New song clip on Facebook

[Homeostasis]

The guys have just posted a new song on their Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/MazzyStarOfficial

And Hermesacat has kindly upped a version of the same video on to Youtube, if you don't feel like having Facebook track your IP address:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXp8G6iMTdU

Such a gorgeous song. Reminds me a lot of "Down the Steps" and "Feeling of Gaze". Here's hoping the full song is released on Bandcamp in the new year.

Happy holidays everyone!

[Hermesacat]

Earlier, those same links got posted to the "youtube links" thread, but the new song probably deserves a new thread of its own so no one misses out on finding the song. Thank you Homeostasis.

I like the song lots too. And it has perfect tone & lyrics sentiments for Christmas which is no doubt why they chose to post it to FB as a Christmas gift to fans. The piano part sounds simple enough that a non-pianist possessing but average dexterity could maybe learn to play it passably in twenty minutes if shown what keys to play. Simple - but so affecting, & pleasing to the ear! I'll guess David must be playing piano on it.

Aside from the fact the FB post of the video has received 3,078 "Likes" votes, last I checked -- also, judging by an unscientific you tube "thumbs poll," it looks like youtube viewers are pretty enthusiastic about the new song too. Currently, the yt upload has had 166 views with 15 thumbs up votes. That may not sound like a lot of thumbs votes, but it is, as youtubers are typically very stingy with thumbs votes. (Plus, I think youtube prevents people from voting unless they've signed up for ""Google plus" & are signed in. That's going to limit votes a lot). Anyway, that's a thumbs-to-views ratio way above average for Mazzy Star uploads, in my experience, including for new uploads, which typically do attract a minor flurry of positive votes right off the bat.

Okay, band, verdict's in! Fans dig your new song & would love to hear the rest of it along with any other such hidden gems you might care to release, gems stashed away in Mazzy Star song vaults, vaults we know ('cause you've told us) are brimming full of unreleased Mazzy Star recordings!

I'll echo Homeostasis' wishes for Happy Holidays to webmaster Emma, & mazzystar.free.fr forum members & visitors, & want to wish all a Mazzy Christmas, & a very Hope-y New Year! (Sorry, but I can't resist dusting off & repeating that silly pun once a year). We'll hope 2015 will turn out to be an active Mazzy Star year with some more new releases, at least, & with luck, more touring. This unexpected Christmas snippet may bode well for 2015!

What do others here think of the new song, I wonder?

To give Mazzy Star last word, here's the official message (which I'll bet Hope wrote, God bless her) that accompanies the FB posting of the new song/video:

"Thinking of you all... thank you for being so lovely... Seasons Greetings."

[Homeostasis]

Simple - but so affecting, & pleasing to the ear! I'll guess David must be playing piano on it.

I like to think it's Colm playing piano, actually. Like I said before, it reminds me a lot of Down the Steps/Feeling of Gaze. It definitely has more of a Warm Inventions vibe than a Mazzy Star vibe. Plus, Hope (I'm assuming) has just posted a picture of Colm taking a picture on Facebook. It all seems very subliminally... Invention-y.

But either way, the amount of activity on their Facebook pages makes me hopeful that something - one way or the other - is gonna happen in 2015. Mazzy Star/their management promised us EU folks a tour in early 2014, which never happened. And now we're getting new songs. It leaves me hopeful that we'll not be waiting too long for a new Warm Inventions/Mazzy Star album.

And I meant to say happy holidays to Emma especially in my last post. I may be more of a lurker here than a poster, but I really appreciate having this forum around. And I think a lot of people appreciate this forum, going by the Views figures on some of these topics. Maybe not many people have registered so far, but you've definitely provided the only worthwhile place on the internet for Mazzy Star fans to communicate with one another. Thanks a lot.

[Hermesacat]

The reason I suspect David plays on the new song is not 'cause I think it sounds like a typical Mazzy Star song (I don't) but 'cause I don't think Hope would post a solo song to the Mazzy Star FB page, at least not without identifying it as such. She wouldn't let listeners assume it was a Mazzy Star song if it wasn't, would she?
Especially when it's posted to Mazzy Star's site as a Christmas gift to fans with Christmas greetings from the band Mazzy Star, not from Hope S. & T.W.I.

Even if David & co. don't in fact mind Hope posting solo project material on the Mazzy Star FB page, I'd think she, out of consideration to both other band members & fans, would have the courtesy to identify solo songs as such, so as not to cause misunderstanding & confusion, & would not post a solo song as a Christmas greeting to fans on Mazzy Star's FB page.

