Introducing "Crashed Hard Drive Vol. 1", the first in a series of EPs compiling rough mixes of a project thought lost to a crashed hard drive. Thus the title. While all the multitrack sessions were lost, I recently discovered rough mixes that were tucked away on another hard drive and decided to release them here.

Here's what's on Crashed Hard Drive Vol. 1:

1. Andy The Beachgod This song dates back to my college days. My friend Andy was planning a spring break trip to Florida for April, and some time in March began hitting the gym to get his beach body going. I think I was influenced by Todd Rundgren's Bang On The Drum on this one. This recording features Dennis Landeen on sax. I'm playing everything else.

2. Bitter St. Another song from my college days. This one started with the guitar riff and a melody, and it was a long time before I had any lyrics for it. I used to perform this one at my live shows back then, solo acoustic style, and I could hear the whole arrangement in my head. Nobody else could, but I could. So years later when I recorded it it was nice to finally hear it out in the world that way.

3. Hemingway Said I was waiting in line to use the rest room in a bar when I saw a poster on the wall that quoted Hemingway, saying "Always do sober the things you said you'd do when you're drunk. That way you'll learn to keep your mouth shut." Good advice, and worthy of a song.

4. I Gotta Go Now A rocker that pretty much means what it says. Along with Andy The Beachgod, one of the first songs I recorded myself on drums. My method was pretty primitive--just two mics on the drum kit. My drumming was primitive too! But it's fun to play so what the hell.

5. Songs I actually reverse-plagiarized myself on this song. Meaning that I was working on songs for my Into The Blue CD, and I wrote this one first, then another with the same lyrics in the verses called "You Stole My Songs". That song got on the CD, this one did not. So I think it's time to let this one out.

Enjoy,

Jim

The second collection in the Crashed Hard Drive series, Vol. 2 focuses on songs written for or about baseball, specifically songs written for or about the Minnesota Twins. Some of these songs were written and pitched to the Twins to use, some written and pitched to Fox Sports North to use, and one was commissioned by the Twins to be played at a party for the team.

1. LIttle Piranhas--Little Piranhas is a phrased used by Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen to describe the tenacity of the Twins. It sounded like a good title, so I wrote a song.

2. Funky Little Piranhas--Little Piranhas led directly to Funky Little Piranhas, a funked up take on the same song idea.

3. It's Bert's Birthday--This is a song I wrote and pitched to Fox Sports North to play in the open of their Twins broadcast on color analyst Bert Blyleven's birthday, April 6.

4. 365 Days Till My Birthday--This is the other song I wrote and pitch to FSN for Bert's birthday, the one they did not use.

5. Circle Me Bert (reggae version)--LIke it says, this is the reggae version of the song the Twins gave away on CD to 10,000 fans at a home game in 2001. Both this version and the version released on streaming services appeared on the give-away CD. This version is only available here.

6. Hey Mr. Umpire Try My Glasses--Back in the early 2000s one of the Twins field staff offered his glasses to an umpire who had made a questionable call. Seemed to me like a good idea for a song.

7. Welcome To Our House--When the Twins opened their new stadium they put out a call to local musicians for a song to play in the stadium. This was my submission. It did not get chosen.

8, The Time Of Your LIfe--Soon after the Twins opened their new stadium they wanted to hire somebody to write a song for the team to be performed at a party thrown in their honor by the Pohlad family. They called me for the job, on a Tuesday to write a song to perform in front of the team on Sunday. I wrote two songs right away and sent them the songs. They emailed back that the song had to be funny. What is funny about a baseball team? So I wrote another song, this one, and sent them the demo. They approved the song, and this is the demo I sent them. Of course after approving this version they asked me to add something about the bullpen. That was on Friday of that week. So I wrote a bridge with something about the bullpen, which is not in this demo obviously. Then I had a day to learn the song I wrote well enough to perform in front of the team. Very nerve wracking. I don't think I'll ever do that again!