Fire Records to release The Lemonheads - It's A Shame About Ray (30th Anniversary Edition)

Coming in March 2022, Fire Records have announced a new edition:

Lemonheads’ seminal album ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’, lovingly reissued for it’s 30th Anniversary. The long overdue reissue includes a slew of extra material, including an unreleased ‘My Drug Buddy’ KCRW session track from 1992 featuring Juliana Hatfield, B-sides from singles ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ and ‘Confetti’, a track from the ‘Mrs. Robinson/Being Round’ EP, alongside demos that will be released for the first time on vinyl. This reissue celebrates their prestigious fifth album, these deluxe bookback editions feature new liner notes and unseen photos.

Pre-orders are now being taken at your local indie store or via Fire in the US, and the UK.

The KCRW track featuring Evan and Juliana (but mostly Evan!) is out now on the usual streaming services.

Kyle Meredith with... Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles)

Kyle Meredith’s Consequence interview this week with Susanna Hoffs about her newly released covers album Bright Lights touches on Susanna’s collaborations with other artists. Towards the end (at the 24:13 mark) they discuss Susanna working with Juliana 30 years ago on her When You’re A Boy album, where Juliana performed backing vocals and has a songwriting credit on the track That’s Why Girls Cry.

JPS has added more background on Twitter as to how that came about:



Upcoming Livestream Performance #8 - Full Band Show - Wednesday October 20, 2021

promotional image by Stacee Sledge / julianahatfield.com

Livestream show! With a band! This month!

Juliana returns to her internet concerts on Wednesday October 20, 2021 at at 6pm EDT (that’s 11pm BST, midnight CEST 😬) on Q Division’s YouTube channel.

Writing on her official site:

I will play electric guitar and sing, Chris Anzalone will play drums, and Mike Oram will play bass and sing some harmonies. This is the lineup that was set to go on the road before we had to pull out of the tour with Soul Asylum and Local H.

We are all fine (thanks for asking!) and we will be playing an assortment of songs chosen from the buffet of my vast, decades-spanning repertoire.

So no full album show this time, but the pay what you want deal remains with donations being accepted at julianahatfield.com

Somerville, September 19, 2021 - Photo, Setlist, Poster

Juliana played an outdoor show for ONCE at Boynton Yards in Somerville yesterday. This was her first live gig since the before times.

Opening with Bottles & Flowers and finishing with Everything’s For Sale, Juliana’s set had many picks from the American Laundromat era, and some deeper cuts such as Daniel and Necessito. Thanks to Vicky for posting the setlist photo (on the Instagram post embedded below.)

The poster as designed by Nicole Anguish is available from Daykamp.

There’s more chat from attendees on the Facebook fan group.

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Repeat run for Blake Babies t-shirt at American Laundromat Records
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American Laundromat Records are having a further run of their Blake Babies t-shirt featuring John P Strohm’s classic illustration.

Also, ALR have teased a 2022 single featuring Juliana covering Neil Young’s “Lotta Love”:

Juliana withdraws from 2021 US shows with Soul Asylum and Local H

From Juliana’s post on Twitter, August 6, 2021:

Hello, friends. I am very very sorry to have to say this but due to unforeseen circumstances I am no longer going to be able to take part in the upcoming tour that I'd planned on doing with Soul Asylum and Local H. I was really looking forward to it, and to all the music, and to seeing everyone out there, and I hope to be able to hit the road again before too long. xoxo, Juliana

New Pressing of Juliana's Christmas Cactus Single

American Laundromat Records, on an unseasonal new pressing of Juliana's vinyl single, previously available during last winter's US Record Store Day event:

Juliana's "Christmas Cactus" gets a brand new pressing on beautiful Coke Bottle Clear vinyl. This fantastic 7" is a label exclusive limited to 500 copies. Spins at 45 RPM

Pre-orders (for end of July shipping) including signed copies and test pressings options are being taken now at American Laundromat Records' store.

