Welcome to the 5th major version of this fan site. There's a few glitches here and there but hopefully you’ll find pages load much quicker. There’s some updated content too:
Discography - more context, excerpts, and reviews for all albums, with extra archive pages for the 5 PledgeMusic campaigns between 2011 and 2016
Songography - a new section for an unofficial A-Z of every song Juliana has released (solo, band, and guest) including covers - expect mistakes as this is a work in progress!
Juliana is scheduled to appear at the next edition of James Sullivan’s Which Side? event (“a concert and discussion series celebrating and exploring protest music”) at The Burren, Somerville, MA on October 27, 2026.
Juliana has relaunched her subscription newsletter at Substack, now mostly paywalled:
Here, I will write about things inside, around and related to music: creativity, the business, the culture, the lifestyle, the people, the road, the songs, the mysteries, the feelings and reactions, the memories, the absurdities, the disappointments, the triumphs. Sometimes the music angle will be peripheral but always it is part of the essence.
I will post something at least once a month and sometimes twice, or five or maybe ten times, depending on how many ideas I have and how much energy. Thank you for listening.
Juliana Hatfield Three’s Dean Fisher has a new project called TINKERTOWN with an album American Gothic newly released.
American Laundromat Records:
TINKERTOWN began when multi-instrumentalist Dean Fisher and vocalist Gabriella Lawrence started writing together while playing with their other band, Ghosts and Shadows, a power pop and dark new wave band based in Arlington, MA.
The TINKERTOWN songs are a foray into different types of rock music, from glam, celtic and hard rock to Americana stylings like folk and vocal jazz. Dean has been playing in the Boston area for years, with Juliana Hatfield, Tanya Donelly, Dylan in the Movies and others. Along the way, he befriended and worked with musicians who have become the members of TINKERTOWN: keyboardist and accordionist Elizabeth Steen, bass player Joe McMahon and guitarist Russell Chudnofsky. Their collective resume includes Billy Bragg, Natalie Merchant, Lori McKenna, Tanya Donelly, Juliana Hatfield and Will Dailey. Since the recording of the debut album, American Gothic, Chris Anzalone has joined on drums. Before TINKERTOWN and Ghosts and Shadows, most of Gabriella’s musical experience was in classical music.
UPDATE March 20, 2025 -Juliana has relaunched her newsletter at Substack with a different schedule and mostly behind a paywall. The link is unchanged from 2023:julianahatfield.substack.com.
Some years ago, I wrote a book about my ten days in an eating disorder treatment center. It was never published, but now I feel like sharing some of it. I’m going to post random chapters to be enjoyed in little servings..
If anyone ever really ”discovered” a band, Gary discovered Blake Babies. We were struggling when we met Gary. We’d made an album, but had no idea what to do with it. Months after getting 1,000 LPs delivered to our apartment, we still had about 900 copies and no clue what to do with them. It was a struggle.
Gary came to our show one night at The Rat, strode right up to us when we came offstage and said, ”I love your band. I own a studio. Would you like to make a record?” Storybook stuff. We went to Fort Apache that night, and it instantly became our favorite place on earth.
The Fort was an amazing place where young bands making challenging music could find in Gary a sympathetic ear and a lot of good advice. He produced the Accident Waiting To Happen single which I recorded there with the Red Stars, as well the b-side 'Sulk' which was written during the session.
So much to say (but can’t today)💔 I ✨love✨you, G pic.twitter.com/aAhs3rsKLx — Tanya Donelly (@TanyaDonelly) January 17, 2023
Lately I’ve been saying to the folks around me that baseball players don’t play forever. Bodies change. And mine is just about finished playing drums. I’m speaking here on behalf of my wrists, back, elbows, shoulder, knees, and hips, among other parts. And speaking on behalf, too, of the writer and teacher in me. I’m currently writing two books and teaching writing more than I ever have, and I feel strongly compelled to make more space in my life for these endeavors.
Freda performed her last show with Sunshine Boys a couple of weeks back. This last weekend saw her final drumming appearance at the Hot Stove Cool Music event in Chicago where she guested with several artists which included playing Some Girls songs in Juliana’s set.
Freda has given us so much joy over the years in her various projects. For many of us it is the music she made with Blake Babies that will be the most special legacy from her brilliant career.
Best wishes for the future Freda and thanks for everything.
