Here's a newly uploaded YouTube video of a vintage acoustic instore performance with Q&A from Repeat the Beat in Royal Oak, Michigan dating back to May 25, 1995.
The songs: I Got No Idols, Outsider, Universal Heart-beat, My Sister, Spin The Bottle, My Darling
I don't think I've seen this before. Thanks to Michael Thomas for uploading and Carlos for sharing it here.
here's a link to my latest ebay art experiments: http://t.co/kCjrDGqOYk
— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) August 18, 2015
Hilken Mancini, writing for Boston Herald's Boston 101 Guestlisted series:
I first saw Juliana Hatfield play at T.T. the Bears in the Blake Babies -- it must have been 1989. They had two nights back-to-back there and the first night she was playing guitar and the next night she was playing bass: same set, same songs. Right then and there I decided she was a totally badass. I could barely play guitar at that point in my life and I was totally blown away.
Hilken goes on to discuss how Juliana and others were influential in the formation of her bands plus an appreciation of Trying Not To Think About It.
It's all eBay news round here.
American Laundromat Records are auctioning a test pressing of the forthcoming vinyl version of the Juliana Hatfield Three LP:
Only four "Whatever, My Love" test pressings were cut. We gave one to our mastering engineer and kept one for our archive. This is one of two we're offering on eBay to the highest bidder. Ships in it's white paper sleeve. Good luck!!!
Bidding ends tomorrow (July 8) with shipping estimated for next week.
Regular orders for the LP are not due to ship until November 2015 (delayed from the original plan of August).
Juliana is auctioning more of her art right now on eBay.
Among the collection is this "Self-Portrait with Katy Perry's Body" - different from the portrait of the same title auctioned last summer.
There's also Liz Phair and Pamela Anderson as other subjects in this style.
The auction ends on July 11, 2015.
From an interview with Juliana by Melissa Giannini for Nylon:
Giannini: You still have an eternal youthfulness about you. Do you think that’s helped or hurt you?
Juliana: Immaturity keeps me young! A lot of people who do what I do, musicians or artists in general, hold on to that youthful nature deep inside of them. Friends of mine in their 50s who make music, they still have that childlike aspect. They’re mature in other ways, but they never lose that sense of hopefulness or openness to ideas. Art is about playing and experimenting. Plenty of people play their old songs without any feeling and make a lot of money doing it, but I never really made a lot of money doing this, so it’s not worth it to me to just go out there and bang out the songs and not care.
The photo is by Tony Luong. There's a higher res version together with another shot not used in the article at tonyluong.com
From a cover interview by Kevin Finn in this month's edition of The Noise, which goes over the JH3 reunion and the recent US shows:
Noise: A couple of my favorites on the new record are “Invisible” and “I’m Shy.” I know there can be a danger in assuming a song’s narrator and writer is the same person, but is there a challenge in putting songs with such personal emotion out there?
Juliana: No, that’s easy. The hard part for me is to display emotion in real life. It’s easy to put it in a song. You’re safer expressing things in song because you’re not actually one-on-one. You’re not truly vulnerable when you’re singing a song. There’s that remove; there’s distance from yourself to the other person who’s receiving that information.
Also of note: at the end Juliana mentions the possibility of JH3 gigs in October for those of us in Europe.
So, there's that.
thanks to Andrew for spotting this and sharing the interview link at the This Is The Sound Yahoo Group
Troy Michael in an article for Innocent Words last month:
Heidi Lynne Gluck is now pursuing her solo career with her stunning debut 5-song EP ‘The Only Girl in the Room’ (Lotuspool Records). At its core, the five songs are based in roots rock with a bit of pop and country influence floating in between. Gluck’s voice is airy and captivating (think Aimee Mann) as they carry the songs. When Gluck set out to do a solo album, she took “solo” to a whole new level. She wrote all the songs and played all the instruments on the record, not to mention some of the production work.
