hermesacat

[hermesacat]

HOPE SANDOVAL in DAZED & CONFUSED #84, December 2001

[hermesacat]

HELLO ROCK N ROLL KITTY! (Vol.2): MAZZY STAR & HOPE SANDOVAL [Update August, 2022: This is a post I originally put on Tumblr in 2016. I'm re-posting it again today, six years later, Aug. 21. 2022 (updated to include some newer info) because it disappeared from my Tumblr account along with all my other previous content I'd posted to Tummblr. In the last few days, I logged into my Twitter account for the first time in years and discovered Twitter must have wiped it clean of content, followers and following.  It looked like a brand new account showing no activity, no content, no nuthin'. Did Tumblr do this 'cause I was inactive for so long? Hm. At least the account was allowed to exist, even if it had been reduced to nothingness! I had visited others' Tumblr pages occasionally but had not logged into my own for a very long time. I became active instead at fan groups on Facebook and elsewwhere and on my own you tube channel] ..................................................................................... This is a post on on Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval & David Roback as a cat appreciators. (Vol. 1 focuses on Dum Dum Girls’ Dee Dee Penny (now known as Kristin Kontrol) as a cat person). Mazzy Star’s / Hope Sandoval’s “totem animal” seems to be the cat as there are at least nine examples of cat image themes appearing in album art, merch, & music videos. Hope also meows her way, cat like, through a song, her guest duet on JAMC’s song “Perfume,” (a song whose lyrics only make sense when one knows the history of Chanel No. 5 perfume, & how the company became more responsible by ceasing to use in the making of its perfume musk taken from musk glands of the endangered wild civet cat). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pMPb6ifZ5c  . Plus, Hope’s been known to send letters on stationery with cat images printed on the paper, & sometimes signs autographs accompanied by cat cartoons she draws.

The photos are:

1) Hope Sandoval in L.A., 1993. Photo by Stefan De Batselier.

2) Cat imagery album artwork from Mazzy Star’s 1990 album, “She Hangs Brightly”, in yellow and black

3) Mazzy Star red and black tee shirt official merch design with cat image theme.

4) Mazzy Star black and white tote bag official merch design with cat theme.

5) & 6): Front and inside covers of Mazzy Star’s 2013 album, “Seasons of Your Day” with cat themes. [The album’s credits say: “Artwork: Mazzy Star, Barry Bodeker”]

7) Hope’s autograph accompanied by a cat cartoon she drew for a fan, Juan, after Mazzy Star’s Wiltern Theatre, L.A. gig, Nov. 7, 2013.

8) & 9): Two Black and white Screen capture pics of  two cats with different colourings that appear in Mazzy Star’s official video for the song “I’m Less Here,” released April, 2014. The cat on the left roams around in the video. The one on the right David is shown petting. The video’s on yt here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmQhNp5rr3Q The cat on the left roaming is Hope's own cat Herman, I believe who she's named in an interview. In the video, the colours of the cat on the left have been reversed like in an old photo negative.

10) Screen capture (orange toned) from the official video for the single”Isn’t It True,” by Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions, released April, 2016. It shows silhouettes of hands reaching out to two cats.

11) Black & white screen capture, close up of a cat’s face from a mysterious video from Hope’s tendriltales.com site, 2016, a video which also has some shots of Hope. There's good reason to believe the cat is Hope's cat Herman she has mentioned by name in an interview. In the video, the colours of the cat have been reversed like an old photo negative

12) Official post from Mazzy Star’s official Facebook page, Aug. 2016 re. the then forthcoming single “Let Me Get There,” by Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions with a cat them in its message which I’m going to guess Hope likely wrote.

13) Happy Halloween! At long last, a pic turns up of Hope with a cat! This pic was posted by Mazzy Star to their own official Facebook page, Oct. 31, 2016. Meow-wow. It must be Hope holding her cat Herman.

14) A picture of my own two cats as Mazzy Star cats (R.I.P. "Coco", the black one. The other, "Monkey" is still with me)

-References to Hope’s own cats, or cats she knows have appeared in a few articles over the years, most amusingly in a Sept., 2013 SPIN mag interview where she & Colm O’Ciosoig speak jokingly about a cat “Herman” but without letting on to the leg-pulled interviewer “Herman” is a cat, not a person! http://www.spin.com/articles/mazzy-star-seasons-of-your-day-interview/

A helpful SPIN reader in comments ID-ed the mysterious “Herman” as a cat, which fits with what Hope & Colm say about him. I see the current posting of the article no longer has any comments attached. So, I’ll leave a new one there with the “Herman” info restored that someone else originally supplied.

-Hope mentions cats in lyrics in at least one of her own songs, “Suzanne,” by Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions. The lyrics line is: “The cats in here are overflowin’ “

- There’s a 50 min. audio interview from 2013 with Hope & David I’ve upped to yt here: http://youtu.be/TJaFHGAEFiE  with a section (starting at the 30:16 mark) where they talk about cats, & it’s evident from it both are cat appreciators. At one point in the interview Hope says “I wish I could see a cat right now.”