Freda Love Smith performing on drums with the Blake Babies in Allston, MA 2016. Photography by David Young
Athens GA did not disappoint. Tuesday night we played the 40-Watt. We played an hour and two encores. It felt a little lackluster because Juliana is getting a cold. The staff at the 40-Watt are as nice as any club people I’ve met. The sound guy kept offering Juliana various cold remedies including slugs of brandy (which she declined – she never drinks and in fact none of us are drinking at all on this tour). Wednesday we drove to Sparta to a junk store and I bought some shitkickin’ boots and some hats. Freda got these amazing red cowboy boots, which she’s wearing with pride.
Obviously, I liked Hatfield because she was wry. But on Hey Babe, her debut solo album sandwiched between the Blake Babies and her fame-fanning Become What You Are, she was vulnerable, too. Radically so. In 1992, she appeared on MTV’s 120 Minutes to promote the video for “Everybody Loves Me But You,” Hey Babe’s first single. I’m not sure if I saw it back then. Every summer, my family would fly to the states to visit my grandparents in Minnesota, and my brother and I would lounge around the basement rec room, bingeing on MTV for hours.
I’m not too surprised at the ‘winners’ (the 5 I voted for are in the top 6), but there’s a few unexpected rankings in the middle (e.g. I wouldn’t have thought that #9 would get almost double the votes of #13.)
John P. Strohm, writing today for Talkhouse about "the 'demonic' 1970s Chevy cargo van that carried Blake Babies across America":
Juliana always drove, because she believed that she had a psychic connection with The Van and she could will it to stay on the road. We had a boom box that ran on batteries, but often we just rode in silence as Juliana looked straight ahead, jaw clenched, occasionally muttering insults to the van when it made its strange noises or if any indicator lights came on. The “check engine” light remained on pretty much always after we left New England.
Of course I bought it. I buy anything with her name on it. Then, ignoring college, I sat out in George Square with my CD Walkman, giving dirty looks to any pigeon that might try it with me. And I listened. I listened from start to finish. I listened through a slight rain burst. I listened and loved what I heard. It wasn’t as polished as previous albums, but it was undeniably honest, especially in the case of Sellout, a UK bonus track. Sellout is scabrously honest: “It’s not a sellout if nobody bought it.”
The Voidz’ Virtue is a really fun album about serious things. It’s swimming in disillusionment and the shame of being alive. It’s like the sound of original sin—oh, how we have fucked this all up. It’s not only our own failings and weaknesses that are disappointing, but also our society’s dishonesty and corruption, into which we are sometimes drawn. Julian Casablancas sings “I’ve been bathing in the blood of our success” on ”Aliennation.” Elsewhere: “I want out of this world” (“Pink Ocean”), “I lost what’s mine” (“Qyurryus”), “What does it matter?” (“Pointlessness”), and “No one will care about this in ten years” (“All Wordz Are Made Up”).
I'm breaking my Twitter silence in the name of ART. I love @julianahatfield's new album of @olivianj covers. Here is a 50/50 mix of Juliana and Olivia performing \
Endorsed by jh too:
ohmygod i love this thank you...i'm so glad i did these songs in the original keys https://t.co/Kj3LrO8Naq — Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) April 14, 2018
Laura Fisher, for The Guardian on the 25th anniversary of Hey Babe:
Hey Babe was among the most successful independent releases of the year; 25 years on, it remains a largely forgotten minor masterpiece. But the release of a newly remastered Hey Babe on the American Laundromat label this month will reintroduce listeners to a coming-of-age album for the solitary female misfit. At the time of Hey Babe’s release, the riot grrrl movement was normalising the expression of female rage, offering a crucial framework of empowerment for female listeners. But Hey Babe offers a landscape of emotion – self-disgust, second-guessing, depression, cautious optimism – that has no place in a reception model so narrowly hinged on “empowerment”.
These words are adapted from Laura's exceptional 2013 essay at The New Inquiry.
For Womens History Month, Juliana has written an article for Tidal about Olivia Newton-John's impact and influence throughout her life:
Olivia was sweet and strong. Quietly confident from the very beginning, she did the work on each stage and in every appearance, without any hurried desperation for attention.Some people don’t understand that Olivia is a soulful singer. They think she is a sugary confection, empty calories. That this is not serious. That her songs don’t acknowledge the dark side. But they do. There’s darkness all over the place. It’s just that she doesn’t aim for it and stew in it like some of us do. She gives it a nod and then turns away from it and toward the light.
Here are the first new recordings I've made public in over a decade, side one of an album I'm making. Enjoy and feel free to share. https://t.co/ch6Got3zDi — John P. Strohm (@johnpstrohm) November 14, 2017