There are likely lots of unreleased songs in Mazzy Star's vaults that don't necessarily sound typically "Mazzy Star," & David's said they've recorded a lot of experimental material that's never been released. Plus, Hope may be contributing more musical (instrumental) ideas to Mazzy Star songwriting now than in the early days which could give some Mazzy songs a little Warm Inventions flavour. I'm picturing they chose this one from their Mazzy Star vaults as having some relevance & appropriateness for Christmas.

I suspect Colm's involved as videographer though, creating the flickering lights video.

Just my theories!

Re. the forum, it would be good if there was more participation/discussion/postings by members as it's not quite as lively as the old Mazzy Star Boulevard site used to be.

[Emma]

Thanks for the heads-up. This song is great! I didn't expect them to interact with their fans on Facebook. Who would have thought Hope would be more talkative on the internet than at concerts or in interviews?
As Homeostasis said, the piano melody is very similar to that of Down The Steps.
I wonder if it was written especially for Christmas as a gift for their fans or if it is an "old" song they chose to share as its atmosphere/lyrics were appropriate for seasons greetings.
Anyway,it is a sweet gesture! Good to see their Facebook account is active. 2015 may be a good year for Mazzy Star fans...

And I meant to say happy holidays to Emma especially in my last post. I may be more of a lurker here than a poster, but I really appreciate having this forum around. And I think a lot of people appreciate this forum, going by the Views figures on some of these topics

Thanks a lot for your good wishes. I wish you a happy new year too. I'm pleased you find this forum worthwhile (even if it isn't the most active board on the internet ). This has little to do with me, though. Most credit should be given to Hermesacat for his constant and significant contribution to the forum's content.

I'll echo Homeostasis' wishes for Happy Holidays to webmaster Emma, & mazzystar.free.fr forum members & visitors,

Happy New Year, Hermesacat! And many thanks for your informative posts and the great resources/rarities you shared on this forum.

I wish everyone (visitors, lurkers and members) a happy new year!

re. the forum, it would be good if there was more participation/discussion/postings by members as it's not quite as lively as the old Mazzy Star Boulevard site used to be.

I have been busy et haven't posted much lately. I'll try to post more often next year! That will be one of my new year's resolutions .

[Hermesacat]

Thanks Emma for your kind words, & thank you for providing this excellent forum.
Yes, it seems I've become worst bloviator at mazzystar.free.fr. just as what happened at the old Mazzy Star Boulevard site. Looks like a pattern's developed! Oh, well. But assembling & sharing recordings & articles collections (with the help of lots of other people), etc., are projects I enjoy.
There are some other bands/artists that have had equal impact on me as a listener as Mazzy Star
but for some reason I seem to have chosen Mazzy Star to focus on most for "fan" projects. (A labour of love). I guess I like to specialize.

I agree it's unexpected to see reticent Hope engaging with fans more & more via FB. I'm just assuming it's Hope who's mostly involved on FB, not David. A welcome surprise. I wonder if Colm may possibly be helping encourage her to do so -? And he may have been involved in creating visuals for some of the
videos they've shared via FB & yt. Maybe he's encouraging the posting of stuff & communicating with fans.
They seem to have abandoned their Twitter account. They never tweet, but thankfully their FB page they seem to be getting more & more active on.

Yes, let's see more webmaster Emma presence/postings in the Forum in 2015 (that's a good New Year's resolution, Emma)!
Also, I hope more lurkers will join as members, & members participate more in the Forum in 2015!

[MikeRMD]

Hi all,

Sheesh! I don't come here for awhile and it turns into 'The Good Ship Lollipop'. I do NOT mean because there are posts thanking Emma for hosting this forum nor thanking Hermesacat for providing so much of the content as I concur with those sentiments. HOWEVER the rose-coloured glasses worn by some here when they suppose that Hope is behind some nice comments on FB having me wondering how they could think this given Hope's history with such things. I am not a FaceBook'er but briefly followed a link (provided in this forum?) to MS's FB page while they were doing their North American tour (of like ~18 dates only) and found it to have 'updates' about "tickets on sale for whatever city and get them now while you can" or something to that effect and that struck me as something written by someone in marketing which David and Hope are not given their distaste for interviews and promotion in general. I'm not knocking them for this but the FaceBook updates then did not sound at all like Hope or David to me. I also bring up as evidence the fact that the Hope Sandoval website was pretty pathetic at updates and news. Indeed when they shut down the forum there they did not even make any announcement about this at all and still haven't to this day. I never posted there but did occasionally look in and believe they closed the forum down due to spam and I'm fine with that but how about letting people know what you've done (and why if you wish as well). Also the surmise that perhaps Colm has Hope doing more to connect with her audience does not jive with the behaviour of him in Vancouver during the HSATWI's show here in 2009. I posted on the old Boulevard that both of them were dismissive of the audience and bordering on contemptuous and I just don't see Hope sending out good wishes to fans and think it was someone in marketing who wrote it for the band. The Hope Sandoval site had a guy named Colin doing all the updates and it's my opinion that there is someone doing the same for the MS FaceBook page. Sorry to rain on your parade. Hey a MS history pun to start 2015!

