Sometime in 1976, the phone rang in the San Diego office of Warren Bolster, the editor of the recently relaunched Skateboarder magazine. The voice on the other end of the line probably sounded a little off. That’s because it belonged to a barely pubescent kid, Glen E. Friedman, who was doing his best to hide the fact that he was just 14 years old. He was calling from Los Angeles. “I’ve got some photos of Jay Adams skating a pool,” he said. “But but they’re really valuable to me, so I if I send them in you need to promise you won’t lose them.” Bolster gave Friedman his word.
Six weeks later, a small envelope arrived in Friedman’s mail. Inside was a check and a tearsheet from the new issue of Skateboarder. He ran out to buy the magazine and found to his astonishment that not only had the editors given his photo a full page, they’d also used the image as its subscription ad. “I just got the most radical picture that’s ever been in the magazine up to that point, and my name was on the bottom of it. It was crazy, and it was on.”
Friedman didn’t know it yet, but he just begun what would become a completely unique –and hugely successful –career. Over the next 40 years, Friedman’s work – from skateboarding to music and beyond — not only provided essential portraits of these bad-ass innovators in their purest states, it also introduced them and the cultural movements that they represented to the rest of the world.
Friedman’s first experience with getting his work published to be a typical one in that involved his signature combination of balls, talent, and a knack for showing up early to the party. By now, the story of how Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta and the rest of the Zephyr skate team reinvented skateboarding in the mid-1970s by using surf techniques and then going vertical, has become part of pop culture lore, thanks mostly to Peralta’s 2001 Sundance-winning documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys. And within skateboarding circles, the Zephyr team cemented their collective legend at the Del Mar Nationals back in 1975. But Friedman was there first. He’d been skating with them a year before that, and by the time he called Skateboarder he’d already spent the previous year documenting the crew’s exploits with a pocket Kodak Instamatic. (Friedman’s first published image was on the first roll he’d ever shot of a skateboarder.) “I knew was I was onto something,” says Friedman, “because I was a skateboarder and I knew that it was something really fucking special that no one had even heard of, and that this crew that I was hanging out with were the only ones who were really doing it.”
Peralta’s film introduced Friedman to the general public. Wiry, intense, and fiercely intelligent, Friedman provided many of the Dogtown’s smartest and most entertaining insights. His sheer charisma and don’t-give-a-fuck attitude also made it clear why he was given the access to the Z-Boys, an insular, often combative crew who treated outsiders with merciless disdain, if not outright contempt. (They were well-known for throwing pieces of the decaying Santa Monica pier down on surfers from out of town.) And Friedman would have seemed like the perfect target: a mediocre skater who lived with his mom and stepdad in a good neighborhood who was a couple of years younger than anyone in the Dogtown crew. But he could hang, had stones, and, like his heroes Alva and Adams, self- doubt was never a problem.
“I’ve always had the confidence that what I do is the shit — I don’t fuck around,” he tells me. “You’ve got to have your own vision. You’ve got to show people what you’re doing and make it uniquely yours. Otherwise there’s no reason for Skateboarder to publish a fucking 14 year old, or for Jay and Tony to have me around if I’m just some rat who comes from the nice side of town, who’s just following them around like I’m kind of groupie or something. I wasn’t that. I was a fucking participant, and I was doing shit better than anyone else.”
Friedman went on to become the definitive chronicler of the Dogtown days for Skateboarder, publishing countless photos in the magazine throughout the late 70s and early 80s. It was around this time that he found another source of obsession and inspiration: music, specifically the new underground genres that had begun to take shape just as skateboarding began experiencing a lull in popularity. It started with “hard-core punk” (a term Friedman loathes) and bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat, and the Misfits, some of whose members had obsessed over Friedman’s Skateboarder work.
“People wouldn’t couldn’t see what I saw in the bands,” he says. “I told myself I’ve got to show everyone what’s really going on here,” says Friedman. “I thought It was my personal responsibility to the bands and subjects to take dope photos because that’s what I thought they deserved.” After making a detour to produce the first Suicidal Tendencies’ record, which went on to become the bestselling hardcore album of the 80s, Friedman went back behind the camera and began applying his signature approach to the emerging hip-hop scene. His photos of Ice T, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, and other future hall-of-famers just as they were starting out, are now regarded, individually and collectively, as iconic portraits of a group of artists who, like Friedman, got there first.
September 2014 marked the release of My Rules, a coffee-table photo book and career retrospective that Friedman proudly touts as the definitive summation of his work with the icons he captured early in their careers. It’s a monster of a tome, featuring hundreds of photos, many of which appeared in print for the first time. And it doesn’t follow any established format. Instead of having a high-profile journalist write an introduction, include an artist statement and then focus on the images, which is the norm, My Rules has a whopping 22 essays written by the subjects themselves (as well as a few of Friedman’s colleagues) about the context in which the photos were taken. “I asked these guys to write something because I wanted readers to know how we got to the moment where we took those photos, what the inspiration was behind them, as well as where the performers came from and what got them there. I just wanted the whole thing to be just undeniable.”
My Rules is also a testament – and a reminder – of Friedman’s world-class talent, a fact that often gets second billing behind the usual chatter about how he discovered so many of these cultural phenomena in way before anyone else. The photos don’t simply hit all the required checkboxes of a great image (framing, composition, contrast, etc.); what distinguishes the work is the complete lack of affect on display by the subjects, all of whom share a similar quality that Friedman was the first to define.
“When I said hip hop was black kids’ version of punk rock, no one had said that yet, you know?,” he says. “All these things – skating, punk, hip-hop – belong together for a reason. They were fucking heroes, and they all shared the same attitude. I’m so proud of forcing those things to be together.”
Whether he’s shooting Tony Hawk or Ice-T or Henry Rollins, it’s immediately apparent that Friedman’s subjects trust him, and the resulting images are strikingly naturalistic. Even the staged portraits – which he started doing in the ‘80s – feel more like reportage. Friedman isn’t Avedon or Liebowitz, who, despite their brilliance, impose a certain interpretation of the fabulous people who visit their studios. His goal is more personal, more intimate, more aesthetically political: he strives to capture exactly what he finds inspiring in his subjects, to create a photographic interpretation of his own passion. And he’s never been some gun-for-hire who gets called in to make a singer or a skater or a rapper look cool. Once the publicists and managers are involved, he’s usually long gone. And if he doesn’t love what you’re doing and what you’re about, he won’t take your picture. It’s an attitude that has undoubtedly lost him countless money jobs over the years, but one look at My Rules provides no doubt that it’s all been worth it. Not a single picture in the book seems out of character, vague, or half-asses.
“The most important part of my work, why it’s good why it separates itself from everyone else’s is because it’s from the heart,” says Friedman. “I didn’t do it to make a living. I did it because I had to do it, because I loved what I was doing. I loved these artists because of how they inspired me.”
HUSBAND-AND-WIFE COLLABORATORS ANDREW AND CARISSA GALLO DOCUMENTED THEIR TRIP TO ALLURING, WONDROUS ICELAND.
Using photographs and film, husband-and-wife collaborators Andrew and Carissa Gallo tell stories that are artful and unique.
She is the photographer. He is the director. Together they are Sea Chant, a name that is inspired by a line in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
As Andrew Gallo explains it, “You give the sea your thoughts, your dreams, your feelings, and those who look into it receive those thoughts and dreams and feelings… all that stuff is hidden in the soul of the sea, and we’re just trying to tell those stories.”
Andrew and his wife Carissa founded their “storytelling outfit” last fall when they moved from the East Coast to Portland. They work for clients producing branded web series and campaigns, as well as create their own personal projects. Their style is ethereal and lovely, imbued with purposeful, thoughtful simplicity. They are inspired by all things natural—the coast, water, trees. “We use nature to our advantage,” says Andrew. “Working with natural light, beautiful environments, our locations are huge in what we do.”
And so, naturally, Iceland played the perfect backdrop for the pair. It was on both of their destination wish lists even before they met each other, and a work trip allowed them to extend a layover there in August 2012. For 10 days, they worked their way around the island in a beat-up rental car, cruising past glaciers and steaming fields, stopping to dip into geothermal pools.
“There’s something really unique about that place, where it’s almost like the earth was created and then it just stood still and stayed that way,” says Andrew. “It’s just these really ancient reminders, a beautiful, natural landscape that seems like it hasn’t changed at all. It was unlike anywhere we’ve ever been before.”
Getting lost and exploring with no distinct purpose was the point. They’d be going 60 mph down the highway and would come to a screeching halt and throw it in reverse to go back and capture something. With 19-hour days they had virtually limitless opportunities to explore. “The sun never technically set, it would just lower and rise again,” he says, “so it’d be midnight and we’d be swimming in this natural hot tub in the middle of this grassy knoll somewhere with sheep.”
