conscious, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to leave until I was sure that woman was safe. I began shouting at the man, hoping to frighten him away, cursing and telling him to get back into his car. He stared at me, shrugged, and then walked toward me, grinning and holding the hammer up. As he got close to me, I reached out and grabbed both his wrists and pulled him close to me. He had wild eyes and a small beard, and we struggled. "This is what I want," he said. I decided I needed to knock him out. Somehow I got one hand free, and so I punched him in the forehead. His head snapped back, and then rolled back up. He was still grinning. He struck him again, and then again, each time with the same result. Later, reading about bare-knuckle boxing, I found out that gloveless matches could go on for sixty rounds or more. The head can absorb an astounding amount of impact, encased, as it is, in thick bone. I was about as likely to punch him into unconsciousness by hitting his forehead as I was to crack a walnut by blowing on it. And, each time I struck him, he said "This is what I want." Eventually, I just pulled him as close as I could, hugging him, and I whispered in his ear. "This isn't what I want," I said. "This isn't what I want at all. All I want is for you to get in your car and drive away and leave me alone." With that, his shoulders slumped. He stepped away from me, and I let go of his arms. With a defeated look, he turned, walked to his car, threw the hammer in the back seat, and drove away. I later found out that he had just been released from prison. He had picked up his girlfriend, filled suitcases with her possessions, accused her of cheating on him, and drove around the city, flinging her belongings out of the car window. Then he had stopped the car and proceeded to beat her, until I had intervened. When I got home that evening, I looked at my arms. I had not noticed when it was happening, but the claw end of the hammer had made hideous scratches along my forearms. I suppose this song is what I think happens to men like that. "A WIDOW'S PRAYER" LYRICS: She wore a long black dress then She said a widow's prayer She brought a bouquet to him It's been three years since she buried him there He was a fighting man once With rough and rowdy ways He had a pistol with him He would have been thirty in just seventeen days He had a knife put in him When he shot Billy Mae He did not die till morning Billy he then died the next day And now she mourns him Monday Oh with a small bouquet And there's more flowers Tuesday Which she leaves on the grave of Billy Mae Less

Jazzy power-punk ballad for those long summer bike rides. I think I meant for this to be soft and sparse, but you know how I do. Could use some help with a new name for this. lyrics: you sail: all expert maneuvers. and you say, "yeah it's been a while." and you know you're making me nervous, but don't stop. you're making me smile, if only in self-defense. now shrug and list off the islands where our flags still flap in the wind and sink into the old sand and salt to show where we've been but don't want to be again. don't feed that starving atlas your dark continents. hug the margins with old gods and barking nymphs. i'll meet you there. there's no reason to hurry, you say. you've got nothing to hide. i could map out your shorelines all day and never see nothing twice. all right. there's no reason to worry, i say, about carving our place. no use picking out flats and houses, rock walls and white picket gates, thinking, "here we'll stay." don't feed that starving atlas out among the sea monsters and grues. under checkerboard table-cloth, it's all the fight in you and i wanted to show you. just don't feed the atlas he's trying to catch us Less

My first new song in quite a long time, recorded in as deliberately lo-fi and distorted a manner as possible, because that's what I like. I'm now 40, so it's time for me to start singing country. Therefore, I have written a murder ballad. Lyrics: NO TIME TO CRY The dog it do bark The crows they do fly There's a forty-ought-six And a bottle of rye But there ain't no time Ain't no time for you to cry Ain't never no Ain't never no time to cry Clothes on the bed Glass on the floor Smoke in the air And a hole in the door But there ain't no time Ain't no time for you to cry Ain't never no Ain't never no time to cry Friday at noon Bail it is set Judge coming down But he ain't here yet But there ain't no time Ain't no time for you to cry Ain't never no Ain't never no time to cry Less

