Be Friends: Joanna Newsom and Mister Mort
- story Peter Macia
When you’re friends with two people who don’t know each other sometimes you just assume they have met but didn’t quite make the connection, like all it will take is a bro connect sponsored by you and the triumvirate will be complete. At least this was our reaction when Mister Mort put up a photo of Joanna Newsom wearing a killer trench and perfectly coordinated shoes and Starbucks cup on his street style blog and didn’t seem to know it was her until a commenter told him so. It is also clear by the bewildered look in her eyes that she doesn’t know him. Dudes! Be pals! This could be a totally insane partnership on many levels of detailing and anachronistic life choices. Hit us up for the intro.
Lover Have a New Harvest
- story Chioma Nnadi
This is the second Stylee Fridays dedicated to an Antipodean label in the space of the month, and it’s really no coincidence, since between Scandinavia, New Zealand and Australia we could probably create an entire fantasy shopping league. Susien Chong and Nic Briand started their label Lover off a weekend market stall in 2001, and their quiet rise to international fashion fame is a happy-ever-after fairytale in itself. The line has always been a big creative collage of all the things the couple admired, from French new wave movies to Wu Tang anthems to iconic photos like Joseph Szabo’s series Teenage. The Lover blog is equally awesome and intimate—Briand recently reminisced about his teenage crush on Denise Huxtable while Chong posted pictures from her high school “boy book,” a glorious scrapbook of late ’80s heartthrobs scribbled with hearts and full of glossy magazine clippings of River Phoenix and Ferris Bueller. The duo describes themselves as the “same album, different songs,” and the new collection for spring 2010 could have been pulled from the closet of any number of musicians living on their inspiration board, like Joni Mitchell, Yoko Ono or Joanna Newsom.
Video: The Family Jams Trailer
- story THE FADER
The early 2000s were a really good time for music if you were a dude with a beard or a woman who sounded like an old lady. Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom found their voices, Antony Johnson became an unlikely megastar, but more importantly, there was a lot of collaboration from everyone involved in the new folk/freak folk/whatever you want to call it scene. Now that we’ve got a little distance, filmmaker Kevin Barker is releasing The Family Jams, a documentary that follows Banhart, Newsom and Vetiver on their Summer 2004 tour. Our hope is that this will be part of an ongoing document of a pretty crazy movement, or at the very least, somehow answer where the hell Joanna Newsom went. Even if neither happens, you can expect childlike wonder and probably some tapestries.
-
posted on Mar 24, 2009 in MUSIC VIDEO tags Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, psych/folk, The Family Jams, Vetiver
Live: Joanna Newsom @ BAM w/ Brooklyn Philharmonic
- story THE FADER
Seeking refuge from the driving rains outside, a sold-out audience crammed into the baroque Brooklyn Academy Of Music this past Friday night to witness darling Joanna Newsom jam alongside the Brooklyn Philharmonic. OK, it was a little bit more structured than “jamming,” but there were so many hypnotic “oh shit!” moments that we felt like we were witnessing a seriously otherwordly collaboration. But, as trance-inducing as it was to watch Newsom tackle Ys in its entirety as it was meant to be heard, the real treat came post-intermission when she aired her more Appalachian tunes to the stunning acoustics of BAM. Backed by a trio and drawing heavily from the Milk-Eyed Mender and new compositions, Newsom’s spry, unique voice found its aural utopia in that concert hall, even if the between song banter dragged a bit (percussion dude, please don’t tell anymore stories.) But, when the band left the stage to allow Newsom to finish the performance with an incredible but untitled new song, all was good and bliss was achieved.
The Church Of Joanna
- story THE FADER
Our girl J-New’s fanbase is currently teetering above a chasm brimming with devotion and skeeviness. With Karen O and Nick Zinner watching from the balcony. If shit isn’t put in check soon we could end up with a Tori Amos situation on our hands. After the jump, a scene from the crowd at her sold-out show last night at the Troubadour in Hollywood.