There is one photo of Carissa in a cloudy geothermal pool, shot from above. All that’s visible is the top of her head and her brown hair floating, her hands clasped by the side of her face. “That was one of the first photos we took on the trip-just a few hours after we landed,” says Carissa. “That milky water was kind of magical in itself, and after we had waded around for a few hours, we went to grab our cameras in hopes of capturing the feeling. I don’t remember why I asked him to take the photo, but now, when we see it, it kind of encapsulates the other-worldly, isolated land we were venturing into.”
They met when Carissa was 17 and Andrew 18, through a mutual friend when Andrew was vacationing in San Diego. They connected initially over the piano and married three years later. And now they are parents to a 9-year-old girl, whom they adopted from Uganda last year.
Having just celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary, their sensibilities are so integrated that their influence on each other is both profound and imperceptible. Andrew describes their union as if two small trees were planted next to each other and over time their roots grew together into one. “We just rely on each other and balance each other out,” he says.
Adds Carissa, “I am very introverted and he’s a little more extroverted, and we fill in each other’s gaps.”
On Thursday, October 29th, Citizens of Humanity celebrated Issue No. 7 of Humanity Magazine along with Club Monaco on the anniversary of their 5th Ave Flagship in New York City. Everyone from Christy Turlington Burns, Taylor Schilling and Garance Dore gathered to watch Sean Lennon, who is featured in the issue of Humanity Magazine, perform with his band Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger. Friends Putnam & Putnam joined Citizens of Humanity and Club Monaco to celebrate along with the best of fashion, food, flowers, and coffee from the world’s top chefs, florists and mixologists.
Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Sean Lennon, Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger
IT’S BEEN OVER 2 DECADES SINCE ’93 AND SOULS OF MISCHIEF IS STILL CHILLIN’.
If you were to step inside a serious hip-hop head’s exclusive record vault, you’d likely find Souls of Mischief’s 93 ’til Infinity on precious wax, possibly framed. The Oakland-based group’s debut studio album was and still is a flawless work of audible art that never ceases to appear on best-of lists, making it an integral part of the groundbreaking genre’s history. And while the pioneering foursome and lifelong friends have heavily influenced both the independent and mainstream hip-hop arenas for more than two decades, they’ve miraculously managed to dodge the manipulation of commercialization, allowing them to live in this infinite sweet spot that merges street accreditation with global appreciation.
Formed in the Bay Area in 1991, Souls of Mischief features four members of the equally influential hip-hop crew, Hieroglyphics: Tajai, A-Plus, Phesto and Opio. Prior to rhyming with their core collective, the killer quartet met when they were just pint-sized talents. East Oakland native Tajai Massey (Tajai) and Colorado expat Adam Carter (A-Plus) were already spitting in grade school at the ripe age of 8. Tajai recruited his best friend Damani Thompson (Phesto) in middle school and A-Plus brought Opio Lindsey (Opio) into the budding act in high school.
Just two years after hitting the scene, SoM scooped up a major label deal with Jive Records and released the aforementioned 93 ’til Infinity in 1993. Equipped with unforgettable tracks like “Never No More,” “That’s When Ya Lost” and the title single, “93 ’til Infinity,” the funk-infused album was an underground success, offering true beat junkies a refreshingly unique sound that was unlike anything being produced by more established hip-hop acts during that time. Rather than take the easy route of excessively gabbing about babes, blunts and bling, SoM’s perspective challenges the listener to think, offering a provocative array of memorable lyrics, both bold (“Puns and phrases I stun in phases”) and brainy (“Shins get split, men get spindled, swiveled, pivoted by my riveting centrifuge”). Their distinctive approach to the genre garnered a myriad of accolades, including a spot on The Source’s 100 Best Rap Albums list.
Twenty-one years after releasing their groundbreaking chart- topper, the life-long friends now have six studio albums under their belt, including No Man’s Land (1995), Focus (1999), Trilogy: Conjlict, Climax, Resolution (2000), Montezuma’s Revenge (2009), and the recently released anniversary joint There Is Only Now (2014). Produced by eclectic hitmaker Adrian Younge (he’s worked with everyone from Ghostface Killah for “Twelve Reasons to Die” to Jay-Z for “Picasso Baby”), the live instrument-heavy production is a clever nod to the group’s ’90s roots, offering nostalgic, storytelling sounds backed by real-life experiences and guest appearances from the likes of Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, William Hart of The Delfonics and Scarub of Living Legends. There Is Only Now proves that there’s no better time to remind the hip-hop game that Souls of Mischief paved the way.
A-PLUS
Similar to childhood friend Tajai, Adam Carter (aka A-Plus) was a brainiac in school, dabbling in both computers and comic books while enthusiastically taking on advanced classes and exploring the then-budding world of underground hip-hop. The spawn of a musical family (his 13-year-old son is starting to make beats, too), the Colorado-born, Oakland-raised talent has released three solo records: My Last Good Deed (2007), Pepper Spray (2011) and the just-dropped Molly’s Dirty Water, which A-Plus calls “an EDM- inspired hip-hop album.”
“I’ve been into EDM [electronic dance music] for a long, long time,” A-Plus explains. “I just want to see if I can do a hip-hop hybrid. So I’m just pushing my boundaries. I’m always trying to inspire myself to do different things, push my envelope further. A lot of early ’80s music was completely electronic. I’ve been to a lot of raves, done a lot of psychedelic shit. In the mid-2000s I was dating a chick that was into that stuff a lot, like all the sub-genres of electronic music. I was listening to it more and more, and I guess around 2009-2010 I was really trying to start learning.” Those Souls of Mischief kids, always learning.
On the subject of throwbacks, A-Plus recalls the days when technology and hip-hop were separate entities, allowing the genre to maintain monetary value on an organic level. “At that time, you know, before P2P and file sharing and Napster came into play and all of that, independent hip-hop for us was extremely lucrative because we kind of cut out the middleman and we still
had an audience,” he explains. “So all we had to do was make sure we had a distribution deal, and once we got that we were able to make all the money that the record companies could make off all of our audience. For example, getting a couple hundred thousand on a tour would be considered a complete failure, but selling a couple hundred thousand as an independent—as a group, not on TV and not on the radio—is so fuckin’ money.”
Instead of blowing hard-earned cash on the flash that today’s rappers tirelessly boast about, A-Plus and the rest of the Hieroglyphics made a smart splurge: “Around 2003, we took the money and invested it and bought a big-ass warehouse out in East Oakland to hold our studios,” he notes. In addition to hosting the group’s offices and shirt-printing business, the approximately 8,000-square- foot compound, known as the “Hiero Compound” or “Hiero HQ,” is also where There Is Only Now was recorded. (About the album’s name: “We were in the midst of making the album and we hadn’t come up with a name yet,” A-Plus says. “Then, Tajai said the lyric ‘There is only now’ and everybody was, like, ‘Shit, yeah.’”) While Tajai can take credit for the album’s title, it was A-Plus who made initial contact with producer Adrian Younge: “I emailed him and said, ‘Dude, you want to work with us? We want to work with you!’ And he was like, ‘Hell yeah, let’s make this shit happen.’ After that, we talked about it for, like, five or six hours. I talked to the rest of the crew […] and a couple of weeks after that we were in the studio.”
OPIO
Two driving forces behind Souls of Mischief’s success are education and friendship. Similar to Tajai and A-Plus, the multi-talented Opio Lindsey thanks his upbringing for instilling his skills. “I think it was our parents, you know?” he adds. (His father was an attorney who represented the likes of Richard Pryor and Ice Cube.) “Education was always the most important thing in my home—and the same in everybody else’s home. It wasn’t, like, a scenario where you can just be lazy and shit. We had a thirst for knowledge that wasn’t just about being in class—it was just kind of this natural connection we had with each other.”
Opio—who has released a handful of solo works, including Triangulation Station (2005), Vulture’s Wisdom, Volume 1 (2008) and Red X Tapes with Equipto (2011), and recently worked with SoCal underground hip-hop producer Free the Robots—explains that the group’s thirst for knowledge is also why they naturally entered the hip-hop game early on. “We are fans, fans that are lucky enough to do music,” he adds. “We have a passion for hiphop music and culture. “I was writing graffiti, breakdancing and DJing; we all tried everything. That passion and love for the music kind of connected us during a time when it wasn’t really cool to be a rapper. You know, people would be like ‘You a rapper?’ and think it’s funny and shit. Nobody was a rapper; in America there were probably 1,000 rappers at the time. So that kind of made us have a strong bond. [People would try to make] hip-hop be this negative force or some shit like that, like it encourages you to do criminal acts and act thug or whatever, but that’s not it.” He also adds that money was never a motivating factor: “It wasn’t something that we put all this focus on. We were friends first and then hip-hop was just part of our lives and what we did, so it felt natural to do it together—we weren’t trying to get rich off of it.”
