Author: Ji11

Categories
Awesome-sauce Benefit Uncategorized

Gig: Saturday August 25th: 12 hours of music to benefit MS research

Some of this is a reprint from last year’s event-related post. Why reinvent the wheel?

Multiple Sclerosis sucks. My sister has it. You don’t want it. Each year I try to do a little something to raise money for the MS Society; I’ll either Bike to the Bay, I’ll do the MS Walk, or during lazy years I’ll send ’em a check. This year, like last year, Hot Breakfast! will be donating our time and skillz by participating in a way-cool all-day music festival at a wonderful spot: Aqua Sol Restaurant.

If you haven’t been there before, Aqua Sol is pretty neat. It’s got foodie-quality food with a Cuban flair, really good drinks, and a South Beach vibe. It’s right on the water, and their giant deck is on the marina. It’s the perfect place to start the process of saying goodbye to summer. A mojito on the water? Don’t mind if I do!

There are two stages: An acoustic stage, and a main stage. Full bands play on the main stage, and acoustic acts play on the acoustic stage… except us. We’re thrilled that we get treated as a full band, so we’ll be playing a 45-minute set on the main stage starting at 7pm. (Note: Previous ads said we were playing at 7:30 and then 7:00… this has been moved! We’re now scheduled to go on at 6pm, assuming they run on time… which they may not be… but hey, it’s a relaxing day so we’re not gonna stress. Just have another mojito.)

This event is rain or shine. If it rains some crazy torrential downpour of doom, we’ll all head inside where they’ll have two stages set up. If it’s just a passing sprinkle, we’ll consider it a refreshing hose-down and we’ll stick it out until it passes.

You can buy tickets at the door ($20 per person, $35 per couple), or better yet: You can buy them cheaper if you buy them ahead of time by clicking here: http://musicextravaganza.ticketleap.com/living-with-ms/   See? We’re saving you a couple bucks.

Here’s the band lineup as we know it (freshly updated as of 8/24):

.45 RPM: 12:00 PM
John Nallie and Tommy Keith: 1:00 PM
Stump Junction: 1:30 PM
Chad Michael Jervis: 2:30 PM Katalyst: 3:00 PM
Johnny B: 4:00 PM
Joe Pettis Band: 4:30 PM
Frank Julian: 5:30 PM
Hot Breakfast: 6:00 PM (we play for an hour!)
BTJ: 7:00 PM
Joe Trainor Trio: 7:30 PM (they play for an hour!)

Raffle announcments: 8:45 PM
The Acoustic Jam: 9:00 PM
Barral House Blues: 9:30 PM
Jam: 11:00 PM

Here’s a link to the Facebook Page for the event— you don’t need a Facebook account to see it, just in case you want to learn more about the other sweeeeeet activities (poker! raffles!) happening as part of the event.

Bring sunblock, sunglasses, bug spray, and your appetite!

Hope to see you there! And I hope even more to see you there handing me a mojito with extra mint. 😉

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Uncategorized

Gig: Sunday, Aug 26, 8pm: The Win Show at Fennario, West Chester PA

There’s a rather entertaining sketch comedy troupe based in West Chester, PA called The Win Show, and they invited us to be the house band for their upcoming show this week at Fennario… upstairs at Fennario, to be precise.

We’ve never played in West Chester before, so we’re extra-excited about infesting the city with our breakfasty goodness. Better yet: It’s a small venue, so we’ll be completely acoustic, which is a rare treat for us. No mics, no music stands, no amps… so for you photographers who hate mic stands and music stands getting in your way, here’s a chance to get shots at our alarmingly-well-toned physiques.

GIG DEETS:

WHEN: Sunday, August 26th, 2012, 8:00pm
WHERE: Fennario Coffee (upstairs), 111 Church St., West Chester, PA
COVER CHARGE: Five bucks. Cheap!
PARKING: Street only, but it’s easy.
FOOD:: There’s coffee and coffee-house treats downstairs, and plenty of restaurants in the area.

Will we see you there? Mais oui!

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Uncategorized newsletter

The HB! Newsletter: late summer / early autumn update!

This is a copy of our email newsblast that went out earlier tonight. Want to receive email updates like this one? Join our mailing list!

Greetings, HB!COR (Hot Breakfast! Compadres of ROCK) members, old and new!

We have a bunch of shows coming up soon, and we just realized that we’ve been so busy rocking that we forgot to tell you about them!  They’re mostly Saturdays, coincidentally… but we’ve got a Friday or two in there for good measure.

As per our usual, this here email newsletter is broken down into a few sections: HB! News, Upcoming HB! Shows, Get Involved, and The Dismount.  Off we go!

