Sweet Jesus, when will Kendra Smith make another album?

i've got a recording of her at a 1998 Terrastock festival -- maybe her last public appearance? Solo stuff on harmonium (?) mostly, some creepy a capella things. Very Nico-esque. She sounds a little bit nervous, but it's a nice show overall.

Been curious about her activities/state for quite some time. Someone must have heard something, right?

those waiting for more kendra may dig beach house, very kendra-like vocals

G
O
T
A

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WHRSj0TJlXU/SLIBQHgP65I/AAAAAAAAAPA/8bhChozT0gc/s400/Kendra+Smith1.jpg

haha, that is how i would like to imagine Kendra at all times.

anybody know where I can find a copy of Kendra Smith & Steve Wynn's cover of "All Tomorrow's Parties" sung by Kendra entirely in German?...it's supposedly one of the greatest cover versions ever...!

― Pepper needs new shorts! (Drugs A. Money), Monday, January 5, 2009 9:45 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark

Hey there you ripped off one of JBR's old handles. :-/

whoops...which one Pepper or Kanye?

The Kanye one. It IS a prime funny, for sure.

damn...it was from a mispronunciation my friend id recently while trying to recreate a Hee Haw segue from Family Guy...

back to the drawing board for me...

id = did

you can d/l a live version of Kendra's "Alle Morgens Parties" (recorded c. 1979-1980 with the Suspects) @ this blog. she does a fairly middling imitation of Nico, and it seems like she had yet to find a distinctive voice at that point.

however, she recorded a studio version of it in 1981 while the Dream Syndicate were putting together their first EP. from Steve Wynn's site:

(1987) Free flexi given away freely with Bucketfull Of Barins, #31.

Side A contains Dream Syndicates version of Cinnamon Girl (Later on It's too late to stop now). Recorded at Rotund Rascal Studios, Feb. 1987. Produced by Dream Syndicate

The b-side includes Kendra Smith, produced by Steve Wynn, doing Lou Reeds Alle Morgens Parties, recorded at Down There Studios, June 1981.

this may well be one of the greatest covers ever, but unfortunately I'm having as much trouble as you are trying to track it down.

does this post still work? it's got that all tomorrows parties in german: http://www.jennywoolworth.ch/deardiary/?p=35 and some other stuff.

ah xpost! you beat me.

heh, hivemind strikes again

i think i have the dream syndicate-era version somewhere ... will try to dig it up.

ah, that'd be awesome if you did

now i'm wondering if the version i have is this Suspects version ... Didn't even know that existed til now.

yeah I have that flexi also, will try to get to it today if tylerw doesn't beat me to it.

I don't think it's the live one w/Suspects.

yeah, don't think the one i have on mp3 is live ...

I sure hope you guys aren't holding your breath waiting for more Kendra Smith records. Even I recognized the futility of that some time ago.

if Axl can do it, etc.

where is she? what is she doing now? I'm kind of fascinated by people who just disappear like this.

you saw the pic Sleeve posted upthread -- she's in the woods! With a gun!

Last I heard she was living in Northern California, off the grid and with no interest in recording. That was a couple years after FIVE WAYS OF DISAPPEARING came out.

(When in fact it just took one way.)

ZING!

I sure hope you guys aren't holding your breath waiting for more Kendra Smith records. Even I recognized the futility of that some time ago.

well, she was nice enough to include an alternate version of a Five Ways song on that issue of Ptolemaic Terrascope from last year, so I can dream.

there's a recording of her playing live at Terrastock in 98, its ok but really untogether. i wish they'd reissue an expanded Opal Early Recordings though, with the tracks that were left off included.

funny, Kendra, Roback and Sandoval = total dropouts.

I had/have that flexi. If I can dig it up. Shoot me mail.

I do not recall it as being one of the greatest covers ever, seeing as I haven't though about it much between getting Bucketful of Brains #31 and now.

