Happy Birthday, Hope

[Spoon]

Thought I'd wish Hope a happy birthday today, June 24th, 2014.

Also, since one's birthday represents the beginning of his or her life I thought it'd be fun to trade stories on how we all got into the band in the first place...

For me, I had a friend in California who first told me about them and the song Fade Into You. I'm sure I had heard it on the radio as a kid but may not have remembered. I didn't think a whole lot of my friend's recommendation at first but I do remember listening to the song and liking it. I still didn't look into them much past that, though. Fast forward a few years later and the song came up again on a mix I had made for fun. That, coupled with people talking about the band on a message board of another band I used to frequent, piqued my interest. I found So Tonight That I Might See at a music store and liked it instantly. Shortly after, I ordered She Hangs Brightly and Among My Swan from Amazon and the rest is history.

Mazzy has been my favorite band for about 3 years now, and having a 4th album released last year has just been wonderful. The fact that it has opened new doors for me musically and led to the discovery of other bands such as Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, Opal and My Bloody Valentine, to name a few, has been even better.

[alas]

I heard Fade Into You on the radio while at work and immediately liked it - it was refreshing to hear given the hair bands of the day.

I first heard of Hope from a coworker who was friends with her. He told me his friend had a song on the radio - it was a duet with a guy. He couldn't remember the song's title or the name of the guy she sang with. The feller couldn't carry a tune, so I had no idea what song he was humming/singing (turns out it was Sometimes Always).

A couple of weeks later, Fade Into You played on the radio while we were both working. He said that's my friend singing that song. I went, oh! I like this one, but there's no guy singing on it. He said, no, that's another one. This one is with her band. I thought, hmmm.

So I went to the record store and bought the CD So Tonight That I Might See. Liked it and bought She Hangs Brightly. Liked that one, too, and became a fan. Not a fanatic, mind you. I didn't pester my friend to introduce me to her or to tell me where she was playing. It was more like, local girl does good. Good for her! I became a devoted fan - or was just waiting for an excuse to admit it - when I heard Among My Swan. After that, anything she released, I wanted a copy. And by that, I mean buy. This is an artist I want to support. I still burn their CDs, but that's only because I don't want to wreck my originals.

[Hermesacat]

Thanks Spoon & Alas for your recollections of how you became fans, & for the B-day reminder. Hope's 48 years young this month.

Re. discovering the band, I was a belated convert as it wasn't till 2010 I became a fan (better late than never, as the saying goes). If I was ever aware of them before, I'd forgotten by 2010. It's possible they didn't receive the same amount of radio & video play in Canada in the 1990s as elsewhere. Canada had Canadian content rules that required a certain percentage of air time be devoted to Canadian artists on radio & TV. This may possibly have limited Mazzy Star's 1990s Canadian exposure although it's evident from youtube uploads the band did appear on Canadian TV. There's that rare 1990s TV interview on yt with Hope & David from the French Canadian music network, Musique Plus, from Montreal, & their 1990s live performance as a duo on Much Music (Canada's MTV of the time) from Toronto.

A long time Velvet Underground fan, I also always liked Cowboy Junkies' version of VU's "Sweet Jane" (The only Junkies song I much like). In 2010, I looked up Junkies' old video of the song on yt. In comments, a youtuber had said "This sounds like Mazzy Star." That one comment sent me checking out Mazzy Star on yt for the first time. I think I listened to 2,3 or 4 songs, & imagine "Fade Into You" was one. I liked the band okay but it wasn't till mid way through the next song I heard, the live video acoustic version of "Bell's Ring," upped by youtuber ManicDB, that I was made a sudden convert (sudden enightenment!) which I've been ever since.

All of a sudden, mid-song, it became obvious why Mazzy Star's so appealing to me. I can place it to a specific moment when Hope sang these lines in that "Bells ring" video:
"Hold your hands out towards the water, In front of me to know I'm with you."
Got "zinged" at that point, somehow. And everything that followed after that in that song drew me in completely, as did the rest of their songs as I listened to them later.

It dawned on me all at once then what a rare talent Hope has for writing & delivering very affecting melodies. The water imagery in those lines helped too as I have some affinity for rivers, lakes, & ocean. I've since noticed a dozen or more examples of water imagery in Hope's lyrics, & don't know of another image theme quite as prevalent in Mazzy Star or Hope songs. Will's viola in that song's great too. And I became a fan of David's guitar playing, especially his slide stuff.

Odd postscript is that yt comment at the Cowboy Junkies video saying it sounded like Mazzy Star which sent me to check out Mazzy Star, I don't even agree with, but that doesn't matter!

[Spoon]

How about some more stories from people who haven't already responded?

Let's be honest - this isn't exactly the busiest message board on the internet and so it would be interesting to hear others share how they discovered this band we all love.

[melancholy_madness]

Awesome thread!

As for me I think I discovered Mazzy Star one night when i was driving home alone at probably 1 or 2 in the morning (I had probably heard fade into you at some point earlier but never really clicked for me). Was just flicking through the local stations and some college radio was having a Mazzy Star special hour kind of thing. I think the first song i heard was 'Umbilical'. Now just imagine driving country roads with no one else around on a cold, wet winter night and to top it off there was this crazy lightning and thunder storm. By the end of the song I had massive goose bumps all up my arms and was completely freaked out by the 'eeriness' of the song but at the same time in love with Hope's 'rambling' lyrics and Roback's guitar style and long story short i went home and bought every album! Haha

[Zarik]

for me it was all thanks to Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. in his journals he listed mazzy's presumably first album as one of his top 50 records of all time. i bought among my swan and the rest is history. hooked instantly once i heard hopes voice. have been extremely fortunate to see her twice and mazzy star once since. for both thought it would never happen.

mazzy star is my greatest band of all time (after Nirvana).

[STamblethzz]

Hi everyone,

I got into the band when I was a teenager in the mid 90s when Fade Into You was a minor hit on that old music-based channel. A little later they started playing the Halah video as well, and I was 100% sold. I got She Hangs Brightly first, and later the FIY single, and later the other two albums as well.

Most of the stuff I liked when I was a kid seems dumb and childish to me now. MazzyStar still holds up. There are precious few things I can say that about. Hope & Davis are always soo cool and simple, never screaming, begging of attention, never telling me what they think about politics or their private lives, just cool. I liked that when I was a kid, and I like it now. I look for that in other people, but it is a rare quality requiring both braveness and humility. They just "are". You don't have to be any specific kind of a person to like them.

I hope they go on making their music for many years to come.

[Spoon]

Happy Birthday, Hope.

6/24/2015.

[Hermesacat]

Yes, she's 49 years young today, for the first time. And next year Hope can be 49 again!
I wonder what she/they are doing these days? No new official posts or news at Mazzy star's FB page since January, & none at Hope's official site. Back into the shadows.

[Emma]

I wonder what she/they are doing these days? No new official posts or news at Mazzy star's FB page since January, & none at Hope's official site. Back into the shadows.

I'm disappointed they didn't tour Europe as planned. In a couple of interviews they did for the release of Seasons of Your Day in 2013, David R. said that they would be playing in Europe in December 2013, just after the American tour dates. I wonder why the promised European tour never took place.