June. Check.

Things in the H Is for Hellgate camp didn't slow down for anybody in June. Here's the drrrty on how it went down:

- Georgetown Music Fest - Top notch and under-appreciated local bands. I had hoped for a better turn-out, but this baby is just in it's second year and there was a solid crowd considering we were the 3rd band up, playing at 1pm. However, the sound on the stage was....horrible. Other bands agreed. And, when a band is uncomfortable on the stage with the sound, no matter how "pro" they are, it's gonna come through in the performances. Nonetheless, we had fun and I got a sunburn that lasted a month and I finally got to see Tennis Pro.

- Vera Project - We played with Ms. Led and a couple nice bands from Albuquerque. I had made a personal vow to not drink that night due to my rampant alcohol consumption as of late. That, and it felt wrong to have the devil water in my system for an all-ages show.

We put Sean Nelson on our guest list thinking, this *might* be the time he finally comes out to a show. We were wrong again. Downtrodden, we had some post-show libations with the honorable Matt Brown, Shorthand For Epic's monster drummer, Stormi, Travis from WE and members of Ms. Led at the Mecca. We were joined by some guy that kept talking to David about his Union. So much for not drinking.

- Fremont Fair - We were like robbers up in that piece: show up, do our thing, escape. We all would have loved to have joined the many, many people in the beer garden, but we only were allowed to park on the grounds for the duration of our set and there was no way Fremont was going to have a parking space for a Chevy Conversion van. Besides, Ben had a 2nd show that day to prep for. Meanwhile, Teresa (from Another Perfect Crime and subject matter of several Hellgate songs) and I stopped by a Carolina-style BBQ hosted by Ron of Ghost Stories and The Grand Archives. Sadly, we missed out on the BBQ, but we did get to assist Ron and a couple other Montanans in keg stands.

This was the day to have parties, because we hit two more before the night was over. Teresa's friend, Jaxon, was rocking an all-day solstice party and gifted me a Hellgate High beer mug. It's awesome. I might insure it. Then, we split for the Mustache Bash over at the Chuck Norris house. House parties are sweet - a bunch of hanging out and drinking, not a lot of spending money (unless you had a problem holding onto your wallet while the people who were peddling special cookies came around).

- Shoreline Arts Fair - Last but not least. We ended up having a big snafu over this day because this show was the same day as the Wildrose's big gay pride beer garden concert. They asked us to play after we had accepted the Shoreline show, but for that we had another obligation, so they scheduled us to play at the same time. Neither show could change, so off to Shoreline we went. We played for families. There's absolutely nothing wrong with families - they just tend to not like dissonance and yelling. But, it mattered not because it was late in the day and the older fair crowd had already gone home. It was a weird end to a busy month and it left us all excited to play in our natural habitat - a bar.

The next couple months are going to be sparse, but we should be busting out some fresh jams coming up.

Oh, and one final thing. I believe the Crocodile hates us. They've offered us shows twice, both offers were last year and we had to decline because we had members out of town. It doesn't seem unreasonable given that the shows were both near major holidays. Since then, we've been offered no shows. I've asked. Nothing. A couple days ago, Teresa said Another Perfect Crime was offered a show on July 4th at the Crocodile. I was excited for them, but it seemed odd to me that they were offered a show at a venue that has a reputation for being hard to get a show at given that they've played a handful of shows since they started playing out a few months ago. We've played all over town, put out a record, and have a list of local write-ups from the last year. Okay. I became more convinced that the Croc hates us. APC had to turn down the show (surprise! it's a holiday! someone is out of town!), so they then offered a show to Ben's solo side project WHICH HAS NEVER LEFT HIS BASEMENT/ROOM/HOUSE. I mean, I would pay good money to see Cookbook Factory Outlet live, but .......?

I don't really care that much about playing the Crocodile because I have played there in other bands and the allure is gone. I just can't figure it out. Perhaps it's time to write up another open apology, although I don't know why we'd be apologizing. Maybe Marie hasn't been giving handjobs to the write people. Hmmm.

Right where we belong...

...sandwiched in between Gwen Stefani and Kelly Clarkson:


Currently listening to: a band from Brooklyn called Luff

Do not f*ck with vampires

Summer is awesome in Seattle because everyone comes out from their dark holes where they've retreated with their full-spectrum lights and triple-tall extra-foam soy lattes (Ben's beverage of choice) to enjoy the sun, but more importantly, life.

This last weekend was also awesome. On Thursday, 5/31 we played the after-party at a film showing at STIFF (Seattle True Independent Film Festival for those of you not in-the-know), not to be confused with SIFF, the film mega-fest that has taken over Seattle. First of all, it was great because we got to choose a movie to have playing behind us while we rocked the Rendezvous. David suggested Run Lola Run and I enthusiastically agreed because it was possibly the first foreign film I had ever seen, but more importantly, the first movie I saw with my first girlfriend.

Also special about that night: it was the one year anniversary of our first show which, coincidentally, was also at the Rendezvous. Creepy.

The movie that played before us was a documentary about a satanic vampire who ran for governor of Minnesota. It sounds crazy and made up, but it was true and frightening, not because of the whole satanic/vampire thing, but because this guy wanted to personally "impale" every wrong-doer on the face of the planet. Of course, he wasn't going to do that until he became President. The film was called The Impaler. You should find it. I'm legitmatly nervous that this guy might find me and impale me for implying that he's mentaly not totally stable. I shit you not.

Despite the fear of mocking someone deeply involved in the dark arts, the show was super fun and I think it was the first time there was an encore requested and we obliged.

Saturday, I rolled out of bed at 7:30 AM in order to plaster Capitol Hill with about 150 posters for our Vera Project show on June 8th. Then I headed over to the Georgetown Music Fest. It was a gorgeous day and all of the Hellgaters are a little less pasty white as a result.

We were the 2nd band to play the Georgetown Stage and I could tell by Tennis Pro's set that the sound on-stage was going to be weird. They rocked it, but it's always disorienting 1) playing outdoors 2) playing before 9:00 PM and 3) not having at least one drink in the system (sorry kids. Don't drink!). We did our best considering the only thing we could all hear is David's guitar.

It was a super cool event, mostly because it was a chance to see a ton of quality bands all in one spot...and get sunburned.

I'm in the process of putting together a Hellgate Flickr page. You can check out pictures from this weekend there and print out photos of your favorite crazy bass shredding facial expressions of Ben, but they're probably horribly organized at this point.