Geoff Berner describes his style of music as "fucked up klezmer".  

Geoff Berner is a singer/songwriter/accordionist from
Vancouver, Canada.  He has played in 15 countries and has
played live on National Radio in 7 of them. Klezmer, for the uninitiated, is broadly defined as the folk music of Eastern European Jews.  

Over 4 albums, and years of heavy touring, Berner has built a committed and growing cult following, especially in Canada, Scandinavia and Germany. You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy Berner's witty, political, romantic lyrics and combative, expulsive stage persona.  You don't have to be Jewish, but you probably have to be odd, bookish, and like to drink.  The title of his 2005 album earned him the nickname "Whiskey Rabbi".

Klezmer began as a raw, political, rough music of celebration.  If your daughter married a klezmorim, it was not a step up for the family.  Revived and cleaned up for the concert proscenium in the 1970s and 80s, it’s being dragged back into the dirty bars and protest marches by people like Berner and Daniel Kahn, who describe their artistic movement as the Klezmer Bund.

In 2010, Berner signed to Mint Records, which is releasing his new album, "Victory Party", worldwide on March 8, 2011.  
The album was recorded in Montreal with Josh Dolgin, aka "Socalled", producing.  “Socalled” has an even bigger cult following in his own right, including several bona fide hits in Europe, with his own kaleidoscopic mixture of klezmer, hip-hop and everything else.  

The “Victory Party” roster of musicians also include two of Brooklyn klezmer’s rising Young Turks, Michael Winograd on clarinet and Benjy Fox-Rosen on bass.  The result is a big, blasting, rich concoction of transgressive, political klezmer.

Here are some other interesting things Geoff Berner has done:

--Ran for federal and provincial office for the Green Party and the Rhinoceros Party in Canada.

--Wrote for TV's "Sesame Street".

--Opened for Billy Bragg, Hawksley Workman, Norwegian Balkan Cabaret Rock stars Kaizers Orchestra, and many others.

--Had his song, "Light Enough to Travel" covered by the Be Good Tanyas on their album "Blue Horse", which has sold over 100,000 copies to date.

--Made a klezmer research trip to deepest rural Romania with klezmer guru Bob Cohen.