HB! NEWS:

Album Update…
Our self-titled EP is here!  It was released with minimal fanfare at our show at The 1984 Barcade in Wilmington on July 7, 2012.  It features six songs, and a lovely mix of originals and covers, as well as some with full-band instrumentation.  Here’s the track listing: (1) It Only Takes Two to Rock  (2) Defender (3) Kiss Off (a Violent Femmes cover) (4) Hole in Your Pants  (5) You Were a Spider  (6) Major Tom (Coming Home) (a Peter Schilling cover).   We are really proud of this EP, and we’re selling it for a whole five dollars.  You can buy a physical CD from us at a show, or you can download it in either MP3 or FLAC format from our website.  You can also stream the songs as many times as you want for free from our website, too.  Just click here to be brought to our Music page.  (And I’ve gotta say… it feels pretty cool to have a contract with our names and Peter Schilling’s and Gordon Gano’s names on it as we secured the rights to record those cover tunes.)

And the media goes wild…
We’re famous!  World domination is imminent!  OK, maybe we’re exaggerating a bit, but just two days after our EP was released, our song “It Only Takes Two To Rock” was played on McG’s Backroom, a kickass weekly music podcast by everyone’s favorite punk spokesguy Dave McGurgan.  In early August, our tune “Hole In Your Pants” was played on WSTW’s Hometown Heroes!  And just last night we were interviewed for CommunityPub, a Delaware-based newspaper, regarding our upcoming headlining performance at the 2nd Annual Music Extravaganza which raises a ton of money for Multiple Sclerosis research… that article should be online (communitypub.com) Thursday night, and in print on Sunday.  Soon the paparazzi will be stalking us, and all the fashion magazines will feature 40 year olds with little to no hair, hair, and yellow eye shadow… you’ll see!

We inspired some serious nerding…
If you use Google Chrome and Google Calendar, we’ll just let you read this on your own.  Otherwise, move along. 

A new addition to the family…
Henry (Matt’s beloved Gibson Songwriter Series guitar) served Matt very, very well for almost two decades, but poor Henry was having a hard time staying in tune.  So as of Monday, Matt is the proud owner of a new Martin Custom Performer Jumbo acoustic guitar.  (It’s jumbo in sound, not size.) Matt is still thinking of a name for the new guitar, though Jill is really pushing for “Riley.”  It sounds deep and amazing, it’s absolutely beautiful, and we can’t wait to bring our new sweet axe to our next gig.  Speaking of our next gig…

 

UPCOMING HB! SHOWS:

[] This Saturday, August 18 @ 8:00pm SHARP: Kennett Flash(102 Sycamore Alley, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania).  We are super-duper excited about this show!  Three “comedy music” acts are sharing this dorktastic bill– that’s us, as well as Dave & Brian, and our new BFF Todd Chappelle.  We admit we are the least comedy-centric of the three acts, but we’ve got a few new silly songs to try out on you. Grammarians will (hopefully) appreciate Matt’s new tune “The Garden of Bad Metaphors.”  Tickets can be purchased in advance for $12, or at the door for $15.  You can find out more details about the show/venue/tickets/backstory here.

[] Saturday, August 25th – ALL DAY!  2nd Annual Living with MS Music Extravaganza at Aqua Sol Restaurant (Summit North Marina, 3006 Summit Harbour Place, Bear, DE 19701) What better way to celebrate the end of summer with a mojito or two in the bright sunshine (under a table umbrella so you don’t fry) on the deck of Aqua Sol?  This is an all-day fund-raiser, raising money for MS research, and the proceeds go to the MS Society of Delaware. Jill’s sister has had MS for almost two decades now, so this cause is especially near and dear to our hearts.  The music begins at 12 noon and continues to midnight; however Hot Breakfast! takes the stage at 7:30PM, and the Joe Trainor Trio plays immediately after us.  We might even play a few tunes together if you ask real nice.  Tickets are $20 for one, or $35 for two– plus the venue will have food/drink specials, raffles, and other fun stuff.  And there’s also a very comfortable air conditioned inside bar where you can beat the heat if you’d like.  We also heard a rumor that we might be singing Happy Birthday to a certain HB!/JT3 fan… For tickets and info, go here.

[] Sunday, August 26th, 7:30pm: The Win Show! at Fennario Coffee in West Chester, PA (111 Church St., West Chester, PA).  We will admit we’re not entirely sure about the details of this gig.  The promoter said it’s a night of sketch comedy interspersed with music (that’s us!), and I think we may be opening the show, too.  We’re not really sure how long we’re going to play, what time we start, or much else about it, but hey, we always wanted to play in West Chester, so what the heck?  Come on out and be part of our adventure.  I’m not sure if there’s a cover or not.  It’s a coffee place, so if nothing else, bring money for coffee and barista tips. 🙂

[] Saturday, September 1st, 11:15am: The 2012 Arden Fair: Arden Shady Grove, 2126 The Highway, Arden, DE 19810.  This is a really exciting event for us– The Arden Fair is a blast and a half, and we’re so excited to finally be in town for this event!  We’ll play a 30-minute set starting at 11:15am sharp, and after we’re done we have to run off to a wedding to celebrate our wonderful friends (and play a song there, too). For more info, click this Facebook link (sorry, it’s all we have right now… we don’t like Facebook links either.)