While money has never been a driving force for Opio and his Souls of Mischief counterparts, maintaining street cred is a constant stimulus. “We just wanted to put out a record to have the respect of all these emcees that we grew up on and loved,” he explains. “That was more of our focus—to get respect from the hip-hop community. For us, we always try to do something that nobody is doing in hip-hop. We don’t say, ‘Oh, what’s popular in rap music right now so let’s make sure we do that. You know what I mean? That’s always been our biggest strive; we love to be creative but we want to separate ourselves from everybody.”
SoM’s interest in innovation dates all the way back to the ’90s, when the group had its first taste of technology. “I mean, we were basically one of the first websites to do any type of commerce,” Opio reveals. “[Fans] would get in touch with us through our website and then place an order, and then we would mail out CDs and T-shirts and whatever. I think it was around ’96 maybe. I mean, there was nobody really selling anything [online during that time]; we had a website before Chrysler!”
PHESTO
“I grew up in a family of musicians, but I got into music because of my dad and my uncles,” reveals Damani Thompson (aka Phesto or Phesto Dee), rounding out the Souls of Mischief quartet. “My dad wasn’t a real musician—he didn’t play any instruments—but he used to collect a lot of music, so he had records. “That’s kind of how hip-hop started as well, by going through our parents’ records. That was my entry into this world of looking at record covers like Parliament and James Brown, all these people that you hear on the radio. You might have heard them on the radio as a hit but you didn’t know they had this extensive catalog of music. When you were young, you would just hear a hit song but you didn’t know people had all this music and that was where I learned that from, from [my family]. There is another spectrum of music out there that doesn’t necessarily get played in a pop format or whatever. This was before I even knew about hip-hop. I mean, hip-hop existed, but I wasn’t really into it until I started messing with other forms of music first and then I got into hip-hop.”
Once Phesto got into the genre, the genius lyricist went at it full force. Solo projects include Granite Pedigree (2011), Background Check (2012) and the recent Infrared Rum (2014). As far as his work with Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics, the new dad (he welcomed a son last year) reveals that he entered the crew when it was just about fully formed. “So, I was watching what they were doing, and [asking myself] ‘How could I fit in without going against the grain?’” he explains. “I mean, how I can bring something new to the group without destroying the dynamic and cohesiveness that already exists? I came from a visual artist mentality because of graffiti. When I first came into the group, I was concerned about the visual stuff because I felt that we had the audio stuff covered. We got dope lyrics, we got dope beats, but maybe visually I can bring something to the table. So that’s why I did the Souls of Mischief logo.”
Phesto’s contribution to the group involves much more than SoM’s memorable emblem. “I feel like my best strength right now is my knowledge of music theory, and hip-hop is really about defying all theories,” he adds. “One thing I learned about music is that it’s one thing to break the rules, but another thing to know the rules in order to break them. So I feel that I’m a person who knows the rules, and that’s why it’s a little different when I break them. When we do need a rule or need something radical from a musical standpoint, I can provide that because I’m kind of trained in a traditional way.”
Speaking of strengths, Phesto adds that the group’s staying power can also be attributed to their support of one another. “I think now we are at the point where we know certain people have certain strengths, and if you are just not as strong in that area, you pick up the slack more in your area. We’ve been friends since kindergarten. I mean, you can’t say that about a lot of people— people who are still good friends and business partners. So it’s not that we have our egos in check, it’s like we knew each other before we even had egos.”
TAJAI
“I went to Stanford for undergrad and got my master’s at Berkeley in architecture,” explains Tajai Massey (known simply as Tajai), one-fourth of Souls of Mischief and one-eighth of Hieroglyphics. Born in Stanford and raised in Oakland, the 39-year-old father of two (“I got a 13-year-old and a 6-year-old”) is the impressive offshoot of a well-educated household (his mom was a professor and dad was “like a sysop or something like that”), setting the tone for SoM’s uniquely intellectual point-of-view.
“I got into computers early on, so I think we were fortunate to have parents that were getting an education, because we were part of the computer and literate community,” he notes. “But it wasn’t like it was an anomaly; you know where we lived.” Indeed, the Bay Area in the ’80s was already a hotbed for tech culture. Because of this, Tajai and fellow group member A-Plus got deep into computer programming at an early age, experimenting with a range of now-classic models, including the Commodore 32, Commodore 64, Apple IIe and Apple IIc. “Tajai was the first person I knew who had the first Mac—the very first Mac!” A-Plus adds.
Just like his advanced computer literacy and burgeoning architecture career (“I just did a cupcake shop for [Hieroglyphics member] Casual’s sister, I did a kitchen for my buddy and I’m working on a container-based mall”), Tajai’s determination to stay ahead of the game is why There Is Only Now is a true envelope-pusher. “We put a lot of effort into this,” he says. “We’re trying to change music a few times, you know what I’m saying?” One of the record’s prime examples of progression is the fact that it’s a time piece set in 1994, right after the release of 93 ’til Infinity. Prepare to be intrigued by the embedded, real-life story of how the guys were attacked after a show that year. “A guy runs up and pulls his ski mask down and was, like, ‘I ain’t playing with you, get on the ground,’” Tajai says. “But while he’s talking about how he’s going to kill us all, he puts the gun up to [Hieroglyphics producer] Domino’s face, and I’m like, ‘oh shit, Domino’s dead.’ Then the guy chases us around the corner and starts shooting at us. It was a terrible experience; we didn’t understand the gravity of that.” Domino’s life was fortunately spared, but the trauma was enough to leave the group permanently shaken.
“Although we made a record that stimulates that era—that feeling— it is still current,” Tajai explains. “So, it’s not like a throwback record. It represents Souls of Mischief in that time period for this record, like a circular rather than linear thing going on at that moment. I think it’s got a throwback feel without being, like, ‘oh, it’s a comeback record’, or we’re trying to recreate that feeling. We’re just trying to recreate the soul.” And while Tajai may appear as the leader of the pack of this retro-soul resurgence, he’s quick to expound the equality of SoM’s operation. “We just recognize and treat our roles in the group like instruments,” he explains. “Like, you know: bass, drums, keys, guitars. It’s like a jazz quartet, or a punk rock band. A guy’s not gonna get up there by himself [and be an] asshole or a bad-ass.”
If you’re looking for a live-wire frontman, or a musician who’ll do Townsend windmills while waggling his tongue at the audience, Benji Lysaght is not your guy. In fact, the Los Angeles-based guitarist—who’s made a name for himself as a gun-for-hire session and touring musician—eschews the spotlight pretty strenuously. “I have a lot of ambivalence and anxiety when it comes to performance,” he says, “I love rock and roll, and those extroverted musicians with the bravado and the swagger, they’re so inspiring. But that’s never been a part of my personality, or my emotional constitution. I’ve always gravitated towards performers with a very quiet, understated stage presence, even when there was a great intensity about what they were doing.”
Luckily, bravado’s not a requirement for success, and the 33 year-old’s tremendous musical talent has kept him very busy over the past decade and a half. Lysaght demurs when asked about his career history (“Prepare to be totally bored,” he laughs), then proceeds to list his credits, a process that takes quite a while. Straight out of college, in the early 2000s, he toured with beloved indie-pop group Ambulance Ltd., and after leaving the band, started work as a session player and occasional touring guitarist. Lysaght has since lent his skills to both the first and second solo records from the Killers’ Brandon Flowers, backed Beck at the Hollywood Bowl for a tribute to Serge Gainsbourg, toured with Father John Misty (and played on tracks for his upcoming album), did a stint backing Lauryn Hill in the mid-2000s, recently taped a VH1 performance with pop goddess Sia, worked on tracks for Crystal Skulls’ upcoming album, and played with British songwriter Michael Kiwanuka. And the list goes on. But the self-effacing Lysaght is quick to note that some of these gigs were brief, a matter of one or two days in the studio. “I’m just so self-conscious about seeming like a braggy schmuck,” he says.
