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New York Times

Meet the ‘Weird Al' Yankovic of New York Knicks fandom: Doug Berns

Somewhere in Brooklyn, below where a family of four sleeps, a basement bunker is the home to a one-man jam session almost every night for six months of the year. Checkered tile floors make it so that footwear is needed in the cold, winter months. The main area is congested but blissful, assuming you're into the arts. Guitars. Bass. Drums. Keyboards for children. A microphone. In the back room of the basement, the walls are slime green. The creations from the next room over come to life in this area. This is where Doug Berns, 36, spends most of his time after his family goes to bed. Advertisement If you're a diehard New York Knicks fan like Berns, and glued to the social-media platform 'X,' formerly known as Twitter, maybe you've seen Berns' memorable walls — or him outside singing or rapping, standing next to someone who looks just like him playing an instrument. Since last November, Berns has been doing postgame recap videos of his favorite team, replaying the sounds of popular music (depending on what genre you're into) and changing the lyrics to fit the happenings of a particular game. It's parody music, but Berns replays all of the originals himself and uses his own vocals. The Manhattan native has found a way to intertwine his two passions — the Knicks and music — in a way that is garnering attention. Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart recently watched one of Berns' recap videos together on their podcast, 'Roomates Show.' Not long ago, Berns received a direct message from a creative hero, Spike Lee — whom Berns considers to be 'the world's biggest Knicks fan,' and, of course, an award-winning filmmaker — that led to the two meeting in person. G FUNK KNICKS GAME RECAP 3.10.25 NYK 133-SAC 104 Panning for gold. 🤘👑🏀🤘#NewYorkForever — doug b, Knicks Metal Recaps Guy (@duglust) March 11, 2025 Berns didn't know what to expect when he decided to become the 'Weird Al' Yankovic of Knicks fandom, but it's safe to say that it wasn't all of this. 'I've been in the Knicks internet space for a few years, on Twitter, made a couple of pieces of content, a couple of funny songs over the years,' Berns told The Athletic. 'I've also been a professional musician since I was 17. I record, I play out in the city all the time. I tour, I do all kinds of stuff in that world. And I just felt that if I could synthesize the two great loves of my life, other than my wife, of course, the Knicks and music into something cool, people would like it. Also I've been wanting to get better at video production, better at songwriting and better at audio production. So all those things kind of came together into this idea. It started more of like a personal challenge to myself, as opposed to, like, a views-grab thing. It was more of like, 'Can I pull this off?' And it just built.' Advertisement By day, Berns wears several hats. He's a father of two and husband to Mary Knapp, a music teacher in New York and trained accordionist. At night, Berns, who learned to play the bass at 12, is a working musician. He's in several bands that do gigs from Jersey City to Long Island, and everywhere in between. Berns is a band called Woozy, he plays in the Cafe Wha? house bands in Greenwich Village, he is also in a 10-piece instrumental band called EMEFE that has an album coming out in a couple of weeks, and recently, he played in Jazz Daredevil, a band created by H. Jon Benjamin who voices Sterling Archer in 'Archer' and Bob Belcher in 'Bob's Burgers.' Around that same time, Berns started subbing in for Hank Azaria's Bruce Springsteen tribute band. Berns is also the 'Jack Black' at a private school in New York, where he teaches a rock-band class twice a week. He works at an audiobook studio as an engineer. 'The first book I ever (worked on) was 'KG: A to Z: An Uncensored Encyclopedia of Life, Basketball, and Everything in Between,' which was Kevin Garnett's encyclopedia on his own life,' Berns said. The only thing that predates Berns' obsession with music is his passion for the Knicks. His earliest memory was the 1994 NBA Finals meeting between New York and Houston, but not because his favorite team was at the sport's pinnacle, rather it was because the O.J. Simpson chase interrupted the Game 5 television broadcast. Berns' fandom started from his older brother and their love for Patrick Ewing. When the two were kids, Berns' parents would make them go to bed before the Knicks' games would end. At some point, his brother snuck a radio into their bedroom and they'd finish the game by listening on a small, battery-powered radio. Berns warned his wife that his obsession with the Knicks was a non-negotiable if they were going to be together forever. 90S R&B KNICKS GAME RECAP 2.28.25 NYK 114-MEM 113 Elvis was a hero to most but… 🤘🕺🏀🤘#newyorkforever — doug b, Knicks Metal Recaps Guy (@duglust) March 1, 2025 Berns has watched every game over the last few years. However, he admits that there was a period toward the end of Isiah Thomas' leadership when he wouldn't watch with as much regularity. Between the Knicks being disastrous and Berns trying to get his music career off the ground, he couldn't be bothered with the direction that New York was going. Berns got hooked back in around 2010 when it became a possibility that a certain superstar could go to the Knicks after leaving Cleveland the first time. Advertisement 'I was just like, 'You know what? I like Quentin Richardson,'' Berns recalls with a laugh. 'I started watching the Knicks every single night again. And then, yeah, we thought we were going to get LeBron. We didn't, but we went in all kinds of insane directions over the last 20-ish years. 