Attention Engineer Podcast Episode 41: Juliana Hatfield

Laura Kidd interviews Juliana in the latest episode of her Attention Engineer podcast.

As many of you’ll know, Laura has recenlty released an excellent album titled Exotic Monsters under her new artist name Penfriend. She previously performed as She Makes War and supported the JH3 in London and Bristol on the 2019 UK tour.

Attention Engineer:

In this conversation, we discuss:
• writing about the truth, rejecting society’s expectations and demonstrating alternative ways of living
• finding creative freedom in limitations • sensitivity as a superpower
• home recording – Juliana’s tough transition from analogue to digital recording, and how her new album “Blood” is her most misanthropic yet

Juliana Hatfield: "The most joyful part of life is melodies and harmonies - singing them, playing them, listening to them" | Guitar.com
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Another in depth feature with a guitar site, this time with Paul Robson for Guitar.com:

Hatfield has gone through quite a few guitars in the years since that Challenger, but very few of them remain in her custody now. “I have the new Yamaha Revstar 502 I’ve been playing on the most recent livestreams,” she tells us. “I like the simplicity of it and I like the P-90 pickups. I had never played a Yamaha electric before, so it was kind of an experiment for me, and it’s brand new but, so far, I like it.

“I only have two other electric guitars right now, and they’re both really different, but they’re great. I only used one electric guitar on the new album and that was my First Act Delia LS, which was made for me about 10 years ago, and my other guitar is a 1968 or ’69 Gibson Custom SG.”

Juliana Hatfield: “There’s some biting stuff on this album – the Fender Mini Twin is cute, but it makes really great fuzz sounds” | Guitar World
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Gregory Adams, interviewing Juliana for Guitar World:

In terms of the tangibles, then, and working outside of the box, what were you using in terms of guitars and amps?

(JH) Like I said, some of it started with me sending these crappy recordings to Jed. Some of that was on acoustic guitar, just playing into the built-in mic – I think on the song Torture I probably set up a mic to get a decent acoustic guitar sound.

Some of it me was videos of me playing an electric guitar. I was mostly using my first First Act electric, a Delia LS.

[For tone] I really pared it down, mostly using one sound from GarageBand, because I didn’t really like the others. I’m not comfortable making noise in my apartment, because of my neighbors, so I started off using this GarageBand sound, but later on I went into the studio and started using amplifiers.

There’s this one sound, it’s called ‘World’s Smallest Amp’ on my version of GarageBand. It’s kind of a cruddy sound, which I like. Not too clean, and not distorted in an icy way.

There’s a lot of that on the album, but there’s some choice, biting stuff on there, and for that I was using a tiny Fender Mini Twin. Smaller than a bread box, just a few inches across. It’s cute, but it makes really great fuzz sounds. I think I plugged that into my [ZZ.Fex] Fuzz Factory for a couple things, too. You can hear it in certain spots, like the bridge of Shame of Love.

Juliana Hatfield: SPIN Cover Story from March 1994
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Speaking of SPIN, they have just published a newly formatted online version of their Juliana cover feature from March 1994.

Writer Rob Sheffield:

Hatfield calls me a couple days later from Idaho, where she’s been skiing. She sounds much mellower, out in the open air and on the slopes, calling from a room of her own. She tells me about a particularly cool ski trip she once took with Dando and J Mascis. “We’re pretty equally matched—we all have the same ability, but different styles. J skis like he plays guitar, it’s really cool. Really reckless, but also really graceful.”

Juliana Hatfield's Albums She Can't Live Without | SPIN
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Juliana, on Pretenders' self-titled debut album:

It is immaculate and untouchable! It has tons of attitude but also subtlety. Chrissie Hynde’s voice is sublime, timeless, and unique, really one of the best voices ever in rock, or in women in rock specifically, if you want to be categorizing like that. She’s a model for how to be cool and a boss and good at what you do. I am always hoping to someday get to the place where I am as on top of my game as the Pretenders were at that moment in time.

Read Juliana's thoughts on 4 other albums "she can't live without" in the article at SPIN.