Consumer Champion

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."

Peace and Love - Review Roundup (6)

If you thought the negative review of Peace & Love in Pitchfork was infuriating (and others did), take a deep breath before reading the PopMatters review.  

It's OK if a reviewer doesn't like the album and can offer a criticism that explains why but other than an opinion that the lyrics are weak, the gist of the review seems to complain that Juliana has the audacity to still be making music after 20 odd years.  The review has been suitably taken to task by 'stever' in the comments on the PopMatters site.

Hopefully this is not a view shared by every writer on PopMatters. Indeed, in 2008 Juliana was described there as a "talented iconic rock star" and How To Walk Away as "a brilliant new album of intensely personal songs"

Ho hum.

Video - Arizona 1997

Forumites at Juliana's messageboard (which sadly remains unavailable for new members- UPDATE Jun 2010 -the forum is now gone) have spotted a recent upload to the repository of almostcertainlycopyrightinfringement and oftenwrongaspectratiovideo, otherwise known as YouTube.  A concert from Gibson's in Tucson, AZ from 1997 is now available in its entirety either from links on the uploader's channel or via the individual links below:

I Got No Idols / Outsider
Fade Away / Dying Proof
Fleur De Lys / Spin The Bottle
What Have I Done To You
My Sister / Supermodel
My Darling
The Unheard Music / Get Off
For The Birds / Live On Tomorrow
Bottles And Flowers
Trying Not To Think About It / Addicted
Get Your Head Off My Shoulder / Dumb Fun

The Unheard Music is a cover of a song by X.

Also, from the same forum thread, Evan Dando covering My Darling from 2009:

 

More from this Dando show on Moshcam.

Interview - Hear/Say

"Every time, I write a song about a break-up, I can’t believe I’m writing about it again. It’s like shut up already. But I think it’s a universal experience and it never gets old."

Juliana talks about Peace & Love, her career and voice, and names her price for a Blake Babies reunion in a Q&A interview at Hear/Say.

Thanks to Allison for sharing this link.

Interview - Groupee

"I don't know what happened with the guitar solo in 'What Is Wrong', I just sort of plugged in and in about three seconds got a kind of nasty sound happening. I pressed 'record' and this gnarly blast fell out. Listening back, I was very amused with myself." 

Read more comments from Juliana in a feature on Groupee.

Juliana's Blogging Again

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 and Love - Now On Spotify

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.

Peace and Love - 7digital Editor's Choice

Peace & Love is this week's Editor's Choice on the US version of the digital download site 7digital.  The title track, easily one of the standout songs on the album, is currently free.  Hopefully this will spark a few sales among the curious. A good thing, even if the Editor's blurb is a bit sloppy:

"Peace & Love is the 10th studio album by Hatfield, marking 20 years as a recording artist. The title track on this album is free this week and offers listeners a nice example of the singer/ songwriter's somber folk magnifigance (sic). She supposedly produced all the songs on this album as well as playing the instruments. Her heart seems weathered but her sound remains very young and fresh on this 12 track album."

Magnifigant! As for the self-production, there's no supposedly about it.