Ken Richardson

"I was born in Budapest in 1919 into a music-loving family."

So begins George Jellinek's own account of his musical life, as it appeared in the January 1976 issue of our predecessor, Stereo Review - a magazine for which he wrote from 1958 to 1999.

As we noted in "Feedback" in our June/July/August 2010 issue, we are indeed sad to report the death in January of a man who covered classical music for this magazine for 41 years.

Vampire Weekend (above), the buzziest of current buzz bands, was one of the hot acts I caught at the South by Southwest Music & Media Conference. For 4 nights in 80 venues, the Texas town of Austin - the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World - hosted the biggest music festival in the world.