BAND(s) HISTORY, Anecdotes, Bios, Trivia

General discussion about Mazzy Star

BAND(s) HISTORY, Anecdotes, Bios, Trivia

Postby Hermesacat » Sun Dec 01, 2013 7:48 pm

Thought I'd start a new thread for sharing band(s' ) factoids, history, trivia, & anecdotes.
GuntahKela (Juan) already posted his own excellent anecdote about meeting Mazzy Star after the L.A., Wiltern show Nov. 7, 2013 findable in the thread entitled "Wiltern L.A."

There are 4 interview threads at this site too (Mazzy Star interviews vintage 1989 - 1997; New Mazzy Star interviews from 2013; Hope interviews from the Warm Inventions years 2000 - 2010; New Interviews Hope & Colm 2016-17). There are tons of band history facts and anecdotes contained in those interviews. This thread covers topics not found in interviews, or in a few cases pulls together material from various interviews to write up a particular topic.

TOPICS POSTED IN THIS THREAD SO FAR:

1) WHEN & WHERE DID KENDRA SMITH QUIT OPAL, & HOPE JOIN?
2) HOPE & WILLIAM REID OF THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN
3) HOPE'S EARLY DUO, "GOING HOME"
4) MAZZY STAR'S & HOPE'S CAT CONNECTIONS
5) A FAN REMINISCES RE. SEEING MAZZY STAR & HOPE LIVE, PLUS MEETING THE BAND
6) HOPE VISITS TOWER RECORDS, SEATTLE, 1990s, FOR AN IN-STORE GIG, & IS CONSIDERED "DIFFICULT"
7) BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE OF HOPE FROM "CHIKIPEDIA"
8) RADIO HOST DAVID DYE (of N.P.R.'s WORLD CAFE, WXPN, PHILADELPHIA) REMINISCES ON 20 YEARS OF INTERVIEWING MUSICIANS, INCLUDING HOPE AS A HOPELESS INTERVIEWEE.
9) PROMOTER RECALLS MAZZY STAR QUITTING A 1993 VICTORIA, B.C. SHOW MID-SET & WALKING OUT
10) "SHORT FACTS," A SECTION REPRODUCED FROM DEFUNCT FAN SITE, MAZZY STAR BOULEVARD. BAND FACTOIDS ASSEMBLED BY THE SITE'S WEBMASTER, ANDERS.
11) BAND BIOGRAPHY, and BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILES OF SIX MEMBERS OF MAZZY STAR (from Mazzy Star Blvd.)
12) KEITH MITCHELL IDENTIFIES THE GIG WHEN KENDRA QUIT OPAL BEFORE HOPE REPLACED HER
13) DAVID ROBACK'S & SUSANNA HOFFS' EARLY MUSIC COLLABS/RECORDINGS, PRE-1981
14) BACKSTAGE ANECDOTES, HOPE SANDOVAL & THE WARM INVENTIONS' AUG. 19, 2002 SHOW, CHICAGO
15) KENDRA SMITH INTERVIEW, 1995-3-25, BILLBOARD
16) PHOTO OF CD COVERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE MAZZY BOOTLEG - a CD David gave a friend for a B-day gift.
Personally inscribed by David.
17) HOPE'S XXX-RATED VIDEO, "PARADISE CIRCUS"! (no, it's not quite what you may be thinking). [This post got BANNED at another fan site, the popular Facebook Mazzy-Hope fan Group. Lucky you get to read it HERE!]
18) HOPE & JAMC's the REID BROTHERS - more info. contributed by forum member "drugstore" - excerpts from
a JAMC book.
19) HOPE, COLM, & JU JUBES - an amusing, true onstage story contributed by forum member "drugstore"
20) KENDRA SMITH emerges from decades of seclusion to sing on a new Dream Syndicate album, 2017
21) An account written by Hope's niece Nicole Presley who toured as part of the 2002 Warm Inventions
about a memorable day off Hope and the Warm Inventions had at Copenhagen in 2002
22) Anecdotes re. BERT JANSCH being a big MAZZY STAR fan in the 1990s, plus reminiscences of attending MAZZY STAR & HOPE shows (from Dime site member "Kneesfudd")
23) HOPE SANDOVAL is MARRIED to BARRY BÖDEKER. the artist who created many HS&TWI & Mazzy Star record, plus the stage projections for the Oct., 2017 HS&TWI tour.
***************************************************************************************
WHEN & WHERE DID KENDRA SMITH QUIT OPAL, & HOPE JOIN?
[later update, Jan. 10, 2015:
Mazzy Star's/Opal's drummer Keith Mitchell showed up again yesterday in the comments section of one of my youtube uploads sharing some helpful info again (Thank you Keith!). He previously left comments at my yt upload of Mazzy Star's Nov. 4, 2013 Seattle show. This time it was at my upload of the Opal (with Hope) video recording of a complete 1988 Italy show: http://youtu.be/fIWhLwJ-kyY
In its comments section, there'd already been discussion re. the mystery of when Kendra quit Opal & Hope replaced her (earlier posts in this mazzystar.free.fr thread also address this question). Nice of Keith to show up & finally clear up the mystery. Here's what he wrote:

