The vinyl / LP / actual proper old skool record version of There's Always Another Girl is now available from Juliana's official site.
Two songs from the download / CD version - Candy Wrappers and its alternate reprise And Again are not included due to size constraints.
Juliana's Pony - Mikey Welsh, Juliana Hatfield, Zeph Courtney
The Boston Phoenix reports that Mikey Welsh has died at the age of 40.
Welsh played bass in Weezer from 1998 to 2001. Around the same period he was also Juliana's touring bassist. He performed on the recording of Bed and as the bassist in Juliana's Pony he contributued to Total System Failure, where he has four co-writing credits.
He left the music industry in 2001 and has since been an artist.
Juliana's 1993 album Become What You Are is the subject of this week's episode of Dig Me Out - a "weekly podcast dedicated to reviewing the lost and forgotten rock of the 90's".
You can listen or download at Dig Me Out or via iTunes.
The album is critiqued from the points of view of a listener revisiting after many years and of someone hearing much of it for the first time.
The first 15 minutes is little more than a Juliana biography so you can safely skip to the remaining half hour unless man reads wikipedia is your thing.
Three more reviews for you:
Mark Jenkins, Blurt Online:
The pretty-girl trap and bad-boy misbehavior are longtime Hatfield themes, but she's rarely delivered them with such directness and authority.
6/10
Tyler Kane, Paste Magazine:
...It’s moments like these that show Hatfield’s ability to take advantage of her own intentional, focused ideas and meld them with spontaneous moments of creative opportunity.
7.2/10
Some guy in the UK, Some Website:
The honor system had worked well since 2004, the $1,000 songs had sold, she'd succesfully auctioned her guitars. PledgeMusic was always going to work.
Ok the last one is from your humble webmaster, which doubles as the prestigious liveontomorrow review™ on this site's dedicated page for There's Always Another Girl, where all the reviews, links and other relevant info from these here news pages will be collated. More information than you could possibly ever need or want. That's how I roll.
The new album is now available for non-pledgers as a digital download in most territories.
The physical CD remains available to order at Juliana's official site.
Those who pledged on the vinyl version have been notified by Juliana of a delay until mid September (pledger only link) but they all have the download version.
So if you haven't heard There's Always Another Girl yet, your excuses are running out.
Q: Do you dance?
A: only alone. but yes. alone.
Another of the PledgeMusic 20 Questions has been made public. Read Juliana's responses to emailed questions raised by Foxopoly at Internet Poison.
If you missed the earlier posting of Juliana's 20 Question exchange with N'Awlins Contrarian you can read it as a pdf here.
Wow.
Just hours after the PledgeMusic download release of There's Always Another Girl, we now have some bonus demos too!
Released under the old skool Juliana honor system, 12 tracks are now available for download at Juliana's official site. Although some have been available before (at Juliana's site and PledgeMusic) there are some interesting new ones. They are released with the caveat:
Please understand/be forewarned that some of these demos are unfinished works in progress, especially lyrically.
With that in mind...
Download, Devour and Decide what to Donate.
The lyrics to There's Always Another Girl are now up at Juliana's official site.
The time has come people.
Coinciding with her birthday, Juliana's new album - There's Always Another Girl - is now available to download for PledgeMusic subscribers.
Audiophiles will note that the download is a 192 kbps mp3 affair.
Juliana says:
This has been a really interesting and illuminating and gratifying project and I can't thank you all enough for taking part. I hope to do it again soon.
This also means that the project is now closed. If you haven't pledged, you'll have to wait until Juliana makes the album available for general sale from August 30. (Update You can now pre-order at Juliana's official site.)
Download, Decompress and Devour.
The new album cover is uncovered. Literally.
The new album, There's Always Another Girl will be available to download on July 27, 2011 for those of us who have made any of the pledges on the PledgeMusic project.
The vinyl mastering was completed last week, so the physical versions on CD and vinyl should follow shortly for those who picked them as their pledge.
The album remains on schedule as a CD release for non-pledgers on August 30.
The CD tracklist for the new album There's Always Another Girl as announced today by Juliana:
This is updated from the list originally declared in May and, woohoo, with one more track.
Juliana has changed the title of her new album from Speeches Delivered To Animals And Plants to There's Always Another Girl.
"the new title is more succinct and makes sense, somehow, and goes really well with the artwork we are working on. also i was a bit concerned about the absolute legality of the former title as it was sort of borrowed from john irving’s “the world according to garp” (a great book)—it was (almost) the name of the book of poems that the tongueless character ellen james writes and never publishes."
