Fans of Juliana's art might be interested to see some of the work she produced as a child. She's posted some examples today over at her official blog.
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.
Three more:
Adrienne Urbanski, Short and Sweet NYC:
There’s Always Another Girl doesn’t pack the same emotional punch that How to Walk Away did but it’s a gem nonetheless.
Ania Roginska, MVRemix:
I left wanting at least one crack at a track where the instrumentals were the rusted gears, pushed through by Hatfields well oiled smooth sound.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic:
a continuation of the excellent, mature work she’s done in the new millennium.
4/5
How rare. A Juliana remix.
Don't Wanna Dance (Brad Walsh remix) has been created for use as runway music for Christian Siriano at New York Fashion Week.
You may recall that Brad Walsh took some excellent photos of Juliana after a book reading in 2008.
If you haven't already nabbed the track at PledgeMusic you can download from this direct link to the mp3:
http://www.bradwalsh.com/audio/JulianaHatfield-DontWannaDance-BradWalshRemix.mp3
If you're curious, you can listen to Brad's remix of 'She's A Blast' by The Beautiful Bodies (from the same EP) at SoundCloud.
a couple of notes for any Brits reading this:
1 'runway' means 'catwalk'.
2 sadly it's not that Brad Walsh
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.
Over at Cheap and Plastic Andrew has a nice set of photos from last week's show at Brighton Music Hall in Allston.
Also, if you haven't seen them already there's a couple of other videos from the show posted by instant1rock at YouTube: Oh and Candy Wrappers / So Alone:
Juliana:
My fans are so cool. (They) understand that it's not 1992 anymore, and that I've evolved and they have evolved with me. They understand that in writing music, I'm in the moment, and I'm not trying to do anything that relates to anything I've ever done before. I'm just doing what feels right now.
Juliana and other artists talk about fan funded projects in a feature at Salon - Don't Just Buy The Record - Help Fund It. (update - this is now a webarchive.org link - the original Salon link is dead)
It's worth a read, although it's a shame they haven't given the new album its updated name.
Another batch of There's Always Another Girl reviews:
First up Daniel Tebo, loving it big time at PopMatters:
While her fellow graduates from the class of ’93 have been content relive past glories, Hatfield has matured into a distinguished, risk-taking songwriter who continues to surprise and occasionally confound listeners.
8/10
Then Jason Keller, not so much at Now Magazine:
Many of the other 13 songs on her 11th studio album (financed by pledgemusic, with a percentage going to animal shelters) show flashes of the melodic brilliance of her early 90s output, like the sweetly sung Failure, the easy groove of Thousands Of Guitars and the bluesy boogie of Don’t Wanna Dance.
3/5
And finally, Chris Kein, most definitely not impressed at Tiny Mix Tapes:
In a time where it is possible for acts who made their careers in that early-90s cauldron of independent creativity to reform and remake themselves, it seems a cop-out to make such a risk-free album, especially since Hatfield had full creative control.
2/5
thanks to liveontomorrow reader Carlos for submitting some recent links
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.
Thanks as ever to David Young for sharing his photos here from both of Juliana's shows last week.
UPDATE - The full photo sets are now archived here:
Already thinking about that mooted album of covers, here's Juliana covering Ace of Base.
Taken from Saturday night's show at Brighton Music Hall in Boston.
See also Wasting Time and Feel It.
thanks to cokemachine99 and instant1rock for posting the vids.
Juliana's opening song from the City Winery show last night in New York.
Video via spiketop.
Last night's set list from the City Winery in New York, where Juliana shared the bill with Jesse Malin:
- Taxicab
- Candy Wrappers
- Ride With Me (Lemonheads)
- Dear Anonymous
- I Picked You Up
- Wasting Time
- It Never Rains In Southern California (Albert Hammond)
- Hole In The Sky
- Vagabond
- Failure
- Slow Motion
- I Won't Let You Go
- There's Always Another Girl
- The Fact Remains
- My Sister
Thanks to spiketop for sharing this via
.
You can read this review by Jonathan Perry at the Boston Globe.
A couple of other reviews are also online. A gushing blog review at A Momentary Lapse, With Joel:
Juliana has written a song full of truth. 'There's Always Another Girl' will leave an impression on you and you'll want to go back and re-listen to make sure you heard every word she uttered. "Don't you love it when a beautiful woman self destructs?"
And a not quite so gushing review from Austin Trunick at Consequence Of Sound:
Nothing says open mic night more than singing lyrics such as “The batteries are dead/Totally, completely dead [...] Completely fucking dead.” It’s bad enough to recall another buried mid-’90s memory: Phoebe Buffay’s agitating coffeehouse performances on Friends.
2/5
The liveontomorrow review is now imminent. That's the one you're all waiting for of course.
Let the reviews commence...
this album is the perfect blend of everything that Juliana already does best, while amping up the melodies, harmonies and moods to degrees that even some of her most ardent followers probably couldn’t have predicted.
Marc With A C, The Real Congregation
Having made her name producing sardonic jangle-pop tunes with sometimes uncomfortably honest lyrics, Hatfield has wisely gone back to those roots for There’s Always Another Girl. Recapturing the golden-age of ’90s female-fronted indie, the album feels startlingly retro at times.
7/10
Terry Mulcahy, wears the trousers magazine
The innocent voice may be a little raspier with age, and the heart may be a little more ragged and roughed up by experience, but the soul of Juliana Hatfield remains strong.