QUOTE: "Kendra did not storm off the stage and quit. She left after the show in Providence, RI on the Jesus and Mary Chain tour. We finished the tour with Hope and then toured Europe as Opal."

I found a gigs list here: http://aprilskies.amniisia.com/gigs/gig ... _sort=1987 showing dates from the 1987 tour Keith refers to. It lists the date for the Providence show, which Keith says was Kendra's last Opal show, as Nov. 12, 1987.

Keith's info puts to rest erroneous reports (found on Wikipedia & repeated elsewhere) that Kendra supposedly stormed off the stage & quit mid-set in Europe at "Hammersmith, UK." The material shown below
was written earlier before Keith's info was reported & solved the mystery]
........................................................................................
[Original post from Dec., 2013]:
This is just a minor piece of Mazzy Star/Opal musical history trivia that may be too small a detail for some readers here to take a lot of interest in. It's been somewhat of a mystery just when it was exactly that Kendra Smith quit Opal & Hope replaced her before Opal morphed into Mazzy Star. There are conflicting accounts about it findable online. Was it in the U.S. or Europe? 1987 or 1988? Did Kendra quit by walking offstage in the middle of a gig as some reports say? Dime member "hanwaker" first got me interested in this puzzle. It was something he was looking into.

From The Guardian article/interview Sept. 19, 2013: QUOTE: "(David) left (Rain Parade) to form Opal (which is not quite true, as Clay Allison/Opal was already a side project while David was still very much with Rain Parade) with Kendra Smith of Dream Syndicate, until she abruptly walked out of the band during
a concert in London in 1987."
-Evidently, The Guardian's journalist did not obtain this tale from his interview with Hope & David (he doesn't quote them on it) but seems to be repeating a story found in Wikipedia's entry for "Hope Sandoval".

Below are some reliable clues from Hope & other sources re. how & when Hope replaced Kendra in Opal:

From Uncut Mag. UK, Oct., 2013:
Hope QUOTE:
"I was asked to do some live shows (with Opal) because Kendra didn't want to be the front person, and I think it just got really difficult for her. It was during a tour that they were doing with The Jesus and Mary Chain, so I got a call from David asking if I would fly out to New York and finish the tour. That's what it was. That's how I started working with his band."

There's a 1987 NY Times concert review online of the Nov. 5, 1987 JAMC show where the reviewer mentions Opal (with Kendra) opening:
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/08/arts/ ... chain.html

Another recent clue comes from a commenter at my youtube upload of the video of the March, 1988 Opal (with Hope) concert in Italy:
http://youtu.be/fIWhLwJ-kyY
Youtube commenter Susan Thomas writes: "I saw the Jesus & Mary Chain show on Nov 18, 1987 in Columbus, Ohio, at the Newport. Opal was on the bill to open. Kendra didn't walk off the stage in Columbus--Opal never were on stage. Maybe the walk off was the night before in Cleveland?* http://www.songkick.com/artists/129156- ... hy?page=44 I'm going to ask my friends who were with me what they remember. My memory is that we were informed as we arrived that Opal had broken up that day (night before?) and would not be playing. My impression was that the break up was very sudden--day of or day before. maybe the big question is: did Opal play in Cleveland? If yes, they definitely broke up in Columbus (or between Cleveland and Columbus)."
(* I had mentioned to the commenter about Kendra supposedly quitting the band mid-set)

-So, it seems Kendra must have quit sometime between the Nov. 5 NYC show & the Nov. 18 Columbus one, with the youtube commenter's info. suggesting it was closer to Nov. 18.
And since Hope says she was enlisted to fly to NY to complete the tour she must have joined shortly thereafter. Kendra must have quit, with Hope replacing her, in Nov. 1987 on the North East leg of the U.S. tour. I haven't been able to find concert reviews from the Cleveland show of Nov. 17, or the one before it in Pittsburgh, Nov. 16, to look for mention about Opal. Also, I wonder if the story that says Kendra quit the band by walking offstage mid-set is true or not. We need a witness who saw it happen!

