including a few pre-Mazzy Star Opal interviews from the time Hope was with the band and before Opal had changed its name to Mazzy Star (which occurred in 1989)
.......................................................
ARTICLES INCLUDED IN THIS POST, SO FAR:
-1988, JUNE, OPAL (WITH HOPE) ARTICLE/INTERVIEW WITH DAVID ROBACK, SPEX mag
-1989, MARCH, OPAL (WITH HOPE) ARTICLE/INTERVIEW WITH DAVID ROBACK, SPIN MAG.
-1990, June 9, MAZZY STAR article/INTERVIEW with HOPE & DAVID, MEKODY MAKER
-1990, June 16,MAZZY STAR article with an interview with David Roback, The N.M.E. U.K. music mag.
-1990, JUNE 16, MAZZY STAR ARTICLE/INTERVIEW (WITH DAVID ROBACK), SOUNDS MAG.
-1990, JULY 22, L.A. TIMES, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
-1990, JULY, SPIN MAG, PHOTO OF HOPE WADING IN THE OCEAN ACCOMPANIED BY A QUOTE FROM HOPE
-1990, AUG. 16, MAZZY INTERVIEW WITH DAVID, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
-1990, NOVEMBER MUSICIAN mag, INTERVIEW WITH DAVID
-1990, NOVEMBER, UNHINGED mag INTERV, w. DAVID & HOPE (Reprinted in 2005 book "Tell Me When It's Over")
-1990, (unknown mag source and date), ARTICLE by ARION BERGER w. INTERVIEW content w. DAVID & HOPE
-1991, JAN.5, MELODY MAKER, MAZZY STAR ARTICLE WITH INTERVIEWS
-1991, JAN., OPTION mag, INTERV. w. HOPE & DAVID, by Bruce Warren
-1993, SEPT. 2, ROLLING STONE, SHORT ITEM WITH ONSTAGE QUOTE FROM HOPE
-1993, OCT. 5, RADIO INTERVIEW, KCRW, SANTA MONICA. CALIFORNIA (TRANSCRIPTION)
-1993, OCT.9, NME, MAZZY STAR INTERV. w. HOPE & DAVID
-1993, OCT.23, MELODY MAKER, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
-1993, OCT. ISSUE, LES INROCKUPTIBLES mag (France), INTERV. w. HOPE & DAVID
-1993, NOV.30, L.A. TIMES, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
-1993, NOV, RADIO STUDIO,VPRO,AMSTERDAM,THE NETHERLANDS,MAZZY STAR INTERV.(TRANSCRIPTION)
-1993, DEC., RAY GUN mag, INTERV. W. HOPE
-1994, MARCH 30, WESTWORD, INTERV. w. DAVID ROBACK
-1994, April 1, SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE/INTERVIEW WITH DAVID
-1994, May 22, MTV INTERVIEW WITH DAVID (only a small fragment remains of the interview)
-1994, June or July, ITV TV INTERVIEW UK, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW, "THE BIG E" TV show
-1994, Sept. - Oct. issue, EB METRONOM mag , INTERV. with HOPE & DAVID
-1994, OCT. 6, ROLLING STONE, INTERVIEW WITH HOPE + JAMC RE. JAMC SINGLE, "SOMETIMES, ALWAYS"
-1994, OCT.20, ROLLING STONE, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
-1994, OCT. 28, MAZZY STAR TV INTERVIEW, MUSIQUE PLUS TV CHANNEL, MONTREAL (TRANSCRIPTION)
-1994, NOV., GUITAR PLAYER, INTERVIEW WITH DAVID
-1994, DEC., DETAILS MAG, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
-1994, DEC., MUSICIAN, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
-1994, DEC., Ray Gun HUH mag, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
-1994, Winter Edition, THE BOB mag Issue 47, INTERVIEW w. HOPE & DAVID (Reprinted in "Tell Me More" book)
[NOTE Sept. 28, 2021: LATER ARTICLES FROM 1995 to 1997 HAVE NOW BEEN MOVED TO A SEPARATE POST IMMEDIATELY BELOW THIS ONE because I today reached the site's length limit for single posts] Scroll down to find the later articles collected together]
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1988 JUNE issue, SPEX mag - OPAL Article/INTERVIEW with David after Hope had joined the band. It's a German mag [ENGLISH TRANSLATION TEXT PASTED BELOW, PLUS ORIGINAL GERMAN]
Thanks go to Gordon Hobs for finding and sharing the article elsewhere. Earlier, he posted screenshots of the article pages and photos. Here's a link to a music blog where Gordon found a link to a downloadable PDF of the complete June 1988 Spex mag with this Opal article. Scroll down the blog page to find the post about the Opal article. https://tapeattack.blogspot.com/2015/07 ... dpWQ2miX2I
Opal-with-Hope had played Europe, including a number of German dates, in late winter/spring 1988. Hope had replaced Kendra Smith as Opal's singer the prior year, 1987, after Kendra quit, mid-tour, after a Nov. 12 Providence, RI show on their 1987 North American tour, mostly opening for JAMC. Hope was persuaded to join, and played her first gig singing for Opal Nov. 20, 1987, Detroit, St. Andrew's Hall. In 1989, the band changed its name to Mazzy Star. "The rest is history."
[My attempted English translation from the original German, using multiple translation services, and comparing results. Unfortunately, the German writer is particularly difficult to translate in spots as her style and content are sometimes non-straightforward and eccentric, and confuse translation services and me. It's likely that meanings that ended up in some English sentences, are not the same meanings as the German writer intended. And some English sentences have unclear meanings. But hopefully I was able to render David's own comments accurately enough. He's easier to follow, even in German! He's quite talkative in this interview. -BB]
Opal,The Hippie Literature Supplement
Text: Clara Drechsler,Photos: Wolfgang Burat
-Tell me, do you know Rudi Dutschke?
DAVID: (From a distance: sigh...) Who is that? Do you want me to know him?
-He's one of our great ones, now dead. Rudi Dutschke, the student leader.
His wife, Gretchen, had studied in the States.
DAVID: Oh no.
-Now, in the year '88, we celebrate the twenty year anniversary of the
'68 Revolution. Vietnam...ever since it's been said: "I've been there before".
People said that in 1987. If this record [Happy Nightmare Baby] had been released in the Summer Of Love [1967], would it have been a visionary giant omega...looking ahead
to '68, then? That's how I see it... "
DAVID: (groans)
-...Because now it's '88
SIGH SIGH SIGH...! MANY have written how much Opal owes to early
Pink Floyd and T Rex. But actually they should also like
hitting a bomb aftermath to those in our wetlands habitat Royal
waters like the bomb stamped Status-Quo-Cassette (called "Molly Golly's Dirty
Laundry" or something like that) - before
But the piece I am alluding to is a short SOUND EXPERIENCE that
sounds like a time-lapse delicate flower (pause picture) ...
For Diedrich, it sounds like a blown organ pipe...he stared at the
Turntable, as if that's where the noise resides, and said
several times admiringly, "What a great sound!". It fizzles out, so to speak
backwards into nothing. He sounds as if he was swallowed up in time
if you know what I mean - his disappearance plugs a small gap in Time,
something like that! Smell! THAT is a sound. Then it's complete
and natually interesting going forward.
What, on occasion, is blues-boogie at its best is this uniquely alluring music,
accompanied by undergrowth of hippie trifles by Dave Roback (formerly of
Rain Parade) and his friends. This music gropes you! It is pleasant
thinking-of-fucking-music if you're not smoking and have to write an article.
It also offers much for the pure music enthusiast.
AH! Again the TABLA! The tabla can be recognized by the GUMMI in the middle,
which makes its very own 'Boom' sound. This sound has something specifically
trickling. Nothing hippie about it. Sounds very good.
Or, imagine you are in a fairy tale, and set yourself a task
to build a footbridge, where a hard footstep is followed by a
soft footstep, and you solve the task by touching the farmer's sheep with
their bellies or back upwards in the mud...They then walk over at a medium pace,
and the treading on the soft bellies produces a whirring or a sort of
chewing sound...Stepping on the hard ones, on the other hand, breaks off
a withered chord.
By the way, Roback is a sleeping pill with a beret. His eyes are as deep as
dark lakes, and his voice seems far away.
His male buddies played badminton in front of the hotel on the traffic-free
street. The women, the new singer HOPE, who replaced Kendra Smith after the
last American tour, and Suki Ewers, keyboards, his partner, sulk in the
rooms.
All these people hate journalists, maybe becausethey just despise them,
but maybe also because the journalists are a bitter discomfort in their
more beautiful, more refined world, due to their journalistic quality of
hanging around people. Maybe because she’s late and they'd gone to bed.
DAVID: "Rocket Machine" - well, We sound like a lot of bands. T Rex also
sounded like a lot of bands...it has something to do with the groove...
the percussive element, the conga, you know...
[It's been noted elsewhere the Opal song "Rocket Machine" has a T Rex-
like sound. Presumably, the interviewer asked David about this, though
she only records his answer, not her question or comment about the song -BB]
-Ah! Progressive pop music!
DAVID: Progressive pop music? I would never have called it that, but I wouldn't
forbid myself to...I wouldn't forbid myself anything. But I remember
this phrase! But I thought it referred to being thematically progressive
- and this T Rex stuff was really very down-to-earth, as far as the theme
was concerned. The background vocals - on a number of T Rex records he got
these singers from the Turtles, Flo and Eddie...that's the nice thing about
a T Rex-song, those vocals...maybe it's also about the atmosphere.
-There's something to that. What is Opal about? About creating an atmosphere?
Or rockin' and expressing yourself? More the atmosphere...?"
DAVID: Yeah.
-Because the songs kind of expand...uh..like "Soul Giver", it starts off
really innocently... "
DAVID: Recorded live in the studio, it looked for its own final
form...When you make music, it reacts like a living being...it takes control
over you...or let's say, I create the beginning - then IT starts creating me.
Soul Giver was creative of itself.
-Just as DEATH is, after all, a black dot over your left shoulder
(a SPEX riddle for adolescent hippies).
DAVID: ...and the idea was that it was sorta-kinda-already-there,
and it finds us, we're just the medium...Maybe it has already
been written on another planet.
-And you think that?
DAVID: It's possible...much of what I write are fragments...words upon words,
fragments...like a mosaic...you know what a mosaic is...In the beginning,
as individual fragments, they don't make much sense, but as a mosaic they make
sense to us...to me...Often when I write, I see myself on the stage, performing
...so I often think of an audience. Sometimes I see only myself.
Freedom in my definition, to write songs..., freedom is
always the freedom to write songs that either sound like something else,
or extremely different.
-Good
DAVID: I think the words...these THINGS...are flowing out because my brain
is leaking...all very autobiographical...even if it sounds very
fantasy-oriented, it's actually autobiographical. Sort of.
-Who owns this band? Who is in charge, apart from the guy on the
other planet who dictated a song? (Who actually owns rock music again?)
DAVID: I've always seen it like this, that Opal is everyone's band - it's as much
Suki's band as it is mine. It's still Kendra's band. She's still very close to us.
It's Hope's band...Hope has always been a close friend of Kendra and me. She's a folk singer from Los Angeles, and I once produced a record with her. She has a powerful voice - she's done a lot of surrealistic folk music...Going Home was the name of the record. Really interesting, very spooky...empty...
[Hope's early duo with Sylvia Gomez was called Going Home. Sylvia played guitar
and Hope sang. One guitar and one voice. David produced a studio recording of them
playing their songs around 1985 or '86 that's never been released, but is findable on
you tube and elsewhere, unofficially]
-Sounds excellent, provided there is no misunderstanding here. Dave Roback is also
a man of taste.
Hope in Cologne I found less felicitous. That she
a) supposedly burst into tears because she had hoped Opal would somehow be
more popular in Germany, but instead suffered from hotels with horrible service, and
b) allegedly lives in highly exaggerated fear of BACTERIA, we heard with regret
from the various tour operators, who
a) have coarser minds, but
b) are at the ends of their frayed nerves, because lately they've been
so lucky with the little Yankees who have been through Europe by gondola
and fed on fruits by the roadside, or carried olives and grain mills with them,
like the soldiers of Alexander the Great when they conquered Persia.
Not so Opal, who expect a minimum of attention (which I do not find disgusting).
But this midget woman with her tiny nose really finished me, with her folky-clear
and firm voice interpreting the things I imagined somehow in the slacker,
mild, conversational tone versions of etheric Kendra Smith.
Such a mini-female image! On the other hand, her presentation was quite good
on "Life's a Gas", where she appeared exhausted with her shaker in front of
her nose and looked as if she was about to die.
DAVID: Yes, playing live...has of course the dimension of jamming...
-...And that is different than when you make tracks in the studio for all time and
for many generations (as a CD), remaining in a form, embedded in a river where
nothing is worn away or washed away...a continued arbitrariness in an eternally
same sequence...whoosh. I don't exactly find it screamingly bad when a superfine song
structure collapses live to a dull heaviness, but a second guitarist would have
been quite nice.
Finally, they played "Heroin," a piece you can listen to repeatedly, so long
as you can accept the drug-related depravity alluded to in the title.
DAVID: Yes...why do we like to play this piece?...Well, one evening in Italy
we played a miserably long show...and they still wanted to hear something,
and so we went out again. What can we play now?...And then I remembered Heroin,
because this song is so...it has this...the tempo picks up,
then it slows down again...you can play it for quite a long time,
it's just physically pleasant to play music like that.
I've been painting a lot lately...I'm so busy on my own
with some film projects or writing music that might end up in my films
...I've filmed everything that seemed interesting to me.
I'm trying to get into the habit of taking a camera with me. You always stumble
on things that seem interesting. Until now it's only been fragments...Things
that catch my attention, and I assume there must be a reason certain things
attract me...
-That's what Robert Altman said the other day in an interview. He said the same
thing,the actual film is made on the editing table. Not that this director is to be
revered unconditionally.
DAVID: ...As with the music...it makes no sense until you happen to look at it again.
-To go back twenty years
DAVID: Yes, my parents were against the war...I was still very...small - but
I remember some...revolution...hm...it was always something somewhere...
And music...there is always music...that...seeps through - as you
say, of course, the Doors are a band of...today...not the past.
Right! One should not disregard such things.
Of course, there is music whose figureheads for a long time were part of
what was once the latest new genre, continuing on in that role,
eventually being replaced by the next, younger generation of bands,
to be replaced again by their descendants, independent of fans of the
the original bands from early on. And after that, we have...
the All-Time-Original-Records of Rock music discovered by young folks
for the first time, transcending
...a procedure...which is so infinitely slow,
as Dave Roback turns his eyes, while brutally difficult, the revivals
attempt to exclude, and dramatic side effects, and raise counter-movements.
THIS is the world we live in. Dave Roback is from Los Angeles,
and moved to San Francisco because he loves cold weather,
actually Berkeley, also called Berserkeley, where he went to school.
.........
A Paragraph IN LARGE BOLD FONTS ON PAGE 2 reads:
"David Roback is a sleeping pill with a beret, but the Opal LP has been one
of the most popular of the past year with editors and readers alike. Live,
the second guitar was missing, and Kendra Smith was also missed by some,
but with a little patience and the right alarm chimes, Clara Drechsler
managed to create a coherence from Roback's quiet, finely spun
explanations (which should finally shed light on the creation of
a small work of the century)."
[Photos: Hope, David, Suki, Keith, Will]
..............................................................................................................
[Opal Article June 1988 Original German Text]
1988 - SPEX - Musik zur Zeit 06-88
Text: Clara Drechsler
Fotos: Wolfgang Burat
Opal Die Hippie Literatur- Beilage
»Sag mal, kennst du Rudi Dutschke?
«
»(Aus der Ferne: Seufz ... ) Wer ist
das. Soll ich den kennen?«
»Das ist einer unserer großen
Toten. Rudi Dutschke, der Studentenführer.
Seine Frau, Gretchen, hatte
in den Staaten studiert.«
»Ach, nein.«
»jetzt, im jahr '88, feiern wir nunmal
das Zwanzigjährige der '68er
Revolution. Vietnam... seitdem
heißt es: 'l\lIes schon mal dagewesen',
sagen die Leute jetzt, 1987.
'Wäre diese Platte im Summer Of
Love veröffentlicht worden, wäre sie
ein visionäres Gigantomega' ... vorausschauend
auf '68 also? So komm
ich da drauf ... «
»(Stöhn)«
» ... denn jetzt ist ja '88«.
SEUFZ SEUFZ SEUFZ ... ! VIELE
haben geschrieben, wie sehr
sie Opal an die frühen Pink
Floyd und 1 Rex erinnern,
aber eigentlich müßten sie auch wie
eine Bombe einschlagen im Anschluß
an die in unserem Feuchtbiotop
Königswasser wie die Bombe
eingeschlagene Status-Quo-Cassette
(sie heißt "Molly Gollys Dirty
Laundry" oder so ähnlich) - vor dem
Stück aber, auf das ich anspiele, steht
ein kurzes KLANGERLEBNIS, das sich
anhört wie eine per Zeitraffer aufplatzende
zarte Blüte (Pausenbild) ...
für Diedrich klingt es orgelpfeifenhaft
geblasen .. . er glotzte in den
Plattenspieler, als müßte in dieser Kiste
das Geräusch wohnen, und sagte
mehrmals bewundernd, »Was für
ein toller Ton!« Erverpufftsozusagen
nach rückwärts ins Nichts. Er klingt,
als würde er in die Zeit verschluckt,
falls man versteht, was ich meine -
sein Verschwinden stopft ein kl eines
Zeitloch, so ungefähr. Dufte!
DAS ist ein Ton. Dann geht es ganz
normal interessantweiter. Was dann
20_
kommt ist Blues-Boogie, vom Feinsten
dieser einzigartig gewinnenden
Musik, begleitet und unterwuchert
von den Hippiekleinigkeiten
des Dave Roback (früher bei Rain
Parade) und seiner Freunde. Diese
Musik fummelt an dir! Sie ist angenehme
mal-wieder-ans-Fickendenken-
Musik, wenn man nichtsich
das Rauchen abgewöhnt hat und einen
Artikel verfassen soll. Gleichzeitig
gibt sie auch für den rein Musikbegeisterten
viel her. »AH! Wieder
die TABLA! Die Tabla erkennt man
am GUMMI in der Mitte, der den
ganz eigenen 'Boumm'-Sound ermöglicht
« Dieser Sound hat etwas
spezifisch tropfendes. Nichts Hippiemäßiges
dran. Klingt sehr gut
Oder, stellen Sie sich vor, Sie
haben sich im Märchen die Aufgabe
gestellt, einen Steg zu bauen, bei
dem auf den harten Schritt ein
weicher folgt, und lösen die Aufgabe,
indem sie die Schafe ihres
Bauern jewei ls mit dem Bauch oder
dem Rücken nach oben im
Schlamm vergraben ... Sie gehen
dann in mittlerem Tempo rüber, und
der Tritt auf die weichen Bäuche erzeugt
einen surrenden oder gewissermaßen
kauenden Klang ... beim
Tritt auf die harten bricht hingegen
ein vertrockneter Akkord ab.
Roback ist übrigens eine Schlaftablette
mit Baskenmütze. Seine Augen
sind tief wie dunkle Seen, und
seine Stimme scheint aus weiter Ferne
zu kommen. Seine männlichen
Kumpel spielten vor dem Hotel auf
der verkehrsberuhigten Straße Federball
oder Badminton, die Weiber,
die neue Sängerin HOPE, die Kendra
Smith nach der letzten Ami-Tour ersetzte
und Suki Ewers, Keyboards,
seine Lebensgefährtin, schmollen
auf den Zimmern. Alle diese Leute
hassen journalisten, vielleicht, weil
sie die verachten, aber vielleicht
auch, weil die journalisten in ihrer
schöneren, feingefügteren Welt einen
bitteren Mißklang darstellen, in
ihrer Eigenschaft als herumhängende
Personen. Vielleicht, weil sie spät
ins Bettgekommen waren.
»'Rocket Machine' - tja. Wir klingen
wie sehrviele Bands.1 Rex klangen
auch wie sehr viele Bands ... es
hat irgendwas mit dem Groove zu
tun ... das percussive Element, die
Conga, weißt du ... «
»Ah! Progressive Popmusik!«
»Progressive Popmusik? So hätte
ich es nun nie genannt. .. aber ich
würde es mir auch nichtverbitten .. .
Ich würde mir garnichts verbitten .. .
Aber ich erinnere mich an diese
Wendung! Nur hatte ich gedacht, es
bezöge sich auf thematisch progressiv
sein - und dieses 1 Rex-Zeugwar
doch echt sehr bodenständig, was
jetzt die Thematik angeht. Die Background
vocals - auf etlichen 1 RexPl
atten hat er ja diese Sänger von
den Turtles geholt, Flo und Eddie ...
das ist das nette an einem T Rex-
Song, diese Vocals ... vielleicht geht
es auch um die Atmosphäre.«
»Da ist aber was dran. Worum
drehtes sich denn bei Opal? Darum,
eine Atmosphäre zu erzeugen?
Oder 'Rockin' and expressing yourself?'
Mehr die Atmosphäre ... ?«
»Yeah.«
»Denn die Songs expandieren irgendwie
... äh ... so z. B. 'So ul Giver',
erst hebt es ganz harmlos an ... «
»Live im Studio eingespielt suchte
es sich gleichsam selbst seine endgültige
Form ... wenn man Musik
macht, reagiert sie wie ein lebendes
Wesen ... es übernimmt die Kontrolle
über dich ... oder sagen wir, ich erschaffe
den Anfang - dann fängt ES
an, mich zu erschaffen. 'So ul Giver'
war kreativ aus sich selbst heraus.«
So wie der TOD ja auch ein
schwarzer Punkt über deiner linken
Schulter ist (ein SPEX-Rätsel für heranwachsende
Hippies).
» ... und die Idee war, daß es sortakinda-
already-there war, und es findet
uns, wir sind nur das Medium ...
vielleicht ist es schon geschrieben
worden, auf einem anderen Planeten
... «
»Und das denkst du?«
»Es wäre möglich ... (penn). .. vieles,
was ich schreibe, sind Fragmente
... Worte über Worte, Fragmente
... wie ein Mosaik ... du weißt,
was ein Mosaik ist. .. zuanfang, als individuelle
Fragm ente, machen sie
nicht viel Sinn, aber als Mosaik ergeben
sie für uns Sinn ... fürmich ... Oftmals
wenn ich schreibe, sehe ich
mich selbst auf der Bühne, vortragend
... ich denke also oft an ein
Publikum. Manchmal sehe ich nur
mich selbst«
~ »Freiheit ist in meiner Definition,
tunes zu schreiben ... eh, Freiheit ist ~
immer auch die Freiheit, tunes zu
schreiben, die entwederwie irgendwas anderes klingen oder aber extrem
anders. «
Gut
»Ich glaube die Worte ... diese
DINGE ... laufen aus, weil mein Hirn
leckt... alles sehr autobiographisch
... selbstwenn es sehr Fantasy-
orientiert klingt, istes eigentlich
autobiographisch. lrgendwie.«
Wem gehört diese Band? Wer hat
hierdas Sagen, von dem Typaufdem
anderen Planeten abgesehen, der
direinen Song diktiert hat? (Wem gehört
eigentlich nochmal die Rockmusik?)
»Ich habe es immer so gesehen,
daß Opal jedermanns Band ist-es ist
genausoviel Sukis Band wie meine.
Es ist immer noch Kendras Band, wir
sind uns immernoch sehr nahe. Es ist
Hopes Band ... Hope war schon immer
eine enge Freundin von Kendra
und mir. Sie ist'ne Folksängerin aus
Los Angeles, und ich habe mal eine
Platte mitihrproduziert.Sie hatsoeine
kraftvolle Stimme - sie hatviel so
surrealistische Folkmusik gemacht
... 'Going Home' hieß die Platte,
wirklich interessant, sehr spukhaft
... leer ... ganz anders als Opal,
sehr anders.«
Klingtdoch ausgezeichnet, sofern
hier kein Mißverständnis vorliegt.
Dave Roback ist doch auch Geschmacksmensch.
Hope in Köln
fand ich weniger gelungen. Daß sie
a) angeblich in Tränen ausbrach, weil
sie gehofft hatte, Opal sei in
Deutschland irgendwie angesagter,
stattdessen aber unter Hotels mit
gräßlichem Service zu leiden hatte,
und b) angeblich in stark überzogener
Angstvor BAZILLEN lebt, hörten
wir mit Bedauern. Von den verschiedenen
Tourveranstaltern, die zwar a)
grobgestricktere Gemüter haben,
aber b) trotzdem am Rande ihrer
Nervenkraftwaren, weil sie in letzter
Zeit immer so'n Glück mit den kleinen Amijungs hatten, die durch Europa
gondeln und sich von Früchten
am Wegesrand nähren, oder Oliven
und Kornmühlen mit sich tragen,
wie die Soldaten Alexanders des
Großen, als sie Persien eroberten.
Nicht so Opal, die ein Mindestmaß
an Zuwendung erwarten (was ich
auch nichtsowiderlichfinden kann).
Aber diese Zwergenfrau mit ihrer
winzigen Nase hat mich wirklichfertiggemacht,
wie sie mit doch sehr
folkmäßig klarer und fester Stimme
die Sachen interpretierte, die ich mir
irgendwie in der schlafferen, lau nenlosen
Konversationstonversion
von Atherisch, Kendra Smith eben,
vorgestellt hatte. So ein Miniweibsbi
ld! Ganz gut war dagegen ihre Präsentation
bei "Life's a Gas", wo sie
sich völlig übermüdet ihre Rassel vor
der Nase schwenkte und aussah, als
würde sie gleich eingehen.
»ja, live sp ielen ... hat natürlich
diese Dimension des jammens ... «
... und das ist was anderes, als wenn
sich Stücke im Studio se lbst machen,
dann aber für alle Zeiten und viele
Menschengeschlechter (a ls CD) in
Form bleiben, eingebettet in einen
Flußlauf, an dem nichts abgetragen
oder weggeschwemmt wird ... die
fortgesetzte Willkür in einer ewig
gleichen Abfolge ... fasel ... zisch. Ich
finde es auch nicht gerade zum
Schreien schlimm, wenn ein superfeines
Gefüge live zu dumpfer
Schwere zusammensackt, aber ein
zweiter Gitarrist wäre schon noch
ganz nett gewesen.
Schließlich spielten sie "Heroin",
das Stück, das man immer wieder
hören kann, sofern man von derdrogenmäßigen
Verworfenheit des Titels
einmal ausnahmsweise abstrahiert:
»ja ... warum spielt man gerne
dieses Stück... also, an einem
Abend in Italien haben wir eine
elend lange Show gespielt ... und sie
wollten immer noch was hören, und
wir also raus, was kann man jetzt
noch mal spielen ... unddannfiel mir
'Heroin' ein, denn dieser Song ist
so ... also er hat dieses ... das Tempo
zieht an .. . dann wird es wieder langsamer.
.. das kann man ziemlich lange
sp ielen, es ist einfach körperlich
angenehm, so Musik zu machen.«
»Ich habe viel gemalt in letzter
Zeit. .. ich beschäftige mich so allein
mit irgendwelchen Filmprojekten
oder schreibe Musik, die vielleicht
mal in meinen Filmen unterkommen
soll ... ich habe alles mögliche
gefilmt, was mir interessant schien,
ich versuche mir anzugewöhnen, eine
Kamera mitzunehmen, man stolpert
ja immer wieder über Sachen,
die interessant zu sein scheinen. Bis
jetzt sind es nur Fragmente .. . Sachen
... die mir auffallen, und ich
nehme an, es wird schon einen
Grund haben, daß bestimmte Schwere zusammensackt, aber ein
zweiter Gitarrist wäre schon noch
ganz nett gewesen.
Schließlich spielten sie "Heroin",
das Stück, das man immer wieder
hören kann, sofern man von derdrogenmäßigen
Verworfenheit des Titels
einmal ausnahmsweise abstrahiert:
»ja ... warum spielt man gerne
dieses Stück... also, an einem
Abend in Italien haben wir eine
elend lange Show gespielt ... und sie
wollten immer noch was hören, und
wir also raus, was kann man jetzt
noch mal spielen ... unddannfiel mir
'Heroin' ein, denn dieser Song ist
so ... also er hat dieses ... das Tempo
zieht an .. . dann wird es wieder langsamer.
.. das kann man ziemlich lange
sp ielen, es ist einfach körperlich
angenehm, so Musik zu machen.«
»Ich habe viel gemalt in letzter
Zeit. .. ich beschäftige mich so allein
mit irgendwelchen Filmprojekten
oder schreibe Musik, die vielleicht
mal in meinen Filmen unterkommen
soll ... ich habe alles mögliche
gefilmt, was mir interessant schien,
ich versuche mir anzugewöhnen, eine
Kamera mitzunehmen, man stolpert
ja immer wieder über Sachen,
die interessant zu sein scheinen. Bis
jetzt sind es nur Fragmente .. . Sachen
... die mir auffallen, und ich
nehme an, es wird schon einen
Grund haben, daß bestimmte Dinge
mich anziehen ... «
Das hat RobertAltman neulich im
Zweiten auch gesagt. Der eigentliche
Film entsteht dann am Schneidetisch.
Nicht, daß man diesen Regisseurnun
bedingungslosverehren
müßte.
» ... wie auch bei der Musik ...
macht keinen Sinn, ehe man zufällig
wieder einen Blick drauf wirft.«
Um nochmal zwanzig jahre zurückzugehen
...
»ja. Meine Eltern sind gegen den
Krieg ... damals ... war ich noch sehr
klein - aber ich erinnere mich an
manches ... Revolution ... hm ... es
war ja immer irgendwo was ... «
»Und Musik ... es gibt immer Musik
... die ... durchsickert - wie du
sagst, natürlich sind die Doors eine
Band von ... heute ... nicht von 'frü her'
... «
Richtig! Man soll sowas nicht
außer acht lassen. Natürlich gibt es
Musik, deren Aushängeschildersich
so lange in das nächst-neuere Genre
hinweg fortgesetzt haben, in der
Funktion dann von nächst jüngeren
abgelöst wurden, die schließlich
wieder durch Nachkömmlinge ersetztwerden,
die unabhängig davon
Fans der Urbesetzung gewesen waren,
und nachher. .. eh ... haben wir
die ALL-Time-Original-Platters der
Rockmusik in bis dahin nie in Erscheinung
getretene junge Körper
transzendi ert ... eine Vorgehensweise,
die so unendlich langsam ist,
wie Dave Roback seine Augen wendet,
dabei brutal schwierig, die Reviva
ls auszuschließen versucht und
dramatische Nebenerscheinungen
und Gegenbewegungen aufzieht.
