Blake’s progress

I just played solo at the Echo a few weeks ago, says Blake Babies guitarist John P. Strohm, laughing. “Maybe 30 people were there. I’m hoping this time — for Cole’s sake — we get a few more.”
Echo Lounge booker Cole Skinner shouldn’t worry. Strohm’s visit in January was a barely advertised and hardly noticed gig with Juliana Hatfield’s brother’s band, Star Hustler.
This show will find the lanky and affable Strohm back at the Echo playing with Juliana, the early ’90s indie-rock cover-girl herself, for a reunion of their much-loved late-’80s trio, the Blake Babies.
Formed in ‘86 amid the thriving Boston music scene, the teenaged trio of Strohm, Hatfield and Freda Love Boner (now Smith) rapidly became critical darlings. Their bittersweet pop songs such as “Take Your Head Off My Shoulder” quickly became college-rock staples. Until their ‘91 breakup, their mixture of youthful innocence and cool detachment wrapped around crisp guitar found an adoring audience of fans internationally.
But left to Hatfield and his decision (and time constraints), Strohm says the Blake Babies probably never would have played again. Smith, however, persisted, strategically calling the others, and the reluctant Hatfield and Strohm — both strong, prolific songwriters who occasionally butted heads — finally began exchanging ideas by mail in ‘99. “Then we found 10 days that none of us had any plans,” says Strohm, “and just went in and recorded a whole album’s worth of songs.”
The sessions produced God Bless the Blake Babies (just released on Rounder Records’ Zoe label), featuring musical and vocal contributions from longtime associate Evan Dando of the Lemonheads. The ex-slacker posterboy and the Blakes have a long, complicated history. Between the four, Strohm says, there are at least 40 albums of interconnected material and relationships. “But recording this album was the first time the four of us had been in the same room since ‘88,” marvels Strohm.
Both Strohm and Hatfield have been members of the Lemonheads over the years and Dando played on most of the first Blake Babies full-length, Earwig, in 1987. Strohm and Hatfield also were touring members of the Lemonheads that same year, a trip that included Atlanta. Hatfield played bass and sang on the Lemonheads best, most cohesive album, It’s A Shame About Ray, in ‘92. Strohm rejoined the Lemonheads for their last tour in ‘96, supporting their Car, Button, Cloth album. During both his ‘92 and ‘96 Georgia tour stops, Dando was still raving about the great houses in Athens and Atlanta and how much they enjoyed their time here.
The Southern charm also captivated Strohm; he recently married a Birmingham girl and lives in Alabama. There is an active Birmingham music scene, too, he stresses. Strohm selected his friend and neighbor Verbena’s Daniel Johnston, to play bass on the new Babies’ tour. Johnston and Strohm also have a side project locally, adding one more page to Strohm’s lengthy band history.
Strohm admits to having had some doubts about resurrecting his old band. But Strohm and Smith, who were a couple for nine years, are now happily married to other people and living in different states. There were some differing creative viewpoints during the band’s heyday, he admits. “But now, we are older and there’s a whole new dynamic to the band. There’s no big creative struggle anymore and we are finally having fun with it.”
The past 10 years have taught Strohm to view music as a hobby, not a job, he says. “Now, it’s just fun. I mean, I’m not gonna go and tack posters to telephone poles, you know. I don’t give a shit about that part of it.”
What has concerned Strohm, who likes to keep busy, for the past decade has been a handful of different musical adventures featuring his signature jangly guitar and earnest vocals. His immediately post-Babies band Antenna was even formed with Smith (and featuring Smith’s current husband Jake). Their inter-band relationships often bordered on the incestuous, like an indie-rock Fleetwood Mac or a low-fi Mamas and Papas.
Their relationships were strained at times, but in retrospect, Strohm sees the past as time with old friends rather than former lovers or adversaries. “I mean, when you’ve known someone since you were 18 or 19, you are way beyond jealousy or competition. We are all friends now, and that helps a lot.”
With two successful reunion shows so far, Strohm says the band is ready for a short two-week tour. “It’s not going to be hard work; we are just planning to enjoy it this time,” he says. The band is planning a set of about half old and half new songs, breezy pop easily as good as the band’s previous career highlights, including Sunburn. “Some of the old stuff we’d sit and listen to and go, ‘What the fuck were we doing there?’” Strohm jokes that he may have to get tablature from fans’ websites.
“We don’t really know how this tour is going to do, so we aren’t playing huge places,” Strohm says. “But hopefully, when we get to the Echo, there’ll be more people there this time. I know I’m not a draw solo, but I think together we’ll do OK.”
The Blake Babies play the Echo Lounge, Wed., March 14. Tickets are $10. 9 p.m. For more information call 404-681-3600.