It seems evident the story claiming Kendra quit in London is either erroneous or, at best, half-true. It would be half-true if it turns out Kendra quit twice, with Hope replacing her twice. It's possible Kendra quit during the U.S. tour, then changed her mind & rejoined the band for a European tour, but quit again early on in London. A bunch of recordings exist of post-Kendra Opal (with Hope) from European dates from March & April 1988.

This 1980s clip of a Seattle TV broadcast of Opal's official video for "Happy Nightmare Baby" has a cameo at the beginning with Hope as a member of the band introducing "our new video", as David calls it, & may date from a time not long after Hope joined Opal.
http://youtu.be/TMKu-8wVCuc
Too bad the broadcast date isn't known.

[Later edit]: In a Kendra Smith article/interview from Billboard, 1995 (posted elsewhere in this thread) the journalist states that it was Kendra who recommended Hope replace her in Opal. If true, it seems to refute the perception I've seen expressed by some that Hope supposedly "squeezed" Kendra out of Opal by attracting David's
affections. I think some Kendra fans were/are disappointed she left the band and prefer to blame Hope & David for her departure instead of accepting that Kendra most likely left of her own accord.If Kendra had been hard done by by H & D, one would think she would talk about it in interviews like that one.. Instead, the journalist says she recommended Hope replace her! I suspect David & Hope didn't have their romantic interlude together until after Hope joined the band, which means it wouldn't have been their romance that pushed Kendra out, would it?
Last edited by Hermesacat on Mon Nov 13, 2017 1:57 pm, edited 34 times in total.
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Re: Band(s) History, anecdotes, trivia

Postby Hermesacat » Sun Dec 01, 2013 10:06 pm

HOPE & WILLIAM REID OF THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN:

Here's some trivia & an anecdote re. Hope & her 1990s boyfriend William Reid written by Richard Metzger, one of the regular contributors at dangerousminds.net. He wrote in reply to a comment I'd left at this Dangerous Minds piece on JAMC from a few months back:
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_ ... _ever_1986

Metzger QUOTE:
"They (Hope & Reid) were an item and it was well-known at the time. There was a public altercation between them, and I believe it happened at the KROQ (L.A.) 'Weenie Roast' event approx 1993/94*.
In my 20s, I was working briefly at the Paramount Hotel in NYC and after that news was either on the radio, or MTV, they both checked into the hotel the very next afternoon. She was a complete asshole and he was slightly less bad, but still a sour cunt. (They) were about 12 feet apart from each other in the line.
Even though I'd already checked her in and was done with the transaction--which was painful enough--I still felt the urge to give him a sort of disapproving 'you shouldn't hit a woman, not even that particular one' type of treatment. He knew what I was doing, too. I made sure that I gave them both the worst rooms in the hotel, right next to the fucking elevators."

- *Lists of bands that played each annual KROQ "Weenie Roast" are findable online, & neither Mazzy Star nor JAMC are listed from any years around the time Metzger notes. So, the incident must have happened while they were in the audience, or else hanging out backstage, maybe
************************************************************************************************************************
I'm not sure why Metzger would resent Hope so much for not being in a good mood the day after being assaulted at a public event by her bf, & the incident making the national music news.

I'll include the comment I wrote that prompted Metzger's anecdote post as it has more info & it references a Hope & Reid anecdote someone once posted at Mazzy Star Boulevard fan site:

QUOTE (Me in reply to someone else):
"I believe it was in the mid to late '90s William Reid & Hope Sandoval were a couple. Hope sang on two JAMC studio songs ('Sometimes Always', 1994; & 'Perfume', 1998), & Reid contributed guitar on the 1996 Mazzy Star song "Take Everything." Hope later included Reid's song 'Drop' on her 2001 solo album, 'Bavarian Fruit Bread." A few commenters at sadly now defunct fan site "Mazzy Star Boulevard" posted some info re. Reid & Hope including a quote from a William Reid interview where he said he'd been in love with Hope but it had been the most unhappy period of his life. Someone else mentioned Reid was known to scream at Hope & even pull her hair, & posted an anecdote that a friend had once run into the couple on the street in L.A. The friend was a Mazzy Star fan, & spoke with Hope. Reid, for some strange reason, reportedly flipped out at the brief attention Hope & the fan were paying to each other & began screaming at Hope. After the friend departed he could see & hear the two still arguing loudly down the street. Also, at least two 1996 Mazzy Star press interviews contain references to, & even an appearance by, Reid as Hope's then bf. You can find the articles on this archived page from another long defunct Mazzy fan site:
http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/pal ... cal%20Tour "

