When I Grow up: A Memoir

by Juliana Hatfield

Overview

By the early nineties, singer-songwriter and former Blake Babies member Juliana Hatfield’s solo career was taking off: She was on the cover of Spin and Sassy. Ben Stiller directed the video for her song "Spin the Bottle" from the Reality Bites film soundtrack. Then, after canceling a European tour to treat severe depression and failing to produce another "hit," she spent a decade releasing well reviewed albums on indie labels and performing in ever-smaller clubs. A few years ago, she found herself reading the New Yorker on a filthy couch in the tiny dressing room of a punk club and asked, "Why am I still doing this?" By turns wryly funny and woundingly sincere, When I Grow Up takes you behind the scenes of rock life as Hatfield recounts her best and worst days, the origins of her songs, the source of her woes, and her quest to find a new purpose in life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470443347
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	11/03/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	125,300
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Juliana Hatfield is a singer-songwriter who came to prominence in the 1980s as a member of the band Blake Babies. Her vocals have been praised as "bewitching" by the New York Times. Her latest album, How to Walk Away, was released in August 2008.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: August 1: Hoboken.

Chapter 2: Vision.

Chapter 3: August 2: Philadelphia.

Chapter 4: In the Woodshed.

Chapter 5: August 3: New York City.

Chapter 6: Angel Girl.

Chapter 7: August 4: North Bergen to Boston.

Chapter 8: The Interview Interview.

Chapter 9: August 5: Cambridge.

Chapter 10: Sassy.

Chapter 11: August 7: Cleveland.

Chapter 12: Big Money.

Chapter 13: August 8: Columbus.

Chapter 14: The Story of "My Sister".

Chapter 15: August 9: Indianapolis.

Chapter 16: Cool Rock Boys.

Chapter 17: August 10: Chicago.

Chapter 18: Guns and Roses and Me.

Chapter 19: August 11: Iowa City.

Chapter 20: My Idol.

Chapter 21: August 12: Minneapolis.

Chapter 22: The Harpsichord.

Chapter 23: August 13: Minneapolis to Kearney.

Chapter 24: Hair and Makeup.

Chapter 25. August 14: Denver.

Chapter 26. August 15: Denver to Wendover.

Chapter 27. Jeff Buckley.

Chapter 28. August 16: Wendover to San Francisco.

Chapter 29. August 17: San Francisco.

Chapter 30. The Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Chapter 31. August 18: San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Chapter 32. August 19: L.A.

Chapter 33. Demons.

Chapter 34. August 20: San Diego.

Chapter 35. Windows.

Chapter 36. August 21: Tucson.

Chapter 37. Begging to Be Dropped.

Chapter 38. August 22: Albuquerque.

Chapter 39. August 23: Albuquerque to Oklahoma City.

Chapter 40. August 24: Lawrence.

Chapter 41. Hunger.

Chapter 42. August 25: St. Louis.

Chapter 43. The Last Leg.

Chapter 44. The Year of No Music.

Chapter 45. How to Walk Away.

Epilogue.

Editorial Reviews

From her humble beginnings as a Berklee College of Music piano student to her brief critical success in the 1990s alternative rock explosion to her latest side project, Some Girls, first-time author Hatfield chronicles more than three storied decades in professional music. Alternating between a present-day cross-country tour and recollections from earlier years, the result is a mixed, overstuffed bag. Hatfield, raised, trained and tested (first as pop trio Blake Babies) in Boston, charmingly recollects her experience as a serious female musician with no desire to appear sexualized before her audience; readers will cringe alongside her as she awkwardly rejects a hotel room photo-shoot suggestion: "Why did they always want me to jump up and down on the bed? Were photographers constantly nudging Kurt Cobain to jump up and down on beds?" Hatfield makes a compelling witness to the alternative rock boom ushered in by Nirvana's success, and is both lucid and thorough explaining the bureaucratic minutiae of the music industry's new world order, dominated by the massive influence of star-maker Clear Channel. As a writer, Hatfield is humble and personable, if at times tedious; a clunky, symbolic prologue-about being unable to buy a pre-show shot of Patron with her club-issued drink tickets-is an early indicator of the book's need for further edit. Still, fans of Hatfield's bratty, bedeviled pop stylings should enjoy these glimpses into her life.
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Publishers Weekly

* From her humble beginnings as a Berklee College of Music piano student to her brief critical success in the 1990s alternative rock explosion to her latest side project, Some Girls, first-time author Hatfield chronicles more than three storied decades in professional music. Alternating between a present-day cross-country tour and recollections from earlier years, the result is a mixed, overstuffed bag. Hatfield, raised, trained and tested (first as pop trio Blake Babies) in Boston, charmingly recollects her experience as a serious female musician with no desire to appear sexualized before her audience; readers will cringe alongside her as she awkwardly rejects a hotel room photo-shoot suggestion: “Why did they always want me to jump up and down on the bed? Were photographers constantly nudging Kurt Cobain to jump up and down on beds?” Hatfield makes a compelling witness to the alternative rock boom ushered in by Nirvana’s success, and is both lucid and thorough explaining the bureaucratic minutiae of the music industry’s new world order, dominated by the massive influence of star-maker Clear Channel. As a writer, Hatfield is humble and personable, if at times tedious; a clunky, symbolic prologue—about being unable to buy a pre-show shot of Patron with her club-issued drink tickets—is an early indicator of the book’s need for further edit. Still, fans of Hatfield’s bratty, bedeviled pop stylings should enjoy these glimpses into her life. (Sept.) ( Publishers Weekly , October 13th, 2008)

"...a tour dairy-cum-memoir" (The Guardian, October 30th 2008)

From the Publisher