DAS also ist die Welt, in der wir leben.
Dave Roback ist irgendwann von
Los Angeles nach San Francisco gezogen,
weil er kaltes Wetter liebt. Ist
in Berkeley, auch genannt Berserkeley,
zur Schule gegangen.
.........
[IN LARGE BOLD FONTS ON PAGE 2]:
David Roback ist eine Schlaftablette mit Baskenmütze,
aber die Opal-LP war bei Redaktion und Leserschaft
eine der beliebtesten des letzten Jahres. Live fehlte
die zweite Gitarre, auch Kendra Smith vermißte
mancher, aber mit etwas Geduld und den richtigen
Weckaminen schaffte Clara Drechsler einen Zusammenhang
aus Robacks leisen, feingesponnenen Erklärungen
flerauszuhören (die schließlich das Entstehen
eines kleinen Jahrhundertwerks erhellen sollten).
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-1989, MARCH, OPAL (WITH HOPE) ARTICLE/INTERVIEW WITH DAVID ROBACK, SPIN MAG.
[mazzystar.free.fr webmaster Emma found this article & posted this Google Books site link for it in the "Photos" thread (on p. 2):
https://books.google.fr/books?id=bT9Dc3 ... &q&f=false
She included the rare band photo from the same article]:
LYSERGIC GARAGE PARTY
Every place has its own musical logic. LA's goes like this:
More cars equal more garages and more garages equal more garage
bands (which equals more heavy metal). It's no accident that LA
has produced the finest psychedelic music of our decade, a
raging lysergic garage party whose prime movers were the Dream
Syndicate and the Rain Parade. All this occurred back in the
dawn of the 80s, before Classic Rock nostalgia, college
Deadophilia, and designer tie-dyes made the 60s sickly.
After the peak of the so-called Paisley Underground, Dave Roback
(the Rain Parade's wizard of guitar fuzz) and Kendra Smith (the
original Dream Syndicate bassist) formed Opal, named after a tune
by Syd Barrett, rock's most glorious acid casualty. "Happy
Nightmare Baby," Opal's 1987 debut, wah-wahed into the hearts
of occultists and garage guitar fans everywhere.
Kendra Smith then bowed out of not only the band but the music
scene, partly because she didn't like touring. For the new album,
tentatively titled "Ghost Highway," Roback enlisted the vox of
Hope Sandoval, a latina from East LA (a place Roback calls "another
world") and a good friend of Roback and Smith. "She was a quiet
figure," says Roback, "lurking in the shadow of shows." Before
Sandoval joined Opal, Roback produced an album of her haunting,
surrealistic folk, and she brings some of that sensibility to
"Ghost Highway." I like to write songs for the female voice,
Roback explains. "Opal's different now because I try to write with
Hope in mind, from her point of view."
Roback finds comparisons of Opal's thick, warped guitar to certain
artificially induced altered states quite favorable. "Music's great
because there's no pictures. It stimulates the fantasy centers in your
brain. Especially loud, distorted guitars. Of course, you could get
involved in someone else's fantasies and it could be hell, a drag,
complete boredom, absurd. Or you could get involved in someone's
thoughts and they could be completely interesting. Projecting your
own thing - people do that all the time. But in the hands of the
right person, like Jimi Hendrix, well...."
"Ghost Highway," on which Roback and Sandoval are joined by Keith
Mitchell and Suki Ewers, swirls and mind-fucks; but like any ritual
act, Opal's shaman rock is at its most powerful when it's live.
"We like to tour," says Roback. "We're very experimental. There's
a strong unconscious element to the band. It's like an experiment
without knowing what the point of the experiment is."
But Roback's ultimate raison d'etre is rock's purest and most profane.
"I just really dig being in some dark club in the middle of the night playing my guitar really loud."
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1990, June 9, MELODY MAKER, Mazzy Star article/interview with Hope & David
Two photos accompany the original article, one of Hope by Laura Levine, plus one of Hope & David by Merlyn Rosenberg.
Thanks go to Twitter user @nothingelseon who tweeted a photo of the Melody Maker page with the Mazzy Star article on it. I'll post his photo in comments section below.
................................................................
[1990, June 9, MELODY MAKER, Mazzy Star article/interview with Hope & David]
MAZZY STAR, GHOST RIDERS IN THE SKY
HAUNTING, SENSUAL AND DESOLATE, MAZZY STAR'S 'SHE HANGS BRIGHTLY' IS ALREADY A STRONG CONTENDER FOR ALBUM OF THE YEAR. EVERETT TRUE TALKS TO ITS AUTHORS, DAVID ROBACK AND HOPE SANDOVAL.
After her third vodka and soda the girl got up and said, flirtatiously,
"Excuse me."
The young man said, "May I ask you are going, miss?"
"To piss, if you'll permit me," said the girl and walked off between the tables back towards the plush screen, -Milan Kundero, "The Hitchhiking Game."
"When I'm singing, all kinds of things run through my mind. Sometimes I just think like a normal person, a person who wouldn't even be singing, sometimes I just think I hope I remember the next verse." -Hope Sandoval, Mazzy Star.
It's always at the boundary of the sensual and the sordid that we derive the greatest pleasure. The mingling of the two states of mind - wanton lust and purest love -create a third where desire is tempered by knowledge, unfamiliarity with restful content. In love, in life, we don't want total knowledge, we want to be teased, excited - caught with our pants down.
Hope is one half of LA band Mazzy Star. Together with guitarist David Roback, she has just released an album, "She Hangs Brightly" through Rough Trade. It's full of music that mixes the sordid with the sensual, the wanton with the innocent.
If you want, you could call it sweetly psychedelic, mournful folk music or ethereal blues. But really it's just hauntingly sensual, personal music, full of the eerie ghosts of the past and the imagination. Mazzy Star make music to surrender to, to lose yourself inside its infinitely changing dreamscapes. It's beautiful. It's moving. It's mystical. It's about the best damn record you're gonna hear all year.
"It's quite mystical," David agrees with me over the transatlantic phone line to California. "Like travelling without necessarily leaving where your feet are standing. With Mazzy Star I can travel places in my mind into Hope's life and voice and guitar. It's like when you are looking at a painting on a wall and you fall into it, that's what
playing music means to me. It's haunted with its own private ghosts; when we play music it's a time when we confront a lot of inner ghosts and inner things, we reach down to them."
David used to be in the more overtly psychedelic Rain Parade, a group he left to form Opal, which also featured the haunting balladeer, Kendra Smith. Along the way, he recorded the supremely enchanting "Rainy Day" album with various Dream Syndicaters and Susanna Hoffs.
"Rainy Day" is full of exotic, surrealistic cover versions, the most wondrous of which is their bewitched interpretation of Dylan's "I'll Keep it With Mine" - a song I lost my heart to a thousand times.
Opal - aside from possessing a sense of enchantment and finesse not witnessed this side of Cowboy Junkies, and with a far more expressive voice - are most fondly remembered for their sublime debut EP, "Fell From the Sun". Rough Trade have also released both a greatest hits and "early recordings" package, well worth dipping into.
But if Opal occasionally veered too much into trippy, languid '67 territory, Mazzy Star make no such mistake. Look back to the previous statements made about Rainy Day and Opal. Now, imagine an album, filled with such moments, songs imbued with an innate sense of calm and desire, songs with titles like "Ghost Highway", "Blue Flower", and "Before I Sleep".
Imagine the agitated, restless drawl of Velvet-een guitars on "Be My Angel" (my absolute favourite track presently) backing a wantonly seductive voice. Imagine a voice that is glacially cool,yet as fierce as a furnace, deep as the void. Yeah, Mazzy Star are really that good.
DAVID: "I met Hope a while back in '83, through this group she was in with another girl, playing real depressing acoustic folk music.Well, me and Kendra really liked that stuff, so I produced an album
for them."
That album, which has never been released, may soon find an outlet through Rough Trade. The group were called Going Home, after the Rolling Stones' song.
"I knew he was in The Rain Parade," Hope reveals, "and I just thought he was interesting. We didn't talk much during the first four years we knew each other, because we're both shy. So, we'd see each other and talk to other people in the room, but not to each other directly. And when Kendra left Opal, he asked me to join. David's very shy, that was my first impression of him, very shy and very mysterious."
That shyness makes itself apparent the more you listen to the diamond pure, chillingly beautiful, sensual music of "She Hangs Brightly". At times you feel almost ashamed to be listening, like a voyeur, sneaking glances into an intensely private and personal world. Mostly, however, you feel privileged.
So, when David felt that Opal had run their natural course, he already had a perfect vehicle to give shape to his musical vision.
HOPE: "Opal was no big deal. It was fun sometimes, but it was hard for me because David was doing most of the writing. I just wasn't that into it - it was great you know, but my creative input wasn't enough. I like Mazzy Star more, because I wrote half of the songs on the album."
DAVID: "Yeah, Hope had done a tour with Opal supporting Jesus and Mary Chain in America, and a few dates in Europe.I wanted to try something different, not shackled to the ball and chain of the past. Too many people carry on bands long after they should have been put to rest...do you know what cryogenics are?
Opal haven't done everything they could do, they've been put in deep freeze, and may, or may not, come back in the future."
Did you have any kind of definite idea what you wanted with Mazzy Star?
DAVID: “What we wanted was to write together and do what comes naturally. I find it hard to understand people who are motivated otherwise. We'll be doing this when we're old. I don’t know if Mazzy Star is a progression - whether we're going forwards or backwards - but it's a side of what I want to do. This album leans
towards acoustic music, but part of the reason for that was because when we were starting out, me and Hope were doing a lot of recording at home with acoustic guitars. I imagine, as we start playing with a
band, we'll lean more towards the electric.”
The band David refers to should contain “She Hangs Brightly" contributors William Cooper and Keith Mitchell (from Opal).
Mazzy Star's songs deal in abstracts: vulnerability and distaste, slovenly lust and sensual love. As Allan Jones rightly remarked in his review of their album a few weeks back, “The music itself belongs to the other side of midnight, those somber, cold-sweat hours between dawn and what's left of darkness when the ghosts
start dancing". It's on incredibly eerie, evocative record.
What images were going through your mind when you were recording it?
DAVID: “The images behind our music tie into the musical world we live in. I guess it must provide something we need from our lives, emotionally, but this is probably true about a lot of things people do."
“I could talk about Hope's imagery more clearly than mine, because when you're looking at the inside, it seems more complex, it shows up your craziness more Hope’s songs are very emotional, sometimes very rebellious in a personal way, sometimes cynical, sometimes very serious...really, it's very diverse. Maybe your question
is best left unanswered.”
In the music of Mazzy Star, I can hear traces of pretty much every band covered on that apocryphal "Rainy Day" album...Buffalo Springfield, Bob Dylan, Alex Chilton, the Velvets. They also bring to mind newer bands such as Cowboy Junkies and Galaxie 500.
DAVID: “Mazzy Star have many different sources from the tradition of music. Many people have trouble realising what they do relates to the past, because that means it isn’t fresh or original enough. But the very fact people have the psychological condition to accept certain things sound good influences them. It’s not necessarily
confining or limiting. We've never made any claims to be making a total break from tradition.”
The album's mood varies a lot, doesn’t it?
DAVID: “We weren't trying for any one particular mood. It was recorded live because we like to leave things unresolved. I don't like playing the same things time and time again. It's more of a challenge not knowing exactly what you're going to do."
“ I have a fondness for improvisational musicians like Hendrix. He stands out as a great experimentalist, very spontaneous - most great musicians have that quality in their music. A lot of our music is about projecting our minds far away - not travelling through some imaginary void but that’s what it is — travelling through some imaginary darkness. It's real to us. Everybody’s concept of reality is private to them.
“We don't see ourselves as a backdrop to a big party, like a lot of music. We're not trying to be real serious either - we're serious about creating great music, but in an abstract way. We don't have a pamphlet to hand out about it. It can help people. Music has always helped me in my life to carry on. When life gets really hard, music is there. "
Where would you imagine Mazzy Star being played?
DAVID: “I visualise it being played late at night, middle of the night, something that happens around midnight in
a darkened room.”
Mazzy Star: they're just so bewitching.
"She Hangs Brightly", Mazzy Star's debut album is available now through Rough Trade. The band should be touring over here later this summer.
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1990, JUNE 16, N.M.E. MAZZY STAR ARTICLE with an interview with David Roback
One photo by Merlyn Rosenberg accompanies the article.The caption under it reads:
"Mazzy Star hanging brightly".
Thanks go to Twitter user @nothingelseon for Tweeting a photo of the original NME page the article is on, here: https://twitter.com/nothingelseon/statu ... 6615907328
I found a better image quality copy of the photo than the one found in the Tweeted mag page photo. I've added it here.
...........................
ANOTHER FINE MAZ
"I don't know that we fit in that well, really, we're not part of a fad or a trend.
But I don't think we're hard to relate to, either — we're not coming from
another planet or anything."
David Roback , one visual half of Many Star, may not evolve from a different universe,
but the wrong end of a telephone connection in Los Angeles is a pretty far out
alternative. According to record company schedules, David and partner-in-mystery
Hope Sandoval should be over here touring with Ultra Vivid Scene,
but hometown commitments prevented any trans-Atlantic excursion.
Shame, as response to Mazzy Star's debut album 'She Hangs Brightly'
has been sweaty to say the least. Rough Trade are convinced they've found 1990's
answer to Galaxie 500, and for sure, Mazzy Star weave similarly vacant spells,
teasing tales of tragedy and suspending belief with an adaptable yet succinct
marriage to Roback's gently rocking guitar and Hope's nerve-wracking voice.
Then again, literary enthusiasm is nothing new to David as a founder
member of Rain Parade and then the offbeat Opal, much of his past decade has been
laden with critical acclaim. Now, words of praise pass by like water off Roback's back.
"It's nice, but I don't really think about it a lot," he sighs. "I don't really read
the music papers, it's such a distraction. I mean, the whole music scene is so grotesque
in a way. Some parts of it are totally fantastic, sure, but I sort of stay out of it.
I'm a Rip Van Winkle type — I do what I want and try to create my own world."
Hence Mazzy Star, a ridiculously relaxed outfit which realises a mutual ambition first
nurtured when Roback and Hope met in 1983. Seven years on, the duo talk dreamily of
fulfilling each other's musical dreams and of using 'She Hangs Brightly' as
an escape capsule.
And what are Mazzy Star escaping from? The wonderful West Coast, that's what.
"It's a tough life out here," protests David. "Growing up in LA is very oppressive,
there's a lot of poverty. It may look glamorous, but that's not the reality. In our
lives we've really had to struggle, and that's what I like about Hope — she's very
independent, she's a very rebellious person."
Yet 'She Hangs Brightly' isn't exactly what many would perceive to be a rebel
rockin' record, is it?
"Anyone who's a writer or musician or artist has to deal with rebellion in a very
personal way. There's a certain freedom you have to have in your own work, but it
doesn't mean you have to scream bloody murder all the time."
Mazzy Star scream, but quietly. Listen carefully.
• Mazzy Star will follow up their LP with a new EP 'Halah' and UK dates in October.
-Simon Williams
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-1990, JUNE 16, MAZZY STAR ARTICLE/INTERVIEW (WITH DAVID ROBACK), SOUNDS MAG.
[found reproduced as text on Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 5593088285 ]
MAZZY STAR: ASTRAL PEAKS
Roy Wilkinson, Sounds, June 16, 1990
From the ashes of Opal, David Roback has created the most auspicious Mazzy Star. Roy Wilkinson applauds their blue-skied guitars.
DESPITE ITS massive presence in '90s life, Los Angeles is a shadow of a city.
Built on water pirated from hundreds of miles away, the City Of Angels shouldn't really be there and the past isn't.
Mazzy Star's constituents span LA — Hope Sandoval from East LA and David Roback from down by the beach — but their music mines beyond their hometown's lack of heritage.
Mazzy Star's debut album, She Hangs Brightly, is spectral, sad blue-skied guitar music reverberating with a ghost of Americana past. From their country blues to the tarmac-wheeling Suicidal wraith 'Ghost Highway', Mazzy Star's music feels as if it's echoing from some sacred rock 'n' roll tomb.
Everyone will have heard the styles that Mazzy Star rework but, as familiar as their base material is, it retains an eerie undertow. As with the sun-kissed opening stretch of David Lynch's Blue Velvet, everything on the surface is fine. But just below, an air of unease looms.
"There's an unresolved quality," says MS guitar man Roback. "When people are talking, or when they make music, their emotions dictate that things are resolved. But really, whatever comfort or reality is in their minds is just a fiction they're creating for themselves. I would hope that nothing in our music pretends to be resolved."
MAZZY STAR'S name is "a fiction", a little phrase they coined after Roback's former band OPAL slowed to a halt.
Hope Sandoval had replaced Kendra Smith as front bod for OPAL's last tour, after Roback had produced an, as yet, unreleased album for Hope's group. Afterwards, Hope put her "surreal, haunting folk band" Going Home on hold and began to work on an album with former Rain Parader, Roback.
The album was to be an OPAL record called Ghost Highway, but as the songs developed, the pair felt a clean break with the past was needed. Mazzy Star took its place in the firmament.
As with the most driven of the original hillbilly country stars, Mazzy Star take the simplest themes and bend them between immense happiness and a kind of implacable abjection. Amazingly, they manage to sound like they're doing this for the first time.
"Yeah," says Roback. "Hank Williams tuned in to a lot of the must [most?] mundane but powerful music in that style. We're not hillbillies, but to us the styles we use are as fresh as if we'd just discovered them ourselves."
Not that Mazzy Star are honkytonk fare. Their cover of '70s weird-out merchants Slapp Happy's 'Blue Flower' is an invincible,tambourine rattling hit of overdriven guitar mainlined with melody. Like the Mary Chain of Darklands. While the title track is a sprawling piece worked from The Doors' most hazy moments.
Despite Mazzy Star's American core, Roback is a Britophile musically. Soul II Soul have "a great spirit", while the last great show he called to mind was one by veteran Glaswegian folk artist Bert Jansch. Like the virtually forgotten Jansch, Mazzy Star cast themselves outside the whirlwind pop success treadmill.
"We're just craftsmen," says journeyman Dave. "We're part of that tradition. Hand tooled kinda stuff."
Roback sounds genuinely bewildered by pop's inbred, plasti-smile optimism. "I'm not sure what everybody's partying about. No one invited me to this big party that they're always talking about and I wouldn't go if they did."
Delivered with Roback's laconic growl this outburst rivals American Music Club's Mark Eitzel for implausible hopelessness. And like AMC, Mazzy Star are going back and picking out the unsettling aspects of the American dream.
No one has shown their deftness of touch with classic guitar music since the mighty Galaxie 500.
© Roy Wilkinson, 1990 interview, June, 1990, Sounds mag.
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1990, JULY 22, L.A. TIMES, MAZZY STAR INTERV.
[Thanks go to mazzystar.free.fr webmaster Emma for finding this article & sharing the link from L.A. Times' archives, here:
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-07-22/ ... mazzy-star
No photos accompany the original article]
Mazzy Star: Shining 'Brightly' :
The personal visions of David Roback and Hope Sandoval have fueled a fast-moving
album on the alternative-rock charts
July 22, 1990|ROBERT HILBURN
Yes, Hope Sandoval, the slender, soft-spoken singer of the L.A. rock group Mazzy Star,
has heard all the comparisons between the Cowboy Junkies, a critic's choice in 1988,
and her group, a critic's favorite in 1990.
Mazzy Star's "She Hangs Brightly" is one of the year's strongest debuts--already in the
Top 10 on the CMJ New Music Report survey of college and alternative-rock radio station
play lists.
But Sandoval just doesn't see much connection between the austere, country-accented
blues of her band and the austere, country-accented blues of the Junkies.
"I feel what they are doing has been done. . . . That whole folk approach," she said
somewhat curtly during a recent interview in a modest, Fairfax area restaurant.
"I think (we're) a lot more rock 'n' roll."
If influences must be found, the dark-haired singer said, look to the Rolling Stones
--not to that group's flashy, bad-boy side, but the more soulful, blues-minded strains
of such songs as "Love in Vain," which Sandoval heard on a live Stones album as a
teen-ager and has prized ever since.
Across the patio table, David Roback, the other half of Mazzy Star, smiled as he
listened to the talk about influences. He apparently found it amusing that he has
spent the last decade trying to find his own musical voice and now people are trying
to categorize it.
"I've never even heard the Cowboy Junkies record," he said. "But then, I don't listen
to a lot of contemporary music. I kind of purposely try to avoid it because I don't
want to be influenced by it. I prefer the Rip Van Winkle approach to art."
This deliberate distance from the contemporary pop scene contributed to Roback's being
a somewhat elusive figure on the L.A. rock scene since the early '80s.
Inspired by the poetry of Patti Smith and the independence of such '60s rock figures as
John Lennon and Syd Barrett, Roback has followed his own musical instincts to a
remarkable degree in an era when so many bands are little more than clones of last
week's hitmakers.
"I felt like a punk," he said of his early interest in rock. "That's the attitude
I identified with. But when I picked up the guitar and started playing it, the music
didn't come out sounding punk. It was something else. . . .."
Roback's journey to find his own style has stretched from New York to Berkeley,
through a series of bands--including one with former Bangle Susanna Hoffs.
He formed Rain Parade, one of the key band's in L.A.'s much publicized
"paisley underground" scene of the early '80s, but then left it after one album
and "retired" to Berkeley to work on music away from the commercial pressures of
the Southern California pop scene.
After a few years in another band, Opal, with former Dream Syndicate bassist
Kendra Smith, guitarist Roback teamed up with Sandoval and formed Mazzy Star.
The clearest link between Mazzy Star and the Cowboy Junkies is the sparse,
understated music of the Velvet Underground. But the more significant tie may
be the way both groups are the result of a personal vision that has been
nurtured for years.
Just as Roback went in and out of several bands while developing his sound, the
Junkies' Michael Timmins moved through a series of strikingly different styles,
from the severe intensity of England's Joy Division, improvisational jazz, some
Delta blues and, finally, some softer, Waylon Jennings-style country.
Each step of the way, Timmins and Roback seemed to reach deeper into themselves,
stripping away filters from their emotions to offer a musical sound that is
disarmingly honest.
Each guitarist, too, was lucky to find a female singer who conveyed in both voice
and lyrics the rich emotional strains to perfectly accompany the purity of
his vision.
Timmins found his band's voice in his sister, Margo, while Roback found Sandoval
singing in a duo, Going Home, while she was still attending Mark Keppel
High School in Alhambra.
There's one difference, however, between Timmins and Roback. Where Timmins went
to New York from his native Toronto to pursue music, L.A.-native Roback went to
New York to become a painter.
"I went to New York mainly to be part of the art scene," said Roback, outlining
his own story. "But I gradually found myself getting more inspired by what was
happening in music than in art. . . . People like Patti Smith and Television."
Returning to the West Coast in the late '70s, he joined a band in Berkeley
with Hoffs--an old schoolmate from Palisades High School in Los Angeles--called
the Unconscious. But he soon left it. "She was more into the pop side of things,"
he said, "and I . . . Well, I don't know what I was looking for. . . . Something
more serious, I guess."
The line could sound biting, but Roback said it in a way that didn't declare
value judgments on different pop intentions. There was even a touch of
self-deprecating humor--as if he were merely a victim of the some all-powerful
rock 'n' roll muse.
Roback moved back to Los Angeles, where such bands as X and the Blasters were
building a punk/new wave scene that was even more active than what he had
seen in New York.
"When I started playing music, it came out sounding very psychedelic for
whatever reason," he said, explaining the reason for Rain Parade's "paisley"
connections. "I guess it was just what I grew up liking. The Beatles and
Jimi Hendrix were the best groups for me. . . . The late Beatles more than
the early Beatles--their message, the whole political and spiritual involvement."
Though Rain Parade generated considerable attention around town, Roback,
who sang in the group, left it after the first album because, he said, he
could see the limits of the group. He wanted something more challenging.
He also felt uncomfortable being lumped into the L.A. neo-psychedelic scene
and returned to Berkeley.
About the move to Berkeley, he recalled, "I was very idealistic. I thought
I would retire and make music on my own, not be part of any scene. It didn't
seem all that radical because my heroes had done it--people like John Lennon
and Syd Barrett--at certain points in their lives.
"I didn't feel the acceptance or attention was important to me. I wanted to
make music that I felt and if people liked it, fine, otherwise the music would
be enough reward."
He found in Kendra Smith someone with similar views, and they started recording
together. "There was a sense of beauty about getting away," he said of the time.
"We were poor, very poor, but it didn't really affect our ability to live the
kind of life we were living because all we wanted was some empty rooms and some
instruments and some paper. We owned our lives and it was a wonderful time.
I'm glad we did it."
Finally, Smith and Roback decided to play live, and that's what led to Opal,
a group whose restrained yet passionate sound was a link between the Velvet
Underground and Mazzy Star.
While on tour in 1986 with the Jesus and Mary Chain, Smith left Opal and Roback
asked Sandoval to take her place. Mazzy Star was born two years later.
If Roback does 90% of the talking in interviews, it's not because he's trying to
take all the credit for Mazzy Star. It's just that Sandoval, who writes most of
the lyrics, is so reserved. She must have said a total of 20 words in response
to a dozen questions.
Sandoval, who is in her early 20s, doesn't like to explain her lyrics--which often
revolve around desire and doubts in relationships--any more than she talks in
detail about her background. She does say she was born in East Los Angeles, where
her parents worked in a factory and she was the youngest of 10 children.
She also said she started listening to the Stones when she was about 13 and admired
Keith Richards' guitar playing so much that she began playing guitar herself.
But her main interest was singing, appearing at small clubs around Los Angeles
in the early '80s with the duo Going Home.
Her shyness during the interview eventually led Roback to begin sounding more
like a manager or a publicist than a musical partner.
"I think Hope deserves a lot of attention," he said. "I think she is a great
singer and a great songwriter. When I first heard her, I thought she could
be someone like Bob Dylan, someone who could speak for a lot of people her age."
If she felt uncomfortable talking about themes, Roback finally offered an
interpretation of Mazzy Star's music.
"I see a lot of hope in her songs," he said. "It's like that movie . . .
'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.' Something nice can come out of a very caustic
environment. . . . Something that tells you all isn't lost."
Roback paused, as if reflecting on his own, long musical journey.
"At times, I felt like the music world was on a dead-end street, that everyone
was simply rehashing the same old ideas. . . . But rock is still a potentially
great art form.
"No matter how down you are, there may be a light in a song that gives you
strength . . . something spiritually regenerating. To me, that's the goal
of a musician--to find that light."
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1990, August 16, Mazzy Star Interview with David Roback, Chicago Tribune
[I found this article in a newspaper historic data base which only shows text.
It's unknown whether photos appeared in the 1990 newspaper]
........................................................................
Loving the blues Mazzy Star combines love songs and the blues in a unique, vibrant sound,
by Greg Kot
One of the most entrancing debut records of the year is Mazzy Star's "She Hangs Brightly" (Rough Trade).
With echoes of acoustic, blues-based music ranging from early Robert Johnson through the Cowboy Junkies' "The Trinity Session," it sounds like nothing on the current pop scene.
Its most powerful attractions are the voice and lyrics of Hope Sandoval, whose tone recalls the spectral longing of Marianne Faithfull and the "Love in Vain"-period Rolling Stones.
Her voice doesn't soar as much as slope at the end of each phrase, coating her love songs with a spooky melancholy.
Her collaborator, David Roback, who previously played in the critically acclaimed West Coast bands the Rain Parade and Opal, met Sandoval in 1983.
He was so taken with her style that he "had to get that sound down before she went on to something else," though the resulting album was never released.
The two kept in touch and were finally reunited when Opal vocalist Kendra Smith "said she couldn't take it anymore, got on a plane and flew off into the sunset" in the middle of the last tour, Roback says.
Sandoval finished the tour, and the two decided to record an album as a duo.
"Her voice and delivery are incredibly unchanged from when we first met," Roback marveled. "We're both really quiet people, but there was just this unspoken understanding about what kind of sound we wanted to have."
Using a tambourine as the primary percussion instrument, and mixing acoustic and slide playing with feedback-laced electric guitar, the record is spare and bluesy without sounding the least bit fragile or faint.
"We're not really interested in fitting in," Roback said. "We have a dismal view of contemporary musical culture; it seems so full of corruption and half-baked ideas. We're just a million miles from all that."
The blues connection "stems from the lives we lead, which I think are pretty similar to the lives people like Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker once had to lead," he added. "We've been pretty poor, sort of meandering around, playing guitar and scraping out a living.
"I can identify with the blues because it's not a bourgeois art form."
Mazzy Star, which headlines the late show Saturday at Cabaret Metro, expands to a five-piece band in concert, including
"We do more of an electric thing when we play live," Roback said. "We're not a little mouse squeaking in the corner."
Copyright Chicago Tribune Co. Aug 16, 1990
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-1990, NOVEMBER, MUSICIAN mag. Mazzy Star article + interview with David, a short one. Instagram user @raoulie_19 shared his clipping of the article in July, 2024.
The article gives two photo credits:
"(top) Chris Carroll
(bottom) Ebet Roberts"
But the clipping that was shared included just one photo, the one by Ebet Roberts (taken at Woody's Club, NYC, Aug. 9, 1990).
..............
Mazzy Star
Hermit Meets Introvert
by Ted Drozdowski, Musician mag., November, 1990.
When songwriter/guitarist David Roback met Hope Sandoval, he recalls that "she was one of those people who hang around in the shadowed corners of a club, watching the band intently. Just a set of eyes, like a cat."*
The quietly mysterious Sandoval was also half of the folk duo Going Home, for which Roback produced an album in 1984. Now Sandoval is his partner in the college-chart-topping Mazzy Star. An unlikely success not only because their delicate blues, country and psychedelic-derived music has an almost spiritual ring, but because Roback had given up rock 'n' roll bands twice before. He'd been a founder of Rain Parade, which helped spark Los Angeles' so-called Paisley Underground. Roback left to chase his electric demons when Rain Parade took a folkie turn. Intent on becoming a musical hermit, he moved to Berkeley and helped found Opal, a group whose gently-fuzztoned sensibility burnished Roback's rough edges. When Opal ended in 1986, Roback planned to return to painting, but was drawn back by Sandoval's writing. Two years of collaborating resulted in Mazzy Star's She Hangs Brightly, a collection of songs that dart between sweetness and frustration, sung in Sandoval's slight Southern twang. Roback builds the arrangements, played live by a quintet, around Sandoval's sincere alto and his own painterly guitar.