[later edit - I've since tried to find the original quotes to insert here from the Mazzy Star Boulevard site of the posts there re. William Reid which I cite above from memory, but the archived versions of the site did not record forum posts well & many are hard to re-locate there if they still exist there at all]

-The Reid & Hope conversation at Dangerous Minds started with a comment by me rather unsympathetic to JAMC. Here's the last line, which I'm rather fond of, despite it being slightly trollish! :
"(JAMC), a sorry band of callow abusers of women, alcohol, & drugs who weren't man enough to know how to deal with or handle any of the above." (I want to laugh out loud when I see this line again).

-There's also this quote from a fan's blog post at:
http://musicfrommypast.tumblr.com/post/ ... -this-song
It likely refers to a 1994 tour when Mazzy Star opened for JAMC, & Hope joined JAMC onstage each night to sing the duet with Jim Reid, "Sometimes Always":
QUOTE: "When So Tonight That I Might See came out a couple years later, I saw them a bunch
with the Jesus and Mary Chain including an awesome show in Providence where she
got totally mad at her boyfriend, one of the Reid brothers, and stormed offstage
without singing her part. Star crossed lovers from the start, those two."

I think someone found & linked to this autographed 1994 photo of the unhappy pair & posted to Mazzy Star Boulevard once ("alas," or "drugstore" maybe? Those two are photos-research specialists) which I've re-upped here: Image

---later update Feb. 27, 2015: Found a Melody Maker cover online today from 1994-7-23 with a photo of JAMC with Hope, a pic I'd not encountered before, & upped it to photobucket here: Image
There's a pic of the entire MM cover, plus a second one of detail from the cover I made of just Hope. A JAMC interview's featured for their album Stoned and Dethroned which has Jim Reid & Hope singing a duet on the single "Sometimes Always." Text of the MM interview is findable at JAMC fan site April Skies. Hope does not speak in it. The MM journalist notes " the publicity-shy chanteuse [Hope] declines our invitation to speak today," & also says "William is now romantically entwined [with Hope]"
Also, this cover pic:
Image..................................................................................
[Later edit: In a more recent post to this thread, Forum member alas posted some relevant info alas encountered, pasted here below]:
QUOTE:
"Source: Barbed Wire Kisses: The Jesus and Mary Chain Story by Zoe Howe.

Passages on Hope Sandoval as found through Google Books:

Jim apparently was annoyed with William having Hope on the American tour because William and Hope would wander off together and couldn't be found.

During the time JAMC were making Stoned and Dethroned: William's and Jim's lives were taking a nosedive. According to Jim: "'My personal life was starting to slide, broken relationships and stuff like that, likewise with William. He got it on with Hope [Sandoval, Mazzy Star's lead singer] during that record, but he was still going out with Rona. That got messy, as it would.' William himself would later explain in an interview with musician and friend Dimitri Coats that while he had fallen in love with Hope, it 'was the unhappiest time in my life. It was horrible, horrible, horrible.'"

Sidenote: William had been with Rona for nine years. Jim, apparently, would get irritated by Hope's presence."
-alas
..................................................................................
A youtuber named afoolishgrin3 posted the entire quote from William Reid re. Hope. It's from Gold Mine mag.
QUOTE:
"GM: Was one of the happiest times in your life when you were with Hope Sandoval, then?
WR: You’ve got that DVD!Did you bring that tonight?
GM: I did.
WR: Oh! Can we watch it?
GM: Yeah, sure. Can you answer the question first?
WR: OK, let me tell you honestly. I was in love with Hope, but it was the unhappiest
time in my life. It was like horrible, horrible, horrible. Hey, what’s that in the background?"
-He didn't want to talk about it further, apparently.
Image
Image
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Re: Band(s) history, anecdotes, trivia

Postby hanwaker » Sat Dec 21, 2013 4:52 pm

Hermesacat wrote:(* I had mentioned to the commenter about Kendra supposedly quitting the band mid-set)

-So, it seems Kendra must have quit sometime between the Nov. 5 NYC show & the Nov. 18 Columbus one, with the youtube commenter's info. suggesting it was closer to Nov. 18.
.

hermescat
i uploaded this show to dime some year ago
opal
1987-nov-??
Blacksburg Va --usa--
research reveiled the date as nov 7th
aud recording of unknown generation
received flac files ( cdr--EAC-flac-DVDr) from xjohnx
reworked ( see notes) and added txt file and md5

and this is one of the comments i got about it

the venue was at the little coop at the university. i gave the recorder to Lisa, our roadie (!) who put it on a table right up front. she moved it once or twice after some people started checking it out.

