Karen grew up in Chicago's Northwest suburbs and picked up the guitar at age 8. She took one lesson and decided she could learn more by teaching herself....a foreshadowing of her emerging personality. She read books and continued to learn guitar her way. Because she makes up most notes and chords, plays by ear, is fond of the capo and open tuning, she drives her more musically trained bandmates crazy.

Karen joined her first band; actually, she forced her way into her boyfriend's band called the Scabs where she sang backup and played bass. The band's claim to fame songs (at least in Barrington) were "Sophowhores" and "Dance it out your ass" but mainly the band stayed in bandleader Chris Burd's basement. Chris is now a postdoctorate fellow at the University of California San Diego on a grant from the American Cancer Society. After Burdman finds the cure for cancer, he will reunite the Scabs and become a rockstar.

The boyfriend eventually became her fiance--------then her ex-fiance. Although she hasn't talked to him in nine years, she thanks him for giving her so much material to write and sing about.

After graduating from Northwestern University, Karen headed in the sports journalism direction, working for Chicago sports radio personality, motormouth Chet Coppock at WLUP Radio. She also wrote a fitness column for the Chicago Tribune and moved to Virginia to cover golf and college sports for the Trib's sister paper the Daily Press. Karen eventually moved back to Chicago and performed at open mic nights before stepping into the music business full-force.

Over the last couple of years, Karen has performed on public radio station WBEZ's New Year's Day talent show and was a guest on Chicago Tribune writer Rick Kogan's WLUP Radio Sunday show. Her 5-song demo tape was featured on Q101 radio as it's local music showcase demo of the week as well as on WXRT Radio "Local Anesthetic" with Richard Milne.

Recently, Karen has been played on XRT again and performed on CLTV, WGN-TV's Morning Show and Evanston Community Television's "Rob Linkhart Show." She plays many area clubs including Martyrs', Abbey Pub, FitzGerald's, Gunther Murphy's and Beat Kitchen.