She could make another record if she wanted... nobody expected Five Ways of Disappearing, after all.

Picked up 5 Ways the other day...(in a used bin, to state the bleeding obvious)...total goth-folk, not the thing I usually dig, but man, this thing is slaying me...maybe mid-November is exactly the right time of the year to listen to stuff like this...

those waiting for more kendra may dig beach house, very kendra-like vocals

i regret saying this

oh i dunno, it's not an off-base comparison. but beach house are no opal.

not that it's off base, but that beach house don't deserve any more attention

if anyone's interested, i just posted a kendra smith sampler over here: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/5422200026/disappearing-act-a-kendra-smith-sampler

Five Ways of Disappearing is my bible. That record just has so much going on, I love her forever.

XP - Amazing! Thanks.

heh, sorry tyler... also your sampler is excellent!

sweet jesus, when i will get some credit for this! jk, i hope you enjoy. it was fun to make. someone should put it out for real! on vinyl or something. it'd sell in the dozens!

this is cool, thanks! I haven't heard any of those live solo songs at the end of your sampler (they're from Terrastock, right?) so I look forward to hearing those.

yeah that's the terrastock performance. last song is uhhh pretty intense. a capella!

Saw that performance -- it was definitely unusual.

did she walk offstage throwing copies of Walden into the audience and riding off into the sunset in an Amish buggy? fitting that the last songf she performed there seems to be a cover of Hank's "Ramblin' Man".

the lineup for Terrastock 2 seems amazing though. Fifty Foot Hose? Silver Apples? too bad I wasn't cool enough to be there (at the age of 10).

I look at the lineups of past Terrastocks and just cry...

There was a lot of spectacular stuff going on in that second one -- my one key regret is that I was sitting watching Tom Rapp tune up not fully appreciating that Batoh was killing it one room over. I've been lucky enough to catch all the Terrastocks except the first and third.

.... aw, thread bump got my hopes up that someone had managed to lure her into a studio somehow

^^ will def check out sampler, tho! FWOD was pretty great, but The Guild of Temporal Adventurers is where my heart lies.

yeah, putting this together, i think the guild stuff is my fave thing by her too.

The Guild of Temporal Adventurers is where my heart lies.

yes. and thanks for the mix, tw! have most of it, but looking forward to the live tracks.

yeah, if there's interest, i can post that whole recording...

yes plz

.... aw, thread bump got my hopes up that someone had managed to lure her into a studio somehow

― zappi, Thursday, 12 May 2011 17:22 (1 hour ago)

<3 u tyler though, all this stuff still needs reissues!

yeah it is crazy that some label hasn't at least done an Opal retrospective.

i was under the impression there was a huge roadblock to opal reissues in the shape of one d. roback but that might be idle gossip

whenever I go into a shop, Early Recordings is the first thing I look for, on vinyl or CD. I've had it on cassette since the 90s & on CDR/vinyl-rip FLAC since then, but still, it is a knee-jerk reaction at this point. I've seen it behind the counter at a few places, but still holding out for it in the general collection. TBH I kind of hope I never find it b/c it would ruin the fun.

so regret selling my CD...

i was under the impression there was a huge roadblock to opal reissues in the shape of one d. roback but that might be idle gossip
any more info on this? like, does Roback think the Opal stuff is no good? Rain Parade was reished a little while back, right?

finally got around to posting that full terrastock performance for those who are interested: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/7011016025/kendra-smith-live-at-terrastock-ii-april-17

Too kind of you!

thank you, sir!

tho I do have to admit that I always get a slight case of "just maybe" palpitations whenever this thread surfaces on 'new answers.'

ha, yeah. i'd be surprised if she came back, but who knows? maybe she's waiting for someone to ask?

http://www.youtube.com/embed/N6g1IvcwL5Y

dunno what happened to the auto-embed, that is an official SST video for 'Happy Nightmare Baby" (the song).

nice! never seen that. funny that hope sandoval is in there in the intro. smiling, even!

nice! never seen that. funny that hope sandoval is in there in the intro. smiling, even!

oops? technical difficulties on this thread!

never seen this one before, cute footage of Kendra & Roback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEamS2sQO9Q

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Kendra Smith wrote a review in the new issue of Bull Tongue, a long and loving tribute to a Tuvan singer's album from 2005 or so? Great piece. Welcome back Kendra!

ha, missed this ... good to know she is still out there somewhere.

