I sprained the MCL in my right knee early in 2002. I went to physical therapy for it a few years later, but the outcome ranged from "my knee hurts some" to "my knee hurts a lot when I stand" to "my knee just hurts all the time and is unstable" as the years went by. I stopped running with any seriousness after 2014 and more or or less completely ( Read more... )

Last night, I put on a Daptone Records sampler, specifically: disc 2 of of the Scion CD sampler. As the first notes of Chicago Falcon by The Budos Band came pouring out of the speakers, my daughter started dancing, and didn't stop for two full cuts.

Today, my daughter went to my CD collection and brought me Anything in Return by Toro y Moi. I don' ( Read more... )

My last official radio show way back on March 15, 2020, and I hadn't even been back in the radio station since then. That changed briefly on June 17 ( Read more... )

For my first Father's Day, M got me a CD. While it may technically be "my" CD, I'm happy to cede all rights to The Best of the Laurie Berkner Band to Birdie, who appreciates it much more than I do.

The CD actually has spent most of the last six months firmly ensconced in the CD player in my wife's car. It came with us to New Mexico, but was at ( Read more... )

On my final day of work after the layoff, I knocked together one final "farewell" work blog, which probably got more readership than most of my prior posts combined. I'm pretty proud of it, especially given the circumstances, but I didn't think to copy it to this blog before I left so this is more or less a recreation.

I led with with a Neil ( Read more... )

There's a scene in Up in the Air where George Clooney's character is extolling the virtues of living light, a sort of Marie Kondo on steroids:
How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders. Feel 'em? Now I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in ( Read more... )

I was perusing my lists after the passing of Stephen Sondheim last week, and I was a little surprised to realize that the only professional rendition of one of his shows that I'd ever seen was a Cleveland Opera performance of Sweeny Todd in 2004. I'd never seen a touring production of any of his shows, let alone one on Broadway. In a way, this isn' ( Read more... )

For years I've been trying to figure out a way to put together a series where I dive deeper into the stories around the albums in my collection. Think something like the songbook, but oriented around my album collection ( Read more... )

When I counted up my record collection, I didn't really split out my box sets separately. Most of them are included in the compilations, but as with so many things, it depends on how you count them.

The one absolutely unquestionable box set I have is Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971 that my folks got for me in 2011. It's got ( Read more... )

I posted this on Facebook last month, but in the interest of making it easy for me to find later, I'll posting it here as well.

In 2019 I saw Pelican at the Grog Shop on Sunday, September 22. On April 15, they released a live album from that show. Unfortunately, it's digital only, and I don't buy digital, but it's still exciting that a show I was ( Read more... )