'Now, my fandom just grows every year, how much I love this team. I remember on Jan. 11, 2018, the Knicks lost in double-overtime to the Bulls. New York was going absolutely nowhere at the time. I broke my remote control. It was not an important game, but I was just like, 'God, damn it! This iteration still isn't going to be the one.' So, that's kind of been my fandom. Every game means a lot to me.' Through his videos, every game means even more to Berns now. His process starts the morning before a game, before morphing into a dad and husband. He'll pick the song he wants to recreate and do as much as he can leading up the night's game. Berns said his inspiration for what song he'll parody can be based on his mood, what he thinks might happen in the game or possibly the opponent's city. At night, he watches the game and, like a reporter, watches for storylines and matchups. He'll check the feeds of the team's beat writers for a quirky stat or nugget that he can toss into the lyrics. After the game is when Berns writes his lyrics. More often than not, it's pushing midnight, so he'll record that night into his laptop and begin the mixing and mastering process. Berns usually waits until the morning to record the video and do the edits, so that he's not waking up his family late at night. 'Well, the trickiest part with the videos is memorizing the lyrics right after I read them, which is something I almost always do,' he said. 'And then so I'll record the vocals, the guy who's singing first, the me who's singing first, and that'll take probably three or four takes before I have it right. But I'm not editing takes together. I have to get a pretty much a perfect take for it to be usable And then I record the instrumental guy, because there's a little less stress in remembering how to just play a riff I played that day. And then I create a little situation where it looks like we're both standing in the same room together.' Berns' first video this season came on Nov. 13, following a win over the Philadelphia 76ers. Berns liked the feedback he received on social media and decided it was worth pursuing. METAL KNICKS GAME RECAP 11/12/24: NYK 111-PHI 99 🤘🎸🏀🤘 — doug b, Knicks Metal Recaps Guy (@duglust) November 13, 2024 All while Berns was testing out this new creative endeavor and gaining some traction online, his wife was unaware of how much it was taking off. Berns has always been creative and producing content online, so for Knapp, this was just another endeavor he was barking on. It wasn't until Berns did a parody of 'Chop Suey!' by System of a Down, a challenge from another Knicks fan after New York got blown out at home by the Oklahoma City Thunder, that she realized her husband's late-night hours in the basement watching Knicks games and recording music was becoming 'a thing.' The recap has more than 60,000 views on 'X' alone. NU METAL KNICKS GAME RECAP 1.10.25 NYK 101-OKC 126 Bricks, bums and boo birds 🤘🥡🏀🤘#NewYorkForever — doug b, Knicks Metal Recaps Guy (@duglust) January 11, 2025 'I think that I, wrongfully, in the past was a little bit skeptical of this commitment to making videos for social media,' Knapp said. 'He proved me wrong. He's getting fans from it. It's funny. I find myself going back through his older videos, all the different things he's done. I'm like, 'Oh, it's time to bring that stuff back, too.' He had all these characters and he had all these different schticks. I mean, he has like, trippy political videos, you know all kinds of s—. So, I'm like, 'Let your new fans see all that stuff too, you know?' Advertisement 'I'm super proud of him. And, you know, I think he had the feeling, like he kind of knew before he even started making these videos, 'I feel like something's about to happen with my music.' So, it was kind of cool that he had the foresight, and he kind of knew that (this could be a thing).' Knapp has even joined in on the fun. There are few postgame videos where she makes an appearance, playing the accordion and keyboard. CELTICPUNK KNICKS GAME RECAP 2.8.25 NYK 104-BOS 131 Plop. Ft. the illustrious Mary Knapp accordion 🤘💩🏀🤘#NewYorkForever — doug b, Knicks Metal Recaps Guy (@duglust) February 9, 2025 'I've even shot videos of him,' Knapp said. Even with the notoriety and knowing that some players have seen his videos, Berns tries to maintain journalistic integrity. His lyrics often portray what took place in the game, good or bad, similar to a beat writer's words. He's a Knicks fan who doesn't choose to see life through blue-and-orange glasses. 'I know that these guys hear harsh criticism every day, and my songs when the team doesn't perform well, I don't pull punches,' Berns said. 'I appreciate that even still, like they are willing to, like, have a laugh and enjoy, you know, the tribute to what they do, like actual active guys on the roster, because, you know, it's a game that they bust their ass for, but it's a game, you know?' By combining his two greatest passions, Berns has found a creative outlet as fulfilling as any he's had in his life. It's allowed him to be entrenched even deeper into the online world of his favorite team. It's given him another reason to be invested, even though he didn't need one. It's allowed him to interact with the players of his favorite team. Knicks center Mitchell Robinson and Berns have exchanged messages. It's led to Berns meeting with people he's idolized in the entertainment industry. Advertisement Everything he's ever loved and studied collided ever-so perfectly to become art. And it happened by Berns just being himself. 'He really, really hit on something that he has, like, the unique qualifications to deliver,' Knapp said. 'It's the extreme intersection of the knowledge of the sport and the team and then his production skills and his music. I was like, 'Oh, here's the trifecta.'' (Top photo courtesy of Doug Berns)