[] Saturday, September 8th: PRIVATE GIG, Philadelphia, PA.  OK, normally we don’t list private gigs here, because they’re, ya know, private… but HOLYCRAP WE ARE OPENING FOR THE SPRING STANDARDS.  AS IN THE SPRING STANDARDS THAT WERE JUST ON CONAN A FEW WEEKS AGO.  Okay, that is all.  (All caps were necessary. Sorry.)

[] Friday, September 14th, 6:00 – 8:30PM: The Young Bean, 314 Main Street, Clayton, DE. For our posse in lower Delaware, we’ve got over two hours of music for you!  No cover charge, but please drink some coffee and tip the baristas.  This place is just perfect for us– it’s a comfy, cozy spot with amazing coffee, live music and a thing on their menu called BACON CAKE.  (Fark the music, just show up for the bacon cake, yo.)

[] Saturday, September 29th, 7:00pm: Rod Kim’s Very Public Birthday Bash as part of the Wilmington Fringe Festival, at World Cafe Live at the Queen (5th and Market Street, Wilmington, DE).  Rod Kim is a popular guy. His recent super-cute pop CD, “To Love and Be Loved” was nominated for a Grammy.  He and his musical collaborator pal Vince Cirino are celebrating their birthdays with a musical all-star bash at World Cafe Live at the Queen, and we are thrilled that he asked us to play along with a bunch of other great local bands (Mean Lady, Evangelina Guajardo, etc, etc).  It’s general admission seating/standing and a $5 cover at the door.  I don’t know if you can be guaranteed a table, but it’s worth trying by calling the venue or making a dinner reservation at World Cafe Live at the Queen using OpenTable.com. 

[] Friday, October 5th, 8:00PM: Joe Trainor Trio’s CD Release Party at World Cafe Live at the Queen! (5th and Market Street, Wilmington, DE).  We are so, so, so excited to be not only opening for the Joe Trainor Trio for  the official release of their long-awaited CD Twelve Stories, but we’ll also be joining them on stage for a bunch of numbers, too!  We’ll take the stage right at 8pm.  Geez, for all the World Cafe Live gigs we have this fall, I think they’re going to name a table after us. 🙂  We’re not complaining!

There are more dates to come!  Stay tuned!

 

GET INVOLVED!

People ask us all the time how they can help support the band.  Here are eleven (11!) ideas, so take your pick:

  1. Sign the mailing list to stay up to date.
  2. Like us on Facebook.  (Honestly, we’re not big fans of Facebook, so we haven’t really been pushing our FB page.  However, promoters/booking agents gauge a band’s popularity (perhaps unfairly) on how many “likes” a bad has, so it’s time for us to get on the FB horse.  So, if you haven’t done so already, please give us a “Like” and encourage your friends to do so as well.  That’s a big help!  (Please note that there are a few groups/organizations called “Hot Breakfast” on Facebook.  Make sure you’re liking the right one!  Look for our picture, or go to facebook.com/HotBreakfastRocks — don’t forget the “Rocks.”)
  3. Follow us on Twitter: We’re @hotbreakfast .
  4. If you know of any venues where you think we’d be welcome, let us know!  Email us here at awesomesauce@hot-breakfast.com. The name and location of the venue is necessaryof course, and if you happen to know someone there, their name and contact info would be extra helpful.
  5. Come to a show!  Bring a friend!  Tell the bartender / manager / host(ess) that you’re there to see us.
  6. Buy an EP, and play it loudly. 🙂
  7. Share our videos with your friends on YouTube, or record and upload your own when you see us live. We love that. 🙂
  8. When you see a sign in front of a hotel that says “HOT BREAKFAST,” yell “Hot Breakfast!” really loudly and throw your fist in the air.  You can also do this when eating heated breakfast foods.  Bonus points if you take a picture of yourself this and post it on the internetz.  If you post it using Instagram, mention us!  We’re @hotbreakfast on instagram.
  9. Consider hosting a house concert.  We’ll come to your house and play for you and your pals… it’s a blast, and easier than you think!  Email us here at awesomesauce@hot-breakfast.com and we’ll walk you through it.
  10. Visit our website to stay up to date on our latest shows.  We’re constantly adding new gigs, and that’s always the best place to see when and where we’re playing. Our calendar is on the right-hand side of our page.
  11. Just say hi after a show. 🙂

 

AND… THE DISMOUNT.