Lysaght was born and raised in L.A., the son of a death penalty appellate lawyer and a civil litigator. He started taking guitar lessons at age 10, though certainly not at his parents’ behest. “I think my parents were a little, not quite apprehensive, but neither of them are musicians. They were incredibly encouraging, though.” Lysaght worked for a summer at a local guitar shop, and by 15, he was hooked on the instrument. “I’m trying to edit myself so I don’t say these things that sound like absolute platitudes, like, ‘I fell in love with it,’ but…” he laughs. He played jazz guitar in high school and moved to New York to study jazz performance at the Manhattan School of Music before transferring to Columbia. There, he focused on music and art history. But moving from jazz into the rock genre wasn’t a natural fit for him. “A guy who I knew from playing jazz gigs said, ‘Hey, I’m in this rock band Ambulance Ltd.—would you be interested in playing?’ It was a whole musical style that I was pretty unfamiliar with, because I’d done nothing but essentially listen to jazz records for the previous six or seven years.” While his ensuing musical education was a pleasure, he soon realized that life as a permanent member of a touring band wasn’t his destiny. “Those sort of interpersonal dynamics [within bands] are so difficult to negotiate,” he says, “especially for someone like myself who tends to be pretty socially awkward. I really prefer the independence of being a hired gun.”
Asked about his the artists he’d love to collaborate with, living or dead, Lysaght responds excitedly like the music geek he is. “I would’ve loved to have played with Lou Reed. Tom Waits is one of the dream gigs. Then you go to canonical figures like Miles Davis or Johnny Cash. I’d have to throw in Captain Beefheart, and Thelonius Monk would’ve been otherworldly.” He interrupts himself to add, “Oh! Ornette Coleman. And Kurt Vile. I’m gonna reread The Secret and then go put these people on my dream board,” he jokes. It’s a list as eclectic as Lysaght’s own niche, which he describes as “rock and roll, soul, country, folk, some R&B, and pop as well.” But becoming a musical chameleon can have its downsides. “I guess the pitfall is losing a sense of self and identity,” he says, “because you sort of assimilate to the aesthetic ideology of whatever music you’re playing at the time. It’s a thing that I struggle with, just keeping a sense of identity and self. I’m still working on that.” It’s clear he’ll have plenty of time to figure it out.
If you’re a denim devotee, there’s a good chance that, at one point in time, Ismael Olivera had his hands on your favorite jeans before you. That’s because Olivera, who now works as one of the head sewers at Citizens of Humanity headquarters, cut his teeth working for every major denim label that has manufactured in Los Angeles in the last two decades.
But the roots of his stitching wizardry can be traced back to Pueblo, Mexico, where Olivera was born. The son of a tailor and a farm owner, Olivera was one of seven brothers and five sisters. “The only thing I remember was that we were really happy,” says Olivera, reflecting on his impoverished childhood. “We were poor, but we didn’t know any better.”
At age ten, alongside his two older brothers, Olivera picked up a needle and thread with his father, and began to learn the family trade. Known far and wide for making long-lasting garments, especially trousers, his father’s storefront was frequented by customers of all backgrounds, from truck drivers to prominent business owners. The secret to the shop’s signature pants? Each backrise, inseam and side-seam was reinforced with a special elastic thread.
At age 15, Olivera’s father migrated to the United States to make more money to educate his younger daughters, leaving Olivera and his brothers in charge of the shop. It was an important time for learning, he says, recalling the customers who would come to the family shop and dish out advice as they waited for their garments to be finished. “Work hard and take care of your money,” they told Olivera—lessons which continue to resonate with him today.
Fresh out of high school, Olivera followed his father to Los Angeles, where he quickly found work making Guess jeans for a Mexican contractor in downtown. Quickly, he set his sights on the most coveted job in the factory: working on the caballo machine, making backrises. The position required experience and skills—both which Olivera lacked—and also paid more than double what he was making at the time. On lunch breaks, Olivera would study his friends’ techniques, and, when the manager was out, would try his hand at the machine.
His proficiency was put to the test when he landed a job at another factory working the backrise machine, and was fired within a week. Olivera continued to hone his skills working for a handful of other brands, including Bongo, before landing at the Pepe Jeans in 1994, before going back to Guess for two years, followed by stints at Cherokee and Calvin Klein. Here, Olivera flourished, and when the factory was moved to Mexico, Olivera was asked to come. Instead, the tailor opted to stay, and was promptly recommended for a position working thecaballo at the newly launched AG Jeans.
In 2003, the denim world was abuzz with the debut of Citizens of Humanity, so at the urging of friends in the industry, Olivera left AG Jeans to work there. “I came from a big company to a small company, and took the risk,” he says, admitting he was quickly won over by the value the brand placed on all of it’s team members. “I never thought it was going to be this big.”
No day is alike for Olivera, who, eleven years later, is one of the company’s head sewers. From crafting samples to pressing jeans for fittings, Olivera and his team leave their mark on every piece of denim that passes through the brand’s facility outside downtown Los Angeles. “I think denim will stay for ever, but people get tired of the same thing, so it has to change all the time,” he muses.
And Olivera’s proudest moment? Keeping his word to his now-departed father, and paying for his sibling’s educations with his talent and hard work. “If you put a machine in front of me, I can do so many things,” he says. “Wherever I go, nobody can take this skill away from me.”
CHRISTY TURLINGTON BURNS: You’ve probably thought about it more than a lot of people because you’re asked about it constantly, but how has your notion of beauty changed over the years, if at all?
IMAN: It keeps on changing. I came to the United States when I was around 18 years old in 1975. I was a student. I was more concentrated on becoming a political science student; I had never worn makeup in my life, never saw fashion magazines, and it was the last thing on my mind. Then all of a sudden I became a model—which was a complete surprise to me, because nobody had even ever said I was beautiful before. So I took it in stride, I took it as a business, because we were refugees. We left our country [Somalia]; we were living both in Tanzania and then Kenya and had to fend for ourselves. So this was an opportunity—modeling was an opportunity for me to take care of my family and my brothers and sisters, let them finish their schooling.
CTB: How long did it take you to start to see, even in the photographs of yourself, what other people were seeing?
IMAN: It took me a while. It took me really a long time, but then I found my sense of appreciation about myself. When I came here as a young girl, I was not sure about myself. My self-esteem was low.
CTB: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?
IMAN: Absolutely, and let that beholder be you. The beholder has to be you, you know …
CTB: I agree.
IMAN: But it is in the eye of the beholder how they see you and how you see yourself; I always say, as I get older, the beholder becomes me.
CTB: How does that change the way you feel, when people are always saying “great shot” or telling you that you are “beautiful” all the time? Doesn’t it change the way you take that word in?
IMAN: Sometimes it’s over the top, so you don’t believe it. But then it makes the real people in your life—people you trust, you know. I tell my daughter, “You have to find people you can trust.” Because she says to me, when I say to her, “You’re beautiful,” she says, “You say that to me because you’re my mother.” But it’s very important for them to believe in themselves, because she always thinks I’ll say that because I’m Mom.
CTB: It’s funny—I call both of my children, boy and girl, “Beauty,” “Hey, Beauty” or “Good morning, Beauty” for both of them. I just thought about that now, actually, as we’re talking, it’s not in an objective way. “You’re pretty” or “Oh, you look beautiful,” but it’s just the idea that you are beauty. It’s this holistic, bigger thing: You’re kind, you’re smart, you’re all of these things.
IMAN: Absolutely, absolutely. She would say to me, “What’s so beautiful?” I’m like, it’s never about something specific. It’s not about your lips, nose, eyes. It’s not that.
CTB: It must be a really interesting experience to go through that with a teenager.
IMAN: And I have an older daughter, too.
CTB: So, how has it been?
IMAN: Different.
CTB: Yeah, tell me.
IMAN: The first time—
CTB: You were in the middle of your career, too.
IMAN: Yeah, but the times change. Nowadays, before they go to school, you try to really make some part of a human being that will know their worth, but their peers are more important to them when they become teenagers. And nowadays they’re bombarded—they’re in social media, they’re bombarded with different kinds of images. And I’m so surprised. I mean, I find the hardest job nowadays is to raise a girl, because the society is so confusing—not only about what beauty is, what body image is, and how we are celebrating women. Nowadays, nobody is ashamed of doing anything bad; they’re celebrated for it. So how do you tell somebody “That’s not right,” when the person has become a star?
CTB: Right.
IMAN: How do you? It’s so difficult. “Just look at what has happened to that person when they did that.” You can’t even say that.
CTB: I know. It’s always as if the next celebrity scandal is just a moment away. Have you had to deal with selfies with your daughter?
IMAN: Yes, I warned her about it. I said, “First of all, you know, you can’t put yourself out there, because what you will get back is not always nice.”
CTB: No, you can’t.
IMAN: I print her selfies for her.
CTB: Wow.
IMAN: I’m trying to convince her, “Now that’s a selfie!”
CTB: My niece is a senior at the same school as your daughter and my kids; there are a lot of photographers amongst her friends, and there’s a lot of nudity as well. But some incredibly artistic shots, and it’s been interesting because they’re all going to go to art college. They say, “Well, you were photographed nude.”