I only gave ONE complete copy of the show out as a cassette trade to a lovely person in Philadelphia who taped the FIRST opal show at the Chestnut. Sadly, he passed away. some of you may know who i am talking about. he was a VERY prolific taper and trader in PHILLY. ot sure where his masters went....

THIS Master: Sony walkman pro _ maxell C90-S (the black one)
the AFTER show tape is REALLY the shit...!!
this was also the night Kendra told me she was leaving the band...mid tour.


...one day it will all see the light of day Mr. Han!!

also was taping the JAMC on that tour...if someone would be kind enough to post a WILLIAM REID solo show, i will start to post those. :)



the commenter is still on dime and downloads all we up while nicely sitting on his masters
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Re: Band(s) history, anecdotes, trivia

Postby Hermesacat » Tue Dec 24, 2013 2:29 am

hanwaker:
Thanks for those additional clues. Anyone who downloads the Opal recording you cite (& upped to Dime) from the re-upload link found in the boots list here will find your text doc. with a different quote from original taper you included in it. As you know, In that other quote he mentions he stayed with the tour taping shows until he & Kendra both left the tour at the same time, he following her out. From the quote you cite here the implication does seem to be she likely quit the same night she told him she was quitting, as you suggest, but it could also be possible (unless the taper stated specifically otherwise) she told him of her plans that night but didn't actually carry them out immediately, but quit some gigs later.

I still wonder if the London story might possibly also be true which would mean Kendra returned to the band for the European tour, then quit again.

It's a shame that Opal taper is a hoarder of his masters, not a sharer.
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Re: Band(s) history, anecdotes, trivia

Postby Hermesacat » Mon Mar 03, 2014 3:13 am

HOPE'S EARLY DUO, "GOING HOME"

In Hope's duo with her friend Sylvia Gomez (who wrote the Mazzy Star song "Give You My Lovin' " which Going Home also performed) it appears Sylvia was sole guitarist, & Hope sole singer.

Wikipedia's entry for Going Home appears erroneous in claiming Going Home started in 1986, a claim repeated in a Sept., 2013 Dazed & Confused (dazeddigital.com) article/Hope interview, repeated there not by Hope, but by the journalist. The 1986 date for the supposed beginning of Going Home is also found in the FAQ section at defunct fan site Mazzy Star Boulevard (still viewable online in archived form).

But evidence shown below suggests Hope & Sylvia were already writing songs together as early as 1981 or 1982, & that their first public gigs occurred at least as early as early as Jan., 1985, & possibly earlier.

An Oct. 18, 2009 L.A. Times article/Hope interview says:
QUOTE: "By the time she was in high school [Hope was born in 1966, so would have started high school by early '80s?] Sandoval was part of an acoustic
folk duo called Going Home, which she founded with her friend Sylvia
Gomez, and already was gravitating to the alternative scene. 'I think we decided that's what we were capable of,' says Sandoval, who drew inspiration from the uncompromising example of singer Exene Cervenka of X. 'That's how we could express ourselves.[Gomez]could play guitar and I could sort of sing.' Their third show was a mid-'80s gig opening for the Minutemen & Sonic Youth at the Anti-Club in Hollywood: 'It was a crazy,crazy crowd. We just thought, 'What are we doing here?' But they were so sweet to us. Everybody stayed really quiet and listened.' Going Home made some never-released recordings produced by David Roback, who soon recruited Sandoval into his band Opal,which evolved into Mazzy Star."

-Check the boots list & youtube for a 1980s studio recording of 7 songs that's likely of Going Home rather than "Hope solo" as a bootleg tape sharer claimed (probably incorrectly).