"It's nice to work with somebody who's completely into what they're doing,"
Roback says of Sandoval, an introvert who shuns interviews.
"She writes songs that are part of strong moods in her life and I think our music is very honest."
................................................................
The article gets a few facts wrong, including dates. Opal didn't end, so much as morph into Mazzy Star, the new name for Opal, in 1989, not 1986. The Going Home album of Hope's duo with Sylvia Gomez was recorded by Roback more likely in 1985 or '86, rather than 1984, I believe.
*On first encountering this interview in July, 2024, I knew I'd seen the phrase "just a set of eyes, like a cat" as a quote from Roback before. On searchin, I learned I'd read it in an October 23, 1993 Melody Maker article (findable in archives here). It's confusing as the MM article is an interview with Hope & David but the journalist inserts that "cat" phrase attributed to Roback without crediting it to this 1990 Musician mag interview. The MM article includes just the last eight words of David's "cat" quote, omitting the rest of David's longer comment leading up to it, about seeing Hope in clubs. I wrongly assumed it was something Roback told the MM interviewer in 1993 (-Hermesacat)
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1990, NOVEMBER, UNHINGED mag INTERV, w. DAVID & HOPE
First published in Unhinged magazine, issue 7, November 1990.
Text reprinted in the 2005 book "Tell Me When It's Over, Notes From The Paisley Underground,"
edited by Clive Jones.
........................
MAZZY STAR : A SENSE OF DETACHMENT, by Paul Ricketts
Sometimes things start to click for no immediate reason. Or maybe, one name is
intrinsically more attractive than another equally good name. So Clay Allison
became Opal and they in turn have now metamorphosed into Mazzy Star. Their
first album "She Hangs Brightly" has ridden up the independent charts, maybe it's that
their sound is now right for the times. Since the first Rain Parade records, David Roback
has seemed a figure encouraging a sense of detachment from the rock world, valuing
being mysterious above being garrulous, so it came as a pleasant surprise that Rough
Trade organized this interview, which I aimed to be mostly about the new group hoping
to cover the rest of the story as soon as their projected tour happens.
PR: Where did the new name Mazzy Star come from?
DR: Well, it's just a name, it doesn't mean anything more than your name or my name, it felt kinda right. If there's a deeper meaning, I'm not really conscious of what it is.
PR: Can you introduce the people playing on the new LP? Is Sylvia Gomez Juan
Gomez's sister?
DR: No, she isn't. She's the former partner of Hope; they had a duet called Going Home.
I produced an LP by them a couple of years ago. They were a haunting, surreal, acoustic
duet. That's how I met Hope and I was very taken with what they were doing. She plays
on one track "Give You My Lovin" — acoustic guitar. Then there's William Cooper. He
was also in Opal. He played bass on a couple of Mazzy Star tracks. And Paul Olguin
(pronounced "Olegween") also played bass.
PR: So you played all the other guitars?
DR: Yes.
PR: What about the others in the band. They've all been with you a long time —
Keith Mitchell and Suki Ewers, are they with you permanently?
DR. Keith is permanently in the band. Suki played on some of the sessions, but she's
dong other stuff of her own right now. I've been playing with Keith for a long time now,
We've gone through several phases together.
PR: How much do you think your sound actually depends on his drumming
because he doesn't play like other people drum, at least when he's playing with
you?
DR: We don't think of it that way. We just do it. I've never thought of it that way. I think
there's interdependency, an interaction.
PR: You did a tour with the Jesus and Mary Chain. Would you like to see Mazzy
Star going in a more electric direction like that?
DR: The first LP really represents a lot of ideas in the first stages of formation done on
acoustic guitar and then brought to the band to be worked upon. I think that once we've
started touring, or playing live more, there'll be a natural progression towards sounding
more electric because live we tend to be more electric.
PR: Is that why the "Happy Nightmare Baby" album was so much more up-tempo
than the Clay Allison records?
DR: There's a sort of pattern for me. I work things out in an acoustic way and then the
band takes hold of them and becomes the predominant force, because basically we like
playing live and recording live and get a lot of spontaneity.
PR: Are the bulk of the songs here reasonably recent? "Ghost Highway" you
played here in 1988.
DR: Most of them date from after that.
PR: Are they jointly written?
DR: Almost all of them are jointly written. Almost.
PR: Do you sit down together to write a song?
DR: Sometimes we sit down together and do it on the spot. Hope will have an idea. We
don't have a specific formula; we'll have an idea and build on it.
PR: Are there any songs that you could say lyrically are one person?
DR: Yeah. "She Hangs Brightly", Hope wrote the lyrics. "Ghost Highway", I wrote the
lyrics. A lot of them we wrote the lyrics together like "Ride It On". Hope is the singer
and I'm the guitar player. We both focus on what we're doing. She focuses more on
singing and lyrics and I'm more on guitar, but it's not black and white. We both write
lyrics and Hope plays guitar when we write, though not in the live band. It's a real 50/50
collaboration.
PR: On the acoustic tracks there seems to be a lot of country blues in the sound;
and then there's an Eastern influence creeping in there too. Is that how you intend
it or is it just something that happens?
DR: It's something that happens. Looking back on it, I'd agree with you that the
influences are there. I like a lot of old time blues; there's a certain simplicity and
something about the stories — the oral traditions of the blues singers are intriguing to me.
We never thought about it. We just did it; then we go "Look at this". It's just the variety
of what we are.
PR: Music coming out of clashes or crossing the boundaries of musical forms
always seems to hold so much more potential and likelihood of branching out. Do
you know where you may branch out to now?
DR: I don't have any conscious idea. I do what's right for me at the moment. It's much
easier to look at that in retrospect. If we started thinking constantly about what we
wanted to do, that would take our attention off the songs and the meanings of doing each
song and that's not how we operate.
PR: How do your songs come? Is it just BANG they're there...
DR: Songwriting is like an ecstatic state. Suddenly it all comes out of you. It always
provides a psychological relief. I'd probably go mad if I didn't write the songs.
PR: Does the state of writing the song fade the longer you go from the writing? Are
they in a state of grace which they gradually lose?
DR: No, I think I can always go there. It's like a private world that I can always return
to. I can always project my mind into that world. It's as real to me as anyone's concept
of realitv is. I'm so caught up in what I do. They're so real to me even if they can't be
seen. Someone would walk In the room and they wouldn't see it, but there's a whole
world Inside vour mind. You know that's what songs are - rooms in a vast haunted house
inside of my mind. I keep discovering places to see.
PR: When you're playing live, is that the same thing?
DR: I think it's very similar. I really let my imagination go. There's other elements
coming into it, but I think when someone writes, you imagine someone else hearing it.
Either you imagine yourself standing in a room watching yourself. Playing live is
enlarging on that concept. Or, you'll have a person in mind.
PR: Do you pay much attention to the audience? Do you find them a support or a
distraction to that?
DR: It really depends. Sometimes I'm much more aware of the audience. Sometimes I'll
forget everything except my guitar. It's as though I go inside my guitar. Or I'll be
thinking about the whole band and that takes up all my attention. The audience is like a
blur on the edge of my mind. I appreciate the audience and, the kind of music I've
always played, I've always had a strange audience. We're not playing a backdrop to a
party. There's nothing wrong with a party, it's just not where we're at. A lot of it is like
a difficult ordeal. It's not really in my nature.
PR: I heard that when you played that one Opal gig in London that you left in a
hurry as if you were really angry. Was that how it was or was that just an
impression?
DR: We had some problems with immigration. We didn't have our bass player and just
kinda improvised. But, the audience was cool. We enjoyed the London show. I was kinda
strung out about it because we really wanted to have the whole group there, so we just
improvised at the last minute. But that's always been in the spirit of the band - a little
bit crazy and a little bit out of control. It's not predictable. It would get very boring if
you did the same thing every night. Our songs change a lot from night to night for better
or for worse. That's in the nature of it.
PR: So was that tour the end of Opal and where Mazzy Star started?
DR: What happened was that when Hope and I really got into working together that the
persona of the band was getting pulled in a different direction with the different people
and we felt that we would start something altogether new as much as possible; and give
ourselves a completely blank screen to work upon, free of the past and free to work on.
I think it's a bad idea how people keep something together past the point where it's
changed so profoundly that they should change the way they look at it. I think it really
represented the total desire to be free to do what we were doing. Hope is a very different
person. We didn't really care about commercial abstracts and maintaining that band.
Opal kinda went into the deep freeze, a cryogenic for Opal. Opal's frame is still there
but it's on ice. Maybe one day we'll defrost it. We wanted freedom. Mazzy Star is a
whole new project. Hope is a very strong writer and I just felt we needed the break.
PR: If I could ask Hope a few questions now. Can you tell me about your other
band first. About Going Home?
HS: It was just another girl and myself on guitar. We played quite a few shows of our own.
PR: Did you just write the songs that were recorded for that album?
HS: No, we wrote many, many. Probably enough songs for two or three albums.
PR: Do you think any of that stuff will get released?
HS: Yes, definitely. Most likely through Rough Trade.
PR: On the new album, which songs did you write the words to?
HS: Most of them.
PR: Can you tell me what they're all about?
HS: Not really.
PR: They're just ideas rather than stories?
HS: They're both, I guess.
PR: How soon do you think you'll be playing live?
HS: Oh soon, in another month or two, we should be doing some shows, but when we're
ready. We're rehearsing right now.
PR: Is it going to be what's on the album, or is it going to be newer stuff?
HS: Probably new stuff.
PR: Are you going to be doing any covers? Are you still going to be doing "Rock
Section"?
HS: Probably not...well, maybe. Maybe. Yeah maybe once in a while when we play live.
PR: How many new songs do you have apart from the record?
HS: Oh, I don't know. We have so many songs. We probably have enough for another
record, but we'll definitely be writing a whole lot more before we go into the studio and record.
PR: Where was the Mazzy Star album recorded?
HS: In Venice, California. I don't remember the name of the studio.
PR: Did you record it live with the band, the whole band just setting up and
playing?
HS: Yes we did.
PR: Were these all the tracks you recorded?
HS: No, we actually recorded a lot more. We actually did a whole other record, but we
didn't use it. We went and did something else.
PR: What was the other record?
HS: It was just songs that we decided we didn't want put out. We had to start all over
again.
PR: Why didn't you like the other record?
HS: Oh, I don't know. We just weren't in the mood for it.
PR: Are some of the tracks on this album tracks that would have been on that?
HS: Yes.
PR: How many tracks got lost?
HS: I'm not sure.
PR: What was different about the mood of the other one? Was it harder or more
laid back?
HS: It was both.
PR: What makes this album work and the other one not work?
HS: I don't know. I don't really know. I just enjoy it more.
PR: Do you have any plans for releasing a single from the album?
HS: Yes. I'm not sure which song it will be - I think it will be "Halah".
PR: What sort of singers do you listen to — what influences you?
HS: I listen to David Bowie and a lot of the Rolling Stones early stuff when Brian Jones
was still with them. That sort of thing.
PR: Do you listen to any American stuff?
HS: Not lately. I usually don't know where a band's from when I get into them, but it
usually turns out that they're not from here.
PR: Do you catch bands playing out live at all?
HS: No.
PR: Are there any particular singers that you listen to and think "I'd like to sing
like that"?
HS: Not really. I'd like to be able to sing like Aretha Franklin, but I know I'd never be
able to.
PR: When you're singing are you thinking more about the song or more of the voice
as a musical instrument?
HS: Both, I guess. Probably voice as an instrument more than the song.
PR: Do you ever try to make your voice like an instrument? Do you think like "I'll
sing like a saxophone"?
HS: No (laughs).
It was only nine in the morning in Los Angeles to my teatime in London and I got the
feeling that Hope was still half asleep and so I asked David a few more questions as he
seemed to be more wakeful than I am at 9 a.m.
PR: What's the current state of Serpent Records?
HS: I'm thinking about putting out some records by other people and I'll do a solo album
of my own.
PR: Totally solo?
DR: No there'll be other musicians on it and I'll be singing, because I'm not singing on
Mazzy Star much. I'll be doing that this summer.
PR: Will the sound be very different?
DR: It would be slightly different, but not shockingly different, because I'm involved in
both things, but I do have this other side to me.
PR: In what way?
DR: Well, I do have a lot of other songs and I've been meaning to get around to
recording and releasing them.
PR: What was it you didn't like about the previous Mazzy Star LP?
DR: It wasn't that we didn't like it. We were developing our ideas. I like it, I like it a lot.
It just didn't grip. We felt we were changing - changing a lot. We were doing a lot of
experimenting in the studio. Some of that is on the album. It's not that we didn't like it,
it's just that we'd start on something that we'd get more excited about and went on and
left the other stuff on the shelf. I have a habit of doing that. There's a lot of stuff that
never gets released. I get wrapped up in new stuff and the other stuff gets forgotten. But
some of it will get released sometime like the early Opal LP. It took Kendra and I years
to put that stuff out. I don't know why.
PR: Are you planning on releasing any other stuff by Clay Allison?
DR: Maybe. We have about over twenty unreleased tracks. Kendra and I have talked
about it, but we haven't come to a decision. That might be the kind of thing to put out
on Serpent. Serpent is a label to put out whatever odd things we wanted to put out.
PR: Where did the photo from the front cover of the album come from?
DR: It's taken from an old hotel in Brussels - it's an old antique photo I found, uncredited.
I don't even know the name of the hotel, but it would really be a trip if I
checked into it one day. I'd love that. It's cool to imagine yourself waking up there.
PR: Are you thinking of releasing the Going Home LP?
DR: I think we're thinking about the fall. That'd be on Serpent, or possibly through
Rough Trade. It's a really great record. I mean, they played on it, I didn't. Some people
might find it depressing, but I think it's great.
PR: You're using slide guitar a lot — do you prefer the feel of it? Do you find that
your imagination is more in touch with that method, the movement of the hand
rather than having to put your fingers down?
DR: Well, there's an incredible freedom in slide guitar. I wouldn't say I prefer it over
other styles, but I love slide guitar, it's very evocative.
PR: WIIen you play live, is there going to be a second guitarist?
DR: Yeah, that'll be William Cooper, he was doing bass on the LP. I think that Paul
Olguin will play bass. It could change at the last minute. We seem to have a habit of last
minute changes, but that's what we're planning right now.
..................
First published in Unhinged issue 7, November 1990
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1990 (date and mag source unknown). Mazzy Star article by Arion Berger,with a small amount of interview content with David & Hope.
(posted by Connie to the Facebook group as a photo of the mag page. The page has one photo of Hope by Laura Levine, L.A., 1990 + one long column of text) pasted here below):
..................................
As the guitar-playing, unchanging half of Opal, David Roback worked
out moody, ethereal music against sparkling female vocals. As half of Going Home,Hope Sandoval played the role of singer-songwriter, strumming and crooning in a strictly folk vein. After Roback came in to produce one of Going Home's records, he and Sandoval started writing songs together. Eventually, they formed a band (actually a duo with a backup) and gave it an appropriately enigmatic name: Mazzy Star.
Mazzy Star's first project, She Hangs Brightly (Rough Trade) combines Roback's earthbound guitar churnings with Sandoval's celestial vocals, grounded as they are in folk storytelling. She manages to sound at once sweet and throaty and completely free of tricky maneuvers - just taking each note at a walking pace, half talking the occasional few words, sometimes adding a weary fillip by slipping off-key at the end of a line. The music's overwhelming ambiance is blue: cornflower on the jauntier numbers ("Taste of Blood." "I'm Sailin'") and indigo on the draggier ones ("Blue Flower," "Before I Sleep," "She Hangs Brightly").
Although the album was recorded "live" in-studio, it gives the impression of music heard far away, invoking The Jesus and Mary Chain's bright surf-guitar swirlings as a soundtrack for a bad dream.
Despite all the moodiness here, and the often unintelligible lyrics, there's something sweet and deeply emotional about these songs. "Ride It On" and "Give You My Lovin'" are beautifully simple, intense sketches of states of love, without any distorting artiness.
Roback and Sandoval seem to be the kind of archetypal musicians who let the music speak for them. They're both shy, vague and polite, conceding that yes, they're pleased with the album, they do write well together and they do, inevitably, create music that is tough to classify.
"We haven't made any effort to fit in commercially," says Roback. We're both kind of anti-industry. But there are advantages to obscurity. It keeps your mind free of bullshit." (Hope agrees, "That's just the right word.") We're just doing what comes naturally to us, as writers, as musicians. We do it for ourselves, more than anything."
-Arion Berger
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-1990, JULY, SPIN MAG w. a single PHOTO OF HOPE WADING IN THE OCEAN ACCOMPANIED BY A QUOTE FROM HOPE RE. NEARLY DROWNING IN THE OCEAN AT AGE EIGHT
https://books.google.ca/books?id=fTAxVG ... in&f=false
HOPE'S QUOTE:
"Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star)
'I almost drowned at the beach when I was eight. It was the first time I ever went deeper than
my ankles into the waves, and I didn't know how to swim. Two friends saved me. I thought of it
as a near death experience, but neither of them were worried. Maybe they didn't want to make me
feel uptight. I can swim now, but not in the ocean. I'm still afraid of the waves, definitely
not a surfer. I do like to go to the beach and hang out, though.' "
[There are also credits shown next to the photo in small printing that turned out fuzzy & hard to read
in the page scan I have, even when the printing's enlarged. They read something like this]:
QUOTE: "Purple (unreadable word) chiffon wrap by Giorgio di Sand'angelo, black bathing suit and
jewelry - her own. Hair and makeup by Erica (name unreadable).
Photo by Christopher Kehoe"
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-1991, JAN. 5, MAZZY STAR ARTICLE WITH INTERVIEWS WITH HOPE & DAVID, MELODY MAKER
Two photos accompany the article, embedded below. They were shot in NYC, August, 1990.Photo credit:
Stephen Sweet
The article consists of two different interviews, one conducted in person August. 1990,
the other by phone, December, 1990.
Page scans from the original paper were found at this blog:
http://didnotchart.blogspot.ca/2012_02_01_archive.html
mazzystar.free.fr Forum member Spoon posted the above link earlier in another thread, "Band(s)
history, anecdotes,trivia."
Below is a text version of the article I made from the page scan photos.
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GIVE ’EM ENOUGH HOPE, MAZZY STAR by journalist Everett True,
photos by Stephen Sweet taken in NYC, Aug., 1990
Mazzy Star's debut album, "She Hangs Brightly," was voted one of the Top 10 albums
of 1990 by the Maker writers. This year they set to cause an even bigger splash when
they finally tour Britain this spring.
Everett True drinks decaffeinated coffee and discusses gigging with Cocteau Twins,
psychiatry and swimsuits. pics: Stephen Sweet.
Lightning crashes all around and a peal of thunder booms out. The tiny plane lurches,
and drops several hundred feet out of the sky. Across the aisle, photographer Stephen Sweet
looks green and waves gamely at me, as another torrent of rain lashes the windows and
more lightning chars our already frazzled nerves. A voice comes over the Tannoy, urging us
to stay calm. No problem: I've already passed out.
It's August. The previous night we'd been checking out Rough Trade's brightest new stars at
a dismal nightclub in New York City, and felt quite let down. Mundane realities such as
bad sound, lack of preparation and an indifferent crowd conspired to blot out the shimmering,
haunting sound of LA's Mazzy Star and we left feeling strangely unsatisfied.
Maybe we expected too much: after all, their album, "She Hangs Brightly" was pretty much
the most devastating debut of 1990 Formed out of the remnants of the sweetly psychedelic
Opal, Mazzy star create music for the twilight hours, mixing wanton love with the purest
lust, lasciviousness with desire, glaciers and furnaces, mysticism and magic.
Mazzy Star are centered around the quite stunning voice of torched diva Hope Sandoval
and (ex-Rain Parade) David Roback's deceptively intricate layers of psychedelic and mournful
guitar. It's an album to lose your heart to, thousands of times over, letting its subtle and
great washes of melancholia sweep over you.
But on stage, Hope's dispassionate passion seemed to slip all too often into nervous disinterest,
David's restless drawl of Velvet-teen guitar lost beneath a surge of bad sound. The sensitive
drumming was quite superb, though, Mind you, it was only Mazzy's fifth concert, and for songs like
the haunting, Doors-ian, "Ghost On The Highway" and wanton "Be My Angel", we were
prepared to travel anywhere.
Hence our current predicament. At the last possible moment, after being sent to wrong rail
stations and the like, Rough Trade have decided to put us on a flight from NYC to Boston,
right in the middle ot the worst monsoon Massachusetts has seen for years. Another peal of
thunder crashes round the terrified plane. I grit my teeth and swear.
Right now, I could be watching Sonic Youth and STP live at some abandoned theatre.
An eternity later, we arrive - we're late. We hop the first cab around, and they've never heard of
the venue. We finally arrive at the club and we're not on the guest list. It's sold out.
We weedle our way backstage (eventually) and Hookie's there (Revenge are also playing),
but Hope and David certainly are not. But the band is.
Four hours later, the rain is so thick you can't see past your nose and we discover Mazzy Star
aren't playing, and furthermore, the interview we came to follow-up isn't happening.
Apparently, David and Hope aren't satisfied with the night's running order.
According fo Rolling Stone, Opal broke up in the middle of a US Mary Chain support four,
when Kendra Smith - David's previous chanteuse - walked out in a storm of emotion. I could well
believe it.
Fortunately, we managed some sort of interview that morning. But thanks to the auspices of Rough
Trade US, it was at nine in the morning, it lasted about 30 minutes, and David and Hope weren't
exactly talkative. Here's a sample...
Journalist: "So you played a whole bunch of new songs last night."
Band Member (Male) (looking disinterested): "I don't pry into people's lives and I
feel music is pretty personal. I don't want to answer that."
Journalist: "I read that Hope is the youngest of 10 children. That must have been
interesting growing up in such a close knit community. Presumably, it colored Hope's
perceptions of life, maybe made her more distant from her contemporaries, as she
had no real need to make outside friends...perhaps this is where some of the
distance, aloofness in Hope's singing comes from?"
Band Member (Female) (barely audible): "I only grew up with two brothers and one
sister, and all of them except one are a lot older. None of them were ever involved
with music."
[Journalist]: So how did you get involved?
"Oh, I just did it. I've been singing since I was really little."
But I'm being unfair. The tour's not going too well, David and Hope are notoriously shy,
personal folk (one listen to their album will tell you that: often listening to
Mazzy Star makes me feel like a voyeur, peeking in at two very private, sensuous lives).
The last thing they need is some journalist poking his nose into their affairs.
After a few more rounds and toast and decaffeinated coffee everyone begins to loosen
up.
I ask David about growing up in LA in the Sixties. "It was weird," he pauses, taking
time to order another coffee. "I was fairly different from the other kids. I didn't get
on with them. We didn't have many common interests. My hobbies were history and
psychiatry. I had a friend from down the street whose father was a psychiatrist,
I was very much into that, I'd study anything.
"I'd psychoanalyze my friends," he continues. "I knew some strange people, aggressive
thinkers who had a strong influence on me when I was little. It's a good place to
start - if people started thinking about bullshit like that earlier, they'd be a lot
healthier.
"Daydreaming was my escape capsule. Music can trigger that. I still daydream a lot,
in narrative form, mostly."
Part of Mazzy Star's appeal undoubtedly lies with Hope's devastating looks.
Although this is something the band play down, Hope did appear
in this year's Spin Magazine's "swimsuit" issue, an experience she recalls with repulsion
("I thought it'd be a lot looser than it was.They wouldn't let me wear anything I wanted”).
It also reported she nearly drowned the first time she went on the beach when she was eight.
Even now she has a fear of waves.
How much of the attention you receive do you think is down to the way the band looks?
David: "It's not for me to say. I think of Hope as a musician, first and foremost,
and there are a lot of people who are good-looking and their music isn't at all stylistic.
It has a lot less to do with our music than other people's"
But all the images are of Hope...
Hope: "That's not us. They have so many they can choose from. I think you can start feeling really
bad about yourself if you think people only view you a certain way. I hope it has nothing to do with
anyone's looks and that it's only down to the music. I would like to give our listeners more credit
than that. I think the record is great and even if it had been made by the ugliest people,
it would still be a great record."
David: "And to prove that, for the next album I'm gonna have my body burned, If you think Hope
looks great in the pictures, fine: and if you look through her family albums
she would be the same girl. You look like what you look like, you know.Beauty is an emotional
state of mind It's a feeling, combined with something else.”
What upsets you?
David: "Somebody stealing my guitar. People being swallowed, big fish eating smaller fish,
Economic cannibalism, which is rampant everywhere I look. ”
About the only criticism that could be levelled at Mazzy Star's music is that it doesn't
fit in with the consensus of 1990, isn't fashionable, is too deeply
rooted in the sounds of the past, is backwards-looking. When I listen to a Mazzy Star song, I can
hear traces of Reed and Cale, Neil Young, Big Star, the blues and psychedelic guitarists of
decades past. You certainly don't hear much of 199O - whatever that is!
David: "Academic analysis of any art form will always lead to a group of people who are only
there for the critics to analyse. There's a certain establishment notion about what is current and
what's not, and it seems to me, examining history, that that's always the first to disappear,
to be forgotten. Nobody's gonna give a damn in the future about what 1980 sounded like, or 1990.
"If we're talking abstract visualizations, I see Mazzy Star in terms of letter rather than colours.
We're the colour of the letter Zee - probably a dark, rich colour but it's not a consistent
colour, more a colour for every mood."
It's now December, 1990, and since we last talked, Mazzy Star have supported Cocteau Twins on
an extensive tour of the US. It was successful, by all accounts - although one did hear rumours of
inter-band rancour. The promised UK tour never materialized, neither did any new product.
Their album got voted in at Number Seven in the Maker's end-of-year critic's poll. And once more,
I find myself talking to David and Hope at the end of a transatlantic line.
Why has it taken you so long to put out another record (they haven't even started work on the
new one yet)?
"We plan to make a new record, but it's not planned out yet," David replies, his deep voice
resonating over the line. "That's not the way we work. We've got a lot of new songs from the
last few months, and we're entering a new period in our musical history. It's not so much a
change in direction inasmuch as everybody's life has different periods, marked by personal
events, what you're doing. It's winter now and there are new things going on."
How was the Cocteau Tour?
"When I'm up on stage I'm usually so, y'know, my mind goes into another place," David says,
true to form. "I don't really have a grip on outside reactions.
"The Cocteau's have a well produced, consistent show which was exciting to witness.
It was sort of the opposite of what we were doing, which was spur of the moment,
experimental stuff. They're an interesting band to tour with."
"I only once saw their show the whole way through, because we're always pretty busy
ourselves trying to get our own thing together, then I'd go straight to the hotel to sleep,"
Hope adds later. "We hung out with them the last night of the tour and they were very nice
people. Nobody else does what they do and I don't think anybody ever will.”
You're naturally quite shy people. Do you find it a strain touring for such long
periods of time?
"Well, shy people don't necessarily want to communicate with other peopIe," David
expIains. "I don't find it's a strain, because we get to play our music which puts
everything in a different perspective.”
"I didn't find it draining,” Hope adds. "I just got kind of nervous, especially as it
was the first time I'd ever played anything that big. I prefer smaller places, because
I feel closer to the audience.”
Hope lists among her favourite bands Soul II Soul and Galaxie 500, while David saw
a Lush video which he thought was interesting.
Hope: “I've pretty much the some favourite singers I've had since I was a teenager -
Kendra Smith, Billie Holiday, Patti Smith, June Tabor - I don't have any favourite male
singers, though I like listening to Neil Young. I guess it doesn't matter so much
with men.”
I guess it doesn't. Mazzy Star's first offering blew a great many critics' minds.
Doubtless, 1991 will see them shining even more brightIy.
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1991, JAN., OPTION mag, interview w. HOPE & DAVID,
"MAZZY STAR," by BRUCE WARREN
[Later Update 2020-09-19: the first post of this article that was here was partial only as just a small portion of the article was available to me previously. But yesterday Instagram user @subculturalartifacts kindly sent me photos of the complete text from the mag pages (thank you). Also, the clear image of Hope here is from @subculturalartifacts' photo. The full page photo, and the photo of David & Hope are from some other source I don't have info on. Photo credit: Emily Kintzi]
The article contains some interesting info, including a new-to-me version from Hope of the story of how Going Home got a tape of their music into David Roback's hands.
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MAZZY STAR, by Bruce Warren
Mazzy Star is the sound of a late night. psychedelic country blues hoedown, where former Rain Parade and Opal guitarist David Roback plays Syd Barrett to lead vocalist Hope Sandoval's Patsy Cline. Mazzy Star's debut album "She Hangs Brightly" (Rough Trade), is an emotionally intense collection of moody blue love songs. An enigmatic and astral sounding record, the music of Roback and Sandoval is detached and otherworldly, thick and seemingly distant. Often, as on the title track, when the haze of the Delta blues fades away. the notes hang like a deep fog in an opium den.
The paisley blue ambience of Mazzy Star born from a relationship which Roback and Sandoval formed when Opal still existed. Kendra Smith, bassist of Opal and then partner in rhyme with Roback, was friends vith Hope. It was Smith who passed on a tape of Sandoval's emotionally barren love songs to Roback.
"Back In high school," recounts Hope, "my friend Sylvia Gomez and I were always really depressed, and we'd just stay In the house and write songs. One day Kendra came by, asked us to play some songs, and she liked it. We made a tape and Kendra gave the tape to David."
"Eventually Hope and Sylvia did an album together, which I produced," says Roback.
"I remember hearing this tape and I thought this was interesting enough for me to get
involved. Not many people have heard Going Home. and if you hear it, it may sound haunting
and depressing. But it was very surreal folk music, whose sound I was attracted to."
While Going Home was never released, it began a collaborative effort between Roback and
Sandoval. Meanwhile, Opal was in the middle an American tour with Jesus and Mary
Chain when Kendra left the band under an air of mystery.
"After Opal shipwrecked," relates David, "Hope joined Opal and we did some live shows."
"We finished the tour and then went to Europe," continues the soft spoken Hope .
"But it was hard. Stepping into Opal was the hardest thing I ever did. Everybody missed
Kendra, and we decided the whole thing was bullshit. Opal was David and Kendra's thing.
So we started Mazzy Star."
"Wc didn't fit in anywhere." says Roback of Opal. "We were completely doing our own
thing. Whether we were ahead of our time, behind our time, or simply just in some other
dimension, we weren't part of the music business or pop culture The '80s were a big drag,
they wore on and it was a boring time for music. It was a phony era of everybody coming
together, and it just wasn't true
While the songwriting team of Mazzy Star goes a step beyond Opal, there are
elements of psychedelia in Matty Star's music. "Opal was playing very trippy music,"
says Roback. "There's two sides to psychedelia, a very superficial, exploitative side that's
shallow and annoying. Then there's the side that is very intense. It also had something to do
with the non-western and oriental influences in the music. If you think about the thousands
of spaces between two notes, there is a lot of room to create.