Part of my old songs series, where I do lo-fi recordings of songs written years and sometimes decades ago. This one is a sort-of Irish folksong about a very mean man. Unlike most of my songs, which I know I must have written at some point but don't recall precisely when, I know the exact details of the authorship of this song. In 1988, I was living in a small apartment in south Minneapolis, after having dropped out of college. I did not have a job nor money, and was feeding myself with meals from a food shelf. The former tenant of the apartment had died there, rolled off his bed, and quietly decomposed for a few weeks before being discovered -- the hard wood floors were scarred black from the heat of his decomposition. His family had come to collect his belongings, leaving behind everything that was too valueless or too bulky to take. So I slept in his bed, the same bed he had died in. One night I woke to find a figure sitting on the end of the bed, hands pressed to his face, as though he were weeping. The next morning I decided I had dreamed it. There was, however, one detail of the weeping man that stayed with me: His fingertips were black. Later I read that when people die, blood pools in their extremities, leading to blackened fingers. This was a surprisingly fertile time for me, creatively. I began writing a play, which eventually turned into The Substitute Bride, and also wrote a few songs, including this one. I can't really say why I wrote this particular song, although I think the tale of the dead man, and the sense of being haunted by him, clearly influenced the lyrics. "GOD DAMN YOU TOM BROWN" LYRICS: He woke up one morning with a Los Angeles gal, He married her money and then he buried it all In guns and gambling and debt and champagne, And love for Tom Brown is love spent in vain He met up one evening with her father's ghost Who asked Tom which he loved the most: The touch of his wife or the sting of cocaine. He said love for you, Tom, is love spent in vain He was seen the next week with young Polly May; He told her sweet things and then he bore her away. Mention him now and she cries out in shame-- Because love for Tom Brown is love spent in vain Her brother he insisted that Tom Brown would die And he gathered his pistol and said his goodbyes; He was beaten to death with a brass walking cane And love for Tom Brown is love spent in vain. Damn you, she cried, god damn you, Tom Brown! She sickened and died and was buried in town; He grieved and he mourned and made a show of his pain But love for Tom Brown is love spent in vain Less

Frank Gruber of Somewhat Frank and co-founder of TECH cocktail decided to sit down and play a little song about the community building startup, TECH cocktail as this week's episode of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. It is a bit of a ballad - Enjoy! Distributed by Tubemogul. Frank Gruber of SOMEWHAT FRANK, must-read tech-talk, offers in the field video interviews with startup founders, authors and other social media and web technology related experts. Less

Frank Gruber of Somewhat Frank and co-founder of TECH cocktail decided to sit down and play a little song about the community building startup, TECH cocktail as this week's episode of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. It is a bit of a ballad - Enjoy! Distributed by Tubemogul. Frank Gruber of SOMEWHAT FRANK, must-read tech-talk, offers in the field video interviews with startup founders, authors and other social media and web technology related experts. Less

Frank Gruber of Somewhat Frank and co-founder of TECH cocktail decided to sit down and play a little song about the community building startup, TECH cocktail as this week's episode of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. It is a bit of a ballad - Enjoy! Distributed by Tubemogul. Frank Gruber of SOMEWHAT FRANK, must-read tech-talk, offers in the field video interviews with startup founders, authors and other social media and web technology related experts. Less

Another true story from my family... Seems like forever since I posted a song. This is a true story, which happened in 1990, to my Dad's old roommate from university. Common wisdom is that another man would not have been able to acheive what Alan achieved; a six mile swim in choppy seas with his son strapped to his back. An amazing feat that deserved a song. Less

Seasonal melancholia from the Stockholm archipelago. Not a guitar in sight. Well they <strong>are</strong> in sight - but not in sound. They are due on the next track. Biding their time in the shadows. This was a rush. Friend Anders wrote it some while back. Sent me a anglo/swedish version last week and we translated and recorded it two days later. We are working on it. Come spring we'll be fine - I promise. Then we get back to rock n country roll. Wait for it Less

Another gentle ballad from Sweden. It grows on you. Keyboards by composer Anders Magnusson Song by me. Recorded on a 4 track portastudio in Anders classroom on a cold dark afternoon in wintry Stockholm. We are intending to make a CD eventually. Just for friends and fans. Working title "The Unbearable Brevity of Being" Less

Acoustic piano ballad. Nostalgia My swedish friend Anders wrote this 10 years ago. We recorded it in his classroom in November 07 (He's a teacher). I've never played with a portastudio before. The most fun you can have without taking your trousers off. Less