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.
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
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.
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...
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.
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."
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:
Become What You Are (album in full)
What A Life
Everybody Loves Me But You
I'm Shy
If I Could
Wood
Fleur De Lys
Nirvana (final encore)
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.
@julianahatfield You are the Triple Goddess and very loved. (And you kicked ass tonight!)✨ pic.twitter.com/4guUn7QEuW — Heather Pierce (@heathervox) March 16, 2015
The Juliana Hatfield Three tour landed at The Chapel in San Francisco on Sunday.
There's a review and a great set of photos by Greg Chow at Three Match Breeze.
Three new East Coast dates have been added to the JH3 US tour. Update - There's now a fourth new one at Somerville. Update 2 - A Vermont show previously listed for April 16 has been removed from the schedule
The revised list of shows still to come as of today:
March, 2015
18 Belly Up Tavern, Solana Beach, CA
20 SXSW, Austin, TX
22 Terminal West, Atlanta, GA
23 Neighborhood Theatre, Charlotte, NC
24 Cat's Cradle, Carrboro, NC
April, 2015
17 Historic Theater, Portsmouth, NH (double bill with Buffalo Tom)
A lengthy interview with Juliana by Leslie Michele Derrough for Glide covers a lot of ground from high school songwriting, the Blake Babies and the JH3 reunion:
Which one of the songs almost didn’t make it onto the record?
Well, I think “Blame The Stylist” was one. I was thinking of leaving it off. I just didn’t know if it fit among all the other songs cause it has a different sound and the subject matter is kind of different from everything else on the record. But then I put it on because I was trying to tie this record somehow back to the first record and some of the songs have similarities to songs from Become What You Are, and “Blame The Stylist” has a little bit of dramatic similarity to “Supermodel” from the first album. It’s about image and stuff like that so I left it on the album.
Is that a newer song or one of the older songs you already had written?
That one I had an acoustic demo of that for a long time. The demo actually is on a cassette. I made a version of it on a 4-track recorder a long time ago but I never really finished the words so I really just had the title and some chords. Then when we went back into the studio I rediscovered it on this old cassette and I thought like, wow, this is really still totally relevant and we could make an interesting song out of it.
Seattle + @julianahatfield + rock pic.twitter.com/y6j7Untc5D — che chou (@chespace) March 12, 2015
So many great songs and performances by @julianahatfield and her band at the @tractortavern last night. Wow. pic.twitter.com/tct32hGaIG — David Lee (@davidly) March 12, 2015
It's impossible for a band to announce an album any more without a deluge of pleas for vinyl. I mean, look at the responses to this tweet by Wolf Alice yesterday about iTunes pre-orders for their debut album.
So then, in response to similar demand, American Laundromat Records are now taking orders for JH3's Whatever, My Love on LP, with a choice of colours. Shipping is estimated for August 2015 and there's an as yet unspecified bonus track involved.
Update March 22 The release date is August 17, 2015 and the bonus track is Only In The Dark - previously heard as a home demo during the 2013 PledgeMusic campaign for Wild Animals.
Important to note that ALR say pressing will be limited to these pre-orders.
Update June 8 The release date has been put back to 'early November, 2015' due to the processing plant running over capacity.