While "She Hangs Brightly" hinges on some of Roback's psychedelic ideology, the music is
more langorous and acoustic sounding. Songs like "Halah," which is a laconic "Puff the
Magic Dragon," and "Ride It On" mix folk and blues influences. Both are simple, straight up
love songs with Sandoval's pouting vocals evoking a desperate loneliness which tears away
at the heart of the storyline. Likewise, "It's Raining"* is an otherwise honky-tonk blues, with
Roback's slide guitar facilitating the seemingly desperate strumming.
"There are a lot of acoustic and electric guitar treatments on the songs," says David, "but a lot of it was
recorded live."
Mazzy Star isn't totally void of hallucinatory vision. The title track, replete with a creepy
walking bass line, beacons of trippy guitar effects, and dreamy washes of cymbals, is an
eerie highlight on the record, as is the evil blues of "Ghost Highway." "That was one of the
first songs Hope and I were doing together," says Roback of "Ghost Highway," which gets a
T-Rex meets dirty blues treatrnent. "We were out on the road together down in the south.
When you're out on the road you get into this state of mind — you travel a lot and you play
every night, and your guitar is really loud."
Trance-like, spaced-out, and sustaining a haunting beauty throughout, Mazzy Star's debut
is a striking effort. Both Roback and Sandoval are somber and almost shy about the project.
Hope rarely discusses the lyrics to the songs, clutching to her privacy in a quiet, disaffecting
manner. David speaks mostly for Mazzy Star, and often, for Hope. "I heard a lot of
individuality in Hope's music. We're both into doing our own thing. It wouldn't have any
meaning if we had to sacrifice our freedom. That's why we're drawn together."
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[*"I'm Sailin'", maybe? There's no song on the album called "It's Raining"-BB]
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-1993, SEPT. 2, ROLLING STONE, ONSTAGE QUOTE FROM HOPE
[Text of this article was found at defunct but now archived fan site "Everything Mazzy Star,"
here: http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/pal ... P-So2N.htm ]
L.A. Confidential
Rolling Stone’s news column - September 2, 1993
The always trippy Mazzy Star previewed material from their forthcoming album,
So Tonight That I Might See, at the blues haunt, the Mint. Curiously,
vocalist Hope Sandoval admonished the rapt crowed for its applause.
“Why are you clapping?” she asked. “You weren’t even listening.”
--David Wild.
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1993, OCT. 5, RADIO MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW, KCRW, SANTA MONICA. CALIFORNIA (TRANSCRIPTION)
[Mazzy Star as a trio with Hope, David, & Will played this radio studio gig,
performing 3 songs. There are 4 interview sections before & after they play,
& in between songs. An audio file of this recording is findable in the Bootlegs list.
I once tried upping this recording to youtube but it was blocked by a copyright claim
by KCRW. I believe the recording originally came from DIME (dimeadozen.org) via a
torrent upload there by Forum member hanwaker. I've transcribed the interview
portions below]
Interviewer: "...On KCRW. Mazzy Star is appearing at the Alligator Lounge, October 14.
That's in Santa Monica, on Pico. Heidi Berry will be opening the show. And today,
very happy to have in the studio both David Roback & Hope Sandoval. It's great to have
the two of you here. How are you doing?"
Hope: "Fine, thanks"
Interviewer: "Hi David"
David: "Hi"
Interviewer: "(laughs). It's been a couple of years since the last release which was ah,
independent release at first, then Capitol picked it up. Um, I guess, ah, you must be in
a good spot right now. You must be feeling pretty good now that the album is done and it's out.
And, ah, is it kinda like havin', havin' a baby, or you know, is it, was it, ah, you know,
are you, are you feeling good about casting this album out into the audience?"
David: "Well, um, we get to start playing our songs live right now, which is really
exciting, you know, for one thing, something we've been looking forward to doing"
Interviewer: "Yeah, so it's um, the album is kind of, ah, when the album comes out it's
a point where you can bring it the public and, uh, must be great to finally get it in
front of an audience to see the reaction to the songs, that sort of thing?"
Hope: "Yeah, that's always good"
Interviewer: "Yeah, (laughs), um, when you're writing the songs, I mean do you, do you
find that you have to go to a certain place in your head, and, a certain place, get away
from people, um?"
Hope: "I mean, yeah, and it depends, you know, on the song, but you usually, you have
to sort of get away and, um, just have your own space, basically"
Interviewer: "Yeah. Do the, do the ideas come together when you're together, or do you
have ideas that you bring to each other individually?"
Hope: "Um, it varies, I mean often we write together. Sometimes we just do it on our
own"
Interviewer: "Yeah, yeah, um. Does, does, the writing come easy for you, do you think,
or does it,um, is it a laborious sort of thing, do you think? You know, is it,
you know what I mean, uh?"
David: "Well, you know, I think, when I watch Hope, right, it amazes me how easy
it seems to come to her, I mean, but you never really know, you know? 'Cause
the songs just kind of happen, you know?"
Interviewer: "They seem to anyway, huh?"
David: "Yeah, they really do, I mean, there are just certain times when you, you just
feel like writing, and you do"
Interviewer: "How does that, ah, how does that come across to you Hope? Does it surprise
you that, um, someone might think you have an easy time writing? Does it seem hard to you?"
Hope: "Sometimes it seems hard, um, but you know sometimes it's easy"
Interviewer: "Whoo! Thunder from above" [Did the interviewer hear a crack of thunder outside the studio?].
Um, we're going to hear a live track here next that, um, is this, is this one from the album,
or is this the one, an older one?"
Hope: "This is from the new album"
Interviewer: "Fantastic"
Hope: "Bells Ring"
Interviewer: "Mazzy Star live on KCRW"
[Bells Ring is performed]
Interviewer: "Mazzy Star live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. The song,
'Bells Ring,' you'll find it on the new release from Capitol Records called
'So Tonight That I Might See.' The album is in stores today, and the band, Mazzy Star,
um, both Hope Sandoval and David Roback will be appearing at the Alligator Lounge
in Santa Monica, October 14th. And that is, uh, a show that is opened by Heidi Berry.
We are happy to have in the studio both Hope Sandoval and David Roback again. It's great
to have you guys here. Um, David, uh, I, I know that, um, you've had, uh, a
couple of situations, ah, band situations that, ah, people might be familiar with,
uh, the group Opal, and ah, you've done some work with Kendra Smith. and, and, Keith
Mitchell, and um, it was, ah, ah, you both came out of different, you know, band
situations before the two of you met. Ah, I'm wondering, um, Hope, I know you were with
um, ah, another guitarist at one point, ah, a group called Going Home, right?
Hope: "Mm, hm"
Interviewer: "How did the two of you meet? How did you and David come together?"
Hope: "Um, well, I used to go see David play when he was in The Rain Parade,
and, uh, we met through a mutual friend, and I was doing music with Sylvia,
um, who I was working with. She's a guitarist. And, I don't know, we just played the
tape for David and Kendra, and they really liked it, and we went into the studio"
Interviewer: "I see"
Hope: "And that's basically it, we started working together"
Interviewer: "So, I guess you first saw David, in what, like 1984, around there, would that be?"
Hope: "Yeah, around there, yeah"
Interviewer: "It's been a while. Now, are you both from Los Angeles originally?"
Hope: "Yeah, uh, well, yeah, I am"
Interviewer: "Really, how about you David?"
David: "Um, yeah, actually, I'm from here, and up north."
Interviewer: "Do you remember what you first, ah, thought when you first heard the tape of Hope, um?"
David; "Well, I, when I first heard Hope's music I was really, um, I don't know,
maybe blown away is a good way to describe it. I just liked her music. I liked
the, the songs, and I wanted to, you know, see them, I wanted to, you know, help
them, and I just wanted to help, and that's really all I did. They had a, a
really fantastic thing going, and I just tried to help"
Interviewer: "How did you guys settle on the name Mazzy Star. It's a fantastic
name for what you're up to. I think it's just a fantastic name. I can't think of a
better-?"
Hope: I think we were just trying to give ourselves sort of a western name, um,
I don't know, that's what I was thinking about"
David: "Yeah, that had sort of a northern feel"
Interviewer: "A northern feel?"
David: "Yeah"
Interviewer: "A northern, like night time feel? Or, anything more specific than that?
Or just a, you know, a northern sensibility?"
David: "Well, you know, there's just so much in a name, really, you know, names are names"
[Into Dust is performed]
Interviewer: "Mazzy Star from the new release from Capitol Records called
So Tonight That I Might See. 'Into Dust' is the track and it featured Hope Sandoval
vocals, David Roback guitar, and William Cooper on, ah, violin on this particular track.
The album is in stores today an, uh, Mazzy Star is set for a live appearance
here in Los Angeles at the Alligator Lounge October 14. Yes,
all morning long I've been saying the 15th, and Hope walks in and says it's
the 14th. So yeah, I was wrong, it's the 14th at the Alligator Lounge. Heidi Berry
is opening the show, and we're happy to have in the studio both Hope Sandoval
and David Roback of Mazzy Star. Uh, this is actually the second release under the
name Mazzy Star. The first one came out in 1990 I guess, on Rough Trade Records
that was fairly soon after picked up by Capitol. It wasn't too long, was it?"
David: "Well, it was after Rough Trade, um, sort of, um, dissolved, really, as an
independent company. We'd always been involved with independent companies, and
they have a really tough time surviving, you know, but it was a little while after
they dissolved"
Interviewer: "How are you surviving, in uh, the world of major label, uh, record
companies?"
David: "Well, I don't really know that we're really in that world, you know.
We're just sort of keeping on doing our music, and that's really all, nothing's
really changed"
Interviewer: "That's good. Um, you know, it seems like there might be some tendency
of a record company to, at some point or another, uh, force itself upon an artist"
David" "Well, we, we post guards at the door, and they don't get, they don't get in"
Interviewer: "Yeah"
Hope: (laughs)
David: "So that's the way it is"
Interviewer: "So you guys just deliver the album and, and there it is, let, let, let them figure it out?"
David: "Well, you know it's all just people, and, you know, people are people, but we do our own thing, and that hasn't changed"
Interviewer: "Yeah, um, I, that's actually something I wanted to ask you about because
is it, is it hard to hang on to what is purely Mazzy Star, um, is it hard to kind of
shut other things out sometimes?"
Hope: "Um, sometimes, but usually not, I mean we just sort of do our own thing.
We don't get too involved in what's going on"
Interviewer: "Do you have an easy time doing that?"
Hope: "Um"
David: "It's alright. You know, people are just people, you know, people at big labels,
small labels, you know, just, they're just people, you know, and whether it was
someone at a small label or a big label, you know, it doesn't really matter, just they're
people and you deal with them on that level and everything's fine, you know, just, we
do our own thing, it's, nobody's really tried to change that"
Interviewer: "Um, this, ah, next song is actually a song you guys, um, ah, put out on
the first album, the one we were just referring to. It's called 'She Hangs Brightly,' by the way, and, uh, I guess it's still available through Capitol, isn't it, still in print?"
David: "Mm hm"
Interviewer: "Yeah, um, you know, do you do a lot of the songs from the first album when
you, uh, do live performances, or is this a special one?"
Hope: "Um, yeah, we do a lot of the old stuff when we play live"
Interviewer: "And, any particular reason why you settled on this one this morning?"
David: "Well, just, just, we just thought it would be a good one to play today, and just
talked about it this morning on the way down here, and I thought, let's play this one.
But live, yeah live, we do things, you know, what ever we feel like really,
old or new. We have things that aren't on any album that we do live"
Interviewer: "Mm, hm. We have Mazzy Star live here on on Morning Becomes Eclectic.
The album 'So Tonight That I Might See' is in stores today"
[Halah is performed]
Interviewer: "Mazzy Star live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. A song that you'll find on
their first release that was originally put out on Rough Trade. It's still available on
Capitol Records called 'She Hangs Brightly.' The new album is 'So Tonight That I Might See.'
It's new from Capitol, and it's in stores today. I'm Chris Doridas and this is
Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW. Mazzy Star appears at Alligator Lounge in Santa Monica,
October 14th, and opening that show, Heidi Berry. This is actually the first, uh, well,
first date for you guys in Los Angeles since, well The Mint was in August. That was
pretty, that must have been exciting. I mean, there was such a good crowd of people there.
Nice welcome back, wasn't it?"
Hope: "Uh, yeah, it was"
Interviewer: "(laughs). I mean, what, line wrapped around the building even when the
thing was full. And I think that's really a nice way to have a welcome back. Um, then
you guys are headed out to, uh, Europe in November, early November, and then back into
the United States before Thanksgiving. I guess you'll wind up in Los Angeles, so people
can see you again at that point if they miss you at, uh, The Alligator, right?"
Hope: "Mm, hm"
Interviewer: "Um, you know, I have to say you guys are, when you start playing it's like everything, uh, everything falls away. You're, you're such shy people and it just, I, I think it's..."
[In the audio file I have, the interview cuts off early at this point while
the interviewer is in mid-sentence]
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1993, OCT. 9, NME INTERVIEW with Hope & David, by Danny Frost
[two photos accompany the article, both by Stefan De Bastelier]
Thanks go to FB group member Angie Gillies who shared photos of her hard copy pages of the article there.
....................................................
CONSTELLATION PRIZE
Mazzy Star could be a marketing man's wet dream, truly alienated LA-dwellers living an
un-Caliornian existence and singing dark songs that speak volumes to gloomy bedsit dwellers
everywhere. But, as DANNY FROST discovers, they're not a rock 'n' roll creation, they're
For Real. Starry knights: STEFAN DE BATSELIER [photos by Stefan De Batselier]
This may be Santa Monica. where moneyed Los Angeles clips the edge of the Pacific, but still
there's no shortage of human debris. Smug Range Rovers cruise Ocean Boulevard as WASPish
rollerbladers, high on holistic breakfasts and feel-good therapy, weave in and out of the bums, bag
ladies and mean drunks that litter the sidewalk.
To its big-haired residents it's known, with barely a dash of Bill & Ted irony, as "the saintly babe";
to the culture-shocked daytripper it's an essay on LA's gaping divide stuffed into a square mile of
concrete and Lego. It's also one Hell of a weird place to be meeting Mazzy Star.
If ever a latter day Joe McCarthy were to initiate a Senate investigation into un-Californian activities,
Mazzy Star would be high on his paranoid list of defendants. Personally inaccessible and painfully
shy, sealed off, it seems, from the sun, surf and parteee culture of rock 'n' roll Los Angeles, they
make records more fragile and gut-knowingly desperate than almost any other.
Records like their recently re-released debut, "She Hangs Brightly", a brittle alloy of whispering
folk rock and mordant, simmering blues, delicately psychedelicized by the reflective fuzztones
of David Roback's guitar. More than anything though, Mazzy Star impel you to hang utterly rapt
on every breathy syllable of Hope Sandoval's voice. Charting a harrowing map of magic and loss,
it's a voice to make a milkshake of the hardest heart. Mazzy Star just sound so...doomed...
Which in normal circumstances would make them a marketing dream, heaven-sent to adorn the
walls of bedsit depressives the world over, filling pages if rock rags with garulous gloom to be
lapped up by every hormonally-challenged adolescent ever to have donned black and claim that
parents, like, well they just don't uderstand. A marketing dream as money-spinningly surefire
as Kurt Cobain's raging angst or Bobby Gillespie's jumping jack flashness.
A marketing dream were it not for the fact that Roback and Sandoval really are the genuine
article, disaffected by rock 'n' roll culture and bewildered by a world that would dearly love to
take them to heart. Earlier on the phone Mazzy Star's US press rep talked darkly of cancelled
tours, interview walkouts, amd profound, belligerent silences, Mazzy Star are her worst nightmare
made very real indeed.
It's the corner of Ocean and Washington and we're sat in the world's most despicably furnished
hotel room. To the right, pink rayon drapes a tacky sofa bed while we shift uneasily on turd-brown
leather settees. Hope Sandoval stands on a balcony, swaying and hugging herself, eyeing the ocean
with uderstandable mistrust. At the age of eight she nearly drowned in it, and she's still afraid of
the waves. "This room is really weird," she shivers. "Not how I remember it at all..."
Back on the dung-hued sofa, David Roback is engaged in a pregnant pause. Hidden behind
impemetrable shades, he's staring a question into screaming submission. Perhaps his pedigree
has earned him a right to such reticence. Emerging originally from the same "Paisley Underground"
scene that gave us Green on Red, The Dream Syndicate and the briefly barnstorming Long Ryders,
Roback's Rain Parade were the best of the bunch, leaving the headspinning "Emergency Third Rail
Power Trip" as a trippy gift in the wake of their dissolution. Then came the Velveteen dusk of
undervalued college rock faves Opal. Hell, everybody's been burned before, but Roback's
obsessive avoidance of "the biz" would seem to suggest a man who's remained badly scarred.
"I think a lot of it's frivolous," he finally concedes. "It's like being popular at school. When it comes
down to it, what does being popular at school mean? It means nothing. School is a very vicious
place, sociologically, and so is the world of rock. Rock is populated by all types of characters,
including playground bullies..."
Mazzy Star are a serious pair and, like Mark Kozelec's Red House Painters, they're busy building
a sound outside the continuum of sex, glamour, volume and projection that still defines the archetype
of rock 'n' roll. And if they remain a well-kept secret it'll be for precisely that reason.
"Well, you know, glamour, rock 'n' roll behaviour, you can't categorically say that that is wrong,"
David demurs. "Rock 'n' Roll behaviour has in a way always stood for something really cool, something
that's actively anti-establishment. But you know, let's be who we are, let's be about now. It's 1993.
It is 1993, isn't it?! We are the people of now, so we're gonna write about now, we're gonna sing about
now, we're gonna be about now, in some way. So, can we endure our own time? No, we can't, because
there' so much that's f---ed-up about our time.
"It's not like our music is actively reporting about today, but today, especially in our last two records,
has much more to do with it. In the '60s, the message was tune in, turn on, drop out, the message of
Timothy Leary. But let's talk about Rip Van Winkle: was his message any different? Rock, rock history
and rock mystique is so rooted in the past, and it's gonna have to be updated."
Echoing Roback's call for a clearer musical vision, Mazzy Star's new album is called "So Tonight That
I Might See," and it's a beautiful thing. Kicking off from the jauntily framed despondency of their debut, it explores still darker alleyways. Again our companions are strands of psychedelia, stripped of the genre's original escapist abandon. Again the Velvets and The Doors float by and whisper hello, while the rivetting Hope Sandoval flicks through a photo album of loves lost to other loves, and greater loves lost to the
big D. "Mary of Silence" is a particularly harrowing descent to the depths. "The End" minus Morrison's
preposterous bombast.
"Certain things happened to us after the making of the last album that changed our lives, " sighs Hope.
It's like that song by The Smiths, that line in that one song - 'I've seen it happening in other people's lives
and now it's happening in mine'. That sort of captures the whole feeling of the album, now that I think
about it. Some people say that it's a darker record, and it probably is darker. But if it is darker, it's because things change, and not for the better...Maybe it has something to do with being around death.
Death is all around me."
An assertion you'd be tempted to deride as melodramatic, the staple stuff of goth gloom, if you weren't here to catch the shy catch in her throat. There's no deeper-than-thou posturing to Sandoval, just as there's
no calculation behind the super-waif exterior and the Ophelia-like vinyl persona. It's hard to see, though Britain will find out in October, where such an intensely private person locates the courage to climb on a Stage.
"It's very difficult. Especially with the acoustic songs we do. It's very quiet ant you can even hear people in the crowd talking. people who really aren't there for the music — people Who are just there because it's cool to see us or something. It's difficult because the lyrics are real personal. Often I just think. 'What am doing here?'
"Making music I would say is definitely a therapy. but I'm still trying to find what it is that people think is so great about playing live. I guess when you become popular — and I suppose Mazzy Star are sorta popular now — it gets more difficult, more difficult to just get up there and play and not worry
about people looking at you. In the end, I just try and close myself off from the audience as much as possible..."
It's the sort of hermetically-sealed stagecraft that can gain a band a bad name. Image-wise, at least, Mazzy Star have opened themselves up to allegations of detachment and head-up-arse retreat from the world that critics have been quick to seize upon...
"You can talk shit about Mazzy Star all day, " David almost shouts, suddenly defiant, "but we're most definitely not about detachment. "
But you do come across as ill-equipped outsiders. people who have a problem coming to terms with the
world...
"But don't you? Come on, honestly? You go around, you interview people, you fly places, you work with people...Don't you find the world an alienating place? Look at LA. LA in particular is a very alienating environment."
"l think it has become alienating," adds Hope with her zillionth frown of the afternoon, "but I don't think it's always been that way. I can remember a time when I felt comfortable here. When was a little girl, I was pretty comfortable, before I got involved with that other side of LA, which is Hollywood and the West Side... It's all very different from where I'm from, which is East Los Angeles. I suppose I never really knew what really went on here."
Is it LA's plastic nature, its sense of superficiality? Or is it the danger?
"It's... it's both. Because where I grew up it's a very rough part of town. But when you're in so close with it, you're more comfortable with it. I don't know whether that's good. but that's the way it was for me. My brother was involved with gangs, and everybody knew that in the neighbourhood so nobody messed with you. And that's how I grew up.
"Now it's quite different. Now I live in Silverlake, which is just like Hollywood, and nobody cares who your brother is and nobody cares who you are. As far as they're concerned, you're an outsider, you don't belong here. People will just take advantage of you and they don't think twice about it."
"This place is so f—ed up, you know," reflects Roback. "People are so f—ed up. so out of line, so out of their minds. They're locked out, written off and that's just not cool. You wanted to know what's going on this evening, for entertainment?" he grins morbidly and points vaguely westwards. "Well. there's a really cool drive-by shooting over here, someone's gonna be killing their entire family over there or, hey, you could just stay in and catch it all later on TV. But I don't wanna come down so hard on LA; a lot of cool things have happened here. LA is a cancer patient, it's riddled with cancer, but you don't put cancer patients down, you fight to make their lives a little better. "
[caption under the photo reads: "Mazzy Star: Dave, Hope and Clarity"]
Perhaps it wouldn't mean a great deal to the derelicts and undocumented immigrants taking a pleasureless siesta under the palms of the seaside strip, but it's nice to know that Roback and Sandoval inhabit our world. And maybe if you needed a hint as to the roots of their vivid despair. you wouldn't have to look much further than 50 yards from this Santa Monica hotel window. That they'd rather not be stars, that they'd rather not party with Bobby and Eva and Arthur Lee, well, that's probably to their credit. too. Maybe we should give them space to make their exquisite records and otherwise leave them well alone...
"Everybody is creative," says Roback. "It's people who are popular who try to claim a sacred right to that creativity. That's what's all wrong. I mean, what if I said we weren't doing a photo shoot for this interview?"
Well. we'd probably go sort of white and maybe pass out...
"What if I said that this interview was going to be illustrated by your drawings of us? Hey, it would bring out something in you. Everybody can draw, we all proved that when were three tears old. Hell, our moms and dads would all love it."
Mazzy Star are a serious pair, alright, in fact almost macabrely so, but that, folks. is a gag. Cherish it. There aren't a great deal more where that came from. Hope Sandoval may quote "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" but you won't find her dying with a smile on her face, after all.
So, will people find any comfort in "Tonight That I Might See"?
"l know that they're gonna find comfort in it." she responds. "I know that people are feeling the way we do and that they're gonna find comfort in it. But I also feel that people who don't know, who can't relate, I hope that they can listen to the record and wake up to reality. I hope they're going give it a chance at least.
Even if they're not giving it a chance musically, I hope they're gonna take a moment, and realise that this is not a time for celebration..."
And later, if you found yourself in a Sunset bar diseased by surf Nazis and power-drinking film types on a mission to score, and if you took a moment to consider how the cool evening was treating the bums on the beach, maybe you'd see what she means.
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-1993 OCT.23, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW, MELODY MAKER
[I found the text from this article reproduced on the Facebook page for:
Big Figure Promotions - Real Music for Lost Souls. here:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 7466539100 ]
Mazzy Star: Don't Talk Just Bliss
Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 23 October 1993
Mazzy Star may make beautiful records, but they also make terrible interviewees. Chris Roberts extracts some
sense from their silence and decides that the US duo's music really is like a reflection of a moon on a lake
THERE WILL BE no showy boasts of having slept with bisexual goats here, no sad/ funny anecdotes written by
alcohol, no great claims, no claims at all. There will be lots of excruciating long silences, the occasional
brief nervous chuckle. At the end of it your interviewer will be utterly exhausted, and vaguely troubled deep
within what remains of his soul. When he finally puts the phone down, he will realise he's missed the first
15 minutes of the Holland-England match, and that will seem like the least of his worries. Much later, he
will play the new Mazzy Star album again and it will make perfect sense.
This Mazzy Star album, their second, is So Tonight That I Might See. At first its gravitas seems deathly dull,
and then it is like reality, and then you decide it is incomparably sad and beautiful. At first you smirk at
how everything ever written about them mentions reflections of moons on lakes, and then you think: it's a
lot like a reflection of a moon on a lake, actually, and bung in a few weeping swans. It makes Cowboy Junkies
sound like Deicide, and so on.
I had been warned. Interviewing David Roback and Hope Sandoval is like drinking sand. That their reticence
supports the music's external quiet and inner turbulence is scant consolation when you're cast as the geek
keeping the conversation going. Mazzy Star just mute me out. My voice changes to that I adopt when, say,
friends proudly put their teething infant on the other end of the line.
I can understand this, I say, you're not keen on anything to do with the music business outside the music,
you hate the interview ritual, you loathe pop culture in general. Is that fair comment?
"I'd say," whispers Hope, "that was fair comment."
You dislike explaining the records? ("I dislike having to explain, yes.") You believe the records speak for
themselves and say what you have to say? ("Yeah.") It seems you're ruled by your heart over your head.
Are you very emotional people?
They laugh. THEY LAUGH! And then Hope says, "Isn't everybody?"
Well no, I say, some people are very cold. And some are plain worn out.
"Some people have different values," allows David, after a dozen eternities. "It's just… talking about yourself
can be very awkward. We're musicians, and that's what we do. It's… intense and personal. People use us as a
backdrop, we're not one of those cabaret/party things going on."
Do you sometimes feel like the whole world's partying except for you?
They laugh again. THEY LAUGH! AGAIN!
"No," says David. "I don't think so. I think that things like television, and also a lot of music, which are
about making money, just portray the whole world as… festive. It's all edited, sensationalised. It's not reality."
Can you counter that? Or are you powerless?
"I think we can counter it. We're all very powerful. Just not organised."
I read recently that you considered the rock 'n' roll myth to be dead. How would you suggest updating it?
"It really… not only is there a new generation of musicians, but also of writers and critics who want to find
something. Everybody wants to feel they discovered it, that they identified a pattern, that something's going on.
I've heard music that I thought would change the world. And it hasn't, y'know? It makes the cover of a magazine.
And then there's the next. Popular does not mean better. It's very exaggerated, there's no revolution in music.
It depends what people are tuned into at any given time — in John Lennon's era it was different. Now there's
a whole industry of analysis of music, of inventing movements. Even the idea of a global village — it may be
valid in some way, or is it the illusion of one? Or many many illusions?"
After his so-called "psychedelic country" (he hates the phrase) work in the Eighties with Rain Parade and Opal,
David Roback encountered Hope — "just a set of eyes, like a cat" — on the West Coast, and their collaboration
resulted in 1990's landmark She Hangs Brightly.
Since then they've toured, both with Cocteau Twins here and acoustically in The States, and "written in seclusion". So Tonight…, from the bitter 'Wasted' to the forlorn 'Into Dust', utterly validates their painful introversion.
"The past is over," says Hope. After several false starts (Can you describe how you feel when you sing? "No"),
I ask if she enjoys singing.
"I used to enjoy it more than I do now."
Oh. Why's that?
"We're like a rock band, as opposed to a folk band. We get all this attention, and it's all so loud, it's all
big crowds and that's frightening. I preferred a handful of people. There's never intimacy. Audiences become
so predictable. We're part of this… music scene… I know, next week they're at a Belly show or something.
I'd rather play alongside June Tabor than in front of a bunch of sheep."
Some of them appreciate it, surely.
"Everyone tells you it was great, but you know you could've sucked and they'd love it even more. Most of
the time I feel like everybody's expecting you to… fly. And you're just getting up there and trying your
best, that's all. It's not about 'satisfying' people."
Are they all love songs? ("Some of them are. And some of them aren't.") You're very shy. ("Yes.") Surely
it gets easier the more you do it? ("Not really, no. It gets worse.") But you'll go on doing it?
("Well, I'm gonna do it for the next month. And I like the records. We'll see.")
Does coming to Britain make sense to you?
"Oh yeah," David relaxes. "We worked with Rough Trade before, and we've always had friends over there."
"I don't have friends there," says Hope, unprompted. "I don't know anyone. Not like David."
I'm going to let you go now. I mean it seems like there are things in life which you prefer to doing interviews.
"Don't you?"
And we laugh again. WE LAUGH AGAIN!
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1993, OCTOBER ISSUE, LES INROCKUPTIBLES (LESINROCK) mag (France), INTERVIEW / Article w. Hope & David. English translation from the French text. [English and French text both pasted below]. I found scans of hard copy pages of this article had been posted to Twitter by someone. I didn't have the article before then. The translation's my attempt using several translation services, plus French-English dictionaries. This article is unusual and remarkable largely 'cause it's at the extreme end of Mazzy Star interviews where the journalist is apparently left completely exasperated and repulsed by the difficult interview subjects he finds David & Hope to be. The journalist included just two longish quotes, one each from David & Hope. Plus one short line from David about James Joyce. We're left assuming this is likely 'cause these quotes were the only ones the journalist deemed usable from the two who he described as "paranoid," "reluctant," "detestable," "inaccessibe," "inflexible-rigid," "terror-couple," "jerks."...The two evidently made a big impression on the journalist -- but not in a good way. The quotes he includes are good ones though, imo, informative, particularly David's quote where he seems to describe how Hope is an artistic muse to him, although he doesn't use the word "muse." He's said similar things about Hope in some other interviews, e.g. that he writes music for Hope, and writes with her in mind. But he says more about it in this interview than elsewhere I've seen. Unfortunately, the journalist makes it clear he has zero appreciation for the way their musical partnership works, as David describes it.
...............................................
