Use that!

Phase 1 of recording the next record is complete. We had the distinct pleasure of spending 14 - 18 hour days at Avast! hammering out the best drum and bass tracks we could muster. One curious thing about the experience was this: as the day would pass into night and the Hellgaters were getting tired, our engineer, Mark Mercer, perked up and pushed us into the wee hours of the morning, encouraging us to focus and pull the best takes out of us. All and all, it was a lot of fun, there were no melt-downs or fights, and the tracks sound kick ass so we're happy.

Next weekend we'll be laying down the guitar and vocal tracks. Before you know it we'll have a shiny new Hellgate album for you.

Be sure to join us Saturday, January 26th at the Skylark in West Seattle for Ben Baier Appreciation Night. We'll be celebrating all things Ben with We Wrote the Book on Connectors (Ben's other band) and The Dead Americans from Eugene. Bring your best "Hooray!".

Album 2

The past couple of months have been a new type of Hellgate experience for us band members. We've added an additional day to our practice schedule and have played a minimal number of shows in order to gear up for recording our next album and have subsequently discovered that playing shows for other people does a lot to break up the monotony of nitpicking the same twelve songs for weeks on end.

The next album, yet to be titled (suggestions?), will be exciting, I think. It may disappoint those who included "The Next 50 Winters" and "Soundtrack to the Summer" as their favorite songs off of our first album. It's not an enormous departure from the first album, but it's definitely darker and more rockier. Or something.

Also different was the process through which I wrote the songs. When I wrote the first album, there was no H Is for Hellgate. There was me, my basement, a bunch of songs, some recording equipment and wine. Lots of wine. I didn't have a clear vision what I was going to do with the recorded collection of songs until about six weeks into the three month recording process (recording takes a looooooooooong time if you play all the instruments yourself) that I decided that maybe I ought to form a band to play the songs with me. I was really exhausted at just the thought of sifting through the classifieds of the Stranger to find some strangers to join me in the next phase of my musical trek. It had been over three years since I moved to Seattle with the defined goals of 1) find a band to play in and 2) play music a lot. I can't even remember how many bands/jams/beginnings/ends of bands I played with/auditioned for/left trying to find something that fit. Prior to recording H Is for Hellgate I had already decided to go it alone in my solo project, Henkensiefken. I had a couple awesome guys play with me towards the end of Henkensiefken, but it still felt like something was off. So I decided to look for a drummer and a bassist to help me take my dog and pony show on the road.

Filling the drummer spot wasn't difficult. Marie was in the first band I played in after I moved to Seattle. She also was in an early and short-lived incarnation of Henkensiefken when it was a two-piece act. She was looking to drum, I was looking for a drummer. Drummer - check.

I posted an ad in the Stranger and the first (and I think only) person to respond was Ben. In his email to me, he listed music he liked - we shared a love for 31Knots and he had good taste in hip hop. Well, the fact that he even listed hip hop acts had me sold. We first met at the Bad Juju Lounge where another band I was playing in, Ghost Stories, was playing that night and I realized that I had seen him before. His other band, We Wrote the Book On Connectors had played with Henkensiefken at Chop Suey several months earlier and I distinctly remembered his purple sparkle bass and his ability to play it well. We chatted, it felt good, he was in.

Well, not quite. I had asked Jason in Juhu Beach for the buddy referral on a bassist, figuring the Stranger would only get me some psychopath who wouldn't have his/her shit together enough to even form a full band, let alone get a show. He got me in contact with his buddy, David, who could play many instruments. We met for a meet-and-greet at Dad Watson's and he seemed really great. So, I had a dilemma on my hands.

Well, not quite. Because sometimes I'm smart, I figured out that Ben could play bass, David could play guitar and with another guitarist in the band, I could do more crazy crap. So, in February of 2006, H Is for Hellgate as you know it was born.

This story is long. My original point was that, during the writing of Album 2, I had a vision. Not the peyote/lost in the wilderness for 10 days type of vision, but a solid foundation from which to build songs. I now know what H Is for Hellgate is. It's not abstract and in my head. It's a unit of three of the most awesome people you might ever have the good fortune to meet (and one chick who's a jerk...me!) who contributed to the album we're going to record at Avast! this weekend with their energy, commitment and support equally as much as I did by playing some chords and putting words to them. After search and search and search, I can't believe I'm in a band that's so cohesive and fun. We have a friendship and collective enthusiasm I think a lot of bands don't have, and I'm so excited to put that down on tape (well, digital tape) this weekend.

And, we're all sooooo excited for you to hear the new jams.

Oh, in other news, thanks to everyone who voted for us in the Three Imaginary Girls Top Northwest Albums of 2007 Readers Poll. We were ranked #35 out of 50 and beat out some pretty solid local bands. Hooray!! Next year we're squashing those other 34 m-f'ers!