I say this every morning when I wake up

<3

hey tylerw, still thankful for you posting that Kendra sampler a few years back.

!!!!!!!!!!

Dream Syndicate’s 1st new album in 29 years to feature Kendra Smith singing ‘perfect coda’

!!!!!!!!!!

finally, my nine year old thread is justified

!!!!!!!

wish there was just one more song. wonder what forest they unearthed her from

tylerw, get in here ASAP

ha, i revived the dream syndicate thread last week with this news ... pretty cool! wonder if this is just a one-off or if it foreshadows more activity from Kendra in the future ... probably the former, but who knows?

I like to imagine that only Steve Wynn knows where she is, and will only call on her in the time of greatest need, which is obviously now.

http://www.planetkrypton.net/products/LS-Batman-The-Commissioners.jpg

have a vague recollection of wynn saying (maybe many years ago) that he had no idea how to get in touch with her ... i guess he tracked her down!

fan theory: Kendra is still 100% off the grid and nobody knows where she lives. after failing in his efforts to contact her, Steve hired a Kendra Smith impersonator to sing on the new album because he knows it will make for good press and he figures the real Kendra will never find out.

Coley visited her sometime in the last couple of years. She's reachable.

wow, another stray song I never knew about - a cover of Joy Division's "Heart And Soul"

https://www.discogs.com/Various-A-Means-To-An-End-The-Music-Of-Joy-Division/master/68944

ha, i'd missed that one too ... sounds pretty good!
very curious to hear her contribution to the upcoming dream syndicate record ...

No sign in the Dream Syndicate advance material that Smith was in contact for the new record. I think I'd prefer her to stay in legendary mystery status anyways.

Wynn said that she sings on one of the new songs

Oh, and there was one last surprise, one more perfect link to our past and completing of the circle. One of the more intriguing of the songs we recorded was a hypnotic trance and mantra called "Recurring." I had a pretty decent lyric and sang a good vocal but somehow it just didn't work. The song and the riff were cool, the band's recording was evocative and beautiful. But I began to realize I wasn't the right singer for the song. And I knew immediately that the perfect singer would be the only other person to sing lead on a Dream Syndicate song, our original bass player Kendra Smith. I was amazed and delighted that my old friend and bandmate agreed to do it and then wrote some astounding lyrics and sang a vocal that at once as true to the spirit of the song and also turned the whole thing upside down. The song, now called "Kendra's Dream" is the perfect coda to the record, tying up loose ends from the past and then opening them up again to the future.

xpost: wow!

the new song is great. nice to hear her again. Her voice has certainly deepened.

https://medium.com/@davidchiu/kendra-smith-a-musical-disappearing-act-reemerges-d62da2f271b8
pretty good overview ...

Kendra Smith will join us on stage for a few songs at our shows next week at the @elreytheatre (12/15) and @Independent (12/16) in LA and SF. pic.twitter.com/SkzPwjPRXi

— The Dream Syndicate (@_DreamSyndicate) December 6, 2017

Huh. Just saw them play Monday night, with. Dumotrucks guitarist sitting in (I think).

thread revive delivers!

pretty cool ... recent interview in uncut made it sound like new music wasn't entirely out of the question ...