Cheers all!
Mike

[Hermesacat]

Mike:
Hope even signed a FB post once, Jan. 24, 2014

QUOTE:
"Found Monitor on vinyl...
Keith Mitchell's first band. Lovin it!
Check it out! - Hope "

And Keith Mitchell, in response, posted this comment in the comments section:
QUOTE: "Keith Mitchell. Thanks Hope."

This proves Hope is now personally involved in writing at least some FB posts, possibly even most, if not all.

Mazzy Star have their own indie record label now. They do not have big record co. people doing p.r. & marketing for the band anymore. Hope & David not only have an Indie label, they are are independently minded. No publicist created the music, words, or visuals of the Christmas video or decided to post it as a Christmas gift to fans. That's a decision only Hope & David would make (i.e. to release a new song, or part-thereof).So, why should we think some publicist was enlisted to write the three phrase Christmas message that accompanies the video, a message with a personal ring that is presented as a message from the band? A publicist seems unnecessary & unlikely. Let's remember, Hope herself is a writer, a word smith.

The phrase "thank you for being so lovely" doesn't sound like something David would write, imo (although he likely approved the Christmas message). It seems most likely Hope wrote it, especially as she's the only one who's actually ever signed her name to a FB message before (aside from Keith's comment he posted, thanking Hope). So we know she has some direct involvement re. FB messages, while there's no evidence yet of David's direct involvement.

There's another small clue suggesting one & the same person wrote both the FB post re. the Monitor L.P. with Keith (Hope's name's signed to it) & the Christmas greeting. In both messages, phrases are separated by three dots (...) where there's really no need for such dots. Commas or periods would suffice in the contexts of those messages. In fact, the dots seem a bit unusual & idiosyncratic in those contexts. Looks like an atypical writing style which suggests the same person wrote both messages, someone who likes dots in rows of three, i.e. Hope in both cases!

Facebook invites personal participation on ones own FB page as it does not require webmasters. Anyone can deal with & operate a FB page easily. A FB account does not require a webmaster with special computer skills the way hopesandoval.com does. In its case, sadly, a webmaster who seems but semi-competent as he seems only semi-interested & semi-committed, & who likely has done nothing to encourage Hope to get involved more directly on the site herself.

The content & tone of hopesandoval.com vs. Mazzy Star's FB page has become glaringly different. hopesandoval.com states facts & belated news, & posts photos, articles, etc. But it never presents personal messages purporting to be from Hope. In contrast, Mazzy Star's FB page is presenting more & more
messages with personal rings that purport to be from the band, including one signed by Hope. Never happened at hopesadoval.com.

If Mazzy Star's FB page was in fact hands-off & run by a publicist Hope & David hired, presumably it would be operated more like hopesandoval.com with news & facts appearing but with no personal messages or personal opinions presented as being directly from band members. Mazzy Star FB posts now often refer to "we," i.e "we," the band, & sometimes include opinions held by "we" (the band), e.g. Dec. 16, 2014 QUOTE: "We're very flattered to have such amazing artists covering our little love song 'Fade Into You,' so we decided to share some with you over the next two weeks. Here's J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr's version."

hopesandoval.com never presents stuff in the first person, as in "I" (Hope). Even some of the photos getting posted to FB look different than ones posted at hopesandoval,com. hopesandoval.com's photo gallery is all of professional looking shots. But in the past few weeks, Mazzy Star's posted a few casual, not so professional looking pics, such as a blurry one of Hope in profile, & one that looks like the back of what may be Colm's head as he takes a photo out a high window. It's definitely not David's balding head. No hat, & too much hair!
Just because Hope has previously been publicly silent online doesn't mean she still is now.