-There’s a Rome radio interview & performance by David from 1988 (when Hope-era Opal was touring Europe) where he sings a song with amusingly odd sounding cat lyrics: “Sad and insane, Cat’s in the rain.” (Huh, David?). I’ve upped it to yt here: http://youtu.be/NL5mzjwyWNc It turns out it’s an Opal song called “A Falling Star” originally from the Opal era when Kendra Smith was still singer, but  with new lyrics. Hope sang the new version with cat lyrics on the 1988 Opal tour after she became Opal’s singer.

-Here’s a passage from an Oct., 1996 Alternative Press article: QUOTE: “We pile into William’s [William Reid of JAMC, Hope’s bf of the time] compact car. He drives us to his and Hope’s place so she can get her notebook of lyrics [before they go to the studio for a Mazzy Star rehearsal for an upcoming tour]. At the house, David goes to the back garden to pet William’s cat. He speaks of his love of animals, nature and the beauty of Cambridge (where Syd Barrett lives, he notes).“

-In an October, 1993 Melody Maker interview, David recalls first encountering Hope at 1980s L.A. rock shows as “Just a set of eyes, like a cat” !

-Cat  passage from 2002, Jan. 3 Rolling Stone Hope article/interview: “Hope sits at home in Berkeley while her cat meows over the phone even louder than she is able to speak.”

-Cat passages from 2002, August, L.A. Press Telegram Hope article/interview: “It becomes apparent that Mazzy Star lead singer Hope Sandoval is definitely a cat person when a faint mewing comes throughthe phone  during an interview from her Bay Area home…But like the territorial half-Siamese cat making its presence known  during this conversation, Sandoval has always set public and private boundaries in her career…”

-My own main youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/Bobjb999 has a large collection of Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval, & related recordings, mostly live, including many unreleased rarities, mostly audio with slideshows, although I have a few fine videos. Most of those slideshows have one or more cat pics sneaked in. It’s a small side distraction, but as a cat-person-Mazzy-fan I enjoy playing up the Mazzy Star cat connection a little! I also have a secondary yt channel with more Mazzy rarities, here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bobb99999999 .................................... [LATER UPDATES, Aug. 2020: Here's an excerpt from an interview with Hope and Colm (of The Warm Inventions) from The L.A. Record, Jan. 2017 https://issuu.com/larecord/docs/la_record_126_web

INTERVIEWER: Hope, do you have any hobbies besides making music? Do you collect anything? Records? Instruments? HOPE: Well, obviously I buy instruments—but no. I wish I could have a cat collection. That’s my fantasy. I’d be the crazy lady on the block with all the cats. I only allow myself one cat but I fantasize about having loads.

INTERVIEWER: It’s really disciplined to only have one cat.

HOPE: I know! And I can barely handle the one cat. I didn’t tell you, Colm [Colm is on the phone with them in a three-way phone interview] but he didn’t come home until three in the morning. I couldn’t sleep all night and finally I heard his little door and I went to open the little door and he walks in and he’s limping. He is ok. He’s sleeping now and I’m just debating whether I should take him to the vet. He’s one of those cats who is just a fighter. He thinks he’s in charge of the whole neighborhood so he’s constantly getting into fights and this will be, like, the fifth time I’ve taken him to the vet and at this point they’ll probably call child services on me. It’s just strange. He’s a fighter.

INTERVIEWER: f you did have a collection, you would be at the vet nearly every other day.

HOPE: Can you imagine the expense of having ten cats? .................................................... Here's a 2018 quote from Hope where Hope mentions her cat Herman. It's in a quote re. her 2018 collab with Mercury Rev from a tribute album celebrating singer Bobbie Gentry, The Delta Sweete Revisited, an album of new cover versions of the songs on Bobbie's 1968 album. Hope sings on one song "Big Boss Man" https://bellaunion.com/2018/12/mercury-rev-and-hope-sandoval-share-big-boss-man/ QUOTE: “Well, the only boss man in my life is my cat Herman so this song was a bit tricky for me but I am so honoured to have been asked to be a part of this amazing group of women paying tribute to such an inspirational artist. I’ve always been a fan of Mercury Rev and Bobbie Gentry, so needless to say I am over the moon to be a part of this project.” (-Hope, 2018)

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The idea of doing a HELLO ROCK N ROLL KITTY! series 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_stars_with_their_cats_and_dogs

[Full disclosure:  My yt & mazzystar.free.fr  handle “Hermesacat,”  is homage to a fave cat of my own named “Hermes” (now deceased). Resemblance of the name to the cat Hope & Colm cite, apparently named Herman according to a 2013 SPIN interview, is but an amusing coincidence. “Hermesacat” was my site name for years at (sadly now defunct) fan site Mazzy Star Boulevard. Btw, there are current worthy fan sites  here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6071129794/ (I'm an admin at the FB group); and here: http://mazzystar.free.fr ;

-Bob B. (Hermesacat)

#MazzyStar #HopeSandoval #cats