Following a weekend where some pledgers had their Skype chats, some more of Juliana's paintings have been added to the PledgeMusic incentives.
Juliana has added several copies of her How To Walk Away demos CD to the PledgeMusic incentives list.
This limited edition bonus CD was originally available by mail order with initial copies of How To Walk Away, released in 2008. It features a number of home demo versions from the album, many with a basic drum machine backing. The tracklist also includes demos from what became the Sittin' In A Tree EP plus a few previously unreleased songs.
If you missed it first time around, now is your chance. Allez.
It would be an understatement to say the PledgeMusic project is going well.
Juliana reached her main target within hours of launch, with many of the incentives selling out before some of us in Europe had emerged from our slumber.
A look through Juliana's updates suggests she is really enjoying this and genuinely overwhelmed by the response.
To her fans this will be less of a surprise. She has a small but remarkably loyal following. The list of pledgers is so familiar it could have been compiled by Keyser Soze. It looks like some of us have been wanting something like this for a few years.
Juliana has just increased the allocation for some of the previously sold out incentives and added a few new ones, including custom guitar picks, a 20 question email Q&A, signed books and posters, with the promise of more artwork related options to come.
On the basis of the last couple of days, you might need to be quick. This is a good time to be a Juliana fan.
The cat is out of the bag. This is Juliana's new project. A new (possibly double) album project. Electric band, baby.
All the details are at Juliana's PledgeMusic project page where she says:
I invite you to participate in the making of my new album. You are the modern Medicis and I need your help to make this happen. Your pledge for any of the items and experiences I am offering will directly support the recording, production, packaging, and marketing of my new album.
Various options are available from pledging to buy the CD, through signed artwork and up to a day in the recording studio(update Apr 8 - the studio offer has now been withdrawn).
Some kooky options are there too, including a 15 minute Skype call which has already been snapped up, and the creeptastic prospect of a 'lock of Juliana's hair'.
This seems a natural progression from the honor system downloads, running her own record label and selling custom made songs.
Would anyone be surprised if Juliana lost money on How To Walk Away yet turned a small profit on Peace & Love? This, despite the latter selling far fewer copies? disclaimer: this is 100% uninformed speculation. smiley winking face.
Without a traditional advance from a record label, can non-stadium filling artists justify the expense of a full studio production and promotion?
In the dying days of the Juliana forum, there was a frequent debate on how artists can earn a living from their work in the digital age, a debate only heightened by Juliana's 'Song For You' custom project.
Often veering into the awkward territory of indirectly telling Juliana what we thought she should do (doubly awkward as she never asked us!), the forum consensus seemed to suggest something similar to Kristin Hersh's CASH Music projects and using some of her Strange Angels ideas without the subscription model.
Basically, most of us seemed to come up with the main principles of PledgeMusic before PledgeMusic existed. Now it does and it seems to make perfect sense for Juliana.
Let's really hope this works out for her, and by consequence for us fans too.
It's been a bit quiet here for news over the last month, then BOOM!
No more details other than one line on Juliana's blog:
"NEW ALBUM COMING IN THE SUMMER"
In block capitals, no less. More as and when.
The new t-shirts as available at Juliana & Evan's recent shows are now for sale at Juliana's site.
There's only 80 of them, so you'd better be quick. They are a different design from the shirts sold last year and, at $15 (plus shipping), $5 cheaper.
"I am starting to like music again. "
Smiley face.
"Cinnamon girl is so iconic that I am a little intimidated about doing it but it’s fucking cinnamon girl, man. CINNAMON GIRL."
In Juliana's latest stream of consciousness tour diary entry she confirms the song picked for the Neil Young tribute show in February.
Spotify link - Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl
"When people would ask me what advice I had for young musicians I would always say: Take care of your teeth."
Read more in Juliana's latest official blog entry, titled January 20 first day stream of consciousness tour diary.
A (very) limited number of T-shirts from the recent Juliana & Evan shows are now on sale at Juliana's official site. UPDATE Jan 16 - They are now sold out.
Priced at $20 plus shipping to US, Canada, Europe, Japan & Australia they are available in noir et blanc or couleur.
No sign of the mugs for sale, sadly.
Aficionados of the air guitar may care to note that for the first time a Juliana song is coming to Rock Band.
Available next week as a downloadable add-on for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, the latest song pack for the game will include Nirvana from Hey Babe.
Makes you wanna go fuck shit up. With buttons.
When she's not busy saving stray dogs and other 'super secret' non-musical adventures it appears Juliana is also now a consumer champion. Today's blog post addresses the vital matter of the new US 2 piece King Size Snickers bar and the inane brevity of the manufacturers' reply to her complaint.
Such an important issue that liveontomorrow.co.uk has taken to Google to find a more detailed answer from Mars Chocolate North America:
"The size of the product was changed in order to hold the retail price steady. This is also directly related to manufacturing and ingredient costs. When you compare the weight of any product of equally high quality, we are confident our candy would cost less per ounce."
Juliana has written a new article for the Huffington Post on her Save a Sato dog rescue patronage.
She previously mentioned her interest in this project last month.
For those who may have missed the news, a reminder that Juliana has recently resurrected her blog pages on the official site. She may have quit social networks but appears to be now using the blog for random thoughts rather than the song inspired essays of yore. It now looks like many other blogs with Twitter-ish posts - a means for her to communicate if not (by virtue of comments being disabled) to interact. If you enjoyed her Twitter posts it's worth subscribing to the RSS feed.
Peace & Love can now be heard on Spotify, the streaming service available in parts of Europe (UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Finland and Norway).
A handy tool for those of us who want to recommend the album to non-Juliana fans who use the service. Just suggest that if they like it they might want to buy the CD from Ye Olde. Although Spotify is legal there are doubts as to how much independent artists are compensated, and your site admin is a bit suspicious of the motives of a DRM / p2p service by stealth, and still prefers to 'own' music, rather than trusting a collection to the cloud. Maybe he's just old fashioned.
Juliana's new album Peace & Love is released today.
CD:
As expected distribution of the CD format appears to be very limited. Orders can still be placed directly on Juliana's official site but given the scarcity elsewhere on online stores you might want to get your order in now.
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD:
No such scarcity for fans of the compressed lossy format sans liner notes. There appears to be a worldwide distribution on iTunes and a number of other download stores on the interwebs, including:
, 
Juliana's patronage of the Puerto Rican Save A Sato dog rescue project is featured in her recent blog post and an article in Samaritan Magazine.