BEAUTY & THE TRAMP
By JD Beauvallet, Photo by Renaud Monfourny
The most beautiful sound of the year comes miraculously from the most beautiful jerks of the year, Mazzy Star. No question of entering the insides of the paranoid and reluctant couple of San Francisco, largely exceeded by a "So Tonight That I Might See" too big for Hope Sandoval and David Roback.
In a San Francisco pub with a portrait of James Joyce - ("One of the best lyricists in the history of rock," Roback says) [Hope later covered Syd Barrett's "Golden Hair," a song created by Syd putting music to a James Joyce poem of the same name -BB] - a curious old lesbian listens over her lesbian activist diary to the pitiful dialogue of the deaf and dumb that we are trying to start with Hope Sandoval and David Roback. With the terror-couple finally gone, she comes to the journalist. She loves rock music, but has never heard of Mazzy Star. She'll never hear about them: it's hard to see how Mazzy Star could ever shine, as Hope Sandoval - hopeless - and Dave Roback, seem entrenched in an inflexible rigidity worthy of the Shakers, other notorious paranoids, enemies of light and men of evil life.
[HOPE]: "I'm not interested in the greatest number [of fans]. I have no desire to please people," says Hope Sandoval in a tone of reciting a grocery list. "People pay to see a concert, we offer them music. I'm not on stage to talk. The only recognition I'm looking for is from David. I'm not jealous of the success of 10,000 Maniacs or REM, but rather of June Tabor. Pleasing and attracting the masses, it's a real job and I'm certainly not going to devote my life to it. The Velvets never tried to attract. What's the point? In the same day, a guy can be happy, then depressed. I'm certainly not going to make the slightest effort to accompany every mood of every person."
On a human level, a detestable group. But here, the human has totally faded behind his music, crushed by a talent who stole all the coverage. No need, finally, to come to San Francisco to meet Mazzy Star, thin bearers of an album far beyond their means. Because here, the exact opposite of Suede, it is the record more than the band that wears the pants. So Tonight That I Might See is much more mysterious and interesting to meet than Roback and Sandoval, death-drags from California. Him, shabby and at her feet, admiring from afar his inaccessible star, poor sucker still under the balcony, unable to climb. A Hope Sandoval totally adored by Dave Roback, poor schmuck on his knees: in front of her, in front of her voice, in front of her whims.
[DAVID]: "I always have her [Hope] in mind when I compose. I want to tailor it. But even if I wasn't there, she would still be so talented, her music could do without me. On the other hand, Mazzy Star would be nothing without her. I love her ideas, her presence, her words... I love her, period."
Hope & David in San Francisco, 1993, Photo by Renaud Monfourny
Hope in San Francisco, 1993, Photo by Renaud Monfourny
......................................
-On Feb. 28, 2020, shortly after David Roback's death,
Les Inrockuptibles site re-published this same 1993 interview, here:
https://www.lesinrocks.com/2020/02/28/m ... r-en-1993/ adding this new title, and short new intro, QUOTE:
"|Death Of David Roback, Our Lunar Encounter With Mazzy Star In 1993 -
David Roback died on February 24 at the age of 61. In 1993, we met Mazzy Star's paranoid and misanthropic couple, Hope Sandoval/David Roback. Story of a nightmare interview."
The republished article from Feb. 2020 was (and still is) available on the lesinrocks.com site only partially. Only half the article was posted for free on the site. The 1993 issue was not otherwise findable online, as far as I could tell. The republished version from Feb. 2020 included one "new" old colour photo shot in San Francisco that apparently was not included in the original 1993 version. The 1993 hard copy page scans that turned up this week had one photo, a different one, a black and white one of Hope that's been findable online for years. The colour one I'd not seen before Feb. 2020. Both photos are by the same photographer, Renaud Monfourny, and are likely from the same photo shoot in San Francisco. Hope's wearing the same clothing in both. The colour one may be an outtake that didn't see the light of day till 2020.
Back in Feb., I hoped the site would allow purchase of the complete article, but they don't allow individual article purchases. To access the full article, they required people to be subscribers to the mag which entailed automatic billings to your credit card every month. You could cancel at any time - but not online or by phone. You had to send a hard copy letter to them by registered mail announcing you were cancelling. Too complicated, imo.
So, I'm glad that just by waiting some months, the article has, by luck, became available in full by some helpful person posting to Twitter scans of the original 1993 hard copy pages of the article.
....................................
[ORIGINAL FRENCH TEXT
Belle et le Clochard
Par JD Beauvallet Photo Renaud Monfourny
Le plus beau son de l'année Vient miraculeusement des plus beaux cons de l'année, Mazzy Star.
Pas question d'entrer dans les entrailles du couple paranoiaque et indisposant de San Francisco, largement dépassé par un So Tonight That I Might See trop large pour Hope Sandoval et David Roback.
Dans un pub de San Francisco où trône un portrait de James Joyce
( "Un des meilleursparoliers de l'histoire du rock", dixit Roback), une
vieille fée curieuse écoute par-dessus son journal de militante lesbienne
le pitoyable dialogue de sourds-muets que nous tentons d'entamer avec
Hope Sandoval et David Roback. Le couple-terreur enfin parti, elle
Vient aux nouvelles. Elle aime le rock, elle n'a jamais entendu parler de
Mazzy Star. Elle n'en entendra jamais parler : on voit mal comme Mazzy
Star pourrait un jour briller, tant Hope Sandoval — sans espoir — et Dave
Roback paraissent engoncés dans un rigorisme digne des Shakers, autres
paranoiaques fameux, ennemis de lumiére et des hommes de mauvaise
vie.
"Le plus grand nombre ne m'intéresse pas. Je n'ai aucune envie de faire
plaisir aux gens", débite Hope Sandoval sur un ton de liste de
commissions. "Les gens paient pour voir un concert, nous leur offrons de la
musique. Je ne suis pas sur scene pour faire causette. La seule reconnaissance
queje cherche, c'est celle de Dave. Je ne suis pasjalouse du succes des
10 000 Maniacs ou de REM mais plutbt de June Tabor, Plaire et séduire les
masses, c'est un vrai boulot etje ne vais certainementpas consacrer ma vie ft.
Le Velvet n'ajamais cherché séduire. A quoi bon ? Dans la mémejournée,
un type peut étre heureux, puis déprimé. Je ne vais certainementpasfaire le
moindre effort pour accompagner chaque humeur de chaque individu."
Humainement, groupe détestable. Mais ici, l'humain s'est totalement
effacé derrière sa musique, écrasé par un talent qui a piqué toute la
couverture. Pas besoin, finalement, de venir à San Francisco pour
rencontrer Mazzy Star, maigres porteurs d'eau d'un disque largement
au-dessus de leurs moyens. Car ici, à l'exact opposé de Suede, c'est le
disque plus que le groupe qui porte la culotte, "So Tonight That I Might See"
beaucoup plus mystérieux et intéressant à rencontrer que Roback et
Sandoval, traîne-la-mort de Californie. Lui, minable et à ses pieds,
admirant de loin son étoile inaccessible, pauvre couillon toujours sous le
balcon, incapable de grimper. Une Hope Sandoval totalement adulée par
Dave Roback, pauvre con à genou : devant elle, devant sa voix, devant ses
caprices. "Je l'ai toujours à l'esprit quand je compose, je veux lui donner du
sur mesure. Mais même si je n'étais pas là, elle aurait toujours autant de
talent, sa musique pourrait se passer de moi. Par contre, Mazzy Star ne
serait rien sans elle. J 'aime ses idées, saprésence, ses mots. . . Je l'aime, point. "
........................................................
On Feb. 28, 2020, shortly ater David Roback's death,
Les Inrockuptibles site re-published this same 1993 interview, here:
https://www.lesinrocks.com/2020/02/28/m ... r-en-1993/ adding this new title, and short new intro, QUOTE:
"|Mort De David Roback, Notre Rencontre Lunaire Avec Mazzy Star En 1993 -
David Roback est mort ce 24 février à 61 ans. En 1993, nous avions rencontré le couple paranoïaque et misanthrope de Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval/David Roback. Récit d’une interview-cauchemar.."
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1993, NOV. 30, L.A. TIMES, MAZZY STAR INTERV.
[thanks go to mazzystar.free.fr webmaster Emma for finding this article & sharing the link
from the L.A. Times' archives, here:
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-11-30/ ... r-universe
No photos accompany the original article]
Mazzy Star: A Duo Working From Inside Out : Pop: They're bringing their internalized music to a
public stage--this time the Coach House--whether or not they connect with the audience.
November 30, 1993|MIKE BOEHM | TIMES STAFF WRITER
The music on Mazzy Star's new album, "So Tonight That I Might See," is inward and deep.
It seems to flow from the fragmentary consciousness of a mind falling toward sleep during the
last sentient moments of an emotionally wearing day.
This is not the rock of the shake and strut, but of the murmur and sigh.
Guitarist David Roback and singer-lyricist Hope Sandoval, clearly are not folks who have shakes
and struts rattling within their marrow, just waiting to be exorcised in that modern rite, the
rock concert.
Speaking over the phone recently from a tour stop in Vancouver, Canada, the laconic Roback said
that he had no misgivings about the contradictions inherent in playing such internalized music
on a public stage.
He dismissed the notion that an ideal Mazzy Star universe would have a recording studio, fans
willing to sit by their stereos and be drawn into those studio-woven moods, and no tour itineraries
where clinking beer bottles might disrupt the music's suggestive spell.
"No. . . . We like playing live," Roback said. "There are a lot of chance elements, improvisational
elements. The music can succeed whether or not the connection is being made with the audience.
Whether it succeeds for us internally, or makes the connection (with concert-goers) are two
separate issues. When you're connecting, it does definitely add something that we like, and it
does happen a lot. Sometimes it doesn't. We're prepared (to play) even if it doesn't happen."
When he hands over the backstage phone to Sandoval, a different perspective emerges.
*
Roback is a rock veteran, having first recorded in 1983 with Rain Parade, one of the leaders of a
psychedelic revival in Los Angeles whose adherents (the Dream Syndicate and the Three O' Clock
were others) were collectively dubbed the "paisley underground."
He subsequently formed the mid-'80s band, Opal, with Kendra Smith, an alumna of Dream Syndicate.
When she left, Roback turned to Sandoval. Mazzy Star's critically praised debut album, "She Hangs
Brightly," marked her record debut in 1990.
Now in her mid-20s, it is she who has to do the dreaming aloud in concert.
Sandoval said she still finds the stage an uncomfortable place to be--even more so now that she has
an audience that knows her music than in the days when she was an unknown folkie on the Los Angeles
club scene.
"Personally, I have a hard time playing live," Sandoval said softly. "A big part of it is because the
lyrics are really private. . . . I think with this record it's a lot harder to do the whole live thing.
"I think the record is really dark and a lot of it is acoustic, and it seems like a lot of the times
the audience isn't ready for that," she said. "A lot of them are just hanging out, drinking. (There are
times) when you can hear the girl alongside of you (in the audience) talking about her wardrobe or
something. It gets that way when you get kind of popular. You get all these different kinds of people,
and some don't care.
"I used to get really hostile about it," she added. "I used to just lose my temper and tell the audience
to shut up. On this tour, I've been sort of holding it in. If I'm onstage and the audience seems really
noisy, I'll turn to the band and say, 'We're not doing 'Into Dust' (an acoustic number) tonight.
"When I started out playing live, it was different," said Sandoval, who began performing in her teens.
"I felt good about it. Nobody knew who I was. I just opened for so-and-so. Now, I'm playing to people
who are coming out to see the band. There's too much attention on the band and me. It's sort of hard
to concentrate and just relax, because a lot of people know the records, and they sort of have this
piece of you almost. It just seems really weird. I don't understand it myself."
Thrown by the prospect of revealing herself to an audience, Sandoval greets an interviewer's questions
about her songs' themes the way most people react to beggars in the street. Mainly, she just wishes
they weren't there.
As the album progresses, desires and desires unfulfilled unfold in a flickering play of shadow and light.
Darkness descends quickly from the start ("Fade Into You"). Hope emerges in "Blue Light," which longs
for connection with a "best friend" who has shining eyes. Such connection, however, seems beyond the
emotionally paralyzed narrator's reach.
A chill, deathly stillness enfolds "Into Dust." But on the next, and concluding track, "So Tonight That
I Might See," Sandoval seems to be praying for a restoration of absent light during a murmured mantra
that calls to mind the incantatory song-poems of Patti Smith.
Roback isn't inclined to say much about Mazzy Star's musical guiding lights. On various tracks, you get
echoes of the Doors at their spookiest and the Stones and Velvet Underground at their most played-out,
along with traces of old English balladry, and a skewed appropriation of Chicago blues crunch on
"Wasted," the album's most assertive song.
"A few of our songs have organs, so people say it reminds them of the Doors," Roback said in a dismissive
tone. "There is sort of a tradition (that the band draws upon), but the essence of what we do is not to
recreate something from the past at all."
As to the name Mazzy Star, Roback assures a questioner that it does have a specific meaning, and that he
and Sandoval have no intention of divulging it.
"So much about music is overdetermined by television and what people write and say about it," he said.
"You have to leave something to people's imagination, so they feel they can participate. Music is music.
We don't want to be part of that over-determination. We feel you should be able to shut your eyes and
listen to it."
* Mazzy Star, St. Johnny and That Dog play tonight at 8 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano,
San Juan Capistrano. $15. (714) 496-8930.
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1993, NOVEMBER, RADIO STUDIO SESSION, VPRO, AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS, MAZZY STAR INTERV.
(TRANSCRIPTION)
[Mazzy Star as a trio (Hope, David, & Will) did this radio session, playing three songs,
Ride It On, Into Dust, & Halah, with a five minute interview section after the first song,
Ride It On. The interviewer asks questions in Dutch which I can neither understand nor
transcribe, so I've transcribed only Hope's & David's answers, not the questions.
The audio file of this recording is findable for downloading in the Bootlegs list thread in this Forum.
I've also upped it to youtube, here: http://youtu.be/tNRg4_9fMKA ]
.............................................
Qu. (interviewer speaks in Dutch)
Hope: "Well, because there are so many horrible things happening in our world,
you know, and most people, especially in music, rock music, are just, you know, it just
seems like they're celebrating something, you know, maybe celebrating all the money that
they're making, I don't know"
Qu. (in Dutch)
Hope: "I think it's always been that way"
Qu. (in Dutch)
Hope: "Well, maybe once in a while"
Qu. (in Dutch)
David: "I, I don't think you did that. You know that interviews are difficult,
and when - it certainly wasn't an insult but sometimes they don't, they don't
touch on what's really going on with the music, through no fault of the interviewer,
as much as they might, and maybe on some level we, it's, we don't want them to"
Qu. (in Dutch)
David: "The subjects never change. There, there are only a few subjects in life like love,
and mortality, and, uh, it just is the matter of the climate of the day how, how they're
answered, 'cause they, they really have no answer"
Qu. (in Dutch)
David: "We're actually, you know, we're musicians, and, and um, you know, we, we,
I think we'd rather not, you know, have to do interviews at all if we didn't,
you know, really have to because, um, it's just, it just, um, that's just not
where, where we're at."
Qu. [Someone else with an American accent, likely a Capitol Records handler, interjects
with a comment/question to David]: "...Excuse me, can we just move off of the negative part
of the bad, you know, interviews and stuff and go into the positive, you know,
what we like instead of what we don't like?"
Qu. (in Dutch)
David: "Oh, we like playing music, and that's really why we're here, you know
We're here to play our songs and this is actually our, you know, first concert tour
with Europe, so it's really very exciting for us. We played in Paris last night, and um, you know,
it's, it's exciting because I think when we were in the studio we were sort of a little bit
more focused on our acoustic side, or today when we did this radio show here. But when we
do our live show,we, we, we're, we're involving more electric instruments, and it's really
quite a, a thrill for us to be, you know,taking this, these ideas that we have and, um, you know, playing,
um, with a full band, and it's really, it's, it's very, uh, you know, sort of an adventure, really"
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1993, DEC., RAY GUN mag, INTERV. W. HOPE
Ray Gun issue no. 12
One photo accompanies the original article, a photo of Hope. Photo
credit: Melodie McDaniel. I made this text transcript from a photo of the
magazine pages showing the full text. It, plus the photo of Hope, were
posted to Instagram May 23, 2019 by @raygunmagazine, here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx1HaejHndu
In answer to my question I posted for them at Instagram, they said what they'd posted to Instagram is the entire 1993 article. In the Instagram photo of the mag pages, a few of the
words are hard to discern. Words I'm not sure of, I placed in square brackets with
a question mark [?].
........................................................
Mazzy Star, by Karen Woods
The photographs give no clues. What you see is a pretty woman in a dress,
gazing politely into middle distance with a detached looking man in the
background. These people can be anyone, anywhere, thinking about anything.
Actually, they are Mazzy Star. Instrumentalist David Roback and vocalist
Hope Sandoval are intensely private people who obviously feel - perhaps rightly -
that the music they create should speak for itself, who can't - or won't
understand the constant demands to explain, explain, explain. So usually
they just...don't.
Yet they have gotten away with it since releasing the critically acclaimed
She Hangs Brightly in 1990. The music that comes out of this intensely private
partnership offers an articulate, [natural-?]
explanation of who they are with languid, dreamy melodies and uncomplicated
arrangements with Sandoval's soporific vocals drifting lullaby-like over the top.
Mazzy Star could be the antidote to an overdose of teen spirit.
Considering Roback's background, none of this is a surprise. With Rain Parade
he was one of L.A.'s paisley underground, itself a kinder, gentler answer to the
harder movement it countered. He then went on to form Opal with former
Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith, releasing an EP and an album on Rough Trade.
After the demise of Opal, Mazzy Star made She Hangs Brightly, still in the same
vein, but darker and more melodic. Three years on, Mazzy Star has moved from an
independent to a major label, is ready to launch So Tonight That I Might See on
the [world-?] and still are not willing to talk about it. After an
abortive attempt at a phone interview with both Roback and Sandoval - even though
all three of us live here in Los Angeles - we try again with just Sandoval.
It works out, but she speaks so quietly at first I keep checking the level
on the recorder, scribbling notes to myself at the same time.
I know that Sandoval is a native Angelino. I did not know she had been in a band
before. "I was doing a folk thing called Going home with another girl, Sylvia Gomez,"
she says. "She played guitar and we used to write songs and do shows around L.A.
[not-?] coffeehouses, but places like McCabe's and the Anti-Club."
She and Roback first met almost ten years ago, when Sandoval was still in high
school. "I met him through Kendra Smith. He and Kendra were both interested in
Going Home, and David asked us if we could record a record, because he really
liked it and he thought maybe we could get a record deal." She gives an almost
audible shrug. "But no one was really interested. I guess it was really the wrong
time for what we were doing, they don't really want to take chances on things like
that. Really mellow, just a guitar and a voice." A short, ironic pause. "But now,
of course, I guess people are interested."
When he and Roback decided to work together as Mazzy Star, she says the
partnership was both spontaneous and unselfconscious. "It clicked right away
because we like the same kind of music. We do have pretty much the same taste,
so we wanted to do the same thing. We just basically started playing together -
we just did it, we didn't talk about it."
Sandoval writes lyrics, Roback does most of the music, but she also plays guitar,
and keyboards as well. "But I'm not traditionally schooled, I just play by ear,"
she says. I play guitar out of necessity to write music, although I do plan to
play a little bit on tour for this record." Considering the imagery
and literacy and intimacy of her lyrics, I wonder if she writes poetry as well:
"No, I don't. I don't know a thing about it."
When the conversation drifts finally to music in general, not Mazzy Star, she
becomes almost voluble. I'm not quite prepared for this, and I have a page and a
half full of completely illegible notes. "I listen to people like June Tabor.
I think she's really [inspiring-?], really, really good. And Nina Simone, those
are my favorites. And Billie Holiday, of course, and Kendra Smith. I really like
her voice. I like things I can get into for that moment," she adds dismissively
when I notice they are all women.
"It's not that I'm closed minded," she says. "I just find myself listening to
the same things over and over. I have a really small collection of CDs. I
just don't really know what goes on. We're distant from the music scene. It's
not a conscious thing, that's just the way it is."
I start to ask why, then realize she's already answered the question, Mazzy Star
style. That's just the way it is. But she answers it again, without being asked.
"The music scene, especially here, is so different now, in comparison to what it
was like in the early Eighties. Even though I wasn't working with David then, we
consider that to be more of our scene, bands like Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade,
Green On Red. I don't go to shows that much, because there just aren't that many
people I want to see." She does mention Luna, "because I loved Galaxie 500," and The
Red House Painters. Neither surprises me.
The music Sandoval likes is the music she and Roback make: moody, "for that moment"
music that is [too often-?] labeled "introspective," for lack
of a better word. But there is definitely a brooding quality...So if the word fits...
"I never really thought about it," Sandoval says. "I guess people will listen to it,
and it might make them feel a little melancholy or depressed. I don't know if that's
a good thing or a bad thing. We don't think about it that much."
Pure self expression rather than an attempt to communicate. "Yeah." So much for
my theory. "That's the way it is with everybody, when you think about it,"
says Sandoval. "When people put records out, there is no way they are going to know
what the audience is going to think. If they sit and wonder, What kind of song
should I write? What am I trying to get people to feel? They're just projecting
their own feeling onto the people they think they're making records for.
What they're really trying to do is satisfy themselves." She considers this
for a moment. "That's basically what we try to do. We just try to get ourselves
happy."
.................................................................................
[Below is the comment @raygunmagazine included with their May 23, 2019 Instagram
posting of this 1993 article, QUOTE]:
"Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star by frequent RayGun photographer Melodie McDaniel for
Issue #12 (Dec/Jan, 1993 [Dec. 1993]). Another early RayGun contributor, Karen Woods
wrote the feature for this special 'LA Issue.' Mazzy Star would grace the cover of
RayGun a few years later, also shot by Melodie. Photographing them was a much more
enviable task than trying to get anything compelling out of an interview."
[Contrary to what the @raygunmagazine suggests above, I'd say Hope's responses in
this interview to questions are more informative, elaborate, and thoughtful than
usual for her in a 1990s era interview].
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1994-03-30 (DENVER) WESTWORD site, article/interv. w. David Roback
[no photos accompany this article]
https://www.westword.com/music/the-quiet-man-5053835
THE QUIET MAN
MICHAEL ROBERTS | MARCH 30, 1994
David Roback, the guitarist and conceptualist behind the mood band Mazzy Star, doesn't reveal much about himself--and you get the feeling that he'd like to retract the little he accidentally divulges. When penning songs, he leaves the lyrics to his co-writer, vocalist Hope Sandoval, and when responding to questions he tends toward variations on the answer, "I don't know." As in, "I don't know if music is overanalyzed or underanalyzed." Or, "I don't know if what we do takes more or less intensity than something else." Or, perhaps more to the point, "I don't remember a best or a worst interview."
Then again, it's hard to blame Roback for his reticence. The spacey, indefinable music found on So Tonight That I Might See, Mazzy Star's latest album on Capitol Records, is as wispy as a puff of smoke. Weight it with too much baggage, intellectual or otherwise, and it may float away on the gentlest breeze. Accept it as it is and it likely will seduce you with its subtleties, tempt you with its textures and leave you hungry for more even before the last note fades.
Roback probably realizes this, but that doesn't mean he'll elaborate on it. He delivers a solid "no" when asked if he's being evasive simply because he fears he'll besmirch the enigmatic qualities of the sounds he's made by describing them. "When you start out to be a musician," he notes, his voice a halting monotone, "you do what you do musically, and there's really no obligation to explain. People sometimes expect an explanation, and sometimes you have something to say about what you did. And sometimes you don't."
Amend that last statement to read, "And almost always you don't," since throughout his career Roback has responded to most requests for exegesis with impenetrable silence. For that reason, his fans have few clues about Roback's musical journey beyond the albums that bear his name.
It was the early Eighties when Roback first came to the public's attention, thanks to his presence in the Los Angeles-based band Rain Parade. On recordings such as the 1983 disc Emergency Third Rail Power Trip and an EP from the following year, Explosions in the Glass Palace, Roback and company constructed layer upon layer of psychedelic guitar washes that seemed to flow effortlessly into one another. Since the most obvious touchstones for this approach were the Velvet Underground, the Doors, Love and other progressive late-Sixties acts, enterprising scenesters pegged the band as a standard-bearer for a new L.A. movement dubbed the paisley underground. While Roback didn't exactly promote this label--"I thought it was more of a journalistic angle than anything else; the kind of thing that goes on all the time in the media," he says--he helped create the impression that a close-knit cadre of performers was pushing the trend on Rainy Day, the single most memorable document from this period. Together with former Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith, Three O'Clock lead vocalist Michael Quercio and Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs (still a year away from becoming a temporary MTV star), Roback oversaw the production of a handful of graceful, idiosyncratic cover songs. Hoffs's versions of Lou Reed's "I'll Be Your Mirror" and Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine" were particularly beautiful, and Roback's blistering take on Pete Townshend's "A Quick One" put the lie to critics who suggested he couldn't rock out.
With the dissolution of Rain Parade, Roback briefly joined forces with Smith, drummer Keith Mitchell and guitarist Juan Gomez in a group called Clay Allison; the fruits of this collaboration can be found on Fell From the Sun, a 1984 EP issued under the first three members' names. The core of that band later took on the moniker Opal and put out a disc called Happy Nightmare Baby. Smith split during a tour to support the platter, and as a replacement Roback recruited Hope Sandoval, whom he had met while working in the studio with Going Home, an act Sandoval had formed while still attending high school. By 1990 the membership had solidified to the degree that Roback tagged the group with yet another new handle: Mazzy Star.
The 1990 release She Hangs Brightly, initially issued by Rough Trade and now available on Capitol, shows Roback exploring familiar musical territory, but his work shows signs of experimentation and growth. For example, "I'm Sailin'" displays the kind of country influences that the Cowboy Junkies brought to a wider audience, while "Ghost Highway" is built upon a more conventional (and even catchier) pop-guitar riff. Roback modestly stays in the background of most tracks, allowing Sandoval's naturalistic singing to set the tone. But it's Roback's musical settings--which simultaneously seem intricately planned and wholly organic--that make Brightly stick in one's mind.
The cult following that sprang up in the wake of the album was large and rabid enough to attract industry-wide attention; as a result, Mazzy Star is the first of Roback's groups to appear on a major label. Rather than responding to the possibility of reaching a larger audience by smoothing out his sound, though, Roback delivered to Capitol executives a follow-up that is, if anything, even more challenging than its predecessor. So Tonight That I Might See drips with psychedelic influences, but Roback's echo-laden studio work is so idiosyncratic that it manages not to sound like a simple reproduction of a previous era's styles. More important, songs such as "Fade Into You," "Wasted" and a cover of Arthur Lee's "Five String Serenade" are moving, mysterious and as fragile as glass figurines.
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In Roback's view, Tonight is so delicate because "we had stopped playing live concerts for a while. That's why the album has some more acoustic songs on it. In that sense, maybe there is a little bit of a different feel to it." He adds that he felt under no pressure to shorten the lengths of his compositions so that they would be more radio friendly: "It's not true that everybody who listens to music just wants to be entertained for two minutes and that's it. People have a lot of different interests in music, and I think that a lot of times that's forgotten, because maybe that's not where the money is happening."
Beyond these observations, Roback avoids discussing specific elements of the recording. Hell, he avoids discussing the specifics of just about everything; he claims that the majority of questions he hears are too general, but he has no opinion on those that aren't. In fact, the topic that gets the most reaction from him is not music, but drugs. Upon being asked if he advocates the use of narcotics, this leader of a band that makes what many listeners feel is the perfect music to trip to replies, "I don't want to suggest to people that they should start smoking crack. That would be a totally insane, totally destructive thing. But on the other hand, I think there are different types of drugs, and some are worthwhile. And I think that those drugs sometimes add a dimension to people's lives that may or may not be there without them."
Have drugs added a dimension to your life, David?
After a long pause, Roback answers, "Yes."
Thank goodness he didn't say, "I don't know."
Mazzy Star, with Acetone. 8 p.m. Friday, April 1, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th Street, $11, 290-
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-1994, April 1, SEATTLE TIMES ARTICLE/INTERVIEW (W. DAVID ROBACK)
[This article was found at Seattle Times archives, here:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource. ... ug=1903283 .
No photos accompany the original article]
Seattle Times, April 1, 1994
Mazzy Star: Wide-Ranging Explorations
By Ken Hunt
Concert preview:
Mazzy Star and Acetone, 8 p.m. Tuesday, Moore Theatre; $10.77; 628-0888.
Mazzy Star approaches its music the way a medieval architect might have
approached designing a cathedral.
Here, a sumptuous layering of elements would be appropriate, while another
section would benefit from an airy quality. A reference to a period long gone
might be coupled with a design of timeless quality. The effect is one of complete
immersion.
Mazzy Star's broad and subtle explorations within the genres of blues, folk, rock
and psychedelia produce just such an absorption on its two albums,
"She Hangs Brightly" and last year's "So Tonight That I Might See." From the rich,
reverberant layering of "Halah" to the ethereal folk of "Ride It On" to the
country-tinged "Fade Into You," Hope Sandoval's soured-innocence vocals and
David Roback's guitar orchestrations create a mood like a sad, but pleasantly
remembered, dream.
While Sandoval and Roback form the core of Mazzy Star, they record and perform
with a stable group of musicians, including keyboards, bass, guitar, drums and the
occasional cello. The extended band is essential to the execution of the music,
Roback said. "Once Hope and I have a song, we get together with people in the
band; each song's a little different, and we experiment. A lot of times it comes
together the first time we play it with people."
Mazzy Star formed in the late '80s after the demise of Roback's previous band,
Opal. That band wrote in a stricter psychedelic vein and received above-ground
attention for such eerie introspections as the album "Happy Nightmare, Baby."
Roback met Sandoval when he produced an album by Sandoval's acoustic band,
Going Home. "Opal was a different band, and Hope and I wanted to start over,"
he said.
In 1990 the band released "She Hangs Brightly" - named after the Opal-esque
centerpiece song - to a froth of critical praise. The attention revived when the
band moved from independent label Rough Trade to the giant Capitol and re-released
that album the following year. The next two years passed in near-seclusion, writing
songs and lyrics, Roback said. "We took some time off to experiment with different ideas."
The heavier blues emphasis of "So That Tonight I Might See" grew naturally from
seeds within the group's style, Roback said. "It's not like we set off to change what
we were doing; it's just what we were into doing this time," he explained. Of the
music's organic feel, Roback said, "I think we tend to favor acoustic instruments
and tube amplifiers."
