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.
A mighty liveontomorrow.co.uk gold star is awarded to the PledgeMusic pledgetastic™ pledger who chose New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle as a song for Juliana to cover. One of the all time greats.
Visit Juliana's latest PledgeMusic update to hear her acoustic take on the track.
New Song alert. Juliana's cover of Neil Young's Barstool Blues is available to listen at PledgeMusic.
This results from one of the 'record a song of your choice' pledges.
If you have Spotify (which as of today includes those of you in the US), you can listen to Neil Young performing the song live.
The CD tracklist for the new album There's Always Another Girl as announced today by Juliana:
- Change The World
- Taxicab
- Don’t Wanna Dance
- There’s Always Another Girl
- Candy Wrappers
- Someone Else’s Problem
- Sex And Drugs
- Stray Kids
- Failure
- Vagabond
- And Again
- Batteries
- Wasting Time
- Thousands Of Guitars
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.
An addendum to last week's post on the Juliana & Evan show in Toronto with the above clip of My Drug Buddy.
There's also a nice set of photos in a review at Lithium Magazine and if you were in the crowd you might spot yourself in another fine set posted at Flickr.
The new date is August 26, 2011.
Tickets for this show, where Juliana is sharing the bill with Jesse Malin, are available at City Winery.
Choose Drugs above as performed last night by Juliana & Evan at their NXNE show in Lee's Palace, Toronto.
The set took place at midnight and was limited to 45 minutes to Juliana's regret, although she appeared to enjoy herself.
Reviews, mentions and photos have appeared at Spinner, The Coast, CBC, exclaim.ca, NOW Magazine, We Heart Music, and Snob's Music.
YouTube is also home to a performance of All My Life.
There's a nice photo at Flickr too.
Tweeters were also out with their camera phones. Photos can be viewed (some featuring the increasingly obligatory retro filter look) here, here, here and here.
Juliana provides backing vocals on Hold Your Breath and Hard Fall Down; two songs on Erich Luening's debut album Red Flags, which is released today.
Luening is the cousin of Evan Dando, who also appears on the record together with Joe Keefe. Read more at Martha's Vineyard Patch.
You can listen to the tracks at myspace and download at Amazon UK, Amazon US, Junko Records and iTunes.
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):
- Stray Kids
- Taxicab
- Vagabond
- Sex and Drugs
- Failure
- Someone Else's Problem
- Change The World
- Batteries
- Don't Wanna Dance
- There's Always Another Girl
- Candy Wrappers
- Thousands Of Guitars
- Wasting Time
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.
The Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield show at the NXNE Festival in Toronto on June 16 is now scheduled for Lee's Palace, and not the Horseshoe Tavern as previously reported.
Saturday, 25 June 2011 at City Winery, New York. Tickets are now on sale.
UPDATE June 17: It's not clear if this event is still going ahead. The concert has been removed from the City Winery main listings and Jesse Malin's sites have no reference to it taking place. Needless to say, check with the venue before setting off for this one.
UPDATE June 18: It has been rescheduled for 26 August 2011.
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.
Following a weekend where some pledgers had their Skype chats, some more of Juliana's paintings have been added to the PledgeMusic incentives.