By
Henry Freedland
on November 18, 2008 1:57 PM|Permalink
By the time Johnny Cash recorded Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's "I See A Darkness" for his American Recordings series in 2000, Will Oldham could justifiably have rested on his laurels. Shoulder-patting from the great Cash—what more could a modern folk artist have hoped for?
By
Austin L. Ray
on August 12, 2008 12:09 PM|Permalink
photo by Thorne Anderson
Read our issue 46 feature on Zach Galifianakis here.
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...Sean Penn:
"He called my cell phone and was like, 'Hey, it's Sean Penn.'
And I'm like, 'Uh-huh...' He's like, 'What are you doing next week?'
And I said, 'I'm going to Arby's.' Then I kinda realized it was him. I
didn't audition [for Into the Wild]; I just showed up to South
Dakota. It was me and him and Vince Vaughn and Emile Hirsch in a
hunting lodge together for two weeks. But when I first got there, I
said to Sean, 'How do you know me?' and he said he'd seen Out Cold about 17 times. His son is a snowboarder, it's not like he's studying the works of Lee Majors."
...Fiona Apple:
"I first met Fiona at a club in Los Angeles called Largo. It's
a place where musicians and comedians perform together. There would
always be musicians hanging out at a comedy show and vice versa. I
remember going up to Fiona and saying something like, 'I have
diarrhea.' Something I didn't think someone like Fiona Apple would ever
care to hear with that persona she has, I guess. She giggled at it, and
we always had these weird sentences in exchange. I handed her this
music video I'd done for this Anita Baker song ['You Bring Me Joy'],
and we were kinda friendly. Then we made her video [for 'Not About
Love']."
Watch Zach in Fiona Apple's video for "Not About Love" here. Zach's version of Anita Baker's "You Bring Me Joy":
...Kanye West: "I met Kanye through Largo as well, and he had also seen the Anita
Baker video. He came to see me do stand-up, and that night he asked me
to do a music video. I said, 'If you don't tell me what to do, I'll do
it.' I think some people would be intimidated that it's Kanye West, but
that shit doesn't impress me, that cockiness. It never has and it never
will. The more cocky people are, if you act cocky back to them, they
respect it. But he was quite nice about it. I just shot [the video for
'Can't Tell Me Nothing'] at my farm. Will Oldham happened to be
visiting me, so we drank some whiskey and shot it. That was basically
it."
Zach and Will Oldham' video for Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing":
By
Henry Freedland
on July 10, 2008 8:37 AM|Permalink
If you thought that Charlie Louvin's 2007 self-titled disc—which featured guest performances from Louvin-influenced artists like Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Will Oldham (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) and Eef Barzelay (Clem Snide)—was a career-concluding passing of the torch to new alt.country names, think again.
We're bringing you some of the artists we think are the best of what's next. Featuring selections from Slow Runner, Janelle Monae, The Spring Standards and more!
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