I am willing it to happen

the new dream syndicate LP is solid, but her song is far and away the best thing on it

well there she was, for the encore of Dream Syndicate's last CA show last night in SF. Pretty amazing. She definitely seemed very comfortable on stage and was enjoying herself. Who knowsif she'll ever record something again. I didn't stick around afterward, Wynn said they'd be hanging out talking to everyone, wonder if she did as well, and I wonder if anyone asked?

did they do "Too Little, Too Late"?

no, not that I remember.

oh wait yeah they did, that was the first song she did. spaced out.

!!!!!

video of The Suspects (pre-Dream Syndicate w/Steve & Kendra & the dues who went on to True West)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqbvWgmiJJo

also there are taped gigs!

https://archive.org/details/stevewynn1980-01-20.flac16

https://archive.org/details/stevewynn1981-05-08.flac16

oh hey there’s footage of her playing with Dream Syndicate last month!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3izWHtV51o

awesome, thanks

yep. such a great show.

gah, so amazing... thanks for sharing!

man, not sure how i missed that there were suspects shows on the archive! thanks, man ...
the recent vids w/ Kendra are pretty great ... she looks pretty comfortable / confident up there!

he new dream syndicate LP is solid, but her song is far and away the best thing on it

― tylerw Haven't heard it yet, but for me this sums up all their previous---Steve Wynn has always seemed like a nice guy, which audibly goes/drags against his bad boy themes and the band's overall momentum, however cogent their playing---but she's got it.

soooo Discogs now lists some tantalizing odds and ends under Opal...

I have their Syd Barret cover:
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Beyond-The-Wildwood-A-Tribute-To-Syd-Barrett/master/214194

but I have never heard the track "Slap Happy" from this ridiculous promo-only Israel-only comp LP of Rough Trade artists:
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Rough-Trade-Compilation/release/9172446

it might be a typo, but this other comp LP has "Revalation" which might be a different version of "Relevation"?
https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Flower-Fed-Buffaloes/release/537642

and this, the thing I'm most excited about, which I snagged a copy of - a Rough Trade promo CASSETTE with a track called "Ghost Highway" that's not on any other record:
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Rough-Trade-Promotional-Cassette-2/release/7941878

waiting for that to show up in the mail, will report back.

"Ghost Highway" is on the first Mazzy Star LP, I think they were still going by the name Opal in 1988 with Sandoval in the band?

ah, I bet that's it, thanks

makes me think that the "Slap Happy" song is actually "Blue Flower", originally written by the band Slapp Happy.

the Syd Barrett cover is excellent, they stretch out the coda from Jugband Blues into its own song

seems that the Ghost Highway song is v similar to the final released version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwctCSMKBUo

I think they were still going by the name Opal in 1988 with Sandoval in the band?

Aye... Kendra left Opal in the middle of their tour opening up for JAMC in late 1987. Hope joins up to finish out both that tour and a 1988 European tour. Ghost Highway was going to be the title of the second Opal album but then they started over again with a new batch of Sandoval/Roback songs and became Mazzy Star.

Always love when this thread revives.

I had no idea Kendra had a new song out - it's on the Leave No Trace soundtrack album and credited to Kendra Smith & The Magician's Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnoME6cyi_U

!!!!!

wow, what a great song! that is a huge get for the filmmakers... and us, if it presages anything more!

I don't see that on Discogs, is it not yet released?

finally, my nine year old thread is justified

― a Radiohead album stamping on a human face, forever (sleeve), Monday, February 20, 2017

looks like it is a digital-only release for now

YSI?

https://www.easy-youtube-mp3.com/download.php?v=rnoME6cyi_U

But, you know... it's only $1.29 from Amazon or iTunes

she seems to have spent much of the intervening time smoking

there’s a great interview in the most recent chickfactor fanzine. i think it may only be a print only edition. she spends a lot of time describing a semi communal pacific northwest lifestyle which maps with the leave no trace film (which i loved)

not surprised to learn that I have a friend who worked on that movie! Michael Hurley is also in it iirc

also thx for the Chickfactor tip!

the hurley cameo caught me off guard but made total sense given the context. really a beautiful film.

chickfactor 18 still available on their website!