As for Hope's & David's (or Colm's) feelings towards fans, we know Hope dislikes flashing cameras, & audiences chattering loudly while she sings, & is generally at least somewhat uncomfortable, & suffering stage fright when ever she's onstage. I've never read of David complaining of stage fright. His comments suggest he enjoys playing live more than Hope does.

But offstage, I have ONLY heard stories of recent years of Hope & David being gracious, & some times very friendly to fans who meet them after shows, etc., even if they may be less gracious or friendly with some press interviewers, as they've never been too comfortable doing press interviews.

If they're gracious in person with fans offstage, why wouldn't they be so with fans via FB too?

[Emma]

Hey Mike, thanks for bursting my bubble
Are you saying I'm a naive Mazzy Star fan who is being manipulated by cynical marketing executives?

I agree that most updates to Mazzy Star's Facebook page are probably made by their management, who uses social networks as marketing tools. As you said, the posts about tour dates and tickets sales were certainly written by the staff in charge of organizing their tour and promoting the release of Seasons Of Your Day.
When they were on Rough Trade and Capitol Records, Mazzy Star worked with Frank Gironda's management company, Lookout Management, and I think it is still the case today.

However, I like to think that the two posts that Hermesacat mentioned were genuinely written by Hope. One was signed by Hope and included a response from Keith Michell thanking her for promoting Monitor's vinyl reissue. I find it hard to believe that their management created a fake Keith Mitchell FB account to respond to a fake Hope post. The other post is the Seasons Greetings post. There's no evidence indicating it was written by Hope but as Hermesacat said, it is very similar to the first post: same writing style (few words, very short sentences and lots of ellipses!). Both posts look like they were written by the same person. They contrast with some other FB posts (regarding videos, covers, etc.) that are made of long sentences and that were probably written by someone else (their management or David?).

[Hermesacat]

Emma:
When the band was touring, I agree they must have had someone helping them at their FB page with posting tour news & updates, etc. But since they're not busy touring now, I'm not sure they'd require anyone to help them post FB posts, especially as the posts don't amount to more than several short ones a week, at most.

David & Hope seem so independently minded, perhaps more so than most artists, & wanting to be in control of various aspects of their career, I like to think they'd likely prefer operating their FB page themselves except when they're busy touring, instead of giving up the responsibility to someone else. Of course, hopesandoval.com seems a different story as Hope didn't ever seem too directly involved in that site except probably to update the webmaster on news occasionally.

This is a band who left Capitol 'cause they wanted to continue writing & producing their own records while Capitol wanted to bring in a "name" producer. They seem to always be involved in co-designing their album covers, & I'd guess their merch, & music videos too now (there are those stories Colm's involved in helping create visuals for their videos).They did their news worthy comeback tour of 2012 without doing a single press interview I'm aware of. Not a decision "management" would have likely counseled! Or quietly recording lots of songs over 15+ years but releasing none until a 2011 single & 2013 album. They seem to do what ever they feel like doing, not what management professionals would advise them to do as good career moves, & presumably, not what management would think they should say publicly on FB!

Any FB post that expresses opinions or feelings on behalf the band (such as the first posting announcing they'd be posting a series of covers of Fade Into You) I can't imagine Hope or David would let anyone in management
write such words on their behalf (e.g. "We're very flattered to have such amazing artists covering our little love song"), using words that aren't the band's or someone's in the band. And re. the current series they're running on FB of covers of Fade Into You, I also can't imagine they'd allow someone in management to choose which covers to post. Surely, they'd want to post covers of Fade Into You they themselves especially like. So, why would they need to involve management to do the FB postings for that series & speak on their behalf when they could so easily do it themselves, & stay in control, which is normally what they seem to like best?

I agree the posts with ellipses (...), which evidence suggests Hope wrote, have a different style about them. A more casual style, perhaps, than other posts.But one person can write in different styles depending on the circumstance. And I think the line "We're very flattered to have such amazing artists covering our little love song," could easily have been written by Hope (or maybe David). No management employee required! And I doubt they'd allow someone else to put such words in their mouths. I don't think they'd let someone else write & post a line like to their FB page. It would be taking a large & unwelcome liberty, I'd think. It would take some nerve!

Just as Hope & David won't allow management companies or record companies to shape their music writing, recording, or output in any way, I doubt they're the types who'd allow publicists or management to create or shape their public messaging, either, such as via FB. If they've hired management companies for convenience, I suspect Hope & David make sure they manage the management, not the other way around!