-Checking gig/setlist archives at setlist.fm, & the even more reliable archive of gigs listed at Sonic Youth's official site, there's just one Sonic Youth gig listed for the Anti-Club. It was Jan. 17, 1985. Also, the rare live recording of Going Home opening for Opal, findable in the boots list & at youtube, is dated Apr. 22, 1985. If the Jan. 17, 1985 gig was Going Home's third, as Hope says, it suggests they may have started gigging maybe late '84 or early '85. But they must have been playing together long before they played in public as the article says the duo began by the time Hope was in high school. Since she was born June, 1966, she likely started high school, & Going Home, late 1970s or early 1980s (-?)

There's another Hope interview from repeatfanzine.co.uk, Sept. 2009, where, in answer to the question "When did you write your first song?" Hope says:
QUOTE: “I was 15 and I wrote my first song with Sylvia Gomez and it
was called Shane.” Time-wise, this would have been 1981 or 1982.

[later update]: In a Nov. 10, 2001 Telegraph (UK) article/interview with Hope, the journalist writes:
" Roback and Sandoval first met when he produced the (unreleased)
album by Going Home, an acoustic duo formed by Sandoval and her best friend, Sylvia Gomez, when Sandoval was 15."
Again, Hope, born June 24, 1966, would have been 15 in 1981 -1982

The Sylvia-penned Going Home song, "Give You My Lovin' " became a regular feature of Mazzy Star live shows & appeared on Mazzy Star's first album. There was a second Going Home song that Mazzy Star performed during their 1990 tour which has come to be known as "Where Did You Run To" (which Opal with Hope also performed live in 1988, hear-able on boots). That may not be its real title though, but a tentative title boots tapers/traders placed on it.

-A Dazed & Confused mag (dazeddigital.com) 2013 interview with Hope on three musical influences on her
(Bert Jansch, Elliott Smith, & Sylvia Gomez) has this quote from Hope re. Sylvia:

HOPE QUOTE: "...SYLVIA GOMEZ:
With the song ‘California’ from the new album we were thinking
about my old band mate Sylvia Gomez from Going Home (who formed in
1986 and recorded a Roback-produced album which remains unreleased).
She lives in LA and I am godmother to her two kids. We’re very
close and talk all the time, but I still miss her. She’s a brilliant
songwriter, an amazing guitarist and a big influence on me. She’s
not really that into releasing music; I think she may be interested
in releasing a Going Home record, but for the most part it’s not her
thing. She just likes to get together and play. I spend a lot of time
in London and I miss California. Of course, when I’m in California
I miss London.”

-From a Newsweek interview, Sept. 20, 2013:
QUOTE: "In his 20s, Roback won his first fans as part of Rain Parade, an influential psych-folk band in Los Angeles’s paisley-underground scene. Among his followers was Sandoval, who says, 'The most amazing live shows that I’ve ever seen were Rain Parade shows.' GOMEZ SLIPPED ROBACK A GOING HOME TAPE AFTER A RAIN PARADE GIG IN 1983. 'Sylvia and Hope had this amazing thing going musically,' he says, brightening up. 'The intensity was so overwhelming to me. I couldn’t stop listening to it.' Years later, he left Rain Parade to form Opal, another psychedelic band, and when the singer of that project quit, he recruited Sandoval. One day they decided, 'Let’s do something completely new.' So they darkened their sound and changed their act’s name to Mazzy Star.

To sum up Going Home's historical time line, evidence shown above suggests the duo formed & were writing
songs together when Hope was 15, i.e. in 1981 or 1982, although they apparently did not play publicly till years later. In 1983 David Roback heard the duo on a tape Sylvia had given him and he liked them. There are at least two gigs on record from 1985, the earliest being Jan. 17, which reportedly was just their third gig ever, so they likely were not gigging long before Jan., 1985.

Presumably, Going Home got put on seemingly permanent hold when Hope joined Opal in late 1987 - early 1988 which morphed into Mazzy Star.

[Later update Jan. 2018: "A reliable source," i.e. someone in a position to know, someone who knew Hope & Sylvia in their 1980s "Going Home" days, told me directly the 7-song studio demo that's out there (which is often erroneously mis-ID-ed as "Hope solo, 1990," is in fact the one studio session the band Going Home ever made. It's just 7 short songs, e.p., not album, length. It was recorded by David Roback. Cassette tapes of the session were distributed to friends of the band and others in 1985, so the session was likely recorded that same year, 1985.
Here's my own youtube upload of that same 7-song Going Home demo: https://youtu.be/KeRtCew_TDY
and my upload of Going Home doing a live 4-song set opening for Opal, May 22, 1985: https://youtu.be/r1xwnNIHGxc
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Re: Band(s) history, anecdotes, trivia

