I am a stalker - update!

Given that I live in a metropolitan area, I get a little freaked out when I see people repeatedly. For example, today when I was getting my hair cut at Vain, I saw the chick from U.S.E. (you may want to glance over a previous post to get caught up with the rest of the world's knowledge of my pseudo-obsession of U.S.E.) and I thought it was so fitting that I made the good hair / high school analogy because there she was, great hair and all, doing what appeared to be work at a hipster hair place.

I know, this post has nothing to do with the band other than cancelling a photo shoot last weekend in part because my hair was in dire need of a good cut. Consider this a gossip post.

Anyway, I discovered a couple weeks ago that this chick with good hair is in another band that practices in the space across the hall from us. I believe that other band to be The Catch. This kind of breaks my heart because I don't really care for The Catch. I'm sure they're all fantastic people and great musicians, I just never jumped on the 80's throwback train. But, I heart U.S.E. fo' eva.

That's my Band Across The Hall update. Come to our festival shows detailed below. They'll be sweaty summer fun.

Festivals!

H Is for Hellgate is grabbing festival season by the horns this year, roping her up, and showing her how it's done.

Ewww.

Check it - we kick it off tomorrow, Thursday, May 31st at the Rendezvous for the Seattle True Independent Film Festival. It will be a fun, two band rock show at 10pm with a showing of a documentary about vampire slayers (I think) called Impaler playing at 8pm. Sweet!

This Saturday, June 2nd, we're going to throw down south Seattle style at the Georgetown Music Fest. It's an awesome, full day of rock, people. We play at 1:00 PM.

Friday, June 8th, it's not technically a festival, but there are five of us bands playing at the Vera Project, so it'll feel like a festival. We're super excited to play with the shredders in Ms. Led again.

Saturday, June 16th, hang out with some naked hippies/yuppies and drink some microbrews at the Fremont Fair. We're going to play on the all-grown-up Redhook Mainstage at 5:00 PM.

Finally, on June 23rd, it's going to get all crazy assed nut job bomb on ya'll. TWO festivals, ONE day. How? This is how 1) Shoreline Arts Festival at 4:00 PM for those of you who live up north. 2) Wildrose Pride Beer Garden Party Thing, time TBA, for those ladies who love the ladies and the men who love the ladies who love the ladies.

Oh, and I shouldn't forget about this contest we entered to win a spot on the Capitol Hill Block Party mainstage. Do we have a shot of winning? We'll find out on June 1st.

If we had a bio this good, maybe we *would* be playing Bumbershoot

The Bumbershoot website has a fun little band biography generator, I imagine, to mock all of the band bios they have to sift through in order to select the freshest bands. I now present you with H Is for Hellgate's new biography, courtesy of Bumbershoot:

A history of indie rock icons: H Is for Hellgate
Hailing from their parent's living room in Seattle, WA, H Is for Hellgate rose to the top of the indie rock scene in 2006 with their debut album, H Is for Hellgate. The band's latest album, to be released, blends Jamie H's disaffected naievete with modish production to create another collection of retro-inspired crowd pleasers. With standout tracks like "Soundtrack To The Summer," already certified platinum in Europe, H Is for Hellgate can count on loads of future success.

Skylark? More like Rocklark.

Ahhh, sweet, sweet stage. It was good to be back. We had a hella fun (yes, I just used the word "hella" and I'm continuing to type about it rather than simply delete it) night this last Saturday at the Skylark Cafe with The Dead Americans representing from Eugene and Sumac, the self-proclaimed Most Inactive Band one will see in Seattle. Zack from the Dead Americans did make-up for Ben. Well, just eyeliner, but it was a good, heavy, if-I'm-gonna-wear-eyeliner-you're-gonna-damn-well-notice-it application of eyeliner (see Ben clapping his hands and saying "hooray" here at the right). Sumac didn't need to be performing rock acrobatics on stage because their music just rocked, and that's what really matters at the end of the day. And, I finally ordered food from the Skylark and realized how awesome their menu is - I mean, tater tots, case-a-dillas, steak salad and deep-fried hostesses? Brilliant.

Sean Nelson did not attend our show.


Emily took these awesome polaroids.

Somehow, whenever we play at the Skylark, we end up getting really intoxicated. Saturday was no exception, and it was probably mostly my fault for offering hand-jobs in exchange for shots during our set. That, and we had nothing to do from 8:00PM when we loaded in until 11:00PM when we hit the stage. That's three hours of drinking for those of you bad at counting. Anyway, I heard that Marie didn't leave her bed until 4:00PM yesterday to do anything other than puke. I felt fine yesterday, however I have several bruises I can't account for.

Shouts out to Jason from Disheveled, Tom from the Chicken Shack, Travis from WE, Jason from Juhu and Nick, the honorary Juhu, Amanda, Robin and everyone else who was there but I can't remember (blame the shots ) for being in the house.


Finally, I did go to the U.S.E. show on Friday, but they did not (yet!) become my BFF. I did, however, do a lot of dancing and have renewed my interest in learning how to breakdance. In fact, I'd like to have breakdancers while H Is for Hellgate performs. Any takers? Also, I was inspired to wear white pants before Memorial Day. See how you empower me, U.S.E.?

Back in the proverbial saddle again

Currently listening to: The Shins (I have a curious addiction to the song "Sea Legs")

Praise Jesus. We had our first post-tour band practice last night, exactly 3 weeks after I had to jump on the last flight from Dallas to Minneapolis to experience what would quickly become the end of my youth. It was awesome. It was so good to play together again. It was comforting to see the old hackey sack. Things finally feel right with the world.

Random topic jump (thus the new paragraph, I suppose): we practice right across the hall from U.S.E. (short for United States of Electronica for those of you not in-the-know). I'm not sure why, or at what point, they reached celebrity status in my mind, because I don't own any of their music and I've only seen them live once and it was not a great show (they were good, the show was a strange moving opening for a snowboarding film...how did I even end up there? I don't snowboard and I'm not an avid movie goer. I must have been drunk and coerced...) but I ran into four of them last night, almost literally, as I was going out/they were coming in the front door to the Chophouse. I got all shy and awkward reminiscent of high school when I'd have embarrassing interactions with the popular girls who could hairspray their bangs into a perfect cocoon, unlike my modest, un-hairsprayed hair. I think it's just that I have a secret (not anymore!) desire to play in a gay (as in happy) dance band and I want to be them and play gay (as in happy) dance music for sweaty scensters.

Anyway, I might go see them, The Snakebites and Ms. Led tomorrow at Ye Ole Firehouse to benefit that guy who fell and got hurt. Then they will see that I'm cool and normal and have decent hair and we'll be best friends forever.

Getting back to the H, I've declared May our West Seattle Invasion month. Here you see a what one might get if you do a Google image search for West Seattle. Doesn't it look like a blast? Right. We expect to see you at both of the following shows (that includes you, U.S.E., my future BFF):

- Saturday, May 12th at the Skylark Cafe - we headline and start our rock at 11PM

- Friday, May 18th at Easy Street After Hours - with the Bad Ass Motherfuckers, or "BAMFs" as we say in Hellgate, Juhu Beach.