She explains more in her latest PledgeMusic update.
Probably a wise decision on grounds of brevity alone. Even the original press release demoted the original title to "Speeches...", which it would inevitably have become known.
Juliana has also been pondering the track ordering so the previously announced tracklist was premature too.
There's Always Another Girl will be a familiar title to many of us, taken from what will now be the the album's title track. This song originally debuted on Myspace in April 2009 following Juliana tweeting her thoughts on Lindsay Lohan. This home demo version remains available on mp3 at Stereogum.
The new album has a title. A long one.
Speeches Delivered To Animals And Plants is 'based loosely on the concept of failure' and will be released to the world on August 30th via Juliana's own label, Ye Olde Records and distributed by Junketboy.
UPDATE June 22 - the album is now called There's Always Another Girl
Those of us who have funded the album via PledgeMusic should get it ahead of this with exclusive access to a download version 'when it is ready' and if we've pledged on the CD 'as soon as it is manufactured'. Update June 7 - Juliana hopes to have the album pledgy ready in July.
The tracklist (which is subject to change):
UPDATE July 13 - Juliana has changed the order of the above and added a track.
From the press release:
Hatfield says, "I really think that PledgeMusic and similar sites are the future of music, especially for people like me who have devoted cultish fanbases but who have never sold a ton of records and don't really fit in anywhere at major labels. Working with this new model, you go straight to the fans, who become your patrons, in a very direct and vital way. They have a special kind of access to you in a way that makes them happy - they see the progress of the album-making in real time with the video and audio updates I post at the PledgeMusic site. And I have total ownership of the music at all stages, present and future. I love working like this."
Speeches... is the follow up to last year's Peace and Love, which Paste Magazine hailed for its "fearless honesty" while SPIN extolled its "affirmations turned narratives that are sharpened rather than softened by their harmonies."
Working at Q Division Studios in Somerville, Massachusetts, Hatfield produced and played all the six-string guitars and keyboards on the new album. Ed Valuaskas played bass and Pete Caldes played drums. The 13 songs feature Hatfield's distinctive but typically underrated guitar stylings-highly emotive but not overly slick, and resonating with a range of human emotions from joy to despondence to goofiness to resignation.
What's with the title? "I think that when people get to the presumed halfway point in their lives, they inevitably look back and assess what they have or have not accomplished. There is an acceptance of one's limitations, a scaling back of goals, a settling into the way things are," observes Hatfield. "I think I have always had a pretty measured perspective-I am always grateful for all the good opportunities I've had but at the same time I'm never really content. I always want to do more, to be better-a better singer, performer, writer, person, friend, sister, daughter, etc. I don't shy away from the dark stuff -without the darkness there would be no light."
Hatfield first came to prominence in her teens as a founding member of the Blake Babies. After four independent albums with the group, she signed to Atlantic as a solo artist and had a string of modern-rock hits (including "My Sister," "Spin The Bottle" and "Universal Heartbeat"). She left the label in 1998, signing to Zoe Records (a Rounder Records imprint) and releasing four well-regarded albums, including 2004's In Exile Deo, named as one of that year's 10 best albums by The New York Times' Jon Pareles. In 2005, Hatfield came full circle, returning to her independent roots and founding Ye Olde Records. Her autobiography, When I Grow Up, was published by Wiley & Sons in 2008.
"I've gotten to a place where I am really proud of the large body of work that I have produced, regardless of how my work is or is not received, or how many records I've sold," she reflects. "I know my weaknesses but I also know that I have gifts and I've made the most of them with this new album."
Juliana has made further quantities of posters available and added the artwork to the PledgeMusic project.
PledgeMusic have announced that Juliana has broken the record for an artist to achieve their target.
As pledgers will know, Juliana has been updating regularly from the studio. A number of song titles have been revealed, random pledger only videos posted (including Juliana shaking it like a Polaroid), lyrics shared, the now obligatory canine photography, and gearhead porn.
She has also revealed that the album could be released as soon as July, or even sooner. Ooh.
Juliana has also been posting other typical offbeat photos via Twitter, and 11 teasing seconds of Pro Toolsian music.
Juliana today sets off for the recording studio with her band to commence work on the new album, her first 'electric band' record since 2008's How To Walk Away.
In keeping with this fan assisted project, she will be updating pledgers on the progress.
Exciting times.