IMAN: You did it?
CTB: Yeah, and I regret it, honestly. Even the ones that are more artistic, I still regret.
IMAN: When my parents come, I hide them under the bed.
CTB: I have photos of people I don’t know that are nudes, beautiful nudes by Larry Clark and Irving Penn, but there’s something about… when you’re a known person or when you can recognize the person—it’s hard to be objective about it, but I told these girls, I feel terrible about it only because … I feel like I was trying to be strong in the moment, like, “Oh, I’m so free with my body,” but really, I’m not that free, you know what I mean? I wasn’t ever that comfortable.
IMAN: I did a topless shot, I think, 15 years ago, for Vanity Fair. There was a story on me and it was on the cover, so they wanted to do it again when I was 60. They asked me, “Can we do it nude?” and I said, “Absolutely not.” And it’s not because I’m older. It’s because knowing what I know now, you know what I mean?
CTB: So of all the photographers you’ve worked with, who do you think has captured you best? What’s your favorite photograph?
IMAN: I think Bruce Weber. Because Bruce captures moments. You rarely are posing for Bruce, and I have an Arthur Elgort picture that is black-and-white; you would never think it is an Arthur Elgort.
CTB: Not all smiling and jumping.
IMAN: It’s the most amazing picture—shadows in the background and the noise, the dress flying and the curls of the hair with some kind of an architectural thing. It’s one of my favorite photographs.
CTB: It’s interesting, because I feel like when there is such a body of work, there is just so much crap that we’ve done, and all those fashion shows too. When you go to Milan—well, maybe it’s different now; I haven’t even been there in 20 years.
IMAN: I haven’t done a fashion show since ’89.
CTB: I can’t go to watch them either. I have over the years every now and again, but it’s so stressful to be there when you don’t have a reason to be there. It’s just not fun and you feel like you’re in a fishbowl.
IMAN: Exactly. “What is she doing? She must be looking for a job.”
CTB: When you made that decision, how much time went into thinking about when, or did you just know one morning and say, “I’m done”?
IMAN: I woke up one morning, and I have to tell you, the Naomis and the Lindas and everything was happening at that time, so that was it for me.
CTB: But there was overlap.
IMAN: Yeah, but it was like a perfect time to exit. I literally woke up and called my agent and said, “That’s it,” and they said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me call you next week, for my book.” And I said, “No, I’m done.” And I was done and I never went back.
CTB: Yeah, I had a similar thing. I thought about it for a long time, and I guess I really haven’t fully given modeling up, but in my mind I did, because I went back to school and moved on in my life. And when I went back to school, same thing. I remember somebody telling me that they were in a location van and they saw me walk by with my backpack, and they were like, “Oh, poor thing.” And I’m thinking – “Poor thing? I’m getting my education, you fools.” But I remember thinking about it. I think I had finally quit smoking and had gained some weight, and I was in Paris for the couture shows and I remember that moment when I thought, “You know what, I’m doing something healthy for myself, and they’re judging me and I don’t want to subject myself to it anymore.” And it’s such an empowering feeling when you can make that choice.
So what’s the question about beauty you hate the most? Is it, like, the aging ones?
IMAN: The aging ones. I’ve also always been … instead of trying to fight it, go with it in all the stages of your life.
CTB: Journalists are always asking the same old age questions …
IMAN: Sit.
CTB: Yeah, it’s like “Whoa.” And I just even hate the way beauty products and campaigns are selling “anti-aging.” It’s going to happen, it is happening, there is nothing we can do about it, so why are we trying to deny it? And people are surprised when you actually do embrace where you are in life, as opposed to saying “Ahh!”
IMAN: Exactly. You celebrate it. You don’t say, “Ahh, it’s freaking me out.” It doesn’t freak me out.
CTB: I was having lunch with Dayle Haddon last year …
IMAN: Oh my God, I haven’t seen her for a while.
CTB: She’s amazing. She said to me, “Oh, I feel so great in my 60s.” She said, “In my 20s, I’m trying to figure it out; my 30s, I’m starting to feel like I got it; then my 40s, I’m so busy and so tired all of the time. And then my 50s …” Is there a word that could describe who you were in each decade?
IMAN: Yes, well, I don’t know about a word.
CTB: Or a feeling.
IMAN: I would say, my 20s, even though I was in the height of my career, not as sure, self-confidence low, self-esteem low. 30s felt like … I’m aging, right? 40s, I started to own it. Funny enough, late 30s is when I met David [Bowie]. At 45, I had my daughter. Which was a miracle of delivery—no, it was a miracle conception. 40s were liberating, that I could get pregnant, that I found somebody in my life. 50 was a celebration of a half a century for me. I became very close to my older daughter. I became kinder, gentler, even to myself. I completely stopped picking on myself.
CTB: Self-acceptance.
IMAN: Yes, self-acceptance and self-celebration.
CTB: That’s amazing. We’re all just human, and sometimes we just don’t know. It’s our first time going through this, but there’s gotta be laughter and some silliness, and I think that’s what keeps us healthy and that’s what keeps us sane.
IMAN: Yeah, I know, the first time that my daughter saw me crying … she was shocked.
CTB: Like, you have feelings too?
IMAN: No, because she thinks of me as so strong. She said to me one day, “I’ll never be like you and Dad,” and I said, “It’s not about being famous.” I said, “It’s about qualities that you admire, because my mom was not famous. My mom was a nurse and became a doctor, and I always thought, ‘Oh my God, Mom. I’ll never be like her,’ ” you know? I said to her it’s not about fame, it’s qualities we like about people, and I said, “That’s what you should always surround yourself with, people you want to emulate. There is nothing better than somebody that you really admire that you want to emulate, you know. What are they doing that I like that I want to be a part of?”
CTB: That’s really what a role model is.
IMAN: But she said, “Oh, that’s like a copy.” I said, “No. Because nobody’s invented anything, it’s all passed around; we take bits and make it our own.”
CTB: I don’t remember feeling those classic adolescent feelings, maybe because I was working at such a young age. And then you kind of get thrown out of adolescence, and then you’re in our business—you’re celebrated for things that would maybe be awkward in school. It’s funny to say, but the industry got me out of feeling overly self-conscious or self-loathing. It was like, “Oh, somebody else thinks I’m good, so I’ll go with it.”
I get the best quality time with my daughter when I drive her out to Long Island to ride or go to a gymnastics meet. In the car she is more open, less distracted.
IMAN: It’s true, starting a conversation is tough, besides the “Did you do your homework?” So I said recently, “Oh, Rihanna might be going out with Leonardo DiCaprio,” so that’s how I started. She started to talk. She said, “Really? I don’t see them. Isn’t he too old for her?”
CTB: You obviously have an incredible work ethic and you’re doing so many things. How do you manage that, to be able to have the time to be there for your daughter, be a partner with your husband, you know, be all of those things that I think so many women struggle with?
IMAN: I close shop at 3:30. Done. I look at the emails after she finishes dinner and she’s doing homework. After that, every- thing is shut off.
CTB: Is it hard to do or is it easy to do for you?
IMAN: For me, it’s easy. It’s actually harder for her; she was doing fine, and then I found out she was up till 12 a.m. So now 9 p.m., everything comes out of the room.
CTB: Wow. That’s smart.
IMAN: I usually cook at home, you know, watch a movie with David after she goes to bed, so yeah. But you have to. It’s so important. You want a career? Do that first. You don’t want to have kids? Then don’t. You don’t want to get married? Then don’t. But once you do something, you got to know that there is compromise.
CTB: Yeah, someone once told me sequencing was the way to do it. You can have it all, but not at the same time.
IMAN: If you want a career, do the career first. You get married, then you have to sacrifice, and then children are coming, and then you have to sacrifice more, you know. But then I tell them, it shouldn’t shame you. If you want to have a career and you don’t want to get married, don’t, but don’t think that you can have all at the same time.
CTB: What about barriers you have overcome? What about race and religion in the industry—have you seen a noted difference in terms of representation?
IMAN: I don’t watch fashion shows, so I was not aware of it, but Bethann Hardison, one of my closest friends—she’s an activist. So one day, I get an email from her, and she says, “Do you know that they are not using any working black models in the runways anymore?” Prada hasn’t used them for six, seven years. And when the New York Times wrote about Calvin Klein, they called him the blonde leading the blonde. So all of a sudden we started to highlight this conversation; I see a lot, the politics of beauty, the politics of race. There is politics behind it. And designers were like, in the beginning, “Oh, we’re not going to be pushed around and be forced to use a black model.” Nobody’s saying this, but they say we’re not seeing black models this season, but they don’t know the harm you’re doing to the self-esteem of a young girl who is trying to get a job. So we talked about it on television and interviews on CNN, and there has been a cohesive effort by all designers.