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MTV Interview, May 22, 1994
A fragment of a longer interview that preceded the MTV broadcast
of the song "Bells Ring." This snippet from David is all that's available
from the video files I have. This comes from a video webmaster Emma found &
shared in the forum here and which I've upped to youtube, here:
https://youtu.be/aVOrOs37jl4
The interview snippet is:
QUOTE from David: "When I first started working with Hope,
I always felt, wow it would be really fantastic to play guitar
with Hope someday, and then, you know, the time was right we just
started doing it. We just, it just, uh, happened right away. We
just started doing it."
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-1994, JUNE or JULY (likely date) - Mazzy Star ITV Network TV INTERVIEW, UK, The Big E show, with Hope & David.
Taken from a video recording. (See details posted below the interview text)
........................................................
[Transcript from video recording of interview]:
HOPE: I think it, it is pretty difficult for us to do promotional stuff. We're sort of introverted people, so, it is pretty difficult.
HOPE: We like to experiment a lot, so-. I think if you gave us three years to record a record, to write, record it, produce it, we would take the three years. That's what I think.
DAVID: Yeah, but we would, we would probably end up recording several records in that time, and just selecting, you know. See like any-
HOPE: Changing our minds constantly [chuckles]
DAVID: Yeah, we did, we do a song, you know, given a different day, you know. We'd probably do it differently. I think anybody would, anybody really would
HOPE: I like to sing. It can be a problem 'cause when you're, it, it automatically makes you the, the front person for the band, even though you might not want that. Even though your, your partner's just as responsible for everything. But, you know, everybody seems to focus on the singer.
HOPE: We've had bad reviews too, um. I mean, of course, you know, when anybody gets insulted
in any kind of way, you know, it affects you, so, in that sense, yeah, you know, it does affect us, but-
DAVID: I don't think we take it too seriously
HOPE: Yeah
DAVID: You know, because that's not really who we, you know, we're not making music for the critics. And, um, it's not very, really ultimately very important to us whether they like it or not. I mean-
..........................................
Above is text of the TV interview segments with Hope Sandoval and David Roback transcribed from a video on you tube from a late night British TV show called The Big E, on ITV network, likely broadcast June or July 1994. It was broadcast with the four short interview segments you see above interspersed with scenes from the official colour version of the song Fade Into You.
Presumably, the TV show cherry picked the 4 short segments from a longer interview that was not broadcast in its entirety
My source for the video was a youtube channel called "Doing It For The Vids." Their original upload is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGUzo-hwxOM
As the original yt uploader says, following the interview, there is, QUOTE: "also an advert for So Tonight That I Might See, which I expect was shown during the breaks in the same program, since they were next to each other on my old VHS tape."
The original uploader gives no date for the broadcast. My guess is it's likely from 1994 'cause the TV ad for the album So Tonight That I Might See says "The Album, OUT NOW, Includes 'Fade Into You'." The album was released in 1993, but 'Fade...' became an unexpected hit in 1994. I believe Capitol Records would have been using the belated hit "Fade..." to promote the album in ads in 1994, as we see here. Mazzy Star toured Europe in 1994 during June and July, and played dates in Britain in both those months. So this interview likely dates from June or July, 1994.
A helpful Facebook fan group member alerted me to the video's existence on yt.
I've re-upped the interview to my own Hermesacat yt channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzFDEa3QhOw
because fans were not finding it at its original channel. It had been on yt 6 months and received only 61 views total in all that time. To ensure more fans will find it, I re-upped it.
However, my own yt upload of the video is an edited version. Unfortunately, yt won't allow my own upload to contain content from that same "Fade..." video. Yt blocked worldwide my first upload attempt because of a copyright claim forbidding my upload to contain that content. The TV ad for the album after the interview also contained clips from that "Fade..." music video. I removed those scenes too and retained just the shot at end of the ad that mentions the album.
I also made my own second edit, one that includes all the "Fade..." music video scenes. I also cropped the video in both my edits to remove visible VHS tape tracking error images that appear at the bottom and top of the original video's frame.In the original, after the interview segments end and before the TV ad for the album starts, there are a few seconds of unrelated video I removed. Yt and FB won't let me upload my complete version. But it's been upped to Google Drive where anyone interested can DL it, here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HsBIwl ... sp=sharing
Two screenshots from the TV show video:
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-1994, Sept. - Oct. Issue, EB METRONOM mag no. 50, Mazzy Star interview with Hope & David
(English translation from German original I attempted using multiple translation services and comparing results)
Thanks go to site member Gordon Hobs who found and shared scans of the article pages and cover from the magazine (See p. 4 of this same thread for his post). Gordon also provided this link to a music blog which has a link to a downloadable PDF of the entire magazine issue including the Mazzy Star article. Scroll down the blog page to find it
https://tapeattack.blogspot.com/2020/11 ... KjJh4OaB1E
Text: Reinhard Schielke
Photos: Moni Kellermann
Two photos accompany the article, both of Hope & David, both by Moni Kellerman. One is used on the front cover of the mag.
.................................................
Impressions From the Land of Slow Motion
"Somebody calls you, you answer quite
slowly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes."
("Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", The Beatles)
"What one cannot speak of, one must remain silent about." (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
Man had warned me: Mazzy Star play gorgeous floating songs, but an interview, if any,
with guitarist David Roback and singer Hope Sandoval is always - no matter
when, where and how it takes place - overshadowed by brusque aversion to journalism per se,
insecure arrogance, as well as an almost pathological, permanent shyness.
Asked how he would describe an interview with the two.
an English colleague once replied: "It's like drinking sand. It's choking you.
You hold your throat while they ignore you in slow motion."
On a hot summer day, I set off for the interview in the even hotter "Rose Club"
in Cologne, where in the early evening hours, one of their three gigs in total on
German soil is to take place.
Once before, around 1988/89, Hope and David made guest appearances here, at that time still under the old name Opal, David's former band. After the departure of singer Kendra Smith, a very young Hope Sandoval took over the vocals for a short time before she and David formed Mazzy Star, with two records to date (She Hangs Brightly", 1990, and So Tonight That I Might See, 1993).
The rather aloof sounds of Opal of a trance-psychedelia experience, transformed into a sound so nightmarishly surreal, and so floating in space, and so not at all in the musical world view of 1994. Mazzy Star play heavy, opiate songs, which slow into a haze of psychedelic kaleidoscopes.
Behind them the unapproachable voice of singer Hope in an aura of loneliness, hopelessness. Melancholy hovers. Music for the Twilight Zone - the rumour goes, that David and Hope go for weeks enclosed in their little studio, not seeing daylight except at dawn to step into the pale neon light of Los Angeles.
THE INTERVIEW
An interview with Hope and David needs a lot of patience, inner balance and few questions.
I am invited into a small, stuffy room above the club.
Their English manager is very nice and tries to address their - let's call them sometimes slovenly - peculiarities as traits to be ignored.
Both answer briefly, and if at all, only after agonizingly long minutes. Answers to questions about records, the studio, and live shows, come short and precise;
questions which arise involving mood, atmosphere, and possible autobiographical influences, end up in
"off", and disappear into infinity between the question and the question after next.
Both sit behind an almost impenetrable invisible wall of silence when it comes to precise things from
Mazzy Star's life. Consequently, there are only two possibilities: The unprepared, occasional journalist gives up after a while (and the two of them would have once again reached their goal), or else you let yourself persist with their question and answer game. So then:
EB/M: If I had to describe what I feel when I hear your music I think of long lonely walks in the moonlight,
of cool summer nights on the shore of a lake, or the music of - Kaleidoscope. Does that even exist at all with you, songs that put you in an emotional state when you write them? That they are an expression of a certain experienced feeling?
(Noise...)
HOPE: What was the the question?
(Replay... )
DAVID: Yes.
HOPE: Yes.
EB/M: You have covered Five String Serenade. The original is by Arthur Lee. Do you know Love, and do you know Arthur's opinion about your recording, in my opinion, a very sensitive version?
DAVID: I know him. We were talking about this song before we went into the studio and recorded the entire album. I once saw Love at 'Raji's' in Los Angeles.
EB/M: When you play live, do you feel you are more attracted to the audience, or are you consciously looking for distance? At your your last concert in this club I got the impression the tight space is more likely to trigger anxiety, an anxiety from...
(Noise... From the open Window, Humid, warm air penetrates into the small room and pushes the sound of passing cars between Hope and David and me. I sit opposite them on the edge of the bed as I catch myself inwardly waiting for the answer).
"Remember, this is live and is just an interview that's a little bit different," my inner voice reassured me. Slowly, almost like in slow motion, she turns her head and answers
HOPE: You mean the distance to the audience?
EB/M: Yes. (Noise...) So a very special atmosphere when you're on stage and feel the tense atmosphere inside you...
HOPE: Yes, it moves inside me.
EB/M: Would you rather be with David working alone in the studio?
HOPE: Yes, we love studio sessions. We spend most time at home.
(A train rattles past and cuts Hope's last word and an uncertain smile.)
EB/M: Hope, you sing a song (Sometimes Always) on the new Jesus and Mary Chain album. How did this collaboration come about?
HOPE: They called me. Actually two years ago. Due to time constraints, collaborations never happened before. This time, after finishing 'So Tonight ...", I was able to listen to a song they'd chosen they wanted me to sing on. I liked it immediately, and I did them the favor.
(I take a little break, and follow up with concepts to confront, rather than questions)
EB/M: Reincarnation?
(Noise...)
DAVID: I think between incarnation and reincarnation
there is no difference.That's all I can say about it.
EB/M: Cocooning? (to cocoon oneself, isolate from the outside world; a horror vision that is becoming more and more a reality thanks to video games, texting, phone sex, etc. Or: If one day no one will be able to have a real conversation)
(Noise... Hope wants to hear the the word again. I define the term. Finally slowly and almost painfully, the answer comes)
HOPE: There are supposed to be people who can live comfortably under these chosen conditions. If they have chosen this path, they have to walk it
EB/M: Future plans?
DAVID: We'll get some more time living in London, write some new songs, and then fly to Frisco
EB/M: Record company?
DAVID: We don't need anyone promoting our music. There are a few people we can trust. The rest are of no interest to us
THE SHOW
"If we're talking abstract visualizations, I see Mazzy Star in terms of letter rather than colours.
We're the colour of the letter Zee - probably a dark, rich colour but it's not a consistent colour, more a colour for every mood." (-David Roback)
[This is a quote the journalist took from a Jan. 5, 1991 Melody Maker interview, and put into his own 1994 article. -BB]
A Mazzy Star concert is an unpredictable gamble of internal and external influences, depending on your own inner attitude, or the mood of Hope and David (in this, the other band members play decoy, no role), as well as the external conditions (in this instance, up to about 55 degrees hall temperature, an almost ideal setting, few people, subdued Light). In the middle of this incubator celebrate Mazzy Star, undeterred. Mazzy Star saw the tense atmosphere. The songs drip, sluggish as beads of sweat from the stage.
Hope seeks almost no eye contact with the audience, lost in thought looking down her microphone, and looking over to David from time to time.
The rest of the band seems not to exist. While David is in a concentrated sitting position demonstrating clean, flowing guitar riffs, Hope is motionless, aside from her tambourine striking against her thigh, and begins an absent minded, hypnotic,
Patti Smith-like voice chant, towards the end of an almost ten-minute number (the title track).
Well over the half the set consists of songs from their two albums, plus some unreleased new pieces, all something more spatial and compact, less transfigured. Musical test balloons.
One more word about Hope: In contrast to Opal's appearance, they have become much more professional, and now have mood swings under better control
Yes, it almost seems as if she plays the role of the lost, traumatic singer, who now and then picks up the guitar, or plays blues tones on the harmonica. What has remained is that detachment, that almost arrogant coolness that Mazzy Star surround themselves with.
Why does one succumb to this inexplicable fascination that emanates from Mazzy Star? Focused nearly only on Hope, one admittedly charismatic singer? But isn't she just a means to a purpose, a catalyst for all songs, only by blind agreement realizable with David Roback?
And what about the rest, four musicians who, for my musical feeling, are just a loose musical supporting program? Interchangeable accessories that can be replaced at any time depending on the mood?
David and Hope often play unannounced acoustic sets before a handful of people in unknown places in L.A.
Or, are they just identifying with unforgotten idols like Nico, Jim Morrison, Tim Buckley, Nick Drake, silhouetted
like ghosts in the musical cosmos of Mazzy Star?
And that they reach that level, that magical aura, even if only for a fraction of a second? For a vanishingly
small moment become one with...?
So tonight that I might see ...
-Reinhard Schielke
..................................................................................
[ORIGINAL GERMAN TEXT]
ES/METRONOM Nr. 50, September/Oktober 1994
MAZZY STAR
Impressionen aus dem Zeitlupenland
"Somebody calls you, you answer quite
slowly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes." ("Lucy
In The Sky With Diamonds", The Beatles)
"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen." (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
M an hatte mich vorgewarnt:
Mazzy Star spielen
einfach nur wunderschöne
entschwebende Songs,
aber ein Interview, wenn überhaupt,
mit Gitarrist David Roback
und Sängerin Hope Sandoval ist
immer - egal wann, wo und wie es
stattfindet - überschattet von
schroffer Abneigung gegenüber
dem Journalismus schlechthin,
unsicherer Arroganz sowie einer
fast schon krankhaften permanenten
Schüchternheit. Gefragt,
wie er denn ein Interview mit den
beiden beschreiben würde, antwortete
einmal ein englischer
Kollege: "Es ist, als ob du Sand
trinkst. Es würgt dir nach einer
Weile den Hals, wie sie dich zeitlupenhaft
ignorieren."
An einem heißen Sommertag mache
ich mich auf zum Interviewtermin
in den noch heißeren
"Rose Club" zu Köln, wo in den
frühen Abendstunden einer von
insgesamt drei Gigs auf deutschem
Boden stattfinden soll.
Schon einmal, so etwa 1988/89,
gastierten Hope und David hier,
damals noch unter dem alten Namen
Opal, Davids früherer Band.
Nach dem Ausstieg von Sängerin
Kendra Smith übernahm die damals
blutjunge Hope Sandoval
kurzfristig den Gesangspart, ehe
sie und David Mazzy Star gründeten
und mit zwei Platten ("She
Hangs Brightly", 1990, und NSo
Tonight That I Might See, 1993)
die eher spröden Opal-Klänge in
eine Trance-Psychedelia-Experience
verwandelten, zu einem
Sound, so alptraumhaft unwirklich
im Raum schwebend und so
gar nicht ins musikalische Weltbild
anno 1994 passend.
Mazzy Star spielen schwere,
opiate Songs, welche sich langsam
zu einem Nebel aus psychedelischen
Kaleidoskopen verdichten,
hinter denen die unnahbare
Stimme von Sängerin Hope
in einer Aura aus Einsamkeit,
Hoffnungslosigkeit ung_. Melancholie
schwebt. Music for the
Twilight Zone - es geht das Gerücht,
daß David und Hopc tage,
ja wochenlang nicht ans Tageslicht
gehen, sich in ihrem kleinen
Studio einkapseln und erst bei
Anbruch der Dämmerung ins
fahle Neonlicht von Los Angeles
treten.
DAS INTERVIEW
Ein Interview mit Hope und David
braucht viel Geduld, innere
Ausgeglichenheit und wenig Fragen.
Ich werde in einen kleinen
miefigen Raum über dem Club
geführt. Der englische Manager
ist sehr nett und versucht, die angesprochenen
- nennen wir es
mal salopp - Eigenartigkeiten der
beiden einfach zu ignorieren.
Beide antworten kurz, und wenn
überhaupt, erst nach quälend langen
Minuten. Antworten auf Fragen
nach Platte, Studio, Liveshow
kommen kurz angebunden
und präzise; Fragen, welche sich
mit Stimmung, Atmosphäre, etwaigen
autobiographischen Einflüssen
beschäftigen, landen im
Off, verschwinden in der Unendlichkeit
zwischen Frage und
übernächster Frage.
Beide sitzen
hinter einer schier undurchdringlichen,
unsichtbaren Mauer des
Stillschweigens, wenn es um präzise
Dinge aus dem Leben von
Mazzy Star geht.
Folglich gibt es nur zwei Möglichkeiten:
Der unvorbereitete
Gelegenheitsjournalist gibt nach
einer Weile entnervt auf (und die
beiden hätten mal wieder ihr Ziel
erreicht), oder aber man läßt sich
konsequent auf ihr Frage- und
Antwort-Spielchen ein. Also
dann:
EB/M: Wenn ich beschreiben
sollte, was ich bei eurer Musik
fühle, denke ich an lange einsame
Spaziergänge im Mondlicht, an
kühle Sommernächte am Ufereines
Sees oder an die Musik von
Kaleidoscopc. Gibt es das überhaupt
überhaupt
bei euch - Songs, die euch
in einen emotionalen Zustand
versetzen, wenn ihr sie schreibt?
Die Ausdruck sind für ein bestimmtes
erlebtes Gefühl?
(Rauschen ... ) Hope: "Wie lautete
die Frage?"
(Replay ... ) David: "Ja.
Hope: "Ja.
EB/M: Ihr habt NFive String Serenade"
gecovert, im Original
von Arthur Lee. Kennt ihr noch
Love, und kennt ihr auch Arthurs
Meinung zu dieser, wie ich finde,
sehr einfühlsamen Version?
David: "Ich kenne ihn. Wir unterhielten
uns über diesen Song,
bevor wir ins Studio gingen und
das gesamte Album einspielten.
Love habe ich mal im 'Raji's' in
Los Angeles gesehen.
EB/M: Wenn ihr live spielt, fühlt
ihr euch eher zum Publikum hingezogen,
oder sucht ihr ganz bewußt
die Distanz? Bei eurem letzten
Konzert in diesem Club hatte
ich den Eindruck, die räumliche
Enge löst bei euch eher ein
Angstgefühl, eine Beklemmung
aus...
(Rauschen... Aus dem offenen
Fenster dringt schwül warme Luft
in den kleinen Raum und schiebt
das Geräusch vorbeifahrender
Autos zwischen Hopc und David
und mich. Ich sitze ihnen gegenüber
auf der Bettkante und ertappe
mich dabei, wie ich innerlich
auf die Antwort lauere. 'Denk'
daran, das hier ist live und das
etwas andere Interview', beruhigt
mich meine innere Stimme. Ganz
langsam, fast wie in Zeitlupe,
dreht sie ihren Kopf und antwortet.)
Hope: "Du meinst die Distanz
zum Publikum?•
EB/M: Ja. (Ra~schen ... ) Also
eine ganz besondere Stimmung,
wenn du auf der Bühne stehst und
quasi die angespannte Atmosphäre
in dir spürst...
Hope: "Ja, es bewegt sich in
mir."
EB/M: Ist es dir denn lieber, mit
David allein im Studio zu arbeiten?
Hope: "Ja, wir lieben Studiosessions.
Wir verbringen die meiste
Zeit zu Hause.
(Ein Zug rattert vorbei und zerschneidet
Hopes letztes Wort und
ein unsicheres Lächeln.)
EB/M: Hopc, du singst ein Stück
("Sometimes Always") auf dem
neuen Jesus And Tue Mary
Chain-Album. Wie entstand diese
Zusammenarbeit?
Hope: "Sie riefen mich an. Eigentlich
schon vor zwei Jahren.
Aus zeitlichen Gründen kam es
vorher nie zu einer Zusammenarbeit.
Dieses Mal, nach Beendigung
von 'So Tonight ... •, konnte
ich mir in aller Ruhe einen von
ihnen ausgewählten Song anhören,
auf dem ich singen sollte. Er
gefiel mir sofort, und ich tat ihnen
den Gefallen. •
(Ich lege eine kleine Pause ein,
um sie anschließend mit den
nächsten Fragen, vielmehr Begriffen
zu konfrontieren .)
EB/M: Reinkarnation?
(Rauschen .. . ) David: "Ich glaube,
zwischen Inkarnation und ReInkarnation
gibt es keinen Unterschied.
Das ist alles, was ich dazu
sagen kann.
EB/M: Cocooning? (sich einhüllen,
von der Außenwelt abkapseln;
eine immer mehr zur Realität
werdende Horrorvision dank
Videospielen, Bildschirmtext,
Telefonsex etc. Oder: Wenn eines
Tages niemand mehr in der
Lage sein wird, ein richtiges Gespräch
in natura zu führen ... )
(Rauschen... Hope möchte das
Wort nochmal hören. Ich präzisiere
den Begriff. Schließlich
kommt langsam und fast
schmerzhaft die Antwort.)
Hope: "Es soll Leute geben, die
unter diesen gewählten Bedin-
gungen leben können. Wenn sie
diesen Weg einmal gewählt haben,
müssen sie ihn auch gehen.
EB/M: Zukunftspläne?
David: "Wir werden noch einige
Zeit in London wohnen, ein paar
neue Songs schreiben und dann
nach Frisco fliegen.
DIE SHOW
"Wenn wir über abstrakte Vergegenwärtigung
von dem sprechen,
was Mazzy Star wirklich darstellen,
so sehe ich die Band im Kontext
von Buchstaben und der dazugeordneten
Farbe. Wir sind die
Farbe des Buchstabens Z - sicherlich
eine dunkle, kostbare
Farbe. Aber es ist keine gleichmäßig
bleibende Farbe, eher eine
Farbe für die komplette Stim mungsskala.
(-David Roback)
Ein Konzert von Mazzy Star ist
ein unberechenbares Vabanquespiel
innerer und äußerer Einflüsse,
abhängig von der eigenen inneren
Einstellug bzw. Stimmung
von Hope und David (in diesem
Falle spielen die anderen Bandmitglieder
keine Rolle) sowie den
äußeren Bedingungen (in diesem
Falle bis auf ca. 55 Grad Saaltempcratur
ein geradezu idealer Rahmen,
wenig Leute, gedämpftes
Licht). Inmitten dieses Brutkastens
zelebrieren Mazzy Star unbeeindruckt
Mazzy Star, zersägen
zeitlupenhaft die angespannte
Atmosphäre, die Songs tropfen
träge wie Schweißperlen von der
Bühne.
Hope sucht so gut wie keinen
Blickkontakt zum Publikum, umklammert
gedankenverloren mit
dem Blick nach unten ihr Mikro,
schaut ab und an hinüber zu David,
der Rest der Band scheint
nicht zu existieren. Während David
in konzentriert sitzender Haltung
saubere, dahinfließende Gitarrenriffs
vorführt, schlägt Hope
regungslos ihr Tambourine an
den Oberschenkel und beginnt einen
geistesabwesenden, hypnotischen,
an Patti Smith erinnernden
Sprechgesang, von dem sie erst
gegen Ende einer fast zehnminütigen
Nummer (dem Titelstück)
zurückkehrt. Weit über die Hälfte
des Sets besteht natürlich aus
Songs von ihren beiden Alben
plus einigen unveröffentlichten
neuen Stücken, allesamt etwas
räumlicher und kompakter, weniger
verklärt. Musikalische Testballons.
Noch ein Wort zu Hope: Im Gegensatz
zum Auftritt von Opal ist
sie wesentlich professioneller geworden,
hat jetzt ihre
Stimmungsschwanlrungen besser
im Griff, ja, es hat fast den Anschein,
sie spiele geradezu die
Rolle der weltverlorenen, traumatischen
Sängerin, welche ab
und an auch mal zur Gitarre greift
oder Bluestöne auf der Mundharmonika
anschlägt. Geblieben ist
jene Distanziertheit, jene fast arrogante
Coolness, mit der sich
Mazzy Star umgeben.
Warum erliegt man dieser unerklärlichen
Faszination, die von
Mazzy Star ausgeht? Etwa fokus siert
nur auf Hope, einer zugegeben
charismatischen Sängerin?
Aber ist sie nicht nur Mittel zum
Zweck, Katalysator für sämtliche
Songs, nur im blinden Einverneh men
mit David Roback realisierbar?
Und was ist mit dem Rest,
vier Musikern, welche für mein
Gefühl lediglich ein lockeres mu sikalisches
Rahmenprogramm
bilden? Austauschbares Beiwerk,
je nach Stimmung jederzeit ersetzbar?
David und Hope spielen
oft an unbekannten Orten in L.A.
unangekündigte Akustiksets vor
einer Handvoll Leuten... Oder
sind es einfach nur Rückschlüsse
auf unvergessene Idole wie Nico,
Jim Morrison, Tim Buckley,
Nick Drake, welche silhouettenhaft
und wie Geister im Musikkosmos
von Mazzy Star erscheinen?
Und daß sie jene Ebene,
jene magische Aura, wenn auch
nur für einen Bruchteil von Sekunden,
erreichen? Für einen verschwindend
kleinen Augenblick
lang eins geworden sind mit ... ?
So tonight that I might see .. .
-Reinhard Schielke
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-1994, OCT. 6, ROLLING STONE, INTERVIEW WITH HOPE + JAMC RE. JAMC SINGLE, "SOMETIMES, ALWAYS"
[Text of this article was found at defunct, but now archived fan site "Everything Mazzy Star,"
here: http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/pal ... P-So2N.htm ]
Single of the Moment
The Jesus and Mazzy Chain
Rolling Stone - October 6, 1994
By Matt Hendrickson
If it had been up to William and Jim Reid, the brothers who front the Jesus and Mary Chain,
they wouldn't have chosen "Sometimes Always" to be the first single off their new album,
Stoned and Dethroned.
"It was a surprise to us that people thought it should be a single, because the demo was
so bleak," says William. "Even after we recorded it, it still didn't seem like a single."
"I've given up guessing what could be a single or what couldn't be," says Jim with a sigh.
"Whatever song we think will be a big hit, it never is. What we do now is just make the
record and listen to other people's opinions."
"Sometimes Always" features the hypnotic voice of Mazzy Star lead singer Hope Sandoval.
She's rumored to be the girlfriend of William Reid, to which he curtly replies,
"We're just good friends." The song is a gripping tug of war between Sandoval
(the jilted girlfriend) and Jim Reid (the repentant boyfriend).
The Reid brothers had been waiting for more than three years to record with Sandoval.
"We always really liked her voice," William says. "But we didn't have the song that
could work until 'Sometimes Always.'"
"They sent me the song, and I thought it was really good," Sandoval says.
"[Mazzy Star] were in London, touring, and I went to their studio and met them for the
first time. The recording took two days, and it was really difficult. They produce their
own records, so they were really picky, which is totally understandable. The fun part
was having wine and talking and laughing."
Originally when we conceived the record, we were going to have many more guests on it,"
says Jim. "But for various reasons, it didn't work out, so we just asked people
we really liked." Former Pogue Shane MacGowan also appears, handling the vocals on
the harrowing lament "God Help Me."
Stoned and Dethroned is the Jesus and Mary Chain's sixth release (counting 1988's
B-sides compilation, Barbed Wire Kisses). It was originally planned as an all-acoustic
album, but the band scrapped the idea after a few months of recording. "Everyone
thinks the band is all guitar and feedback," Jim says. "It's quite easy to plug a
guitar into a fuzz pedal and make some interesting sounds. We were trying really hard
not to use electric guitars, and it got to the point where we said, 'This is silly.
Let's just make a record.'"
The band is hitting the road with Mazzy Star this October and is looking forward to a
tour more suited to its tastes than its difficult stint on 1992's Lollapalooza tour.
"Lollapalooza was a big, big mistake," William says with no hesitation . "Aside from
the fact that we hated playing in the daylight, it was supposed to be a meeting place
for people who were different. But we felt different from all the people who were
supposed to be different. It was like everyone was trying to be a professional freak
or weirdo."
"We are freaks and weirdos," Jim stated matter-of-factly. "But we don't make such a
big deal about it."
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**************************************************************************************************************************
-1994, OCT.20, ROLLING STONE, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
[Text of this article was found at defunct but now archived fan site "Everything Mazzy Star,"
here: http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/pal ... P-So2N.htm . It's also found at archived
fan site, Mazzy Star Boulevard, here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110623181 ... lence.html .
mazzystar.free.fr Forum member MikeRMD noticed a clipping of this article for sale on ebay which is how we now know the photo below was included in the original article. I've also embedded a version of the same photo in the "Photos" thread. The version here is less cropped than the other but is slightly poorer resolution/quality]
Rolling Stone - October 20, 1994
Incense and Insolence
Mazzy Star Carry The Torch For ‘60s Psychedelia
And The Importance Of Being Difficult
By Alec Foege
"It was totally unpleasant for me," says Hope Sandoval, Mazzy star’s laconic lead singer.
The dire seriousness with which she makes this confession about her band’s recent appearance
on Late Night with Conan O’Brien is at once touching and unintentionally comical.
"If you’re nervous in front of 500 people—"
Sandoval chooses her every word with utmost care, as if she were baring her soul, and yet
negates each response with a scowl and a sidelong gaze, her dark hair wisping into her eyes.
This time even the cool, beret-wearing David Roback, Sandoval’s songwriting partner and the
guitarist in the group, appears ruffled and tries to catch his band mate’s eye. "They were
nice to us," he says, filling the void with an easy smile. "It wasn’t unpleasant in that way."
After another elliptical lull, Sandoval rejoins the conversation. "They were really nice
to us," she says. "I just get nervous and tight. . . . And it’s so bright. . . . .We’re not
used to all the bright light."
One hour and two bottles of red wine into a friendly but halting conversation that at moments
bears a disconcerting resemblance to the more abstruse exchanges in Waiting for Godot,
Sandoval and Roback have made a few salient points: (1): Regardless of the success that has
recently befallen the group, Mazzy Star do not relish fan idolatry; (2) Mazzy Star prefer to
let the music on So Tonight That I Might See, their second album, speak for itself;
(3) Mazzy Star do not enjoy doing interviews; and (4) performing live, particularly performing
live on television, has a lot in common with a visit to the dentist’s office.
"For me recording is better," says Sandoval. "Live, I just get really nervous. Once you’re onstage,
you’re expected to perform. I don’t do that. I always feel awkward about just standing there and
not speaking to the audience. It’s difficult for me."
Despite a public reticence that verges on the bizarre, Mazzy Star have eked out a bona fide hit
with "Fade Into You" nearly a year after So Tonight That I Might See was first released. Exposure
on MTV’s Buzz Bin and VH-1, as well as Sandoval’s cameo on the Jesus and Mary Chain single
"Sometimes Always," recently eased Mazzy Star’s lush, majestic music into the limelight. They
were even willing to brave an October appearance in front of an arena-size crowd at Neil Young’s
annual Bridge School benefit in San Francisco.
"Things are basically the same," Sandoval says of Mazzy Star’s newfound fame. "We’re just sticking
to our ways. Writing the way we’ve always done it. There’s really no need to change."