“The intimidating parts were making the recordings sound like something. I have confidence as a player and writer, arranger and producer, but I don’t know a lot about engineering, nor do I have the patience to play with mic placement for an hour before recording a track. I was also a bit intimidated by playing drums. I don’t really know what I’m doing, and it was both a fun and maddening challenge.”
This is the first of a planned series of 4 EPs from Juliana's Some Girls colleague.
There's a further interview from earlier this week by Natalie Gallagher at The Pitch which expands on Heidi's songwriting partnership with Kenny Childers.
There's also a merch site with CDs and t-shirts: heidilynnegluck.bigcartel.com
If you want to get updates on the @blakebabies reissues and @PledgeMusic campaign, follow twitter and like the FB https://t.co/K27XVRrgSV
— John P. Strohm (@johnpstrohm) May 18, 2015
Auspicious first ever meeting of John and Juliana with Ben and Evan from The Lemonheads. First Blake Babies show winter, 1986.
Posted by the Blake Babies on Saturday, 16 May 2015
In case you've missed the announcements elsewhere, John P Strohm is currently going through the Blake Babies archives with a view to a reissue / rarity project via PledgeMusic in the future. There's been some interesting teasers of what might be to come on the Blake Babies Facebook page of late.
There's an interview and performances of If I Could, My Sister, and I Don't Know What To Do With My Hands in a live session at Jefferson Public Radio.
There's a couple of photosets on Flickr from the Juliana Hatfield Three show at Cuisine en Locale in Somerville last month:
KEXP have today posted video of the Juliana Hatfield Three session from earlier this month in Seattle. Joyous times.
Watch the full performance as embedded above or separated into songs on YouTube: My Sister, Ordinary Guy, I'm Shy, and Spin The Bottle.
A reminder that there's a great photoset on Flickr too.
A roundup of links for the final leg of March 2015 dates on the Juliana Hatfield Three Become What You Are tour:
Leslie Kaholi has a great Flickr photoset of the Belly Up Tavern show at Solana Beach, CA on March 18.
On March 20, the band played a late night SXSW showcase at Buffalo Billiards in Austin, TX. There's a brief review by Cindy Royal (who took the above video) at On That Note. Among the crowd that night was a certain Blake Baby:
The Atlanta, GA gig at Terminal West on March 22 is reviewed by Chris Martin at Examiner.com:
Todd Philips and Dean Fisher set the pace keeping things steady as Hatfield flexed her vocal muscles and showed off her underappreciated guitar skills. 21 years later the Juliana Hatfield Three stills packs a punch. The band’s big rock sound hasn’t aged and Sunday night they sounded like a band that had been together for years.
There's some nice photos (including support band - fellow 90s veterans Magnapop) by John McNicholas on Flickr.
Charlotte, NC for @julianahatfield at the @NTheatre. pic.twitter.com/TZ8hBU1EuR
— Dan Wuori (@dwuori) March 24, 2015
The Neighborhood Theatre in Charlotte, NC show on March 23 has some YouTube video including This Is The Sound. Jeff Hahne's review (with photos) for Creative Loafing, Charlotte suggests this was a small attendance and low key performance, perhaps not helped by excessive, intrusive mobile phone / flash use - the scourge of many gigs these days:
Two-thirds of the way through Juliana Hatfield Three's hour-long set at the Neighborhood Theatre on Monday night, I noticed a man standing in front of the stage holding up his cellphone, taking video of the 47-year-old singer. Nothing new nowadays, right? Without missing a beat, Hatfield turned inward toward her bandmates. A moment later, she moved back on the dimly lit stage, a few steps toward the drums. As the song ended, Hatfield moved back to her original spot and told the crowd, "I'm always in the same place on this tour and wanted a different view." To me, it looked like she didn't want a cellphone distracting her. .. but perhaps a one-minute change of scenery was needed.
A few songs into the band's brief encore, though, a woman in front of the stage was taking pictures with her phone. As the flash went off multiple times, Hatfield once again grabbed her mic stand and moved back on the stage. It wasn't long after that the show ended.
