Some #longreads as you prepare for April showers…

If you’re in the part of the country where the gradual shift into spring has begun, with all of its resultant precipitation (as captured in the above line), you may be feeling a little bummed.  However, you should not despair that it’s not safe to lounge around outside quite yet; instead, head to the garage and start working on that album you always said you would make.  The AV Club has a primer on garage rock bands to help provide you with the necessary inspiration.

Or if there is too much crap cluttering up your garage, you can head to the basement and record down there.  Stereogum has a piece celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the lo-fi classic Alien Lanes from Guided By Voices to give you a blueprint.  If GBV can crank out 28 songs for this album, then you can manage to at least write one song, right?

Perhaps you still need help in finding a particular sound.  Then I recommend reading this essay from frontman William DuVall of the reunited version of Alice In Chains, wherein he discusses the pivotal songs that shaped his guitar playing.  He has some great suggestions, including this classic.

One of the big releases this week was Death Cab For Cutie’s Kintsugi, and to help provide some background on the album you can read this SPIN interview with the band.  For those of you wishing to dive into the back catalog of the group, lead singer Ben Gibbard provides a roadmap with this Vulture piece that details his favorite songs from each record.

Finally, Pitchfork has profiles on two wildly different artists, one with rapper Earl Sweatshirt and the other with Katie Crutchfield, who performs lo-fi rock as Waxahatchee, while Rolling Stone introduces its readers to Thundercat, who was one of the creative forces behind Kendrick Lamar’s latest album.