We live in an age of abundance, and it's made us sleepily arrogant. Our streaming services provide us the illusion of having all of the world's television and music right at our fingertips. Amazon has fooled us into thinking that any book ever written is just
April 27, 2024
Here's today's album on Tidal and Spotify, if you'd like to listen along. The old familiar sting Going back to something that was once familiar but that has drifted away and out of your consciousness is a dangerous exercise. This is why going "
April 13, 2024
Listen along on Tidal or Spotify. This pricy stuff makes me dizzy How often do you feel suddenly aware that you're caught in a spiral in which you're just cycling through obligations, each coming faster than the last time, each time bringing slightly less joy? A
March 30, 2024
Listen along on Tidal or Spotify. I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac I read this morning about the fascinating backstory of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer," and you're lucky I don't have that record. In fact, I generally loathe
March 16, 2024
Well if happiness won't come to me, hand me the nitrous gas One aspect of ADHD that isn't often understood is how important routines are to those of us with it. We're led to believe that ADHD means that, like overactive little boys, we
March 02, 2024
I've got something a bit different for you guys this week. Not exactly Sonder Union, not exactly On the Record. Somewhere in between yet not on the map at all. I'd skip this if you don't want to hear a story about pregnancy loss
February 17, 2024
Listen to this week's record on Tidal (they pay artists better!) or Spotify (if you must). The saddest tongue is in your head How do you measure time? In hours and minutes and seconds, you dolt. No, I mean how does time reveal itself to you? Not, what
February 03, 2024
You can listen to this week's album on Tidal or Spotify. There's something to be said for an endeavor that begins as creating something somewhat artificial to fill a preconceived purpose, only for that artifice to become an authentic thing in itself. We have developed a
January 20, 2024
So this is the new year. The auto-da-fé of retrospectives on wins (and, sometimes, admitted losses), resolutions, sunny projections, and choosing themes of the year in single words. I don't begrudge you the rituals: they can be useful and focusing activities. I just don't find them
January 06, 2024
And here we are, yet again, at the wind-down of a year. If these moments seem to sneak up on you faster and faster each year, there's good reason for that: they do. At least when we consider our lived experience of time. My old friend Rob Lisy
December 16, 2023
I've been slowly working my way through the new translation of The Brothers Karamazov and for the past two weeks found myself in an odd place: paused in my reading not because I'm bogged down or bored, but because the next two chapters are among my
December 09, 2023
Live jazz is always an adventure. On one end of the spectrum, you have a group of excellent musicians playing together without much experience as a group. You can see them feeling each other out, finding the space in the new communal endeavor. There's a lot of poking
November 25, 2023
Listen along on Tidal or Spotify (but really, ditch Spotify and help pay artists more on Tidal!) You gotta walk that lowly road It's an absolutely perfect late fall morning in Pittsburgh: a windless chill that sits alongside you rather than cutting through you mingles with a soft
November 11, 2023
A short OTR this morning. I'm sitting in the nicest log cabin I've ever been in at 8200 ft elevation in the Rockies. Yesterday I moved 13 miles by foot and the plan today is to move another 24-28. Together with 11 other guys, from three
November 04, 2023
I cannot tell you how much fun it's been to make this podcast. It's such a joy to sit down and spend some time coexisting with people who so freely give their time, experience, stories, and hard-won wisdom. This week's episode features Keith King,
October 30, 2023
To be someone must be a wonderful thing "I'm really good at being ill." If you've spent enough time as a patient in a hospital and you pay attention to what's going on around you, it's pretty easy to pick
October 21, 2023
Chris Valdheims began talking about doing an episode of Sonder Union together back in July. He decided that spending time in Croatia with his in-laws was a better use of his time. (I would have made the same damn choice!) But we recently sat down to have a talk about
September 25, 2023
Here are your Tidal and Spotify links to today's record. (A quick note: if you subscribe to Spotify, please consider switching to Tidal. It has higher audio quality and, more importantly, pays musicians more per play.) Good morning, fellow featherless bipeds! Just as I was settling back into
September 16, 2023
I'm a bit late on getting this out, what with traveling last week and catching up on work when I got back on Monday. But better late than never – especially when I have a long talk with John Lindsey to offer up as reward for your patience. I&
September 14, 2023
Here's your link to today's album, which you definitely want to listen to: it will put you in a better mood. What a glorious morning in Pittsburgh, PA. I love Pittsburgh – love it – but there's no denying that the weather is not always the
September 02, 2023