Taking a few cellphone momentos of a show is understandable. Sharing them is often great for those of us not there. There's a line that you shouldn't cross though, particularly by doing things like failing to disable camera flash; you're not considering other people's enjoyment or, most importantly, the artist you're there to support. Weird that some people don't get that. Anyway...
Update There's some non flash, non cellphone pics by Kevin McGee for Shutter 16 at Flickr.
The final March date was the Cat's Cradle show at Carrboro, NC on March 24. There's bits on YouTube uploaded by TheSublminalPandaBear including Supermodel and My Sister (below) which began with some Juliana improv during Dean's amp issues.
There's now a little break before a handful of shows back on America's East Coast in mid April, 2015. The tour dates are here.
Photo: David Young
Another date has been added to the JH3 tour.
They will play at Cuisine en Locale, Somerville, MA on April 19, 2015 with support from Potty Mouth.
The previously announced tour dates are here.
Laura Morgan with a great review of last week's LA show at lyriquediscorde:
I felt both excitement and a sudden sadness when the last song began. That said, sing-screaming along to the line “I’ve got no idols” felt so cathartic. That surge in the crowd hit again, the bouncing and spinning, everyone singing it together, with Juliana. It was powerful, the combining of voices, the variety of people, from different walks and ways, coming together for the music. We may all have no idols per se, except for maybe the music, and for many of us there that night, Juliana’s Three.
Kevin Wilson has an interesting look at instances of Juliana returning to her old songs:
When you’re a fan of an artist for over 20 years, you start to see patterns. And one of Hatfield’s that is quite prominent on this new album is the re-purposing, in one way or another, of songs she previously recorded. Prior to hearing Whatever, My Love, I had already heard 10 of the 12 songs. A good chunk of that has to do with being a fan. A few years back she released a bunch of her demos, on a pay-what-you-want basis, and five of them appeared there. If you’re no more than a casual fan, those songs would seem new. After all, those demo versions were never meant as “official” releases. They can’t really be considered part of the Juliana Hatfield “canon.”
But there are other ways she goes about these re-recordings. Sometimes it’s a straight-up cover of herself. Sometimes it’s a similar song with different lyrics, kind of along the lines of what Guns N’ Roses did with “Don’t Cry” on their two Use Your Illusion albums. Sometimes it’s just tinkering. And other times the changes are fairly radical.
Kevin compares the versions and declares his 'winners'. Worth a look to see if you agree.
Ahead of the JH3 show in the North Carolina city next week, Creative Loafing Charlotte has a feature by Jeff Hahne:
It's worth noting that Hatfield wasn't sitting on her laurels for the last 22 years though. She's released 11 solo albums since then, reunited with her original band Blake Babies and kept up a consistent touring regiment. One might think Hatfield could be a little upset in a "I've been here all along, if you were paying attention" kind of way, but she's not.
"I'm not pissed off," she says. "It's nice when people appreciate what you do. If people are interested in this, that's fine. It's not a huge buzz. We're not going to set the world on fire. It's a nice level of interest. It's nice that people care and want to see it."
The Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles welcomed the Juliana Hatfield Three tour on Monday.
There's a couple of JH3 photos (in a set focusing on the support act Miranda Lee Richards) by BentleyBT at Flickr.
Trent at Pink Is The New Blog has a short review of what is described as the best show ever, so there's that.
Update - There's another great review at lyriquediscorde.
It seems like this was a really good one.
Juliana Hatfield Three (@julianahatfield) tonight at @theroxy! pic.twitter.com/5U0iGmJjD1
— joe1138 (@joe1138) March 17, 2015
The set list is changing a little bit between shows. At LA it was:
Thanks to Spike U. Topian for the set info, report of a "full enthusiastic high energy crowd", and a few videos on a YouTube playlist featuring Supermodel, Mabel, A Dame With A Rod, Addicted, and I Got No Idols.
There are various cuts on YouTube from other people if you search.
