Jeremy Thal, who serves as a band leader for Briars of North America, is one of my oldest friends. We took Suzuki violin lessons together in Madison, Wisconsin, and our first instruments were fruit roll-up boxes with rulers taped on them. …more

Aussie Geoffrey O’Connor, has been the lead of the band Crayon Fields, a Melbourne-based indie dream pop act since 2001. He recently released his solo debut Vanity is Forever, which is decadent in infectious dreamy synth lounge hooks. …more

Do you love the Best Music Writing series as much as we do?

Series Editor and music critic extraordinaire Daphne Carr has just announced that the venerable annual collection will no longer be published by Da Capo Press, so she’s started a campaign to raise startup funds for a brand new music journalism focused indie press!

From the announcement: “The 2012 edition will be the first book for a new, music writing-focused press, of which Best Music Writing will be the flagship title. We need support from followers of the title, music fans, music writers, music publishers, the music industry, and independent publishers to get started.” Read the entirety of Carr’s post here.

If you love music writing, now’s your chance to help out!

Joni Mitchell’s Blue may have been released one summer seven years before I was born, but it’s a winter album that conjures memories of me, my mom and my little sister. …more

John Wesley Harding has been making really sweet tunes since 1988. His 12th release The Sound of Your Own Voice, which came out in October, features a star-studded group of musicians including members of the Decemberists, Peter Buck, Laura Viers and Roseanne Cash. …more

“It seemed to me that most contemporary rock magazines were propagating an artless scorecard-genealogy version of criticism, treating music in isolation from other art, culture, and political realities. And I had certainly never read Bangs, whose irascible, rambling rock-crit from the 1970s many considered to be classic examples of the genre. I gave him a solid try, but every page I opened to just turned me off. This was the canon? If all those dudes at Rolling Stone and Spin were taking their cues from a nihilistic, homophobic, apolitical speed freak, it was no wonder the whole game left me cold.”

Sara Marcus, who recently published Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution, reviews Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music for the Los Angeles Review of Books, while also opening up about her contempt of Lester Bangs being heralded as the epitome of rock criticism.

What Marcus really hopes is that Willis, who came up with the phrase “pro-sex feminism,” will be redeemed from the shackles of the music ghetto and recognized as the brilliant radical thinker she is. Out of the Vinyl Deeps is an excellent starting point though.

Musician and philosopher David Rothenberg recently sat down for a public lecture with Laurie Anderson at the venerable Explorer’s Club in New York City.

In their conversation they discussed a wide variety of topics including the minutiae of the calls made by male humpback whale, whether or not music is a language and on exploring the edges of human culture through music. The entire proceedings have been preserved for posterity at Vimeo. If you want a diversion equal parts maritime and philosophy of culture, this hits the spot. (Video below.) …more

Bill Callahan’s Apocalypse is a sparse album of epic proportions, a celebration of American music, specifically what he describes as  “that rich period in the ’70s when all the styles were converging in a loving way.” …more

Sean Rowe released Magic, his ANTI debut, in late February. With an unrelenting baritone that hits deep from the beginning and songs that seem to bleed out straight from his heart, Magic is tear inducing in that wistful tender way. …more

Musician Lia Ices’s sophomore album, Grown Unknown, will be released by Jagjaguwar January 25. Her debut, Necima, was released in 2008 by Brooklyn label and recording studio Rare Book Room. …more