Well, shit. That wasn't supposed to happen! First, my apologies to Lenor Marquis Segal, this episode's guest: I lost two-thirds of our wonderful conversation. Or, didn't lose...failed to record? Either way, no bueno. Lenor joins me for a discussion about writing, mostly. At
August 28, 2023
There's a venue near where I live, in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. It has a beautiful stage and was the place where the "old people" would go. When I was a kid, 60s and 70s cover bands would play regularly, Beatles, Stones, and Doors tribute
August 19, 2023
And we are back with episode number two of Sonder Union! Joining us in this episode is Louis Colombo, philosopher, student, husband, father, and somehow still a living, breathing human being. This is one of those conversations where I threw out my notes and questions early on and just followed
August 13, 2023
Here's your link to today's album. His bed is made I was a hero in the morning I ain't no hero in the night I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first heard Wolf Parade's debut,
August 05, 2023
You may have noticed the format for OTR changed a little bit over the last few newsletters, that "Sonder Union" began appearing in the header of the emails and the links to the permanent copy have been going to sonderunion.com. Well, I've been working on
July 30, 2023(Here's the link to today's album for my email folks, and below is the embed for my website folks.) You never quite know who you're reaching when you let loose your words on these here interwebs. It's one of the things I
July 22, 2023
It happens too fast, to make sense of it, make it last My baby brother is getting married in a week. (Click here to listen to this week's record as you read.) This has had me thinking a good bit about how much seven years in age difference
July 08, 2023
A short OTR for you today, after a week off last week. Sometimes life gets busy in unexpected ways, ways that initially feel like a shock to the system but upon reflection flower into welcome new beginnings. These moments take a period of recalibration, of thinking through a reordering of
June 24, 2023
Here's the link to For Emma, Forever Ago, and for those of you visiting outside of the email, an embedded playlist: Blink, and a month has gone by. While I certainly didn't intend to take a full month off from On the Record, life rather demanded
June 10, 2023
I'm headed up to my family's place at Lake George until after Memorial Day. I'm going to decelerate and read and write a lot. I've neglected Pennhollow and I've been so focused on getting certain things moving I've
May 20, 2023
It's the blues today, in a very discordant OTR, written in four goes throughout the day. Here's the link to listen along. Sometimes you wake up ready to brawl. The alarm goes off and you launch out of bed rather than drag ass out of bed.
May 13, 2023
Here's a link to today's album if you'd like to listen as you read. I launched Seed Counsel on Monday. It's not "ready" and certainly isn't remotely near finished, but it was time. You see, I'm
May 06, 2023
Here's a link to today's album if you'd like to listen along. The venom surfaces, no matter how under wraps you try to keep it. One side effect of assuming something of a public-facing life – even one as limited as mine, with a group
April 29, 2023
Sometimes your heart's not in it. It can be surprising: activities that generally get you excited take on a hue that invites dread. Sometimes it's more like a malaise, an ennui, that takes hold, sapping you of motivation. I'm a strong believer in generally
April 15, 2023
Click here to listen as you read. Hello hello and happy Saturday! You may or may not have noticed that there was no OTR last week. I decided to take that entire week away from posting on LinkedIn or otherwise engaging in any social media. Instead, I spent the week
April 08, 2023
Good morning & happy Saturday! (If you'd like to listen to today's record as you read, click here.) Do you need this little break as much as I do this week? There are some weeks that when Friday night hits, I make my list of three
March 25, 2023
To listen as you read, click here. Hello hello and happy Saturday! Can I get a show of hands for introverts in the group who can appear extroverted for short bursts? Enough that most people wouldn't think of you as introverted? Okay, hello fam! Now imagine having to
March 18, 2023
Hey folks. This morning got away from me. After several hours of beating myself up over not getting started on this week's OTR, I've decided to give myself some grace and put together a mix tape for you and calling it for this week. Giving myself
March 11, 2023
Click here if you'd like to listen along to the album as you read. It's amazing how quickly you can reprogram habits with a combination of public commitment and accountability. I've been participating in a group accountability exercise designed to encourage mindful and healthy
March 04, 2023
When I was a younger man, full of a different, more innocent kind of ambition, I was convinced that if I didn't have my first novel published by the time I turned 25, I would be a failure. You see, I could cherry-pick many of my favorite writers
February 25, 2023
If you want to listen as you read, click here. This has been a week of extremes, from the weather dropping nearly 50 degrees one day to the next, to a trying week concluded with a wonderful meeting yesterday afternoon that gave me a good jolt of happy brain chemicals.