Rain Parade, an early Roback band, first hit the scene in 1982 as part of a loose aggregate of
psychedelic ‘60s-influenced guitar bands in Los Angeles – including the Dream Syndicate, the
Bangles, Green on Red and the Three O’Clock –that became known after the fact as the Paisley
Underground. The moniker acknowledged the scene’s two main influences – the Velvet Underground
and Woodstock-era acid rock. Dark, moody and drenched in guitar feedback, Rain Parade’s music was
not merely out of sync with the early-’80s trend toward synthesizer-based New Wave. "They were
the trippiest, most hypnotic of all the paisley bands," recalls Steve Wynn, leader of the now-defunct
Dream Syndicate. "All the other bands in the scene felt some obligation to rock now and then. But the
early Rain Parade played at three speeds: slow, slower and slowest."
Roback left Rain Parade following their first album and formed a quartet called Clay Alison with
Kendra Smith, the original; bassist from the Dream Syndicate. That group, which included Mazzy Star
drummer Keith Mitchell, mutated into a new band, Opal, whose sound was defined by Roback’s spare,
distorted guitar work and Smith’s lyrical voice.
"When I was playing in Opal, we were friends, Hope and I," Roback recalls. "But I don’t think we were
really part of the music scene in the way that people may have perceived it at that point. Actually,
we were both sort of alienated – that’s what we had in common."
The waifish Sandoval had admired Kendra Smith as a teen-age Dream Syndicate fan growing up in
Los Angeles. Not surprisingly, Going Home, a folk duo she formed in 1986 with her friend Sylvia Gomez,
soon caught Roback’s attention; he even offered to produce their first album. Although the resulting
recording was never released (4AD will finally issue the disc next spring), Roback invited Sandoval
to join Opal when Smith left the band midtour. While the new band’s musical precepts remained the
same, Sandoval’s kittenish vocals inspired them to collaborate under a new name – Mazzy Star.
Mazzy Star’s debut, She Hangs Brightly (1990), garnered critical acclaim and cultish attention by
dosing drug-frazzled indie rock with acoustic guitars and a pedal steel. But within a year of the
album’s release, the band’s label, British indie Rough Trade, closed down its stateside operation,
leaving the group without an American label. Capitol snapped up the group and in 1992 re-released
She Hangs Brightly. The band has mined the same sluggishly resplendent vein ever since.
In concert, Sandoval’s wan countenance and commanding alto are undeniably the center of attention;
Roback lurks in the shadows with a virtually anonymous backing band. Although Sandoval and Roback
share songwriting duties, the word chemistry overstates their relationship. For one, Sandoval lives
in Los Angeles; Roback is based in Berkeley, Calif. She’s moody, and he’s withdrawn. Fortunately
their edgy songs often get along fine without them. "For ‘Into Dust,’ David’s guitar part was just
so moving," Sandoval says. "We didn’t even stop and write. He just played the guitar part, I sang,
we recorded it, and that was it. What you hear on the record is basically the first time we did it."
These days, Mazzy Star sell out every show. But you wouldn’t know it from the crowd reaction at the
band’s packed club dates; rock acolytes don’t come much quieter. "They’re understanding that that’s
what it takes to get us to stay out there longer than 30 minutes," says Sandoval. "It’s just like
anything else: If you were talking to a group of people, and everybody was there to listen to you,
it would be rude if five people were having a drink and a loud laugh. Obviously we’re not the
Red Hot Chili Peppers." The particularly subdued "Into Dust" is known within the band as the
"Shush Song," a reference to the devoted fans who shush the uninitiated whenever it is performed.
William Reid of the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Scottish band that will begin a five-week U.S.
tour with Mazzy Star on Oct.10, feels that it’s unfair to expect more than music from musicians.
"Some bands – and Mazzy Star and the Jesus and Mary Chain are among them – feel uncomfortable
doing all the other stuff: the business and the bull sessions and doing the deals," he says.
Reid also defends his California friends; notorious reputation for stalling interviews, admitting,
"It’s not the perfect arena to be in if you happen to be a shy person."
Whether Sandoval and Roback’s aloofness is a gambit or a genuine case of the introverted blues
(it’s probably a bit of both), there’s no doubt it’s contiguous to the band’s ethereal, swirling
music. All that is difficult and apprehensive about the pair in person becomes that which is
most splendid in their music. On "Mary of Silence," Sandoval’s echoey voice blends with a
repetitive, funeral organ part as Roback’s combustive guitar plashes in the distance.
"So Tonight That I Might See," the album’s title track, has all the primal drama of the Doors’
"The End" without its mawkishly serious stance. If music is "cinema of the mind," as Roback
likes to say, then Mazzy Star are a beautiful art-house flick dubbed in English, its reels
shown out of order.
"I know Dave pretty well, and I don’t think it’s an act in any way," says Steve Wynn.
"Sometimes when people demand to do things the way they want to do it, it’s taken as
arrogance or snobbishness. It’s really just a matter of wanting to do something the way you hear
it in your head ." To ensure absolute control, Roback produces al*l of Mazzy Star’s recordings.
While little else on the charts indicates a groundswell of dirge-like, introspective music,
enduring interest in the dour, faceless Pink Floyd suggests that supermarket-aisle recognition
is no longer a prerequisite for rock super-stardom. "There’s something nice about being
unknown and anonymous," says Roback. "People who are unpopular or aren’t successful are
making great music all the time. But it’s also interesting to be able to do our concerts
and to realize some of our ideas. So I don’t see success as a negative thing."
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1994, OCT. 28, MAZZY STAR TV INTERVIEW, MUSIQUE PLUS TV CHANNEL, MONTREAL (TRANSCRIPTION)
A transcript I made from a rare Mazzy Star TV interview.
[Later Update Dec., 2020: Previously, videos available I knew of of this TV appearance were partial only, and were missing a section of interview. But recently, a complete recording of this TV appearance turned up from youtuber kns4evers, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TsoLEQFmrU .
Not only does it have the complete interview, it has live performances of two songs, "Bells Ring" and "Ride It On." Previously, I only knew of "Ride It On" from this set. Below, I've added text transcribed from the interview section of the video that had been missing, It turns out it was the first part that was missing]
This Musique Plus (French Canadian music video channel) interview
from Montreal doesn't show a date at the youtube upload but must date from 1994 as the JAMC-Hope duet
"Sometimes Always" single mentioned in it was already out (released July '94),
& the gig can't be from 1995 as there's no record I know of of any Mazzy Star gigs
anywhere in 1995. The interview content shows "So Tonight That I Might See" was the
current release at the time, & that the band had only just started doing some writing & demos for what would become the third album, Among My Swan (1996).The interview notes Mazzy Star was in town to open
for JAMC in Montreal that night & that Hope was to join JAMC
onstage to sing on "Sometimes, Always." A JAMC gigs list here
http://aprilskies.amniisia.com/gigs/gig ... _sort=1994
shows JAMC toured North America Oct., Nov., Dec. 1994. I see just one Montreal
date listed, Oct. 28, 1994 at the venue Metropolis. So, that's the likely date of this TV interview.
The "new" Rolling Stones song Hope mentions liking here may be
"You Got Me Rocking", released as a single in Sept., 1994, from the Voodoo Lounge album.
Although the interviewer asks Mazzy Star questions in English,
Musique Plus is a French language channel, so the interviewer speaks to his audience
in French when introducing the band, & in translating their answers into French on the spot, etc.
.....................................
TRANSCRIPT [Updated Dec. 2020 with previously missing first segment of the interview]:
[The Interviewer Introduces the band in French, and Mazzy Star as a trio [Hope, David, plus Will Glenn] plays "Bells Ring" live in the TV studio, then the interview begins]
INTERVIEWER: Welcome to Musique Plus. Is it tonight on the stage, is it just the three of you, or
you ave other musicians?
HOPE: We have other musicians?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah, who?
HOPE: Name them?
INTERVIEWER: Or-, Yeah
HOPE: Um, we have Jill Emery, Suki Ewers, and Keith Mitchell. They're the people
INTERVIEWER: Uh, huh.
On the album, David, I think you've played almost everything, or, ah?
DAVID: Well, the album has a lot of acoustic songs, but on the electric ones we had to bting in a whole band, you know. So it's kind of, a little bit of both, actually.
INTERVIEWER: Uh, huh. It's going to be the same on stage tonight?
DAVID: Yeah, yeah
INTERVIEWER: A good mix of the first and the second album?
DAVID: There'll be some songs from each album
INTERVIEWER: Yeah? Okay
[The interviewer now speaks to the TV audience in French, translating and summarizing what David and Hope said]
INTERVIEWER: The song you're going to play is from your first album. Apparently, people are discovering your first album right now.
HOPE: Um, yeah, apparently so.
INTERVIEWER: Because of "So Tonight That I Might See"? Because it took a while, like ten months before it became gold in the U.S.
HOPE: Yeah
INTERVIEWER: Do you ave an explanation why it took so long?
HOPE: No. No, I have no idea
INTERVIEWER: One of mysteries of life, probably
HOPE: Yeah
[The interviewer now speaks to the TV audience in French]
INTERVIEWER: Ride it On, Mazzy Star
[Mazzy Star as a trio plays "Ride It On" live in the TV studio]
[The interviewer speaks to the TV audience in French]
Interviewer: "Were you born, both, in California?"
Hope: "Yeah, I was born there"
David: (nods head)
Interviewer: "Do you still live there?"
Hope: "Yeah"
Interviewer: "You don't live together?"
David: "Well, we, no, we live in different cities, actually. We haven't been
there much though because we've been, um, traveling. We've been living in London
for the last few months"
Interviewer: "Mm, hm. 'Cause I've, the first time I've, I've heard about your
duo it was from British magazines more than the United States, Were you really
discovered in England, or?"
Hope: "Well, we were on a British label, so we were more popular"
Interviewer: "That's why"
David: "Rough Trade Records"
Hope: "Rough Trade Records"
Interviewer: "Rough Trade. Uh, huh"
[Interviewer now speaks to his audience in French to summarize/translate what's
been said in the interview, so far]
Interviewer: "Also, you, I don't know, you've been labeled, I've read, 'Gothic Country,'
'psychedelic Patsy Cline singing Velvet Underground songs.' What do you think of those labels, uh?"
Hope: "Um"
Interviewer: " 'Cause your music is very smooth"
Hope: "Well, people are always trying to label things, and so we sort of don't pay attention to it
much, you know"
Interviewer: "And what do you say to people who find your music too dark, uh?
Does your music seem like dark to you, or just the way you sing it?"
Hope: "Um, sometimes it seems dark but, I mean, that's part of life, you know,
part of reality, you know, sometimes life is dark, so-"
[Interviewer now speaks to his audience in French]
Interviewer: "So, Hope, you've mentioned that your main inf-, often that
your main influence was early Rolling Stones songs?"
Hope: "Um, yeah, like, we listen to, still do listen to early Rolling Stones music"
Interviewer: "But what particular songs in mind, or?"
Hope: "Um, well, um, off 'The Rolling Stones Now' record, um, the song 'Going Home' which is the big inspiration on, not only me, but David, and everybody in the band"
Interviewer: "Do you still listen to the Rolling Stones?"
Hope: "Yeah"
Interviewer: "I mean the new, the new albums?"
Hope: "Yeah. I like that one new song. I don't know the name of it but I like it"
[Interviewer now speaks to his audience in French]
Interviewer: "Why are there two versions of the video clip for 'Fade Into You'?
MTV, I guess, was not happy, uh?"
David: "Well, we were experimenting with different things. We did a black and white
version, and we did a, we shot a colour one in the desert. Um, we didn't, we did it
for ourselves, really, with different filmmakers that we liked, and just, you know..."
Hope: "Yeah"
David: "...Just really our own thing"
Hope: "Experimental"
David: "Yeah"
Interviewer: "You shot them both at the same time, or?"
David: "No"
Hope: "No, a couple of weeks apart"
David: "Two months, yeah. They're both interesting in their own right, so-"
[Interviewer now speaks to his audience in French]
Interviewer: "Apparently, you've already begun working on a new album, writing
new songs, uh?"
Hope: "Yeah, well, we've done some demos. We started doing demos, ah, um, a few songs
for the new record"
Interviewer: "Do you, do you always write while you're on the road? Do you
record your ideas"
Hope: "Um, yes, we write when we're on the road"
[Interviewer now speaks to his audience in French]
Interviewer: "Also, I've read that you'd like to release some very old material you recorded like ten years ago. Who was in Going Home? David, you produced Going Home?"
David: "I was the producer, and that was actually when I first started working with Hope, and Hope was singing with her, with her friend on an acoustic guitar. We recorded quite a few really, um, very interesting songs, and we hope to, um, release them soon"
Hope: "Yes"
Interviewer: "When can we expect this?"
Hope: "Um, I'm not really sure"
David: "Maybe this winter, maybe this winter, probably"
Hope: "Yeah, maybe"
Interviewer: "A full album?"
David: "Yes"
Interviewer: "Under what name"
David: "Oh, it will be under Going Home"
Hope: "Under Going Home"
Interviewer: "Yeah? Okay"
[Interviewer now speaks to his audience in French]
Interviewer: "Also, Hope, tell me about your collaboration with The Jesus and
Mary Chain, 'Sometimes, Always' "
Hope: "Um, well, they asked me about, uh, three or four years ago to sing on their
semi-acoustic record, and, um, last year about this time I met with them in their
studio in London, and-"
Interviewer: "The Drugstore?"
Hope: "Right. And we had a few drinks and we recorded it (laughs). And, so, that's it"
Interviewer: "Yeah, and you shot the video with them too?"
Hope: "Yeah. And they asked me to do the video, so-"
Interviewer: "[So, you've liked your end (-?)].And you're gonna sing it tonight onstage with them?"
Hope: "Yeah"
[Interviewer now speaks to his audience in French]
Interviewer: "You're going to release a new video, uh, the song 'She's My Baby,' but it seems
there's more interest on the B-side, 'Halah,' and there's a video for that too which
you shot how many years ago?"
Hope: "Uh, about five years ago. Four or five years ago"
David: "Two or three years ago"
Interviewer: "Three years ago"
David: "...But it's been a long time, actually"
Interviewer: "Uh, huh. Thanks a lot for stepping in to Musique Plus. Have fun onstage tonight"
[Interviewer now speaks to his audience in French]
*************************************************************************************************************************
.........................................................................................................................
*************************************************************************************************************************
-1994, NOV., GUITAR PLAYER, DAVID ROBACK INTERVIEW
[Text of this article was found at defunct but but now archived fan site "Everything Mazzy Star,"
here: http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/pal ... P-So2N.htm ]
Guitar Player, Nov 1994
So Tonight That I Might See
By Chuck Crisafulli
Mazzy Star's music may be dreamy, but it doesn't slumber. The L.A. group's work--often
compared to the Velvet Underground and the early Doors--has the feel of being half
awake, with Hope Sandoval's serene vocals and David Roback's gritty bottleneck lines
swirling in a meditative groove state between dream/logic and full consciousness.
"We always go by feel," says Roback, formerly with early-'80s psychedelic-revivalists
Rain Parade and the elegant space combo Opal. "There's an improvisational element
to what we do. We don't play dots on a page. My approach to the guitar is in response
to the song's feeling. Every song has a certain atmosphere, and our performances
have to be part of that."
There are dark atmospherics aplenty on the band's latest Capitol record, So Tonight
That I Might See. From the melancholy drift of "Fade Into You" to the fractured
blues of "Wasted," Roback evokes moods by stripping his guitar work down to raw,
unsettling essentials. "I never thought that a guitar part had to be complex to
be satisfying," he remarks, "not that complex guitar parts can't be satisfying at
times." He also rejects any absolute truths about guitar playing. "Anybody can do
whatever they want, if it works," he stresses. "That's the bottom line. You're all
right as long as you're playing to the song."
Roback does most of his writing and playing with a Martin 000-28, getting out his
electric jones on a Telecaster. "The Telecaster can create a lot of sounds besides
the one it's most famous for," he says. "It's really a very versatile guitar." He
depends on Fender amps, using an old Deluxe Reverb and a Vibroverb . "I like the warm,
fat sound of tube amps, but size doesn't really matter," he opines. "Guitars can
sound really good through small amps."
Mazzy Star has made quite a splash in alternative circles, but if their moody music
doesn't top the pop charts, that's fine by Roback. "We've found our own way by doing
what we wanted," he shrugs. "We're not interested in being the world's most popular
band. We want to do what we like, and I really don't know how that might fit into
the context of the contemporary music scene. I've never really paid much attention to that."
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**************************************************************************************************************************
-1994, DEC., DETAILS MAG, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
[Text of this article was found at defunct but now archived fan site "Everything Mazzy Star,"
here: http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/pal ... P-So2N.htm
mazzystar.free.fr Forum member MikeRMD noticed a clipping of this article for sale on ebay which is how we now know the photo below was included in the original article. ]
Details: December 1994
Lucky Star
by Caren Myers
"Are you in Mazzy Star?"
The chubby girl with purple hair is poised, piece of paper in hand. Hope Sandoval, the singer
for Mazzy Star, nods faintly. Pleased, the girl turns eagerly to David Roback, Mazzy Star's
guitarist. "And are you in the Jesus and Mary Chain?" There's an embarrassed silence.
Ordinarily, the fact that Hope has been dating the Mary Chain's William Reid would be of
interest only to those select fans for whom indie music is as glamorous as the cast of
Melrose Place. Unfortunately, one of them is here now, looking only slightly crestfallen.
"Will you sign this anyway?" she asks. Hope signs dutifully. That's the first time I've
ever been asked for an autograph," she murmurs. "It's like she's controlling you - for
ten seconds, she's got you doing what she wants you to do." Mazzy Star don't want to do
what people want them to do. It's not that they're so very contrary; they just can't cope.
This summer, their languid, country-inflected single "Fade Into You" wafted onto MTV,
frail and strangely touching. Next to the usual vein-bulging tales of trauma, David's
lonesome slide guitar and Hope's soft, nearly affectless voice sounded pleasingly alien.
Now their second album, So Tonight That I Might See, has gone gold. David and Hope find
this alarming. "We never thought people would like our music," says David. At all? "Well,
we thought maybe a few people would like it." And he means a few. Like five. Preferably
very quiet people who lived very far away. And who, if they came to see Mazzy Star play
live, wouldn't do anything embarrassing like stare at them.
When Mazzy Star released their first album, 1990's She Hangs Brightly, its shivery collage
of slow, sparse blues and sepulchral lyrics retraced a neo-Velvet Underground vein that had
been mined before - by Opal (David's previous band), by the Cowboy Junkies, by the entire
roster of 4AD. But Mazzy Star's ghostly atmospherics and Hope's sullen-child persona made
them moodier pinups than the rest. They found an audience of fans who shrank from alternative
music's new macho flourishes.
So Tonight That I Might See is more of the same, only more so: sadder, more distant. "I could
feel myself growing colder," whispers Hope on "Into Dust". "I could feel my eyes turning into dust."
The record has taken off, maybe because its self-effacing creators don't stamp their own stories
all over its lovely, numbing songs. In an age obsessed with messy revelations of inner pain,
Mazzy Star's eerie, faintly psychedelic lullabies offer a soothing retreat for those weary of
catharsis. Most bands thrive on attention. And if they have to shut themselves away in a studio
for a few weeks a year - well, that's the price of fame. For David and Hope - who like to spend
their breaks from Mazzy Star making even more music together - releasing records, at the risk of
attracting attention, is the price for months undisturbed in the rehearsal room. Ever since Brian
Wilson took to his bed in 1973 and didn't leave until 1975, rock recluses have tended to be either
Syd Barrett-style drug casualties or anonymous agitpropists like the Residents. J Mascis, Dinosaur
Jr's leader, broke the mold: He just didn't like to talk. After J, it was possible to be
spectacularly uncommunicative without even being eccentric. Mazzy Star follow in his footsteps.
Hope passes every question on to David, and David unfurls a full arsenal of minutes-long silences
and vague generalities. Occasionally, for variety, he'll speed things up.
ME: Did you ever...
DAVID: No.
Despite their misgivings, Mazzy Star agree to meet me in a Mexican restaurant in Berkeley, David's
neighborhood. They lope in just late enough to be trendy, in matching dark glasses. Hope's family
is Mexican-American, but she's too self-conscious about her Spanish ("It's real slangy") to speak to the waiter in anything but English. Hope has always been shy. When she was in the fourth grade, her timidity was so severe that she was put into a special education program. Being with the rowdiest kids in the system didn't help, and she eventually refused to go to school at all. The city had to send a home tutor. David and Hope order Bohemia beers, glance at each other, smile fleetingly. Hope props her chin on her hand and gazes at the other diners. There's a pause. Then David touches her arm affectionately. "What are you thinking about?" he asks. Hope looks
at him. "I'll tell you," she says finally, "but I still think it's an invasion of my privacy." She
takes a deep breath. "I was just thinking that a lot of people drink beer with their food."
Hope was born twenty-eight years ago in East L.A., the daughter of a butcher. Her parents both had kids
from previous marriages, so Hope has five half-sisters, three half-brothers, and one full brother.
He's now a punk florist who makes barbed-wire bouquets. Hope met David when she was fourteen, trekking
off to see bands with her friend Sylvia Gomez. David grew up in Hollywood with "a few" siblings. His
parents "weren't musicians". In the early '80s, he formed the trippy Rain Parade with his brother Steven.
Along with the Dream Syndicate, the Three O'Clock, and even briefly the Bangles, they contributed to
an L.A. '60s revival that was dubbed the Paisley Underground. Hope and Sylvia hung around the clubs,
meeting the musicians and getting smuggled in under bouncer's noses. One time they got in by passing
themselves off as go-go dancers for Green on Red. But sometimes they'd get busted for being underage.
Hope still remembers how horrible it felt to stand in the parking lot while the band played inside.
Sylvia went to college, and Hope and David started dating. When Opal split, Mazzy Star became Hope and
David's project. And somewhere along the line, their romance ended. Which makes me wonder if they feel
nostalgic, and whether the dark intimacy of So Tonight That I Might See is about that. I wonder if
David is still in love with Hope. I wonder what it's like spending their time together when Hope's
got William and David's got his memories. I can guess they're not dying to talk about it. So I ask
the simplest question I can think of.
How long did you actually go out?
Hope laughs nervously, glancing at David. David is silent, frowning like he's trying to remember
something. Time passes. Finally he thinks of an answer. "A lot of the things we do are very interesting,
and I think we're very fortunate to be able to do them," he says. Then he leaves for the bathroom.
Once he's gone, a nervous-looking guy with long hair approaches the table. He's clutching the CD of
So Tonight That I Might See.
LONG-HAIRED GUY: Excuse me, but may I swoop down on you with a humble request?
HOPE: Um . . . it depends on what the request is.
LONG-HAIRED GUY: Just some kind words for a frustrated sculptor.
Hope writes him a few kind words ("Hope Sandoval"), shaking her head. "I don't know what's happening here,"
she says. The sculptor thanks her and bows stiffly.
"Your music has touched me," he says.
"That was nice," Hope says wistfully. "Though sometimes I get really nervous and I don't know how to
handle it." She looks genuinely spooked, like she's recalling scenes of Beatlemania-type hysteria.
Don't you want to communicate with these people? "Yeah," says David, who has just returned, "but
sometimes you write a song for one person, and then everybody else hears it later."
And is that person usually Hope?
David shifts warily in his seat. "I think," he says slowly, "there's a sense of each other's presence
often in our work, whether it's directly about one another or not . There's a sense . . .
of . . . a presence."
We're all quiet again. Hope and David stare into space, in different directions. There's a tangible
feeling of loss - the things that go unsaid still hang between them. And now I think I can see what
touched the sculptor.
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-1994, DEC., MUSICIAN mag, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW with Hope and David, by Dave Domartino
[Thanks go to Facebook fan group members Jim Johnston and David Morgan for posting photos and scans
of the mag pages from this interview at FB. I made this text transcript from those photos. David's band photos are clearest so I've reproduced those here. There are 5 band photos in the article. Emma's post below this one is of the photos David posted to FB. I include my own slightly different edits of some of the same photos. That's why there are duplicates]
[The table of contents page at the front of the mag says]:
MAZZY STAR: Pop's avatars of atmosphere want to make music, not conversation. But they're not shy about telling you why
Scant feet from San Francisco's landmark City Lights bookstore sits Vesuvio, a combination bar and coffee-house. From it, immediately prior to my entering, a familiar figure emerges. He is Paul Kantner, once of the local sensations Jefferson Airplane, now of the better known group Just a Guy Leaving a Bar. Who cares? After all, once inside I will await the entrance of Mazzy Star, a popular " acombo led by David Roback, whose onetime group Rain Parade helped usher in the so-called "Paisley Underground" of early '80s L.A. rock. Translation: They played psychedelic music.nYou know, like "She Has Funny Cars." No, wait. Wrong band.
Inside Vesuvio, I wait frustrated for over an h
our, contemplating the "difficult interview" ahead. For I have been told many that Mazzy Star are precisely that. By the person who wrote the bio for their first album ("Absolutely the worst interview I ever did.") By a writer who'd once spoken to them ("absolutely hellish") and would call me the next day to see how "it" went. Even by their publicist, who, in theory, actually gets paid to say so.
But I have done my share of difficult interviews. And now I have waited in a San Francisco bar and, in longhand, written over 75 questions that even in the worst case scenario - i.e. "yes," "no" and the intriguing "I dunno" - should yield one hell of an informative interview. And I have sat at a table, upstairs at Vesuvio, with a behatted David Roback, and a very beautiful Hope Sandoval, and had conversation.
Like, what did David Roback think of the albums Rain Parade made after his departure?
"I never thought about it."
Did Roback find it odd that a former Rain Parade partner would later make an album with Crazy Horse?
"I never heard that."
Pregnant pause.
Background music, courtesy of the Vesuvio public address system: James Brown, "I Feel Good."
But no, this is not another interview horror story, and Mazzy Star are as cooperative as they can possibly be, given the peculiar circumstances of our quiet conversation - in a crowded, noisy bar - and the even stranger turn of events in this, their fourth year together. For this is the year Mazzy Star are happening, biz-wise. They're happening because MTV has taken to them because "Fade Into You," the opening track on "So Tonight That I Might See," is a hit a year after the same album was released, and mostly, it seems, because nearly anything can be a hit these days if it sounds like something new.
"I wouldn't have expected it," says Roback of Mazzy Star's sudden pop-chart emergence.
"I don't really see how we fit into the contemporary music scene." Still, when he and Sandoval left the States earlier this year for London - where they lived, recorded, played and hung out for five months - their second album seemed to have come and gone. Now it's back. "I think it's kind of funny," says he.
Roback and Sandoval drink red wine and allow nearly every one of their teeth to be slowly and methodically yanked from their respective jaw bones - or, rather, answer nearly every one of my 75 questions
A hellish interview? No, not really. But sitting at Vesuvio, where Mazzy Star "fits in" is the question that lingers. The answer, from 1994's vantage, may be surprising: in the tra- dition. In the finest of rock 'n' roll tradition.
First consider the shorthand version of David Roback's career since 1983. Rain Parade; the short-lived Clay Allison, with fellow Paisley Undergrounder Kendra Smith of the Dream Syndicate; a name and personnel change later, Opal; Smith departs, Sandoval sits in, and now... Mazzy Star. To those who view the Paisley Underground as a bogus, press-manufactured non-event - which includes Roback himself, partly—that may seem a not particularly impressive pedigree.
But consider the music Roback has had a hand in making since 1983, the artists with whom he has aligned himself and how relevant those artists remain today. On the initial Rainy Day compilation, he and his Paisley Pals covered the Velvet Underground, Big Star, Buffalo Springfield—era Neil Young, Dylan by way of Nico's Chelsea Girl, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the early Who and Electric Ladyland Hendrix. You would have to be deaf—or too young—to not notice the overtones of early Pink
Floyd in Rain Parade's Emergency Third Rail Power Trip or in Roback's later work with Smith in Opal. Mazzy Star's 1990 debut She Hangs Brightly was not only hip enough to include a cover of obscure Brit art-rockers Slapp Happy ("Blue Flower"); the song ends with the guitar riff from the Velvets' "I'll Be Your Mirror." And as So Tonight That I May See wends its way up the top half of the pop charts, one surprising beneficiary will be pop legend Arthur Lee, whose "Five String Serenade" may bring
him the sort of sizable royalties he presumably earned when the Hooters sang "She Comes in Colors" a decade ago.
Roots-wise, David Roback has drawn from nearly divine inspiration. Could one be blamed for asking the man if he was any sort of record collector?
"I don't collect records," Roback says, after a pause, two hours into our conversation, "Because I don't like to own a lot of things. I've heard a lot of good records in my life."
Fair enough. The overwhelming impression after protracted conversation with Mazzy Star is that these people are genuine, if mildly evasive, musicians who are truly puzzled by their commercial success—and not especially thrilled by it either. In an era when bands like Oasis are hailed in the U.K. as the best group in the world, and gleefully announce their desire to be "up there with the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks and the Who," Mazzy Star prefer Greta Garbo's much better deal.
"If it was up to me," reasons Roback, "I would have heard Hope's voice on the radio a long time ago. Because I always thought it was good to hear it." This after I wonder aloud if they'd thought "Fade into You" would be a hit. "If it was up to me," he notes an hour later, "I would turn on the AM radio and hear Syd Barrett and John Coltrane and a lot of things you don't hear. So in terms of my taste in music, you know..." Pause. "I dunno."
As repeatedly demonstrated by the surplus of records made by, er, rock critics, merely having good taste in music - covering the right artists and namedropping the right names - never guarantees much. Mazzy Star offer more. They have taken their influences and made music of compelling originality. If I wanted to be a prick, I tell Roback, the snottiest thing I could say about Mazzy Star is that sometimes his guitar sound veers too close toward Big Star's Third album - which bore the original "Holocaust," covered on 1983's Roback-produced Rainy Day album.
He thinks about it. "I've always thought that most guitar players, you know, owed a lot to the past," he says. "Because you can learn things from people. I think that the guitar is an incredible instrument, you know. That wouldn't bother me. I'd accept that."
There's an evenhandedness and intelligence in Roback's manner that betrays his age —35 or so — and familiarity with the workings of the music business. Sudden stardom or wealth do not seem to be the sort of things he spends time thinking about. "Neither of us ever had any money," he tells me. "We didn't really care about it, you know what I mean? We figured it didn't really cost that much to do all right, to be okay. We just do the music for other reasons."