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you so much for reading. We admire your tenacity! 🙂  If you’d like to be removed from this list, no hard feelings.  Just hit Reply and type Unsubscribe in either the subject or the first line of the body of your email, and our trained robots will handle the rest.

Thank you again, so sincerely, for being a Compadre of ROCK.  We are so grateful to you for your support, your kindness, and your enthusiastic fist-pumps.  We really, really love you.

Stay dorky, Compadres!

Ji11 and Suburban Legend
(aka Jill and Matt)

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Awesome-sauce Uncategorized

GIG: August 18th, 8pm, Kennett Flash – The Openers of Comedy!

Earlier this year we had the pleasure of being the opening band for Better Than Bacon, a deeelightful comedy improv theater troupe at The Kennett Flash.  We got the gig because Todd Chappelle (their regular opener) was booked elsewhere that night.  It’s also come to our attention that comedy music duo Dave & Brian have also opened for Better Than Bacon and brought down the house, just as Todd does. 

Todd, being a make-it-happen kinda guy, approached the Kennett Flash about an OPENERS OF COMEDY show featuring us, Todd Chappelle of course, and Dave & Brian, and the Flash jumped all over it. Woooot!

The Kennett Flash is a fabulous venue. It’s a sit-down-and-listen kind of place, so it’s more like a concert than a typical gig. People actually listen, which is a pretty decadent experience for performers. The Kennett Flash also serves light food (sammiches, munchies) and it’s a BYOB, so you don’t have to starve. Sweet!

We recognize that we’re definitely the least funny of the three acts– we don’t really consider ourselves musical comedians… we just have some dorky tunes that make people chuckle. But we’ve been known to be sincere, too. We’ll try to keep the sincerity down that night. Either way, you’re in for some MAXX LULZ, SRSLY, just with Todd and Dave & Brian alone. Consider us the gravy. We might sweeten the deal, but the main course is more than enough on its own.

The evening’s festivities start at 8pm. There is no opening band– we’re all opening for each other. (So get there on time, is what we’re saying.)

DEETS:

WHO: Todd Chapelle, Dave & Brian, and Hot Breakfast! trade sets for a night of comedy music
WHEN: Saturday, August 18th, 8pm
WHERE: The Kennett Flash– 102 Sycamore Alley, Kennett Square, PA 19348 484-732-8295.
TICKETS: Tickets can be purchased online for $12, or for $15 at the door.
PARKING: You can park in the teeeeeeeny lot behind the venue (it fills up fast), or you can park on the street.
FOOD: The Kennett Flash serves light fare– sammiches, snacks, drinks. It’s also a BYOB thing, but they do charge a corkage and a glass fee, so be prepared for that. There are about a zillion wonderful places to get dinner in Kennett Square, so if you’re looking for a bigger meal, get into town early.

Hope to see you there– it’s going to be a really fun (and funny!) night!

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Rocking Uncategorized

GIG: Philly’s Primary Stages, Aug 7 & 8 7:30pm

World Cafe Live once billed us “Acoustic Theatrical Rock.”   While we prefer our usual “dork-rock” descriptor, we can’t deny that we have a penchant for, shall we say, theatricalrocktasticness. So being the house band for a theater group seemed like the perfect opportunity for us.

I’ve said this in a previous blog post (by paraphrasing the theater group’s website), but I’ll say it again:

Philadelphia Dramatists Center; purveyors of fine Philadelphia theater since... well... a while ago.
Philadelphia Dramatists Center; purveyors of fine Philadelphia theater since… well… a while ago.

Philadelphia is known for having a great underground theater scene, and one of the driving forces is Philly’s Primary Stages. PPS is a “down and dirty script-in-hand staged reading series of new 10 minute plays,” where audience members are encouraged to give feedback to the playwrights, actors, and directors. Audience members are even bribed with beer, wine, sodee pop, bottled water, assorted chips, dips, vienna sausages and puddin’ packs. Once in a while a bottle of something and a shot glass, or 2, show up as well.

Being a House Band for a night of 10-minute plays means that we play for 30-ish minutes before the show and for about 10-15 minutes during intermission, too… but we also perform hand-picked segue music between plays. Matt and I come from a pretty strong theater background ourselves, so we love getting to split our time between being on stage and back-stage.

In June 2011, Hot Breakfast! filled in for PPS’ usual house band who had a conflict of some kind. The folks at Philly’s Primary Stages liked what we did so much that they’ve asked us to be their permanent house band.