CTB: It’s good just to have it in their consciousness, right?
IMAN: And it was very good to see that. It was so visible that the public realized, you know, and that’s very good. When it comes to me, religion, I’m Muslim, so what I’m doing is against what my religion is.
CTB: Everything about you.
IMAN: But I’m Somali; Somali is how we were raised. We never wore burkas because Somalis had our own cultures. We adopted Islam, but the world has changed. I’m always criticized by other Somalis and Muslims for what I’m doing as a model and married to a white man and all that. They all say, “You’re going to hell,” and I’m like, “Well, don’t worry about it, that will be me, why do you worry? You shouldn’t lose sleep over me. Really, please don’t worry. That will be between me and God, don’t worry about me.”
CTB: Well, once again, it’s a confidence. You know what your faith is—it’s a private thing, it’s a personal thing.
IMAN: The only opinion that I really care about is my parents’ and as I said, I have these beautiful [Irving] Penn photographs of me nude, and they go under the bed when they come.
CTB: Are you raising your daughter Muslim?
IMAN: No, she is an atheist; she doesn’t really believe in anything. So if she’s going to be, she’ll choose. She should know about everything.
CTB: Eddie [Burns] and I were both raised Catholic, but I studied comparative religion in college. I like looking at what we have in common and what’s good about all of these religions rather than what sets us apart or at odds. You want your children to be exposed to all of it and come up with it themselves, but to have something as a starting point, to question. I think atheists are really the most religious of all, because they’re questioning all the time and if you’re questioning you’re thinking about it, which makes you a much more spiritually conscious person.
IMAN: People will say all the time Islam doesn’t allow that, but that’s just not true. Extremism doesn’t allow that. There is a big difference. You have to question. Make your choice!
CTB: Well, I think we’re good, unless there’s anything that you want to say that I didn’t ask.
It’s been called “the best vintage store in the world,” but owner Hitoshi Uchida opened his Tokyo-based shop J’Antiques in 2005 without thinking much about its future. “I happened to find a property for sale in my neighborhood,” he says. “So I started my store without preparing much.” located near the Nakameguro neighborhood, J’Antiques’ shelves and aisles are packed with classic men’s and women’s wear (focusing on authentic American work wear from the 1920s and beyond) as well as bric-a-brac like vintage buttons, antique keys, and WWII-era military gear. His pieces are humble yet beautifully crafted; relics from the days when the U.S. was really celebrated for creating carefully crafted clothing that was built to last.
Becoming a master at sourcing and selling artifacts like these was a natural extension of Uchida’s personal passion for unique style. “I was looking for clothing that was different from other people’s,” he explains, “That’s what first led me to vintage.” Growing up in Gunma, a mountainous area north of Tokyo, Uchida considered becoming an architect. But his love for fashion and its history drew him to career clothing. Once he’d secured the location for his shop, the name for J’Antiques was a natural fit. “It’s a combination of ‘junk’ and ‘antique,’” Uchida explains. “I think somebody’s ‘junk’ can be another’s ‘antique’ and vice versa, depending on people’s choices and taste.” He makes regular buying trips to the U.S. to seek out choice pieces from flee markets and vintage shops across the country — and still gets excited about working with one-of-a-kind garments. “I love that I can be involved with the whole process: getting a vintage item, cleaning it, displaying it at the store, and selling it to a customer, who truly loves it”.
Uchida’s got a particular passion for vintage denim, and still fondly remembers his first pair of Lee 101z’s. “I especially like pieces that look like they were used as work clothes,” he says. He’s not a snob about the historical provenance of every item in the shop, though—J’Antiques offers some new pieces, but only those that have certain timelessness. “I always try to find new items which have a potential to become vintage,” he explains. Still, the pleasure of working with vintage clothing, says Uchida, is the eternal element of surprise. “I get to see something that I have never seen. Each item is unique, even the ones that look similar.”
Courtney Love has a reputation that often precedes her. However, through her private and public ups and downs she has proven herself to be not only an honest talent but a truly committed artist. As she put it in conversation with friend Jemima Kirke, “I have a lot of regrets, of course I do…but I did it my way.”
JEMIMA KIRKE: Hi Courtney!
COURTNEY LOVE: Hi Jemima, how are you doing?
JK: I don’t know—I’ve just been yelling at contractors for a little bit. I’m trying to destress right now by talking to you.
CL: Are you doing your apartment?
JK: I’m doing the bottom floor of the house and turning it into a playroom. But anyway, you know how contractors are—so full of shit. Anyhow, where are you?
CL: I’m in Los Angeles.
JK: Do you like it there? How long have you been there? Seems you’ve been in L.A. for so long now.
CL: Like a year and a half almost. It’s ironic: I don’t love it at all. I lived here for 20something years of my life, in New York for about eight and then in London for maybe four. Then Oregon, Portland and Seattle for maybe three or five years. But L.A., I used to love it, and then I just don’t like it anymore. After living in New York for so long, I don’t like it, but I’m getting a lot of acting jobs here. So by being here I’m getting jobs. I just got this film, so I’ll be fine.
JK: What’s the film?
CL: They are doing the offer today. It’s called The Long Home, with James Franco, and I’m sure there’s not going to be any problems with the offer or anything. It’s like a Southern Gothic, moonshiney film. I’m his wife. It’s a good role. I’m happy about it.
JK: Is it sexy? Do you make out with him?
CL: No, not in this draft. The original draft, William Gay wrote when he was alive. There’s going to be some revisions, but I’m basically a hooker who is his wife. He’s a moonshiner and I run, like, his brothel, so the first time you see me, I’m doing something sexual with a sailor. It’s pretty dark—William Gay was like O’Connor or Faulkner or something like that, like he was in that group of Southern Gothic writers.
JK: Do you find that acting with someone like James Franco who is super talented makes a difference?
CL: Absolutely. I’m really emphatic and unfortunately reactive, so I can’t really hold my own. If somebody sucks, I’ll probably suck, and if somebody’s really good, then I’ll come up to their level.
JK: I saw you in Empire. Courtney, you were so fucking good! I was blown away!
CL: Oh, thank you!
JK: It’s just your singing—you singing was my favorite part. It was your voice, it was your style, it was the way you sang painfully, you know, so that was awesome. When you got sent that role, did you immediately want to do that?
CL: Yeah! I didn’t get sent that role, though.
JK: Did you pursue them?
CL: I didn’t pursue—more like stalk. I wrote Lee Daniels and said: “Hi, I’m a big fan. Love, Courtney Love,” and like two minutes later my phone rings and it was Lee Daniels and he said: “I’m doing this little show; no one knows if it’s going to be a hit or not, but will you take a part on it?” and I said: “Absolutely, what’s the part?” and it was supposed to be R&B, and I can’t sing R&B. It’s kind of a really funny story: Initially, he wanted me to sing this Patti LaBelle song that not even Patti LaBelle can sing anymore, with such crazy high Mariah notes, right, and there were like four or five Fox executives on the phone and I sang it to Lee and Lee said, “That’s great,” but I sang it to these Fox executives. It’s called “Messing with My Mind.” It’s not a hit, it’s like a deep cut, and they were cringing, like, “Oh my god, you can’t sing that.” I was so bad at it. So then they sent me down to Timbaland to Hit Factory and we came to the compromise that I would sing “Take Me to the River.” So I came down to Hit Factory in Miami and the first night Timbaland was all, “What is the deal with this girl who can’t hit notes?” and he’s very musically intelligent, but I was like, well, “You know, think Patti Smith, think Bob Dylan,” and he said, “OK, I get it, I get it,” but it was really funny for the first two hours. He was like, “Well, can you hit this note?” and I’m like, “No, I’ve never hit that note.”
JK: But I think it’s great that you took it on knowing you probably couldn’t deliver on it and you made it you. I think a good actor is not somebody who can do anything they’re asked to do, but someone who can take it and make it doable for them.
CL: Yeah, it did definitely change the character to a rock singer more like Joplin or Stevie Nicks more than a Mariah singer.
JK: But you killed it. The episode wouldn’t have been as good or you wouldn’t have been able to do it as well. When I see a scene that has crying, or if a scene opens with crying, I’m like, “I don’t know how to cry on command. I need some dialogue—can we put some dialogue in here to help me get there?”
