Is it last call for Freda Love and Juliana Hatfield?
By MATT ASHARE | July 18, 2006
ROCK OR POP? Hatfield (here with Gluck and Love): “I’ve just always been more inspired by rock music, even though I do love pop music in its own way.” |
It’s early evening on a sweltering Sunday in Somerville’s Union Square, and though it’s been years, the waifish figure sitting hunched in front of P.A.’s Lounge isn’t hard to identify. Freda Love, drummer for Boston’s long-gone Blake Babies in the late ’80s, is on a short van tour with the indie band Gentleman Caller from Indiana, her home state for the past decade. Thanks to the heat, the humidity, and a night spent sleeping on the floor after playing a house party in Providence the previous evening, she looks as if she hadn’t seen home for at least in month. In fact, tonight’s gig will be only the third in a tour that started two days ago. “I used to be able to get into a really good groove with touring, but I just can’t anymore,” she admits with bemused resignation. She’s not complaining, just explaining. And she’s pretty sure that one of the last apartments she rented before leaving town for Bloomington with fellow Blake Baby John Strohm (guitar) was just down the street from where we’re standing. It’s the first of many questions that get settled when Juliana Hatfield, the third and most prominent piece of the Blake Babies puzzle, shows up at P.A.’s. Love did indeed live just a few blocks outside Union Square before moving to Indiana.Hatfield also feels Love’s pain when it comes to touring. “Did you ever read Diary of a Rock and Roll Star by Ian Hunter? It’s so funny because the life of a touring musician is the same for everyone. It’s like everyone goes through all the same stuff. I used to thrive on it. But I definitely understand burnout now.”
Later that night, after dinner and talk, Hatfield and I will watch from a corner of P.A.’s as an upright Love pounds on bass and snare drums Mo Tucker–style, inspiring a small crowd of indie-rockers to, yes, dance. But things could and indeed should have been so different. Love has arrived in Boston on the eve of the release of Crushing Love (Koch), the second and possibly final album by Some Girls, a trio that reunites Hatfield and Love for the third time since 2000, in this case with bassist/multi-instrumentalist Heidi Gluck. “We were going to play at the Hot Stove, Cool Music show,” Hatfield explains, referring to the July 12 Fenway Park extravaganza that included sets by Buffalo Tom, the Gentleman, and Kay Hanley as well as a quick cameo by James Taylor. “And then we would have booked a few shows around that just to let people know that the new record is out.”
But immigration issues got in the way of that plan. As Hatfield explains over dinner at the Independent, “Heidi’s Canadian, and she didn’t get her working papers in order in time. She’s eventually going to get a visa, but her previous visa had run out, and it became apparent that the new one wasn’t going to be available in time for the album to come out. We briefly considered replacing her. But it just didn’t make sense because she’s such an important part of the vibe and she’s so hot and . . . ”
Related:
Juliana's web, If it ain’t broke . . ., Rock Band, More 
- Juliana's web
- If it ain’t broke . . .
For the past three years, the only real suspense in the local end of the Best Music Poll has been whether the Dresden Dolls or the Dropkick Murphys would win more categories.
- Rock Band
Would more Britpop be too much to ask?
- The best of times
On Boston Harbor’s Long Island, two miles out in Quincy Bay, the Curley Building stands hulking and decrepit.
- Death Cab for Cutie and Franz Ferdinand
Refugees from the heady indie explosion of 2003, Franz and Death Cab are currently sharing space on a concert poster featuring an emo-like Band-Aid heart and a MySpace logo.
- Interview: Aerosmith's Joey Kramer
The hard-living lifestyles of Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry are well chronicled: the booze, the drugs, the long, flowing caftans.
- The Flaming Lips | Embryonic
If new albums by Super Furry Animals, 50 Foot Wave, and the Flaming Lips are any indication, 2009 is smack in the middle of a new psychedelic age.
- Thinking person’s metal
Jerky’s Bar continues its hot streak of delivering quality live acts spanning all genres, and next weekend the hardcore metalheads will descend upon Richmond Street for a fistful of metalcore bands, including the much-anticipated return of former Killswitch Engage/Seemless frontman Jesse Leach.
- Updike does death, R. Crumb does God, Vanity Fair does Proust
Trying to reach as broad a range of tastes and pocketbooks as possible, we this year scavenged everything from the front pages of the Onion to R. Crumb's genesis, to valedictory Updike. Stuff to read, stuff to look at, glossy pages and matte. Remember: be careful not to nick the pages or spill eggnog on them before you wrap. Happy holidays!
- Odd men in
When Beyoncé, in a recent Guardian interview, pegged Georgia art weirdos Of Montreal as a group with whom she'd love to collaborate, the real weirdness was in how sensible it all seemed — as pop music has gotten skronkier and more fuzzed-out, indie rock has slowly molted its hatred of the mainstream and started to display the very flamboyance and hook worship it once held as anathema.
- Fallout joys
In his newly published The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock & Roll , Phoenix contributor Brett Milano explores the evolution of the local music scene.
- Less
Topics:
Music Features
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, More
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Television, Juliana Hatfield, James Taylor, Reality Shows, Evan Dando, Freda Love, Heidi Gluck, Less
