California Dreaming
SPEAKING to Uncut in July 2013, David Roback considered the success of his 1993 release “Fade Into You” – a dusty, lilting ballad that had turned Mazzy Star, the band he co-founded, into reluctant international stars. The song even appeared, incongruously, in the violent science-fiction war movie Starship Troopers.
It was quite a contradiction in a way, he admitted. But it s interesting – you know, people play your music in a bar, it’s not uncommon to hear your music in any context, or anybody else’s music for that matter. You could be walking down the street or you could be at a funeral and somebody’s driving by playing The Beach Boys. No, we didn’t feel under a lot of pressure to follow it up. Pressure doesn’t get to us. It’s a very internal process that we’re involved in. I wouldn’t say we’re disengaged – we’re engaged in the stories of each individual song, it is its own world unto itself. But we’re not so concerned about the outside world.”
By this point, Roback had spent over 30 years pursuing his unique creative vision – a noir-ish, melancholic strand of American Gothic located somewhere between third-album Velvet Underground and The Doors of “The End”. It’s a story that began in California in the late ’70s and took in The Rain Parade’s neo-psychedelia, Opal’s dreamy psych-folk and Mazzy Star’s slow-spun, reverb-heavy grooves. In a series of close-quartered, hermetic collaborations – including Susanna Hoffs, Kendra Smith and Hope Sandoval – the guitarist and songwriter’s creativity pulsed quietly across six studio albums and a handful of other recordings before his death on February 24, aged 61. It’s a slim catalogue but unique and hugely influential, helping shape the work of artists as diverse as Wilco and Lana Del Rey.
“David Roback was in three great bands – an amazing feat for one guitar player,” J Mascis tells Uncut. “What beautiful music he made.”
“David Roback seemed to hold dear the things I think are most valuable in art: mystery and