Postby Hermesacat » Mon Apr 21, 2014 6:29 pm

MAZZY STAR'S & HOPE'S CAT CONNECTIONS

As a small side distraction, as a cat person I'm always pleased to learn when a musician I admire is too, & we know Hope's a dedicated cat appreciator. Just for fun, I'm posting a series of posts to tumblr called "HELLO ROCK N ROLL KITTY!" with photos & notes. Vol. 2 is Hope's & Mazzy Star's cat connections: http://tmblr.co/Z5rpfv1DferyR
I like to refer to the cat as Mazzy Star's "totem animal"!
There are 3 examples of cat imagery in Mazzy album artwork, 2 on official Mazzy merch (tee short & tote bag), & two different cats appearing in Mazzy Star's "I'm Less Here" official video, including one David's petting. References to Hope & David being cat owners/appreciators appear in several or more interviews over the years.
Plus, Hope's Warm Inventions song, "Suzanne" contains the lyrics line: "the cats in here are overflowin'," & Hope's been known to draw cat cartoons along with her autograph, for fans. Here's the cat cartoon with autograph Hope drew for forum member GuntahKela (Juan). He posted his own excellent anecdote here (see thread at mazzystar.free.fr entitled "Wilter, LA") about meeting Mazzy Star after the L.A., Wiltern show Nov. 7, 2013, & Hope drawing the cat cartoon for him.
Image
Vol. 1 of HELLO ROCK N ROLL KITTY! at tumblr focuses on Dum Dum Girls' Dee Dee Penny & her cats:
http://tmblr.co/Z5rpfv1CVsWTu
Vol. 3, once I get around to it, will be Siouxsie Sioux, another dedicated cat appreciator.
The idea of doing this was inspired by a popular post I saw & enjoyed at the Dangerous Minds site of photos of rock stars with their cats & dogs: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/rock ... s_and_dogs
Hey, if I'm a bit eccentrically cat-centric, I'm no more so than Hope, Dee Dee, Siouxsie, & others. At least I'm in good company!
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Re: Band(s) history, anecdotes, trivia

Postby Spoon » Wed Jul 30, 2014 8:42 am

Found this old article from Melody Maker featuring an interview with Hope and David from January 1991:

Link - http://didnotchart.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html

Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see the 4 pages of the article, which you can click on obviously to read. My apologies if this has already been posted.
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Re: Band(s) history, anecdotes, trivia

Postby Hermesacat » Wed Aug 06, 2014 3:59 am

Spoon:
Thanks for posting the link for the 1990s MM interview. I've found it online before at a different blog. No, it hasn't been posted in the forum before. There isn't a thread yet for old interviews, just the one Emma did such a good job on re. 2013 interviews. The thread about defunct fan sites, mazzystar.nu, & "Everything Mazzy Star," has links to those two archived sites. They have a good selection of articles, especially the Everything Mazzy Star one.

I've been collecting other Hope & Mazzy Star interviews from online but haven't got around yet to sorting, assembling, & uploading them to share as a downloadable collection, or as photobucket or tumblr links, etc. Still on my to-do list.
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Re: Band(s) history, anecdotes, trivia

Postby Hermesacat » Tue Oct 07, 2014 12:31 am

A FAN REMINISCES RE. SEEING MAZZY STAR & HOPE LIVE, PLUS MEETING THE BAND

[There were some Mazzy Star anecdotes that appeared at the now defunct Mazzy Star Boulevard fan site that
might be worth re-posting/preserving here. I'll start with one I originally found as a tumblr site post.
It's an article written by a fan with interesting reminiscences of his experiences of seeing Mazzy & Hope in concert numerous times over the years, plus meeting the band Mazzy Star.]
http://musicfrommypast.tumblr.com/post/ ... -this-song