CL: I hate doing it. Look, in my whole career I’ve only pulled off crying on cue one time, and that was in Man on the Moon with Jim Carrey. And he has cancer in the movie. All day long I was walking around with all these triggers, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, and then it’s time to cue the scene and I’m all worked up! In the scene in Empire where I’m crying because she’s taking my drugs from me, I had to mist my eyes, but then I did start to really cry. I’m taking acting classes and that’s where the stamina is, and my acting coach is excellent and I go to class a lot and the more I get on stage and do deeper stuff, the more I really want to do a play. I just read for this play; it takes months and months to set these things up. I don’t want to say what it is, but it’s a good one. It’s a play about what happens to rockers—this role is about me. It’s a play of what happens to rockers who don’t make it, so what happens to say, someone in Helium 10 years from now, you know? Helium was an indie band that I took on tour back when you were a fetus. Like what happens to those bands, or Super Furry Animals or whatever, that didn’t make it. So it’s meta, in the sense that there’s lines like: “I don’t get nervous, I’ve opened for Thurston Moore,” you know? She gets a Matador deal and betrays her son over it. It’s a meta play. It’s not me, but it’s in my wheelhouse, so it’s really, really interesting and I really want to do it.
JK: It’s that angle that they always keep chasing it, chasing the dream, or maybe just chasing and trying to keep making music.
CL: That’s exactly what this is, and it’s a really good play. I hope it gets done. It’s by a writer named Sam Marks.
JK: Do you like doing plays more or making music?
CL: I haven’t done plays in New York proper, ever, so I don’t know. I did this musical and that required some acting as well. I have fidgeting issues, I have hand issues, I have issues with my physicality, like keeping a posture straight and all this stuff that I have to think about when I’m on film or TV.
JK: It’s strange because you’ve been on stage in your life more than you’ve been in front of a camera. I know it’s different because that’s singing, but it’s still performing.
CL: It is, it’s performance, but being a different person and having a fourth wall and not being able to hand out flowers to people in the front row or hold their hands or break the fourth wall, that’s a skill in itself.
JK: When you say being a different person, do you mean being a different person from who you are?
CL: Yeah, to be this character is really challenging and something I really want to do. I mean, I’ve done enough films to know how to save up my energy for the take and then give it on the take and do that, but I was never trained before in the ’90s when I was doing films, and so now I’ve decided to really go for being trained, you know, take on Shakespeare, take on things that are really difficult and challenging for me.
JK: Do you find that now that you’re being trained you’re learning so much more than you wish you knew?
CL: Oh god, yeah, from posture to breathing to fidgeting. I saw a play called Marjorie Prime at the Taper and they’re robots basically, and it stars Lois Smith, who’s a stage actress who’s been around forever, and she stops still—everyone in that play stops still. And it was really an epiphany, because, you know, there is no onstage fidgeting. You know, with Kansas City Choir Boy I also had to learn how to interpret someone else’s music and interpret someone else’s direction onstage in a live and intimate space. In rock ’n’ roll it’s really about being as vulnerable as possible and giving them what they want. But onstage it’s about pausing, about internal life, it’s about internal triggers—that’s one of the reasons I’m really challenged to do a play. I’m super excited to be doing a movie; I just got offered another indie movie too and I’m really, really excited to be doing these films. And I think I’m coming back to Empire. I think so. So that would be really amazing, especially now that it’s a hit. The wardrobe department will be really on fire. I can’t wait for that. They spent a fortune on everything and the wardrobe department kind of suffered, so it was every man for himself, because no one knew it was a hit yet. When Naomi Campbell came on she hired a stylist. I called Marchesa and got a gown; they were really kind about it, but people didn’t want to take a chance on an unknown show yet, and then it blew up.
JK: That’s always fun! I love going to fittings before we shoot. It’s one of my favorite things.
CL: Do you find that what you wear for your character on Girls is inspired a lot from what you’re wearing personally? Because I certainly do. What I’m wearing really informs, you know what I’m talking about?
JK: Absolutely. A good stylist knows that and is not going to push you to wear something that you’re not comfortable with. Period pieces are a whole other thing. But yes, it’s collaboration. I’ve learned so much from the stylists; it’s truly not about just dressing in what looks good or fits right or is cute or whatever. It’s how does this outfit that she’s wearing today show where she is right now in her life? Subtle things, like putting matching
colors with some of the characters just to show and bring the connection, and like replacing something that one character used to wear and now I’m wearing it, it’s really cool. And how about the other one you did, the motorcycle one, what’s it called? The Hells Angels one, but it’s not Hells Angels?
CL: Oh, Sons of Anarchy.
JK: I didn’t get to watch that.
CL: It wasn’t a lot. It was my start into this chapter of my life. Again, I got in touch with the producer, Kurt Sutter, and I was like, “Can I be on your show?” He gave me the part of a kindergarten teacher and it was really like dowdy dresses and espadrilles. It was really great. I wasn’t like chomping on the scenery—it wasn’t like with Empire, where I got some big stuff. I was there as a supporting costar and that’s what I did. But I was still crazy nervous about it because it’s been 10 years; I hadn’t acted professionally in 10 years at that point, and Kurt really did me a solid by letting me have that part because, you know, it sort of showed the community and I am proving it slowly that I show up, that I show up early, that I’m on time, that they can dress me in anything. I don’t really care, I’m not picky—if it’s right for the character, it’s fine, you know? And I really want the community to know that.
JK: What community?
CL: What?
JK:The audience? When you say “the community”?
CL: The film community—like the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild and the Directors Guild.
JK: Yeah, OK.
CL: So that’s why I live in L.A., because most of the community is here. A lot of the theater community is in New York. There are some serious great actresses, like Julianne Moore, who live in New York as well. Hopefully I can get to the level where I can move back.
JK: I understand why you live in L.A. I think it’s quite humbling; I think it shows you really want this. Sometimes you need to move for a while and someone like Julianne Moore doesn’t need to move to L.A. and I think that’s cool that you’re starting at the place where you feel you should be.
CL: Also, I’m really near my daughter, a few blocks down. Not that I see her every day, but we do spend the night like once a week or something.
JK: Do you feel like people have a preconceived notion of you that affects how they are seeing you or whether they hire you?
CL: Not really right now. It’s coming undone—it’s definitely going away.
JK: I think it’s your own doing, by the way.
CL: No, it’s Lee Daniels’ and Kurt Sutter’s doing, by giving me these roles. It’s showing the community that I can.
JK: But you were professional. If you weren’t professional on set or if you didn’t do your job right, then people wouldn’t hire you. They gave you these jobs to give you the opportunity, but you stepped up.
CL: I’m not hearing any blowback at all. I mean, even when I stepped out from doing films and had a dark period, I never did anything dark on a set, so I never made enemies on a set. I never was a bad girl on a set; I always considered films a really sacred space, so when I had my problems, I had them very much away from the film community. Look, there’s so many people in the program, in recovery. I’ve talked to Kurt Sutter and Lee Daniels and they know where I’m at. My agents are really nurturing and great. I didn’t have an agent for 10 years, so I’m devoted to my agents and I’m devoted to my publicist. They’re fantastic. I have a really good team around me.
JK: On a side note, are you really 50?
CL: Yes, I’m 50. I turned 50 in July. But I’m not going out and getting a facelift.
JK: How do you feel about it? I’ve heard from a few actresses that it’s hard to get good roles as you get older.
CL: Well, you can get a little disillusioned.
JK: Do you ever regret not taking advantage of things more when you were younger?
CL: Regrets, I have a few, but in the end, as Frank Sinatra sings, “I did it my way.”
JK: You know those people who say they don’t have any regrets? I hate that so much.
CL: I have a few regrets, for sure.
JK: It’s so inhuman and so immoral to say, “I have no regrets.”
CL: Je ne regrette rien. I have a lot of regrets, of course I do. I should have taken that part; I should have maybe married that one, I don’t know, but I didn’t. So I am what I am and I’m pretty condent that I can break in. I think what I have to offer on film and on television is honest and I’m more disciplined than I was ever before.
JK: I 100 percent agree, and I think that your discipline is going to take you far, because there’s a lot of people who can be emotional and vulnerable.
CL: You know, part of me wants to do what Lena [Dunham] did in the sense of coming up with my own idea and my own show. I’m not as prolific a writer as her; I need a cowriter, because I can’t just do it myself. I just can’t.
JK: Everyone needs a cowriter.
CL: Yeah, so I found this girl Kit and this girl Dierdre. And basically started. I don’t have the pitch done yet, but these girls understand it.
JK: Lena targeted a niche, a very specific niche that if you tried to say what it was before she wrote it not a lot of people could relate. It’s a very specific type of person, type of crowd. Everyone’s on the feminist train right now, which I’m thrilled about, but right now it needs to be about older women.
CL: It’s about what happens after 40 with men, with money and with life and real estate.
JK: My mother is the perfect character study for this right now. I mean really—her life has completely changed. Bigger changes happened now than in her 20s.