This month’s shows are happening on August 7th and 8th. We play a 30-40 minute set beginning at 7:30pm, and then 15-ish minute set at intermission. We also play the outtro music from each play– songs that are hand-picked by the directors.

There are different plays each night, so if you’re feelin’ theatery, you could come both nights and see a ton of amazing stuff. I can’t promise we won’t repeat any songs, however. 🙂

If you’ve been to Philly’s Primary Stages before, they’re at a new location now– it’s bigger!

WHERE: New Location! Community Education Center: 3500 Lancaster Ave. (vaguely sorta by 30th St. Station) Philadelphia, PA 19104-4916
WHEN: August 7th and 8th. Doors open at 7ish, HB! plays at 7:30, the plays start at 8pm. Different plays both nights!
CASH: Five bucks!

For a measly five bucks ($5!), you get a night of terrific theater, food, beverages, and music. What better way to spend a mid-week night?

See you then!

Your pal,

Jill

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Awesome-sauce There are no words Uncategorized

The Internet, she provides.

This is why I love my friends and the Internet.

It started at the last time we played at the open mic night at Extreme Pizza. Admittedly, attendance was low, so it basically devolved into us and Todd Chappelle musically goofing off. Somebody (and I can’t remember who) made a Neil Diamond joke, and then Matt and Todd started doing Neil Diamond imitations. Jill was a blob in the corner, paralyzed with laughter for she is easily entertained.

A few weeks later, Todd posted this YouTube video:

Which of course is hilarious and made us die laughing, and only fueled the Neil Diamond fire.

Emails full of “TODAY!” were exchanged, and Matt tried to figure out what songs he might sing in the style of Neil Diamond as well. (We already do a cover of You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, but maybe we needed something else, right?)

The other day, Jill was sticking something on her trusty Google Calendar, and she had this thought, so she tweeted it:

In case you don’t know, the @boutell Jill referenced is none other than Tom Boutell, the guy who sorta invented half of the things you use everyday if you use a farking computer (the .png file format, Real Audio, the WWW FAQ, image mapping, ya know.). I’m honored to say he’s a really good friend of ours. 🙂

To which immediately Tom replied:

So we said…

And then 18 hours later, THIS HAPPENED:

So fellow nerds, dorks, and people who need about 73,000% more awesome in your Google Calendar, here’s what you do:

1) Install this add-on into Chrome, created by Tom Boutell
2) Shut down Chrome
3) Re-open Chrome
4) Open Google Calendar
5) Go to some date that is not today
6) Click your calendar’s “Today” button
7) Change your pants

I love the internet.

So… if you didn’t have a reason to come see us and Todd play this Friday night at Bellefonte Cafe, now you really do. That is, assuming you’re not going to see the Dead Milkmen play in Philly… because if you are, I totally don’t blame you for missing our show.

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Cool Little Brothers HB! EP Recording Uncategorized

Our new EP is here!

Ladies and Germs (and Brian),

We would like to be the first to tell you that our new EP is here, and will be available for the first time EVER at our show tomorrow night at 1984. Brian Lintz, our Coolest of the Cool Little Brothers, gets the first one, so all 23,000 of you will have to WAIT IN LINE BEHIND BRIAN, got it?

We’ll also have ’em available at our set at the Ice Cream Festival this Sunday.

You can also purchase individual tracks or the entire album in a bundle by clicking the link at the top of this page here.

We’re really excited about this!

Here’s the track listing:
1. IT ONLY TAKES TWO TO ROCK – M. Casarino / J. Knapp – 5:05
2. DEFENDER – M. Casarino – 3:40
3. KISS OFF – G. Gano – 2:45
4. HOLE IN YOUR PANTS – M. Casarino – 2:35
5. YOU WERE A SPIDER – M. Casarino – 4:11
6. MAJOR TOM (COMING HOME) – P. Schilling – 4:18

That’s copied/pasted right from the CD labeling software, yo. There’s no changing it now. Since it’s an EP, it doesn’t have a fancy title. If we wanna be pretentious we can say, “It’s our self-titled EP.”

Don’t see your favorite song? Don’t worry… the album-album is still in the works!

See everything you need? Well, er, OK… looks like you’re all set then.

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Rocking Uncategorized World Domination

GIG: Friday July 27th at Bellefonte Cafe with Todd Chappelle!

You might remember that on a magical evening in April, musical history was made at Extreme Pizza in downtown Wilmington. Todd Chappelle and Hot Breakfast! joined forces and created a musical mushroom cloud of epic face-melting holycrapitude that is still raining its fiery ash upon our fair city.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are hoping to recapture some of that magic on the night of Friday, July 27th. In strict compliance with DNREC’s directive, we are having this concert in Bellefonte, because the city of Wilmington can’t afford any more musical eruptions. We understand, and are happy to do our part.

