Small. Slight. Dismissed. Imagine you’re a megaton bomb born to look like just a firecracker. Juliana Hatfield imagines that the world wrote her off as a riot grrl from the 90s and that she’s permanently afflicted with Lilith Fairitis. She plays guitar, writes songs about jerk boyfriends, comes from Boston, and has a naturally girly voice. She is so pissed off about that last detail that her throat gets unfairly abused and a lot of guitar amps regret being born. She’s tried chain smoking and thrashing her vocal chords to grind off the sweet sheen of her voice, but all she needs to do is hear herself for once and see what a big stick she carries.

It’s not like she thrashes around with her guitar drawing blood from the crowd in live shows, but there’s always something to prove and she’s never completely comfortable in her own skin. Her album covers since the late 90s have been tussled, blemished and caustic, like she’s screening out people who are not genuinely worth relating to. Look at “bed” and “Made in China” to see that people looking for “cute” need not bother. Having horns growing out of my head works great for me too so that pretty much no worthless people will talk to me. Best content filter ever. Living in San Diego I lucked out to see her play at the Casbah in about 2002, but her show in 2004 at Canes (where people wander in off of the beach with no idea who’s playing as long as there is beer) was like an attitude correction.

Someone made the mistake of NOT knowing she had any material from the 20th century. I like “Only Everything” a lot, but the cook at the Schofield Barracks chow hall got edgy when I said I wanted “only everything” on my omelette. Not everyone paid much attention after the indie buzz diffused in the late 90s. The wounds may have been healing over, but she ripped off the scabs and the stitches and got medieval with “What a Life” for the beach bums. I admire Juliana for keeping her defiant streak, but also for her gift in expressing herself and winning in her battle with her self-conscience. I wish her the best personally, and for the sake of good shows that she’ll always stay pissed off with herself.