> much of the intervening time smoking

Leading with pump organ was wonderful in character, so Marianne Faithful appearing after a minute of that was a shock. Completely satisfying re-emergence from the vines.

I did buy this MP3 for the record :)

to my shame, I saw Leave No Trace in the theater last year and didn't even realize it featured a Kendra Smith song (and I'm pretty sure I sat through most of the end credits where it appeared)

I snagged the mp3 from iTunes, but am thinking of buying the Blu-Ray and ripping the audio from that because I'm one of those nerds.

or whatever format iTunes uses these days, don't remember

how did I miss this ?!?!

Kendra Smith | The Disappearing Art of Living

Then I went through a period where I was mostly studying Central Asian and Persian classical music and working with instruments we made here and all along I’ve had my pump organs which I keep getting more and more of.

Yaaasss

Dream Syndicate

I kind of re heard the Opal stuff after I stumbled upon this tribute stream https://www.nts.live/shows/in-focus/episodes/in-focus-kendra-smith-30th-august-2019

Is there anyone out here that really likes the song "Lisa's Funeral" as much as me? I think it is an extraordinary song. Always thought it must be some kind of cover song. But apparently it is not. Does anyone have more background on this? I am absolutely astonished this song did not make it unto any official releases. Is there maybe even another version floating around? My Mp3 (which I found ages ago in the net) of it just sounds not too great.

it is so fucking good, I can listen to Roback's tone all day long

pretty sure the version on "Early Recordings 2" is the best sounding one, not perfect but good enough for me

I just love how that song builds up and gets heavy. Who plays that electric organ? only have the MP3 of the early recordings 2, no booklet or liner notes, Is the song on ER2 taken from the promo tape? Any other versions, live etc around? unfortunately most of old bootleg download links are broken by now.

Presumably Suki Ewers on organ, she and Kendra are the only two left from Opal I think

Great song - they played it live when they were Clay Allison, and there’s 3 (maybe more?) CA shows on YouTube with it in the set.

there are live boot versions, gimme a couple days

for yr opal/kendra/mazzy rarities need, this is the motherlode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videos

er: http://www.youtube.com/@Opalstardream

good article

https://johnpstrohm.substack.com/p/diamonds-in-the-mine-1

Thank you for all the feedback and resources. I must admit that I listened to Mazzy Star when 15 years old but only discovered opal when I turned 40. What a great miss...
I hope Opal gets a special reissue maybe on Omnivore.
Digging deeper into Dream Syndicate I kind of found all the special versions and supplements of The Days Of Wine And Roses.
Any recommendations where to start? Non of those seems to include all Tracks of the others not even the 4 disc version...
https://omnivorerecordings.com/ov-129/
https://omnivorerecordings.com/shop/the-day-before-wine-and-roses/
https://www.firerecords.com/product/dream-syndicate-days-of-wine-roses-expanded/
https://www.firerecords.com/product/the-dream-syndicate-sketches-for-the-days-of-wine/

I hope Opal gets a special reissue maybe on Omnivore.

Sadly very unlikely. Pat Thomas, who had been working on possible reissues, posted this in response to a query earlier this year when some kind of CDs began resurfacing:

the short version is - I was in the middle of negotiating a truce between Kendra and David - but David wasn’t being very reasonable financially- then, behind our backs- he authorized the manufacture of these CDs - then he suddenly passed away. Posthumously we tried to come to a reasonable arrangement with David’s management (for the royalties to be divided more or less evenly) but David left instructions wanting a very large % - so no agreement was made - and these Opal CDs sat in a warehouse until they started started leaking out like this

oh well...sad, but it will add to the mystery.

off topic: when I was a teenager somebody borrowed me a tape of a band I knew and and on the second side it had his name is alive on it. Stuck on the american bands on 4ad since... including Throwing Muses etc. But nothing quiet as unique as the first three records of HNIA.