If you missed the Extreme Pizza show, then you might be curious about this Todd Chappelle character. We’re happy to fill you in. Todd is a singer/songwriter/comedian from Chadds Ford, PA. His songs are very funny– comedy is his main bag. But here’s the thing: So many guitar-playing comics are either great guitar players with crappy jokes, or good comedians who can’t play their dang instrument… either way, tragic. Not Todd. Todd plays the crap out of his axe, has a fabulous voice, and really funny material. Even after a bunch of listens (yep, we’ve got all his CDs!), they’re still hilarious. He also works almost entirely clean, so if you bring your parents to the show you won’t be crawling underneath the table in embarrassment. We can’t say enough great things about Todd– we have a musical crush on him pretty hard-core.

You also might know him as the “I’m From Delaware” guy.

GIG DEETS:

WHEN: Friday, July 27th, 2012, 7-9pm, or until they ask us to stop playing. We’ll be trading off sets loosey-goosey.
WHERE: Bellefonte Cafe: 804 Brandywine Blvd, Wilmington, DE 19809
COVER CHARGE: No cover charge! But you should probably eat or drink something (You’re too skinny! Just look at you wasting away!) because that’s the good thing to do (we recommend the black bean soup and the guacamole). The musicians get paid via tips and merch sales, so we’d naturally appreciate a little somethin’-somethin’ in the ol’ tip jar. If cash is tight though, don’t stay home. Order some coffee and give us a high-five instead.
PARKING: Street only.
FOOD:: They’ve got dinner, snacks, coffee, and adult beverages. We highly recommend the black-bean soup and the guacamole. Service is slow because everything is made to order from scratch by one woman: Donna. So relax, ok?

If you’re a Facebook kind of person, here’s a link to the Facebook event.

We know we’ve got a lot of gigs in July. If you can only come to one, come to this one.

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Awesome-sauce Rocking Uncategorized

GIG: Thursday July 12, Comedy Night at Mojo Main – 7pm

Mojo 13’s little brother on Main Street in Newark, DE is called Mojo Main, and it’s where the old East End used to be. It has everything you liked about The East End, but nothing you didn’t… and much better food. This pleases me greatly.

They host a Comedy Night there every so often, and after seeing us ROCK at The Kennett Flash, Mr. Matthew Morgan (the host) asked us if we wanted to play a set at their event. We said “Oh, mais oui!” or something similarly METAL.

The night will be a combination of stand-up comedians and musicians trading off sets. We hope we go on late so we appear funnier as the audience gets mo’ drunker.

DEETS:
WHEN: Thursday, July 12 2012. The evening begins at 7pm, though I’m not sure what time we go on. Have a seat!
WHERE: Mojo Main. 270 East Main St, Newark, DE 19711
COVER: $5 if you’re over 21; $10 if you’re under 21.
PARKING: Private lot. Park in it.
FOOD: They have food. I don’t know what kind. I’m sure they have a menu, though.

We are hoping people don’t throw rotten vegetables at us. If they do, we will throw angry badgers at them. SO THERE.

See you there!

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Awesoming Rocking Uncategorized

GIG: Sunday July 8, 12-12:30pm. A quick set at the newly-resurrected Rockwood Ice Cream Festival

I have a confession to make. I’ve lived in Delaware since 1999 and I have never been to the Rockwood Ice Cream Festival. I had friends and cow-orkers who went absolutely mental for the Ice Cream Festival every year, and every year it rolled around something came up and I didn’t attend.

And then they canceled it.

And my opportunity to take a shuttle bus to a place full of screaming kids and flatulating lactose intolerant adults was gone.

UNTIL NOW.

It’s 2012, and they figure this is the year to have a final creamy hurrah before the world ends. And thanks to the spiffy people at Gable Music Ventures, there will be a bunch of great live bands playing all day on the main stage, as well as emerging artists on the smaller stage too. We are especially excited to share a bill with Angela Sheik and New Sweden. (We’re not just saying that to kiss ass. We really like these people and they’re really wonderful musicians.)

I’m also excited to be stuffing my face full of Paciugo Gelato (and Lactaid pills) because WOOOOT I love that stuff… I got hooked on Paciugo while I was in DC last month.

OK, so here’s the deal. There will be a bunch of bands playing all day, each taking mostly 30-minute sets. We’re told that we’re going to be keeping to a really strict schedule, and since we’re on earlier in the day the chances are much better of them running on time when we’re playing. In other words, don’t be late, yo.

DEETS:
WHEN: We play on Sunday, July 8th from 12 Noon to 12:30pm.
WHERE: Old Fashioned Ice Cream Festival at Rockwood Park.
Details about COVER, PARKING, and FOOD can be found on the event’s website, which is here: The Old Fashioned Ice Cream Festival

If you’re the kind of person who likes Facebook, here’s a link to the Facebook event for the entire Ice Cream Festival itself, and a second link that goes to our show at the festival. Feel free to pass them along to your Facebook pals.