QUOTE:
"Mazzy Star played Coachella [in 2012]. They played this song ('So Tonight That I Might See')
as the final song. The nearest I can calculate, this was the first time I had seen them in… 18 years.
I am racking my brain trying to remember if they toured for ]
'Among My Swan,' but if they did, they didn’t play Boston.
Oh I have seen Hope once or twice since. Well, four or five Warm Inventions shows, and i saw her with
the Jesus and Mary Chain a few years back reprising her duet on “
'Sometimes Always.' But.. Mazzy Star...It’s been ages.
I should probably have posted 'Halah,' since Mazzy Star goes always back to High School, when my friend
Renée first played them for me, and I loved it almost as much as I loved Renée. God, I think we may
have first discovered them on 120 Minutes. When I got to Boston in September of 1990 it turned out that
Mazzy Star was opening for the Cocteau Twins on the Heaven or Las Vegas tour, and I lucked out and got
front row tickets. I, like every indie kid my age in america, fell in love with Hope Sandoval.
When So Tonight That I Might See came out a couple years later, I saw them a bunch with the Jesus and
Mary Chain (including an awesome show in Providence where she got totally mad at her boyfriend, one
of the Reid brothers, and stormed offstage without singing her part. Starcrossed lovers from the start,
those two). but before that, they did a promotional show in-store at the Strawberry Records in Harvard
Square. Five songs. Here is a picture I took at the show.
Image
But even better than that, I got to meet them. I got a free STTIMS poster, and had them all sign it.
Hope took a gold paint marker and drew angel wings on herself, and on her chest she put a heart.
In the middle of the heart she wrote 'I love you.' It’s one of my most prized possessions. It was hanging
in my house on Howard St, and will be hanging again soon in our new house or my new office (TBD).
Hope’s aged, and once or twice since the Mazzy Star days I’ve seen a darker side of her as she yelled at
soundmen. One hilarious time, Benjamin and I were at the Paradise in Boston and Hope said 'if this glockenspiel
isn’t mic’d right in five minutes, we are leaving.' It became a running joke of ours.
And Emma wasn’t impressed with them. Which is weird because didn’t every girl in America love 'Fade Into you' once? The times have changed.But I could still close my eyes and go back in time and feel a little bit of my teen angstlove for hope while standing in the California desert, and it was just mighty fine.
(Source: Spotify!) "
Last edited by Hermesacat on Fri Sep 22, 2017 10:59 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: Band(s) history, anecdotes, trivia

Postby Hermesacat » Tue Oct 07, 2014 12:54 am

HOPE VISITS TOWER RECORDS, SEATTLE, 1990s, FOR AN IN-STORE GIG, & IS CONSIDERED "DIFFICULT"

[This a second anecdote previously found at Mazzy Star Boulevard site now re-posted to mazzystar.free.fr. This is a "Hope is difficult" anecdote that makes me want to look for alternate interpretations of what happened.
After reading the account, I wondered why Hope found the two fellows rude though he claims they were not but that SHE was. I'm picturing the Tower Records employee thinking he was being "polite" by maybe coming across to her the same way he might if a customer walked in off the street & he asked "Can I help you with something?" If so, did the situation call for a little more finesse, & p.r. skills the store clerk lacked?].

QUOTE: "Posted on 28/05/12 7:42:51 PM [at mazzystar.nu, a.k.a. Mazzy Star Boulevard]
[by] alan
Posts: 5
Reply Re: Mazzy/Hope anecdotes - article here's another Hope anecdote;
When I was in Seattle, I knew a lot of guys who were musicians who worked at tower records. That gave me some perks at tower, I'd go in the back of the store a lot, hang out. Anyway, I went to see Mazzy Star one night. Sort of a letdown. There were candles lit all around the stage. It was kind of low energy. Sandoval was a babe, but so what...So the next morning I'm hanging out at tower with Pete, this friend of mine, and Hope Sandoval comes in --the band's going to do an in-store and she's way early, so the manager tells Pete to let her wait in the back, get her what she needs, take care of her, etc. So me and Pete go on back with her. He asks if she wants anything to eat or drink, and she acts like he farted in her face and says, very clipped, no. Okay, just let me know if you want anything I'll be right over here, he says. So we sit at this table, I'm reading the paper, Pete's writing up some orders, we're talking now and then, and Hope never says a word. She's got her nose up in the air, hands in lap, back straight, not a look in our direction. Pete gets up to buy a coke, asks again if she wants anything. This time she doesn't even reply. You can see the word balloon over her head containing the word, Serf! Or Mongrel! Or something. She's just going to pretend we're not there. Pray we don't rape her. The working class is known for its rapists. You could see her thoughts, I swear. Well, finally, the band comes, they do the in-store, and they split for Portland. A week later the manager gets a letter from Hope. It's written on little girl stationary, with cuddly kittens wearing bows and shit, and lined paper, and in it she accuses Pete and I of being mean to her. She used that exact phrase...They were mean to me. It's signed Hope, and there's a smiley face in the O. Rock stars!"
Last edited by Hermesacat on Fri Oct 30, 2015 1:24 am, edited 2 times in total.
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