February 18, 2023
(If you would like to listen to the album as you read, click here, or hit play on the embedded album below.) Let's talk about mood music. Not those godawful Spotify playlists offered up on a debased algorithmic platter. The kind of music made for specific moments in
February 11, 2023
It's funny how we fall into obsessive action during the grieving period. Often, this occurs without the slightest conscious awareness of it; it just seeps into our behavior and can baffle those around us. Winnie passed away three weeks ago and one of the ways my mind processed
February 04, 2023
I begin with something of an apology. You folks are awesome: you were the first who jumped over to this new platform and signed up for On the Record on this new platform. And for the next few weeks, you'll likely be getting a version of OTR twice
January 28, 2023
The sun rose this morning, but my world is changed. It is emptier, less colorful, lacking some of the texture that gives life meaning. Last night I took my final walk with my best girl, Winnie, Destroyer of Socks, Thief of Hearts, Certified Pizza Bandit – the first and the last
January 21, 2023
Happy New Year! I must admit to being a bit anhedonic this time of year, I think mostly because I rebel against the idea that the turning of the calendar somehow equates to...anything. My feelings about New Year are summed up fairly neatly as such: Like most of you,
January 21, 2023
Life is an incurable condition. It's terminal, but as Wallace Stevens wrote, "death is the mother of beauty." Last night, I'd fully intended to write a short OTR about the greatest Christmas album ever made, A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
January 21, 2023
I'll be honest: I don't like this time of year. I don't have anything against Christmas or the holidays. I'm not some Scrooge who dislikes the spirit of the season (though I was cast as the Ghost of Christmas Future in fourth
January 21, 2023
We all have a ritual in the morning, whether we are conscious of it or not. For some it might involve meditation; for others, it might be a quick shower, a harried selection of clothes, and a curse-strewn commute. For a long time, mine was fairly straightforward and consistent: 1.
January 21, 2023
Some announcements before jumping into today's record. First, at the end of this week's OTR, there's a new feature that I plan to do once a month or so, provided you all don't hate it. I'm calling it Cover Art
January 21, 2023
Every book is a children's book if the kid can read. I've spent a good deal of time this week with three generations of my family, hearing stories of five generations. It's made me think a good bit about the passage of family culture
January 21, 2023
As I sat down to write this week’s newsletter, after I had finished listening to Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come, my older dog, Winnie, walked over and nudged my laptop away from me. At first, I was annoyed. Doesn’t she know I have important
January 21, 2023
Twenty-one years ago (christ, can it have been that long?), I met Lane Abernathy. I’ve now known him for more than half of my life. Things like this sneak up on you. It feels like it wasn’t too long ago that Lane showed up at Denison for his
January 21, 2023
💬Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves. (Joyce) Before I dive into this week's record, a quick note to say thank you to everyone who's
January 21, 2023
"Are you trolling him?" Hello, hello! Owen here with Take 4 of On the Record and this week's record takes us into some uncharted territory. This morning, I'm spinning Don't Look Back, a towering monument of 70s guitar space rock. Today I
January 21, 2023
We are all composed of our past experiences, loves, and failures – and yet we are more than that too. There are parts of our past that we feel are intrinsic to who we are that even our best friends or spouses don't know, and yet we nevertheless feel
January 21, 2023
I woke up this morning with my puppy, Clare, curled up in the curve of my knees and Winnie, my older dog, snoring like a moose on the floor beside the bed. The night before, I’d forgotten to close the blinds and the southerly light sponged through the window,
January 21, 2023
Welcome, welcome, welcome! After much prodding, a free branding session with Joel Roy (seriously, legal puns are his native tongue), and two weeks away from my record player, I am very happy to launch On the Record, my weekly Saturday morning newsletter. As some of you know, I've
January 21, 2023
Before getting to anything else, I have to take a moment to say thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and support after I published last week's newsletter tribute to Winnie. I received touching comments, DMs, text messages, physical notes (in the actual mail!?), and phone calls.
January 21, 2023