See you there!

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Rocking Uncategorized World Domination

Gig: Saturday July 7 at 1984, opening for D-not-D!

Last month, we christened the brandy-new stage at 1984 as we opened for a Pat Benatar tribute band. And on July 7th, we’re opening for a band that plays the songs of The Minutemen. The name of this tribute band: D-not-D, which also happens to be the acronym for The Minutemen’s killer double-album Double Nickels on the Dime, which D-not-D will cover in its entirety that night.

HOW FREAKIN’ COOL IS THAT?

We think it’s really cool! Super-cool! WAY COOL!

We are really excited that they asked us to open for them. We hope you’ll come out to see us, but to also check these guys out. They’re nuts. D Not D includes Greg Merk on schpiel (that’s vocals, yo), Keith Crawford on skins (drums…duh), Joe Testa on twang (geeetar), and Pete Ludwig on thud staff (bass!). Matt knows these guys, and has even been in a few bands with Joe Testa before. Ji11 has also shared a stage with Testa a buncha times when we all did our live performances of The Wall. Anyway, Joe plays like a motherfucker, and we’re fans of whatever project he’s working on. So come out and see it.

DEETS:
WHEN: Saturday, July 7 2012. We don’t know what time it’s all goin’ down yet, but I imagine we’ll go on sometime between 8:30 and 9:30 We start at 10pm, and we’ll play for about 30-45 minutes.
WHERE: 1984. 2511 W. 4th St., Wilmington, DE 19805. (between Union & Greenhill)
WHAT: Hot Breakfast! (Delaware’s premier acoustic dork-rock power duo) opening up for D-not-D (a Minutemen tribute band, playing Double Nickels on the Dime in its entirety!)
COVER: Not sure. It was $5 the last time, so it’ll be something like that. Don’t be mad if it’s $7.
PARKING: They have parking in their little lot there, but there aren’t a zillion spots. They also have street parking. Handle it; you’re smart.
FOOD: They only have beer/cider there and candy there; no kitchen. (What more do you need?) However, it’s totally cool (and even encouraged) for you to order Chinese takeout/delivery from the place next door (they’re good) or have a pizza delivered. Go nuts!

If you’re the kind of person who uses Facebook, here’s a link to the Facebook event page: DnotD and Hot Breakfast! at 1984.

See you there!

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Recording Uncategorized

What is the haps?

Howdy, Compadres!

Some of you have asked why we haven’t been playing much in June, and then answer is simple: We’re recording! And dammit, we’ve given ourselves a DEADLINE finally, so it’s balls to the wall recordo-fest.

It’s really interesting to see how this record has morphed since we first started recording last October. It was originally gonna be a teeny sampler EP that we would simply give to venues as part of our press kit, and it was going to have a few originals and a few covers and that’s it. But then we figured we should make them a bit longer so we could sell them at shows, so we needed a new approach. So we scrapped about 95% the work we did in October and started up again in February all fresh and new. And now it’s June, and we’ve written and recorded some new songs since then… to the point where we have to think about which songs to leave off the CD. Not a bad problem to have, I suppose…

We’re also considering the different ways to release the CD. Yes, we want to have physical copies with album artwork because lots of people still like to hold a physical CD and read the lyrics, etc.. But other folks don’t care about the physical disc itself and would much rather just download high-quality .ogg, .flac or simple .mp3s of the songs like you’d do on Amazon or iTunes… but those sites take a big chunk of the revenue (which is reasonable, since they’re doing a good amount of work on our behalf). But it might be more profitable to rig up a system where we sell you a download code which you’d enter on a seekrit page on our website to download the album. The code would only be able to be used a few times (ideally), so we wouldn’t have to worry about people giving the code out to 900 of their friends for free… though really, if 900 people had a copy of our album we wouldn’t be upset, really.

Anyway, this is getting long without me saying a whole lot.

The upshot is: We’ve got some great stuff coming your way, and we’re really excited to get our music out to you. We expect to have CDs available by our gig at the Rockwood Ice Cream Festival on July 8th at 12:00-12:30pm. Depending on how that goes, we’ll probably schedule a CD release party at some point. Not sure when, but we’ll keep you posted.

Here’s a very, very, VERY tentative song listing, and these are NOT in order, and we probably won’t include all of these. We shall see. And who knows… we might write and record more tunes between now and July 8th. 🙂

ORIGINALS: You Were a Spider, Hole in Your Pants, Maybe You Saw It Too, Defender, Gravity, It Only Takes Two to Rock
COVERS: Major Tom (Peter Schilling), Kiss Off (Violent Femmes), Crazy (Gnarls Barkley in the style of the Violent Femmes), Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne), Rock of Ages (Def Leppard), Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen) (We are intentionally not recording Total Eclipse of the Heart.)

