Let's make a deal!

There comes a time in some bands' lives when they desire the assistance of businesses with a little bit of capital, an underpaid but dedicated staff, and the means to make more people aware about the band's music than the band can make aware themselves.

Enter the Record Label.

I'm a DIY girl through and through. I was raised and instilled with an obnoxious Montanan work ethic that often hinders my ability to accept help or a leg up from "knowing the right people." As a result, with much assistance from Ben, David, and Marie, I've spent the last couple years working my ass off to get H Is for Hellgate in the "neural networks" of people of Seattle and it seems to slowly be working. Hanging posters. Updating the internets. Annoying the press to just effing write something about us already. Trying to make alliances with the no-bullshit segment of the local music community. Supporting my friends' bands by going to their Tuesday night shows enjoying every minute of it.

I'm fully invested in my art - crafting songs that I hope people can not only connect with, but also be caugth off-guard with twists and turns. I'm also invested in the local music community. There are bands I love and can't believe aren't playing sold-out shows that I champion (sometimes more than I even champion my own band) and there are popular bands that I think are not offering anything new or inspiring artistically. And I will voice that opinion - not because I think those bands are bad people, but because I want us collectively to come up with something more interesting and substantial.

Now that the recording, mixing and mastering of our second album, Come For the Peaks, Stay For the Valleys is done, I'm now starting the process of shopping it around to various indie labels to see if they can help a sister and her bandmates out with some exposure. Especially considering the obstacles we've had to endure to get to where we are...me losing my dad last year while we were on tour and the very recent passing of our engineer, Mark...I feel strongly that this album is very important for us and a lot of other people. I don't want our three consigned copies collecting dust at the beginning of the "H" section at Sonic Boom this time next year. I hope people will dig the album just as much as we enjoyed making it.

So, I have my dining room set up as the temporary Hellgate Mailing Center and soon these envelops will be sitting in piles at select record labels around the country with hundreds of other bands' demos. But, select labels (sub pop), do yourself a favor and take a chance (sub pop) and open that sweet, sweet yellow envelope (sub pop). I'm SO PSYCHED about this album (sub pop) and I want the good word of the Hellgate spread far (sub pop) and wide (sub pop)!

"fun time in the city that doesn't work. ever."

The title was the last line in the last email I recieved on June 6th from Mark Mercer, the guy who engineered the record we just completed, regarding mastering the album. We got some very sad news about Mark...this is from the Seattle Times:

Body of Seattle man, Mark Mercer IV, found in
Mississippi River near New Orleans wharf

The body of a Seattle recording engineer missing since June 9 was found early Tuesday morning near a wharf on the Mississippi River in New...

By Leslie Anne Jones
Seattle Times staff reporter

The body of a Seattle recording engineer missing since June 9 was found early Tuesday morning near a wharf on the Mississippi River in New Orleans.

Mark Mercer IV, 26, was in New Orleans to see friends and attend a recording conference when he drowned after friends said he
spontaneously jumped from a ferry into the river.

Mercer had been sitting with friends Danny Laurino and David Weinberg on a levee near a ferry landing discussing his ideas about finding bands in the South and then mastering their tracks in Seattle, Weinberg said. Suddenly, Mercer jumped up and said, "Let's go," and ran down on to the landing ramp as the ferry was docking, Weinberg said.

Mercer jumped onto the ferry as it docked. When the ferry crew discovered him aboard, he jumped into the water.

Laurino and Weinberg ran down to the ferry as the ferry crew threw life rings, but Mercer didn't try to grab one, Weinberg said.

Mercer's friends turned and walked back up the ramp to see if they could spot Mercer better from above. When they looked back to the water, he had disappeared beneath the surface, Weinberg said.

The chief investigator for the New Orleans coroner's office, John Gagliano, ruled that the cause of death was drowning, according to wire reports.

Friends and family speculate that Mercer underestimated the danger of the Mississippi River. The Coast Guard unsuccessfully searched for him for two days, according to The Times-Picayune newspaper.

Mercer moved to Seattle about three years ago to get in on the independent music scene and record the post-punk band, Masks Phantoms. Mercer also produced the latest album for the local band H Is for Hellgate. Most recently, Mercer was living in an apartment in the back of Avast recording studio in Greenwood, where he also worked.

Mercer was a self-taught sound engineer with dreams of one day building his own studio, Weinberg said.

"He was really into living and doing, more than material things," said Mercer's aunt, Barbara Mercer, of Pittsburgh. "When he
wanted to do something he would just go and do it. He wouldn't think there was any reason not to when he wanted to do it."

Friends and family described Mercer as a high-energy, spontaneous music lover who lived by his own rules.

Last winter, Mercer took a freighter to China and lived for a month with a man he met who offered him lodging in exchange for English lessons for his family.

Mercer volunteered at the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library. Though recording was his passion, Mercer was also a self-taught keyboard, guitar, bass and drum player, Weinberg said.

Mercer grew up in Aurora, Colo. He attended Colorado State University, where he received a degree in sociology. He is survived by his parents Jeri and Mark Mercer III of Aurora, and an older sister, Kristin Mercer.

On behalf of Ben, David and Marie, our deepest sympathy goes out to Mark's family and friends. We only knew Mark during the short time we worked with him on the album over the last six months, but we spent a lot of hours with him in the studio and felt like he was one of the Hellgaters. We were very excited when we decided to work with him on the album and he helped make recording the album a very fun experience. He also pushed us to not settle for anything but the best performance we were capable of, even if it was 2:00 AM and we were 16 hours into our recording session.

As the news story states, Mark seemed very focused on fully living life and had some amazing stories he shared with about his adventures. It's tragic that he died so young, but he did seem to live a lot more of life than other people my age. Even so, the thing that's hitting me the hardest is that the song on the album that he felt the most connected to, he thought was the "centerpiece" of the record, and wanted to make absolutely perfect by having it delivered with all of the appropriate emotion was "Blood", a song I wrote about my dad's death last year.

We finished mixing the album just before he left on his trip to New Orleans. He cared very much about making not just a good, but a great album and I'm honored that we will be able to release a project into which Mark put a lot of time, energy, and his artistic vision.

Last show with David and Marie Wed, June 11th at the Comet

Please come out and support Noise For the Needy this Wednesday at the Comet Tavern (922 E Pike) with us, Hungry Pines, Capillary Action, and Red Sea Sharks.

This show will mark the end of a chapter of H Is for Hellgate as both David and Marie move on to bigger and better things and leave Ben and I whispering “hooray” with single tears rolling down our respective cheeks. It will be our last show for a few months while a new Hellgate line-up is determined, so please help us celebrate David and Marie’s awesome two years with the band and send them off with a lot of love!




David and Marie at The Spread in Spokane on our first mini-tour, June 2006.



Hellgate at Room 710 in Austin during our April 2007 tour.


Photo by Emily from the first Hellgate photoshoot at the 711 house where the magic began.

I could continue the photo journey and accompany them with the lyrics from Sarah Mclaughlin's "I Will Remember You", but you get the idea. We've had A LOT of fun times and it's going to be a hard transition, but I wouldn't have wanted to spend the last two or so years any other way with any other people.

So please, come out and yell one last round of "HOORAYs!" for Marie and David.