Posted by Tobias Carroll

Tuesday night, the powerHouse Arena hosted the first of two New York-area release parties for the 2011 edition of the Best Music Writing series. The evening’s readings included Nitsuh Abebe reflecting on Lou Reed and Metallica’s Lulu,  Wendy Lesser describing hearing the music of Georg Friedrich Haas in total darkness, and Sasha Frere-Jones reading from a surreal 1971 guide to music and youth culture.

More significantly, the night also saw the announcement that the 2011 volume in the series will be the last published via Da Capo. Future volumes will be produced independently as the first volume of a new, music-book oriented independent press;  a fundraising campaign is underway to pay for next year’s edition.

The New York release parties for this year’s edition continue on Thursday, with Jessica Hopper, Amy Klein, Justin Davidson, David Hajdu, and more reading at Housing Works.

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