In her self-deprecating (or just realistic) way Juliana has mentioned her relative musical anonymity in recent interviews.  Her withdrawal from touring and promotion inevitably pushes her further under the mainstream radar, something she appears comfortable about.  It’s therefore good to see her music continues to be appreciated by contemporary artists. 

24 year old British singer-songwriter Marina Diamandis, aka Marina and the Diamonds is a current darling of the music press, and a fan too.  

She namechecked Juliana in an interview carried by we7 earlier this year: 

“I love artists who are true to themselves and don't follow a particular pattern with trends, what's "in" etc. I love artists who aren't scared to do something new. PJ Harvey, Daniel Johnston, Metric, The Distillers, Juliana Hatfield, Madonna...”

In a widely syndicated article by Bang Showbiz this month, Marina said:

"I think I will have a Juliana Hatfield or PJ Harvey moment one day, where I'll just record in my bedroom with an electric guitar and it'll sell two copies.”

Juliana talks about Gibson guitars and raises the possibility of future live electric shows in the third part of Gearwire's audio interview.    

Motown based music site Tuned-Out is due to interview Juliana:

Questions can be submitted via their site or at Facebook and Twitter.  'When will you be playing a show in my backyard?' themed questions should probably be avoided.  Thoughts on crimes against confectionary less so.

Update

on 2010-05-08 16:55 by Craig

The interview is now available at Tuned-Out.

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."

Part 2 of an audio interview, titled "Juliana Hatfield On Vocals, Recording, And Musical Education Of The Higher Sort", is now available to listen at Gearwire.

If you missed Part 1, it's here.

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.

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.

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.

Another bunch of Peace & Love mentions from review sites, blogs and the wide world of the web:

Entertainment Realm

Cleveland Scene

Spectrum Culture

Creative Loafing

Alt Ohio

Ink 19

My Gray Morning

Posted today on Twitter:

TMRS is That Modern Rock Show, broadcast on WFDU, Saturdays between 9pm and 1am Eastern Time.

UPDATE Tuesday, March 23:

You can now listen to the interview in the WFDU Archives.

"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.

"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.

"When CDs came out I thought they sounded like crap. And now, I think MP3s sound like crap and MP3s make CDs sound better."

Read Juliana's thoughts on music technology, the crappiness of mp3, why Twitter is a distraction and her future book writing projects in a nice interview at Sounds Good Ink.

Three new tracks are now streaming on Juliana's MySpace page.  Described as Peace & Love outtakes, there's an alternate version of I Picked You Up plus two previously unheard songs -  I Won't Let You Go and Between The Clouds.

“The music business is so complicated.  I want a really simple life. …The theme of the past few years [has been] a process of reclaiming my freedom and independence and being totally self sufficient.”

Read a new feature on Juliana at Venuszine.

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. 

"my lack of technical expertise is, I think,  an aesthetic of sorts"

Juliana talks about the recording process of Peace & Love in an interview with Patrick Ogle for Gearwire.  Listen to it at gearwire.com.

It looks like there's more to come as according to Patrick's twitter post this is Part 1.

Update on 2010-03-31 20:47 by Craig

Part 2 is now available at Gearwire.

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.