CL: Definitely.
JK: She’s having more fun right now than I am. I can’t imagine what she’s learning about herself.
CL: I’m sure she’s having a blast. Your mom is a big influence on me, aesthetically and all sorts of ways. I love your mom. I got fascinated with all these characters around her, from the psychic to your sisters to your neighbors.
JK: It’s very hard to describe to people sometimes the way I grew up, because it wasn’t like my parents were irresponsible. They weren’t necessarily reckless, but they were bringing all types of energy into the house, all kinds of people. There were never doctors or lawyers but there were all kinds of others. I feel like the criteria for who she would let in the house was always just like, “Do they have kids? Can they play with my kids? Are they interesting to me?” She loved bringing people in the house from all walks of life. Interesting, that’s for sure. So you’re doing a tour with Lana Del Rey, right?
CL: I’m doing a tour with Lana Del Rey. She’s young enough to be my daughter—it’s kind of weird.
JK: Did you choose that? Did you choose Lana Del Rey?
CL: It just happened, Jemima. I was like, “Lana, come to London to the British Fashion Awards with me,” and she was like, “OK. If I do that, then you have to do a little bit of my tour,” and I was like, “OK, I’ll do a little bit of your tour,” and that led to me writing two songs and I’m dropping a single. One’s called “Died Blonde” and the other one’s called “Miss Narcissist,” and “Miss Narcissist” is like the catchiest song of my career so far.
JK: Really?
CL: Yeah, it’s super good. I heard it yesterday. It’s not mastered yet, but I’ve heard it mixed and it’s really good and modern sounding but still grungy and rock. I don’t think it’s going to end up on Billboard or on radio, but there’s enough outlets for alternative radio that it will end up there. By the way, if you’re in L.A. and you listen to KROQ, they don’t play a lot of chicks. They play me a little, they play Paramore a little, they play No Doubt a little, and that’s sort of it. I’m the last chick on alternative radio that they’ll play, and it’s really kind of stupid. It’s so hard for rock ’n’ roll right now—it’s so hard. I have someone really close to me who is in a rock band and they’re excellent, they’re the best rock band I’ve heard in years, and they signed an old school deal with Interscope but it’s really a struggle and it’s a struggle just to be middle class. I’m not talking big houses and art collections. I’m talking about just getting by.
JK: I mean I don’t know anything about the struggles in the music industry, but I can only imagine that you have to do a fuckload of touring.
CL: That’s what you gotta do, go on tour. So this is a little bit of touring, but I want to go back to acting immediately after it. In fact, I have to weave the touring days in and out of my Franco movie.
JK: Did I read something about you and Miley Cyrus? What are you doing with Miley Cyrus?
CL: Yeah, Twitter is an amazing thing, because people follow each other and they can make friends, and so Miley Cyrus asked me to like come and have a drink with her at the Chateau, so I went and had coffee with her. I ended up taking her over to Brett Ratner’s, who’s basically my best friend in town.
JK: But why did you bring Miley Cyrus to him?
CL: Actually, Miley, when she had Hannah Montana, had already done a video with Brett, and Brett’s house is like the equivalent of your mom’s in a way in L.A. It’s like a salon—you go over to Brett’s house, you never know who you’re going to meet. Michel Gondry could be there or like porn stars from the Valley. It’s really fun. You never know who’s going to be at Brett’s house—it’s awesome.
JK: Are you doing any music with Miley Cyrus?
CL: No, I have not made any music with Miley Cyrus. I don’t know that that would be a good match, but she’s really put together and smart. I liked her a lot.
JK: I want to ask you, this is something that I think we can relate on, you on a much stronger level, by the way, but do you find it frustrating that you have to so strongly prove yourself when you want to be called an actor?
CL: Absolutely.
JK: My nightmare is to be “that girl from Girls.” I always feel like if you make a lot of money doing something or if you’re doing something for a long time, then that’s what you are to people.
CL: Yeah, like a rock star, like a provocative rock star that sings about gnarly stuff. Which, by the way, these songs don’t do anything to dispel that; they’re both really kind of filthy. But that’s kind of what I do—I do sort of work in torture, filth, angst and torment. I don’t do straight love songs. I can’t. It’s not in me. So when it comes to music, it is what it is. I remember seeing a Marianne Faithfull quote about why she didn’t do anything like
Broken English after Broken English back in 1978, and she said: “I didn’t want to be the rage girl,” but it’s still what she’s known for, that comeback and that rage.
JK: We have to be so calculated with our moves, you know, and that really stops what you actually want to do. I hate this expression, but at the end of the day, if you take yourself seriously at whatever you’re doing, then people will take you seriously.
CL: It’s what you said earlier—it’s about discipline. Discipline is going to see me through, so I think as long as I show up and I’m disciplined, but I still have to prove myself … I got asked to speak at TED—they want me to speak on “reputation.”
JK: Oh, you should do it!
CL: I’m thinking, rather than speak on it, why don’t I just prove it? You know what I mean? Rather than discuss it out loud in front of the world, why don’t I just prove it and then maybe speak on it after I’ve proven it? Take a bad reputation and turn it into a good one, take all those things that were hideous and turn poison into medicine. So that’s my answer to that, my love.
JK: I have a million more questions, but we can save that for some other time.
CL: All right, darling. I can’t wait to see you.
JK: Me too. Thanks, Courtney.
Coat – Vintage | Necklace – Pamela Love | Shirt – Dries Van Noten | Bra – La Perla | Tights – Capezio | Shoes – Christian Louboutin
Imagine having the potential to be the best in the world at what you do, yet also knowing there’s a pretty good chance many people will never believe you got there honestly, no matter what proof you provide. And then just saying, “Who gives a shit. I’m doing it anyway.” That kind of mindset requires a very rare combination of qualities, including (but not exclusively): world-class talent, bulletproof confidence and balls of steel.
Welcome to the world of Tejay van Garderen, a man competing in cycling, a tarnished sport that is still on its path to resurrection following a catastrophic doping scandal that spanned and discredited the results of 20 years of accomplishments, and the best and brightest hope for America since Lance Armstrong, perhaps the most reviled athlete in the history of popular culture. If this were 2000, van Garderen, a handsome, supremely talented 26-year-old who has done everything the right way, who finished fifth in the Tour de France last year and who is now poised to take home the title this summer as the unquestioned leader of the BMC Racing Team, would be a media darling. But as it stands now, van Garderen is flying well below the radar of the zeitgeist, and that is probably a good thing. Too much scrutiny at this point would only invite cynicism by the public at large, thanks to Armstrong’s sociopathic behavior during his now discredited seven Tour wins and the revelations that every other top rider during his era was doping as well. It will all shake out this summer. No pressure.
Van Garderen was born in Tacoma, Washington, but spent his formative years in Bozeman, Montana, a picturesque Western city with ravishing mountain vistas and a noted hub for outdoor sports junkies. It was there that his stepfather, a Dutchman named Marcel van Garderen (Tejay took his last name after being legally adopted), turned the 9-year-old on to cycling. The kid was a natural, especially when it came to climbing, the sport’s most grueling, oxygen-depleting, lactic-acid-inducing, soul-crushing subdiscipline, and by the time he was 18 he had already won 10 junior national titles. He turned pro that same year, then began his ascent to potential greatness.
Regardless of his future accomplishments, it is a near certainty van Garderen will be judged within the Armstrong prism, an unwarranted fate by any standard. A much more apt—and fair—comparison would be Greg LeMond, the last clean American cycling superstar and unquestioned winner of the Tour three times (1986, 1989, 1990). Like LeMond, van Garderen married very young (van Garderen got hitched to his longtime girlfriend, Jessica, at 23; LeMond was 20 when he tied the knot), moved to Europe because it was the only way to perfect his craft, did so without the requisite linguistic or cultural skills, began his career as a domestique (a supporting player, in cycling lingo) and then emerged from the peloton with a giant target on his back thanks to his nationality. But LeMond didn’t do it in the shadow of Lance. And van Garderen is, for now, just a prospect, not a winner. Not yet.
If van Garderen does in fact bring it home on the Champs-Élysées in July, wearing the yellow jersey with the customary glass of champagne in his hand as he crosses the finish line, he insists he’s prepared for the inevitable scrutiny that will come with a Tour win, especially one from an American. “I’m proud to tell people I’m a cyclist, regardless of whatever they think, or whatever insinuations come along with that,” says van Garderen. “Cycling obviously has an unfortunate history, but there’s been a lot to clean things up, and hopefully the public starts to trust that, trust the testing and trust the athletes. It’s a clean sport now, so I can’t really speak to the past. I wasn’t there. I came in after all of that stuff.”