And then there’s the whole business of figuring out what the heck to title the thing. Maybe we’ll open it up to a vote…

Stay tuned for more updates!

Your pal,

Ji11

Categories
Cool Little Brothers Recording Rocking Uncategorized

Back in the studio…

One of the nicest things about having a home studio is that we can really take our time with a recording since we’re not freaking out about the spendy engineer1. We can take our time, we can record at 3am if we want… whatever.

Of course, one of the bad things about having a home studio is that we are constantly dicking around with mixes, re-recording things, coming up with alternate versions of songs, adding floor-stomps or whatever, so the recording never feels like it’ll ever be finished. We have no deadline since the studio time is essentially free.

The only thing really pushing us to finish the CD is our desire to keep Brian and the rest of our Cool Little Brothers2 happy.

Anyway, this time around, we’ll be recording our new songs Maybe You Saw It Too, It Only Takes Two to Rock, and re-recording Defender. Speaking if Defender, here’s a video of us singing it in Kyle Cassidy’s living room, just after we put our clothes on.

Stay tuned for more updates from the studio. Our Twitter feed is probably the best place to look, because hey, instant gratification. (We’re also on instagram (we’re “hotbreakfast”), but we don’t use it all that much.)

Catch ya soon.

Your pal,

Ji11


—————
1 The Spendy Engineer is totally gonna be the name of our new restaurant.
2 For those of you new to Hot Breakfast!, “Cool Little Brothers” is the name of our fan club. Not everyone can be a member. There are initiations.

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Awesome-sauce Uncategorized

Austin, TX: We are in you!

We’re playing a few shows in Austin, TX this week for the folks attending Flipside! The event is totally sold out and has been for a few months now, and we are PUMPED to have been accepted to attend and to play!

Sooo… Catch us at DaFT’s Effigy Stage on Thursday night from 11:00 – 11:45pm, and at The Hive on Friday afternoon from 2:30 – 3:30pm.

We’ll also be playing at our camp’s stage/dance space (Möbius) at some point… probably Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Listen for the dulcet tones of an acoustic guitar rammed through an overdrive pedal. It’s how we do.

Before we sign off, here’s a fun fact: You can fit about 108 Delawares into Texas. And we figure our combined rocking power is about 137 times that of your average band… so we are not concerned.

Your pals,
Ji11 and Suburban Legend

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Awesoming Rocking Uncategorized

GIG: Saturday May 19th, 10pm at 1984: HB! + video games + pinball + a Benatar tribute!

My friends, it is time to get your 80s on.

Some folks think of Hot Breakfast! as an 80s cover band. That isn’t entirely accurate; we’ve got plenty of originals and covers from other decades, too. But sometimes we’re willing to play the role of 80s cover band when it makes sense to do so… like on May 19th, for example.

On May 19th, we’ll be opening for Fat Benatar, which is a freakin’ outstanding Pat Benatar tribute band from Virginia. Sometimes people ask us why we don’t cover any Pat Benatar tunes, and honestly, it’s because Jill can’t sing ’em… Pat Benatar is amazing and Jill simply isn’t built for it. But HOLY CRAP, the singer from Fat Benatar most certainly is… so if you’re in the mood for to hear a chick with some killer pipes (and a sweet rack, we’re not gonna lie), May 19th is your night.

We’ll be playing at our new favorite hangout, 1984. 1984 is a bar + arcade (a barcade, if you will) with 80s trivia on Thursday nights1, tons of vintage arcade games and sweet delicious pinball, and about a zillion beers and ciders for the draankin’. Are you a proud dork? Then you’ll feel very welcome there. Woot!

DEETS:
WHEN: Saturday, May 19th 2012, 10pm
WHERE: 1984. 2511 W. 4th St., Wilmington, DE 19805. (between Union & Greenhill)
WHAT: Hot Breakfast! (Delaware’s premier acoustic dork-rock power duo) opening up for Fat Benatar (Virginia’s premier Pat Benatar tribute band)
COVER: $5. Cheap!
PARKING: They have parking in their little lot there, but there aren’t a zillion spots. You’ll figure it out; you’re a grown-up.
FOOD: They only have beer/cider there; no kitchen. However, it’s totally cool (and even encouraged) for you to order Chinese takeout/delivery from the place next door (they’re good) or have a pizza delivered. Go nuts!

See you there!

Your pal,

Ji11

———–
1 We won last week, yes we did. Our team name: The Keytards. Keepin’ it classy, we are!