Three years ago the pair became clients of Elliot Roberts' high-powered Lookout Management firm. Neither had ever had management before. "We wanted to work with Elliot because he was a cool guy, notes Roback, "and he worked with a lot of songwriters."
Hope Sandoval, who for the most part allows Roback to answer nearly every question, pipes up. "I think the difference is that we have more time to do music and write," she says. "It gives us an opportunity to stay away from the industry part of it and produce music. I just think if you get caught up in that sort of thing, it seems like it could be really confusing and distracting."
Though a decade younger than Roback, Sandoval is by no means a newcomer enjoying a rapid rise to fame. While still in high school in Los Angeles, her band Going Home—a duo including guitarist Sylvia Gomez - recorded an album produced by Roback that, he says, "we're considering releasing very soon."
For most fans, of course, Sandoval is the pivotal figure in Mazzy Star. She doesn't seem to like it, herself. She sings, she's ethereal and she's reputed to be romantically linked with William Reid of the Jesus & Mary Chain (she sings on that band's recent single "Sometimes Always"), with whom Mazzy Star began a seven-week tour in October. Not surprisingly, Sandoval doesn't say she's Reid's girlfriend, and she doesn't say she isn't. In fact - I know, I'd been warned - she often doesn't say anything at all. Yet to conclude that Sandoval is bitchy or unresponsive is both a miscalculation and an insult. The better word is shy. Very shy. Is fronting a band cool, or weird, I ask her toward conversation's end.
"It's weird," she instantly replies. Gazing out the window, down the street in front of Vesuvio, Sandoval mostly looks like she'd rather be at the dentist's office, or at least in the safe haven of IRS headquarters, getting audited. Occasionally she lets loose with a real head-scratcher; my favorite was her response to a question about comparisons she must have received to her friend Kendra Smith, whom she replaced in the final days of Opal.
"I don't remember ever being compared to Kendra," she tells me. "I really have no memory of it." She looks over at Roback. "Was I compared to Kendra in the beginning?" She looks down at the table. "I know I was compared a lot in the beginning to that girl from Cowboy Junkies - I don't know her name - and the girl from 10,000 Maniacs. But I don't remember Kendra.
"Patsy Cline, she's been compared to," Roback helpfully adds.
Most fascinating in this conversation with Mazzy Star - or probably any conversation with Mazzy Star, if you've got a tape recorder and like to ask questions—is the pacing, the dynamics of who says what, and when. At work are three variables: your question, the bandmember who will answer your question and the amount of time that will pass before your question is actually answered. The overall impression, in retrospect, is that Roback can and will sincerely answer any question, but often feels that he's dominating the interview. So he occasionally clams up until his partner speaks. Thus:
MUSICIAN: Do you think there's a lot of room for growth within the context of Mazzy Star? [four seconds elapse] Are you looking to grow? [five seconds] Are you looking to just further explore what you 've got? [six seconds] Do you have ambitions?
SANDOVAL: [after 12 full seconds] I think there's always room for people to grow, just like anybody else. Speaking with Mazzy Star, those purveyors of icy blue musical melancholia, the most animated moments come not in discussion of music, textures, the record business or other people's music. They occur when I mention a concert where Sandoval had berated an audience for clapping, since they'd just talked through most of her performance.
"I did do that," says Sandoval, about as forcefully as her petite frame can muster. "Because that was the truth. We had just played 'Into Dust,' and I couldn't hear myself because there were so many people talking. And after we finished, everybody applauded. It was obvious that nobody really listened, and everybody was just going through the motions of what you go through when you go see a band that you're told is supposed to be really good." She looks down at her glass of 7-Up and concludes: "I don't like playing live."
Doesn't she think that she'll simply get numb to that eventually?
"I think I've been numb from the beginning," she says. "And I'm still numb. I just try to block everybody out."
Roback, commiserating, adds his two cents. "People always want to fuck with you, no matter what you've done," he says. "No matter how great you've ever been, they always want to fuck with you, because that's the nature of the world. They always want to fuck around with you."
"The frustrating thing is," Sandoval continues, in a rush of feeling, "you play a live show and the audience pays what, ten dollars, and it's like they've rented you for the hour and a half you play. It's bullshit. It's bullshit."
So you'd rather just be a studio band, then?
"No," she says. "I would prefer to be able to play live and for them to just come and listen and that's it - and not expect anything else. I don't understand why people expect me to communicate with the audience. They've paid ten dollars to listen to the music live, and that's all it is. And there's nothing wrong with me that I just come out and sing and don't speak, and don't dance." As Hope concludes her impassioned statement, the Vesuvio P.A. system blares "It's Only Rock 'N' Roll" by notoriously shy rock stars the Rolling Stones.
"We've never been the backdrop to a party," concludes David Roback, "All through the '80s, there was, like, this big party going on. Hope and I were never invited to this party, We certainly aren't going to get up and start entertaining this party we were never invited to. That hasn't changed. We like to play music. We're not trying to make a big deal out of it. "We're just doing it. "
............................
SIX-STRING SERENADE
AVID ROBACK plays a 1960-vintage Martin 000-28 guitar made of Brazilian rosewood through an old Fender Vibraverb amp - and, he notes, is most fond of older Fender and Ampeg tube amps. Onstage his mid-'60s Fender Telecaster runs through either a Fender or Silvertone amp. "Sometimes I use an old Epiphone guitar, sometimes I use an old Kay," he says. "1t depends on the song. If I play slide, I use the Kay. I paid 50 bucks for it. It's a cheap guitar." HOPE SANDOVAL favors AKG microphones
and uses a new Jerry Jones guitar, based on the classic Silvertone model with lipstick-tube pickup. "It's a beautiful guitar," says she
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1994, DECEMBER, Ray Gun HUH mag, INTERV. with HOPE & DAVID, by Mark Blackwell, mag cover photo and one other photo from the mag here are by Kevin Kerslake who directed three 1990s official Mazzy Star music videos
Mild at Heart, Mazzy Star Shines Softly
The kind manager of the band gently taps on the door to the rear compartment of the tour bus. Silence. Another light knock. Silence still. He slowly cracks the door open. Darkness. He urges the door open and ushers me inside. There is a small candle burning on the counter at the end of the tiny room. The window shades are drawn. Very soft acoustic music emanates from the speaker system. the manager announces my presence and eases the door shut behind me. Two obscured figures are seated to the left on the couch. I feel my way into the seat across from them. As my eyes adjust to the dim, it becomes apparent that the form on the left is a girl and the form on the right is a guy. The guy is cradling an acoustic guitar. I suppose they must be able to see me, so I smile and say hello.
"Hi," replies a soft male voice, somewhat hesitantly. I shake a nearly
invisible hand. The figure quickly looks down and begins to gently strum the guitar
There's a brief silence.
"Hello," hushes the faint female voice with immediate trepidation. Another soft, invisible handshake. The girl shifts uncomfortably and her head drops.
Despite all preparations for this, I'm somehow fast struck with a loss for words.
"So...uh...how's the tour going?
Silence.
"Um..." ponders the detached female voice, as if searching for some elusive solution. She glances furtively at her companion for assistance. He continues to look away, strumming the guitar. She slowly looks up at me. I can just make out her face now. Her mouth forms the words slowly, "It's...going...alright."
Oh, man. This is going to be a disaster.
By all accounts, the core members of Mazzy Star — Hope
Sandoval and David Roback - are not of the breed to run
off at the mouth. They are notorious, as a matter of fact,
for saying pretty much nothing. They both, as they will
readily say, want their music to speak for itself. Yet they
do deign to speak to - or at least sit quietly and stare at —
members of the press now and again. They don't really
like to do it, just as they don't really like making videos,
performing on television, playing in front of large crowds,
speaking to audiences between songs, hearing drunk rock
fans shout out during their ultra-quiet numbers, or
getting painful tooth fillings. But there are some things
you just gotta do.
"Well you don't really have to." murmurs Sandoval,
when asked about having to answer to the demands of
rockdom. "You don't...have to answer...anything..."
She pauses for a moment and looks around the room.
"You don't have to...perform on TV. But...we do."
Sandoval gazes up at me solemnly, as if apologizing for some horrid betrayal.
"We...do...interviews...and we have done a couple of...TV shows and....
"
She never finishes the thought. Apologizing for my own intrusion
into her world, I express empathy that such self-revelatory, extra-curricular activity must be a drag.
"Um..." she fumbles, "...yeah, it is sort of irritating."
A journalist once described talking to Mazzy Star as like "being at the zoo, tied to a tree in the sloth cage." Another recently wrote that their conversation bore "a disconcerting resemblance to the more abstruse exchanges in Waiting for Godot." Since much ink has
been dedicated to describing the reticence of this pair, it would probably be unwise to dwell on it again here. But it's hard to avoid, given the fact that the whole thing is just so damn weird. The diminutive Hope Sandoval makes the quiet likes of, say, Juliana Hatfield, seem like a riled up Roseanne Barr. When the singer manages to speak a complete sentence, she frequently pauses along the way, as if she's in search af some elaborate term that's perpetually just out of reach. At times it's almost like this tiny girl from Los Angeles is acquainting herself with the English language.
Her guitarist partner is a little more free with his diction, yet he's also an avid fan of the frequent mid-sentence suspension and chooses short cuts whenever possible. Such as when he's questioned about the nature of the material Mazzy Star has just recorded in London in preparation their next album.
"Um...," Roback slowly extemporizes, fiddling around with his guitar, "It's just different songs. Still Hope singing them. Just... new songs."
I elaborate at length on the extremely low-key. introspective nature of the band's music, querying if the new songs are in a similar vein.
"We're doing,..you know...musically...what we want to do. So...it's real natural for us."
So there's the scoop on the next Mazzy Star album.
Mazzy Star is in the midst of a long, slow burn. The band's last record, So Tonight That I Might See came out over a year ago, yet its subtle sound is just finding its way into major ear circles. For some reason or another. the enchanting track "Fade Into You" caught on in the fall, around the time the Jesus and Mary Chain released its single "Sometimes Always," a duet featuring Sandoval as guest. Suddenly she and her Mazzy Star were all over the airwaves, partially spurred by the thumbs-up from Los Angeles' KROQ, the puzzling gatekeeper of commercial-alternative radio nationwide. Though the radio station was actually late to get behind "Fade Into You," they wasted no time hammering it into the ground in their inimitable fashion, alongside their various Smashing Pumpkins favorites.
All in all it was perfect timing for the Mazzy Star/Jesus and Mary Chain fall tour— a bill which was booked long before the single broke — which is making a stop tonight at a former sawdust mill called the Masquerade in Atlanta, Georgia. That's where this tour bus With the dark rear compartment is presently parked, Mazzy Star having just finished an hour-long afternoon soundcheck in the outdoor field behind the club. (I, by the way, was allowed to gaze upon this exclusive performance, although the manager couldn't stress enough the dire necessity of my staying out of sight - for fear of somehow upsetting the touchy band.) Now Mazzy Star has retreated into its mobile cave to relax before the dreaded moment arrives to step out into the spotlights — or lack thereof. Seems the task of performing live isn't an easy one for Sandoval.
"lt's always been a problem," she murmurs. "And...it still is a problem."
Just being up there in front of people?
"Yep."
So why are you in a band in the first place?
"I...never really made that decision. It just sorta...happened. I was in a folk duet...with another girl..."
In 1986* Sandoval and her pal Sylvia Gomez formed Going Home,
an acoustic folk group based in Los Angeles. Roback, a friend and fan of the duo, produced an album for them which never saw the light of day. Now that Mazzy Star is gaining momentum, the 4AD label may release the Going Home record late next year. Sandoval notes that Mazzy Star fans will recognize her stamp on the project.
[*1986 is a date often repeated by journalists as the supposed year Going Home was "formed", but multiple interviews/articles state the duo were writing songs together when they were in high school. There's a direct quote from Hope where she says she wrote her first song at age 15 (1981 0r 1982) with Sylvia Gomez. Also, there's evidence they were playing public gigs by January, 1985, or earlier. -Hermesacat/BB]
"I just think it's...weird," she says of the eight year old recording I just think it's bizarre that these two...young...teenage girls were writing songs like that. It's weird because...a lot of it is really dark and sort of...morbid. I like it."
"It's...acoustic guitar," Roback adds, just to make things clear. "And voice."
Roback honed his axe in the early '80s band Rain Parade, a moody outfit now lumped in retrospect into the "Paisley Underground" school of Los Angeles psychedelia which included trippy, poppy bands like The Three O'Clock and Green On Red. The guitarist soon began working with former Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith and present Marry Star drummer Keith Mitchell in a group known as Clay Allison, which in time turned into the lush Opal. When Smith gave up her duties as Opal vocalist, Roback asked Sandoval to come aboard. This was the genesis of Mazzy Star.
"I started working With David..." explains Sandoval, "and...we started working With other people...and then...before you knew it...I was in a...band"
She says "band" almost as if it's a dirty word.
Mazzy Star released its critically lauded, sparse debut album, She Hangs Brightly, in 1990. Sandoval's misty words about loss and longing were a fine compliment to Roback's entrancingly low-key strains of straightforward acoustic and droning electric guitar. Her voice is tinged with an almost detached, yet distinctively charged
emotion similar to that of the finer ilk of female country singers like Patsy Cline.
"Um..." Sandoval ponders, "I've listened to Patsy Cline I like Patsy Cline. I don't...I've never thought...that I had a country style until people started saying that."
"So who were your inspirations?"
"There are so many," she muses. "Well...I used to listen...well I still do but...I was really inspired by early Rolling Stones music..."
"What was it about them that you liked?"
"Um...I don't really know, just...It just seemed...like a really natural kind of thing...they were doing..."
"They still..."
"Um..."
"I'm sorry, go ahead."
"Um..." She looks down into her lap and then back up.
"That's okay... I'm done."
Sandoval certainly doesn't borrow any of her on stage antics from Mick Jagger. Her presence in the dim front spotlight, as her band recedes in virtual velvet darkness, is much more akin to that of Brian Jones. Not of Brian Jones from the Stones days, but of Brian Jones now. Sandoval lurks behind the microphone like a pillar of salt, her hand moving gently to shake the maracas held at her side. Despite the alluring intensity of the performance, it almost seems like the mere playing of the songs in public contradicts the vibe the band is trying to get across.
"It's not really...a contradiction," Sandoval says. "It's just difficult for us to play live. I think we could enjoy playing live if...we didn't feel like we were expected to do certain things or behave a certain way...Everybody in the band is really...low key and doesn't feel the need to...hop around or jump around or say anything. Everybody just wishes that they could go on stage and just...play the songs. Um...you go out there and try to play a quiet song like "Into Dust" and you can't hear yourself...and maybe people just aren't really into it. That's the only reason playing live is really hard...because they expect this show that you know you're not gonna deliver."
"The thing that's always kept Hope and I going," adds Roback. "is that you know...that there's someone out there digging what we're doing. That's what's important. We always know that there are people out there who are digging it."
It seems like it would get rather frustrating if the rest of the crowd chooses to talk amongst themselves.
"We've stopped playing songs in the middle," says Roback, "and just said, you know what? Forget it. Then we go on and do something else."
"I...I've gotten in trouble for telling the audience to shut up," stammers Sandoval.
"What do you mean 'gotten in trouble'?"
She sheepishly looks down and remains silent. She takes a sip from her glass of red wine. Roback glances over at her and speaks quickly, as if coming to her rescue.
"People give Hope a little bit of attitude sometimes about that," he says. "People sometimes.... Some people want to hear the music. They come to see the concert and they have a right to listen to it."
I ask them what they think the appeal of their music is. There's a very long pause.
"I...don't really know why our music appeals to people." murmurs Hope. "Maybe David does."
Roback ponders for a moment. He strums his guitar and then speaks.
"Sometimes music...that's more kind of down at times appeals to people. We're not the kind of band that could be a backdrop for some big party, you know...getting drunk...or something. That's not what our music is all about. Not everybody's constantly in the mood to hop in their sports car and drive to a party. I can only talk about what appeals to me...about Hope's voice. Not that...we're not trying trying to knock people having a good time and going to a party."
"But don't you ever get the urge to sit and write a really rockin' song?"
They both look somewhat baffled for a moment.
"I think...we'll do whatever we want," says Roback, whether it's more acoustic...or we could do something really electric...and you know...more aggressive. We could do that. Whatever. We do whatever we like at the moment."
At this particular moment, the band's song "Halah" is getting quite a lot of airplay as the follow up to the successful "Fade Into You." Oddly enough it's a song from the band's 1990 album, but once again that's partially a product of KROQ's doing. As a result of the renewed interest in the song, it's being issued as the B-side of their new single "She's My Baby." As such interest in Mazzy Star continues to grow it seems that those rock n' roll pressures that the band genuinely seems to despise will only get greater and greater. I ask Hope If she's nervous about the prospect of the band's getting
bigger. She pauses for a moment.
"I...I don't know what you mean."
"Are you getting less nervous as you go along?"
"No."
"Well, just from a personal standpoint do you look to
success with trepidation?"
"If it happens...it happens," she says hesitantly, "Not much is gonna change on our side of things. I mean...we're just gonna concentrate on doing what we've always done. We've always made records...and David's been making records before he started working with me and people have always liked them. It's just that...more people like them now. It'll basically stay the same the way it has for the past ten years. Just making records...and after they're done, going on to the next."
"What would you be doing if you hadn't woke up and found yourself in a band?"
"I wanted to be a school teacher."
"What kind of a school teacher?"
"Um... probably a school teacher that taught young kids...like...special education teacher or something, but...um...that takes up a lot of time and energy. The girl that was in Going Home [Sylvia Gomez] was a teacher. that's part of the reason why she's not in Mazzy Star. She went on to get her degree and she's still teaching. She still loves music and writes songs, but her life is being a teacher."
"Did you ever pursue teaching?"
"No, I never pursued it...because um...I just never pursued it. But...it's never too late...."
But from the looks of things, that's probably not going to happen any time soon. Despite the fact that Sandoval and Roback are ultra-touchy when it comes to confronting the trappings that come with their work, they both seem to genuinely love the songwriting that lies at the core. And despite their grandiose reticence, they do warm up considerably during our conversation. I could eventually see them as well, as I adjusted to the bat-cave conditions. Though it's hard to figure somebody out by trying to gin talk out of them for a couple of hours, these two seem like genuinely nice, subdued folks who simply like to make music.
"Would you be this shy under normal circumstances?" I'm compelled to ask before leaving them be. "Like if I met you somewhere else. Um, you know...this quiet?"
"You think we're being quiet?" Roback deadpans.
"Not that it's difficult or...uh...unpleasant to talk to you or anything... Um..."
"I know what you mean," smiles Hope. "I think...that you could find that out by asking yourself the same question. I mean if you were to go to a wedding... Let's say you went out on a date and your date took you to a wedding...you might be quiet, you might be shy. It depends."
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean...when I'm with my friends...I'm not really that quiet...then sometimes...I am."
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1994, WINTER Edition, THE BOB mag Issue 47, INTERVIEW w. HOPE & DAVID,
Reprinted in the book "Tell Me When It's Over, Notes From The Paisley Underground", edited by
Clive Jones, 2005.
[I found an ebay listimg for the same magazine issue which showed a photo of two mag pages
from the Mazzy Star interview.The text was out-of-focus, unreadable, except for the intro line in large printing. One band photo appears on the mag pages, a photo of David & Hope by Laura Levine from 1990 I found a better copy of elsewhere to include with this article]
.............................................
MAZZY STAR: AT THE DENTIST, by Jud Cost
Jud puts on his white coat, grabs the pliers, and starts pulling!
[the above line appears as an article intro in the mag page photo, but not in the reprinted article as found in the book]
I think my dentist might have felt right at home interviewing David Roback and Hope
Sandoval of Mazzy Star. Frankly, I'd have preferred 40 minutes with my dentist.
Every time I thought we were beginning to get somewhere, Roback drew the curtain,
choosing to deal in muddled generalities rather than the very things that make one
interview different from another: "specifics and local color", as my old journalism
teacher used to bark.
I've done interviews where I could have left the room and I still would've gotten enough
out of the artist to pack a hefty Q&A - it's the Pete Townshend syndrome: ask a question
and then be careful to slow down the answer after 45 minutes so you can flip the
cassette. Roback, on the other hand - whether purposefully obfuscating the waters in a
Nixonian feat of verbal sleight of hand, or possibly just not finding the questions
stimulating enough to warrant much response - allowed little of himself to poke through
the cloud. Unless you look at the big picture: This is somebody who prefers to remain
private. As to why he's doing interviews in the first place, that's best known by Capitol
Records, who set this one up and has just released Mazzy Star's second album, "So
Tonight That I Might See".
Some of our discussions turned out to be amusing in spite of itself, while other moments
bordered on the panicky, on my part anyway, as I reached the end of my list of questions
and sensed we might be a little short of usable material. In transcribing the following -
something I had not been eagerly anticipating - I've come to see that maybe Roback
attempted to retain what he thinks music loses when it appears on television - a sense of
mystery. Then again, maybe he thought what he did say would be a better read. I guess
there's only one way to find out about that. Here's what transpired, in toto. As Bob Dylan
once reputedly said to Columbus, "Good luck".
JC: So, why so long between albums, three years I think?
DR: We've done a lot of writing in the meantime, because when Rough Trade (initial
label for first Mazzy Star album "She Hangs Brightly") went bankrupt it disrupted our
continuity with what we were doing. We've been doing a lot of things.
HS: Yeah.
JC: Who does what in your songwriting partnership? How do you chop it up?
DR: we don't actually "chop it up" any one way. It varies from song to song. (Since)
Hope is the singer, she ends up expressing herself more through the singing. and I end
up expressing myself more through the guitar and other things that I do, It varies
depending on the song. We both do a little bit of everything.
JC: I'd like to get a little biographical detail on you, Hope. did you grow up?
HS: I grew up in East Los Angeles.
JC: Is there music in your background, in your family?
HS: No. (long pause).
JC: No? How did you become interested in music?
HS: I was just always interested in it.
JC: Who did you listen to?
HS: I listened to a lot of oldies, old music. I had older brothers and sisters. So many
different things, like the Four Tops and early Rolling Stones and early Beatles.
JC: When did you start writing songs on your own?
HS: I stared to write songs on my own when I was about 13.
JC: What prompted you to want to do that?
HS: I didn't really think about it, I just started doing it. I'd gotten my first guitar from
my sister.
JC: What did the songs you were writing sound like?
HS: It was a lot like folk music. I was in another group before I joined Mazzy Star, called
Going Home. It was just me and a guitar player, another girl. It was sort of folky
sounding. It sounded like the Marine Girls, but not really, because they had a bass player
and two or three guitars, and they all sang.
JC: Where did the two of you meet?
DR: Going Home recorded one album. I actually produced it. Hope and I met several
years before we writing together - in Los Angeles - working with her and her
friend Sylvia Gomez.
JC: After Kendra Smith left Opal, didn't you play a few shows with Hope on
vocals?
DR: We were all friends. Kendra and I - we'd all get together and play acoustic guitars.
(After Kendra left) we did a few performances with Hope (in Opal), and then Hope and
I decided we wanted to start something entirely new of our own.
JC: You've gone from Clay Allison to Opal to Mazzy Star over the years. What's
changed and what remains the same?
DR: It's different because it's different people. It's me and Hope (now), and Hope has a
different style of songwriting and singing.
JC: I get this overwhelming feeling in listening to Mazzy Star of ennui which builds
into real intensity through repetition.
DR: So much of what we do is really the song. It's a different group of songs, and they
all have a life of their own. We did a lot of writing together from the very beginning of
our working together, and I think that's what's made it what it is, whatever it is - it's
songs we write and perform.
JC: Do you consciously attempt to write songs with the same "sound"?
DR: It's a combination of different things. It's the work we did before we started playing
live. We were doing a lot of acoustic stuff when we started playing live. Our first live
show together in New York was with the Jesus and Mary Chain, so we've played in a
very acoustic setting and a very electric setting. So I think that we really had a variety
of experience.
JC: What were the major differences when Kendra left and Hope arrived?
DR: They were all new songs and a whole new collaboration. It changed a lot because
of that. I still play guitar, so there was some continuity, but if you change who you're
writing with, it changes from that point of view.
JC: What kind of music were you playing before your pre-Rain Parade band, the
Sidewalks?
DR: (evasively) I played music before I started playing live shows - with different
friends, and we did different things. It got going more after that.
JC: In playing the first Rain Parade album recently, "Carolyn's Song" sounds like
the only thing that points toward what you're doing today.
DR: I did write that song. I heard a cover version of that by This Mortal Coil. That's a
song I would really associate with that period. I think there were some interesting songs
(on the Rain Parade album), but I don't really think about it.
JC: Your first post-Rain Parade band, Clay Allison, seemed a softer reaction to the
neo-psychedelia prominent in LA at that time.
DR: We toured. Sylvia Juncosa went on to do lots of other things. Kendra and I wanted
to get away from what was going on in Los Angeles. We felt very stifled by the whole
scene here. It became, like, a drag. All the critics started to make this big deal about the
whole scene out here, and it transformed almost overnight from sort of like a very
unselfconscious underground scene into a sort of ... a myth. And we just went on and
started experimenting with new songs and getting away and doing other things.
JC: Were you particularly inspired by anyone, past or present?
DR: There wasn't any one thing that was an inspiration to us. There were a lot of
different things - things in our personal lives. The people we were involved with were
our own set of friends. That's pretty much how we work. I just worked with Going Home
and our own little group of friends. We were travelling around. It was things like that,
you know.
JC: How did Opal, your next band, differ from Clay Allison?
DR: We wanted to start a new band, and it had some of the same people. In Clay Allison
we were doing a lot of acoustic music, which was very unpopular at the time. Kendra
and I wanted to do a lot of electric things also, because she'd been the bass player in the
Dream Syndicate, who did this incredible electric thing, One of the reasons I'd left my
previous group before that (Rain Parade) was because I wanted to do something more
electric myself, so I think in Opal we just wanted to do something more electric, so that's
what we were involved in.
JC: Do you recall how you got the name Mazzy Star? Where did the germ come
from?
HS: No, not that I can think of.
JC: well, what did you do, pick it out of a hat? David?
DR: No, I don't recall. But I think it was a germ that we found in a hat (laughs).
JC: After Rough Trade went belly-up, it was on to Capitol Records. Do you view
that as a major accomplishment?
DR: I wouldn't really view it as an accomplishment because we were really quite
comfortable working with Rough Trade. It was really a bad moment when Rough Trade
went belly-up, as you say. We were very comfortable working with a smaller label.
JC: How is it different, working with Capitol?
HS: It's definitely different.
DR: We've kind of remained isolated from them and been so focused on our work that
we haven't gotten too involved with them.
JC: What did you enjoy doing as a kid, David, aside from music?
DR: Gee... (long pause). Ask Hope something, and I'll come back to that in a minute.
JC: Okay, then, Hope, what did you like to do as a kid? It wasn't so long ago for
you.
HS: I can't really recall anything.
JC: (mildly irritated) Oh, come on. There must be something in your childhood you
can remember. Barbie dolls, baseball ... karate!
HS: No, I didn't like baseball when I was a kid.
JC: Well, what kind of a kid were you then?
HS: I don't really know what kind of a kid I was. (long pause) I really can't think of
anything.
JC: Okay. Most of the Mazzy Star material is very slow. Did you consciously choose
to keep the tempos uniform?
HS: I think we were just in that kind of mood, and when It came down to it, we chose
the songs that we liked the best. I guess they all ended up sort of...
DR: You know, we haven't been on tour since the Cocteau Twins tour. When you're
working in the studio ... when you're playing live there may be a bit more of the other
dimension to what we do because it's more elective, and we're trying to put across
something in a different context. We've never really thought about wanting to have a
certain tempo.
JC: What do you like to do in your spare time, David?
DR: (very long pause) I like to travel, to go to different places. Um, um, I've been up
North, and I like it up there. (pause) We were travelling around while we were recording
our albums in different places. You know, there's so many interesting places. It's really
hard to say - to single these things out. We've done a lot of writing.
JC: Do you read books?
DR: Yeah, I read books.
JC: What have you read recently?
DR: (very long pause) You know, I really read a lot of different things. It's kind of hard
to pick out one, because if you pick out one, it's like you're leaving something else out.
Let me ask you. What's the last book you've read?
JC: "Jurassic Park". I like that guy, Michael Crichton.
DR: Well, I definitely haven't read that one. He's science fiction, isn't he?
JC: Do you read science fiction?
DR: Yeah, I've read a lot of science fiction.
JC: Okay, any particular authors your favorites?
DR: No, I like a lot of authors.
JC: I see you've recorded an Arthur Lee (of Love) song for the new album. Have
you ever worked with Arthur?
DR: Yeah, I've met Arthur Lee. He gave us a tape of that song before we recorded it. I
have a lot of respect for Arthur Lee. I always have. I think he's one of the great under-
appreciated writers, a brilliant writer. It's exciting to do one of his songs.
JC: Since you say you like to travel, touring must be right up your alley?
DR: We're gonna do a tour soon. It's always very interesting. It's interesting to perform
our songs.
JC: Why? The feedback from the people?
DR: Yeah, it's about that and it's about actually creating the noise. Do you know what I
mean? It's just fun.
JC: Since you're on a major label, how would you feel about playing very large
venues and getting heavy rotation on MTV?
DR: Personally I have a lot of trouble relating to music as perceived via the television.
I think it takes away a lot of the mystery, a lot of the potential for the listener. I really
think music is something you share with somebody who's listening to it, and I really
have never cared for the way music is marketed on television. I think it takes away from
the active participation of the person who's hearing it.
JC: Can you see yourself playing 60,000 seat domed stadiums?
HS: I wouldn't. I just can't imagine relating to an audience that size.
JC: What do you think you'd lose by playing larger venues?
HS: I don't know if I'd lose anything.
DR: I think that idea implies some sort of impersonal thing. We've always played
smaller clubs. I think sonically it would be an experiment that we'd have to deal with -
putting our sound across in such a big room.
JC: Can you see the Mazzy Star sound evolving into anything radically different?
Any interesting experiments in the offing?
DR: (animated) Absolutely: We're about to enter a very experimental stage, playing live,
and that will probably influence the next album. We took some time off after the Cocteau
Twins (tour) and focused on songwriting and stopped thinking in terms of playing live
and got very involved in writing. Hope is a very prolific writer. That's what I see. I see
a live thing happening, and who knows what will happen? That could change us. We're
open to whatever happens.
...........................
First published in The Bob Magazine issue 47, winter 1994
The Bob Magazine, P.O. Box 7223, Wilmington, DE 19803
thebobmagazine.com, e-mail: greg@thebobmagazine.com, 302-477-1248
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