Milo Binder

A literate West Coast singer/songwriter whose career spans two distinct eras, Milo Binder initially rose out of Los Angeles' late-'80s folk scene, releasing a single critically hailed album before a series of dire events sent him into a decades-long hiatus. When he finally re-emerged in 2019, it was with an eclectic folk-pop children's record in the vein of <a href="spotify:artist:3RTzAwFprBqiskp550eSJX">Harry Nilsson</a>'s The Point. This set off a creative revival that eventually yielded Binder's proper follow-up album, The Unspeakable Milo Binder, in 2024.

Growing up in Encino, California, Todd Lawrence was a child of the 1970s, ingesting the pop, folk, rock, and funk records of the era and learning the guitar at a young age. He formed a few bands during his teenage years and later developed a strong bond with guitarist John Schillaci. By the latter half of the '80s, he was performing as a solo act under the name Milo Binder with best friend Schillaci serving as his manager and confidante. With smart, acoustic songs that hovered somewhere between wry and romantic, Binder began to earn a reputation among L.A.'s singer/songwriter scene and signed with Bay Area indie label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Alias+Records%22">Alias Records</a>. His 1991 self-titled debut album boasted several notable guests ranging from <a href="spotify:artist:4vpDg7Y7fU982Ds30zawDA">the Band</a>'s <a href="spotify:artist:4Krw5EvLS5prCEDNmmospt">Garth Hudson</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:0rESpKEusFHxhW59MIf7eM">Flying Burrito Brother</a> Sneaky Pete to folk scene peers like <a href="spotify:artist:3X4XES8PyvXVguL9Q6IEVD">Victoria Williams</a>. The record was well-received critically, and he went on to do a national tour, opening for acts like <a href="spotify:artist:4wM29TDTr3HI0qFY3KoSFG">Indigo Girls</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3CYSRCHfilgR8DSbkCMp5j">Cowboy Junkies</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:4NgNsOXSwIzXlUIJcpnNUp">Sarah McLachlan</a>.

Despite all this, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Alias%22">Alias</a> dropped Binder from its roster while he was recording his follow-up. Not long after, his close friend and manager Schillaci was killed in a car accident that also destroyed the master tapes of the album he'd been working on. Newly married at the time, Binder left L.A. and put his music career on hold. When his daughter was born with serious disabilities, his priorities shifted even more significantly, and he left the music industry behind.

Although he occasionally picked up the guitar, songwriting also fell by the wayside until the late 2010s, when he got an idea to create a children's song cycle that also appealed to adults. Collaborating with one of his old L.A. bandmates, Willie Aron, he created Paisley & the Firefly, a whimsical folk-pop album of songs and spoken word pieces that they released in 2019.

Having re-entered the musical arena again, Binder began to get ideas for new songs, many of which he wrote during the global pandemic at the start of the next decade. With Aron producing, he headed to Magnetic North Studios in Portland, Oregon, to record with engineer <a href="spotify:artist:5CZIV0zvRz5au1NaWrqygR">Victor Krummenacher</a>. At the same time, San Francisco label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Heyday+Records%22">Heyday Records</a> (a former rival of his previous label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Alias%22">Alias</a>) was launching its own revival as <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Heyday+Again%22">Heyday Again</a> and signed him. Binder's official second album, The Unspeakable Milo Binder, was released in 2024, over three decades after his debut. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi