Author: Ji11

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Ass-kicking Gigs Awesome-sauce Rocking Uncategorized

Sweet gig: 10/27/11 at PA Academy of Fine Arts

We are really, really, really excited about this show. Which isn’t to make other shows feel like second bananas or anything; but when you hear about how awesome this show is, you’ll see why.

First off, the show is so awesome that we had to get INSURANCE.   Insurance! Why? Because they know that we rock so dang hard that we could probably (and let’s face it, most likely will) set fire to all of the incredible artwork with our FACE-MELTING AWESOMENESS.

So what’s the gig?
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA)’s program called “PAFA After Dark” reminds people that art can be fun and lively and social and unpredictable. So expect cocktails, scavenger hunts, gallery talks, hands-on projects and of course, music from HOT BREAKFAST!… all right on Broad Street in Philadelphia.

On October 27th, the theme of the night is “Home Grown,” which applies to the local beer being served (om nom nom!), the exhibition on view, the demonstrations by an urban farming community. (Jill is hoping there will be chickens.)

More information: http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Education/General-Adult-Audiences/PAFA-After-Dark/875/

Tickets can be purchased at the website above; adult tickets are $10 if you buy them in advance, or they’re $15 at the door. The exhibition is geared more for grown-ups, though it’s not like there’s gonna be real live breastages or anything (unless Matt has more than 3 beers, then all bets are off). We’ve been told we don’t have to keep it clean, so we’ll be singing a new song I wrote called “Fuck You, Fucking Fuckface.”1

PAFA has several buildings, and our spiffy event will be in the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building at 128 N. Broad St. in Philadephia. See you there!

—-
1 No, we don’t have a song called that. But hey, sounds catchy (and classy!), doesn’t it?

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Ass-kicking Gigs Uncategorized

We’re officially the house band of Philly’s Primary Stages

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, soda 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.

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.

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 their 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, which means that we’ll be playing at the Shubin Theater 6 times in 2012… assuming the world doesn’t end first, of course. And who knows, our EXTREMELY INTENSE ROCKING might just hasten that.

We’ve updated our calendar with the dates, but I’ll toss ’em here too just so you have them in one spot:

November 22nd and 23rd, 2011
February 21-22, 2012
June 19-20, 2012
November 20-21, 2012

We’re playing 30-40 minute set beginning at 7:30pm, and then 15-ish minute set at intermission.

For $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 Rocking Uncategorized World Domination

GIG: September 9th at World Cafe Live (ya need reservations!)

As Delaware’s Premier Acoustic Dork Rock Power Duo, we naturally get asked a lot of questions.

Probably the question we get asked the most is, “How is it possible that you both are so darn good looking?” And our only answer for that: Liberal application of only the highest-quality awesomesauce, at least thrice daily.

The second most frequent question we are asked is, “When the heck are you guys gonna play at World Cafe Live, like, for real? None of this open mic stuff.” And our answer has always been, “Patience, Grasshopper.”

UNTIL NOW.

Because we are officially booked at World Cafe Live at the Queen for a LunchTime Live at Noon concert on Friday, September 9th. The show starts at noon, and we play a full hour until 1pm.

The folks at WCL tell us that the show is expected to sell out, so y’all are encouraged to make reservations via OpenTable to make sure there’s a place for your rather cute butt. Click here to make a lunch reservation— it’s free and easy (like your mom).

We’re pretty excited about this, gotta say. We are thiiiis much closer to world domination, yo.

Your pal,

Jill

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Ass-kicking Gigs Awesoming Benefit Rocking Uncategorized

Gig: MS Benefit at Aqua Sol – 12 hours of music! August 20

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 I get to donate my (questionable) skills 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. Hot Breakfast! will be the first band on the main stage, kinda as a bridge between the acoustic acts and the rockers on the main stage. I feel bad that so many bands have to play after us though, because really… how the hell do you follow us?

Now I’ll be honest with you. When I hear “12 hours of music” I think, “Ugh, kill me. That’s a time investment. I could be home watching Aunt Barbara videos on Youtube.” But not this one! There are so many awesome bands playing that you’re not gonna wanna miss it. Bands like Project Edge, Hot Breakfast! (that’s us, yo), The Leslie Carey Band, The Miles, For Wednesday, and The Joe Trainor Trio (they’re pretty OK). The JT3 plays last, and after their set we’re closing out the night with Abbey Road. Sweeeet!

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/   See? I’m saving you a couple bucks.

Here’s the band lineup as we know it:

Noon – 2:00 – Various acoustic acts
2:00 – 3:00 – Hot Breakfast!
3:00 – 3:20 – Frank Julian
3:20 – 4:20 – 45rpm
4:20 – 5:00 – Edge
5:00 – 6:00 – Omeomy (a variation of The Miles)
6:00 – 6:20 – Johnny B
6:20 – 7:20 – The Leslie Carey Band
7:20 – 7:40 – JT2 (that’s Kerry McElrone and Joe Testa)
7:40 – 8:40 – For Wednesday
8:40 – 9:00 – John Smith and Friends (John is the event organizer and was recently diagnosed with MS; he is fabulous)
9:00 – 10:30 – The Joe Trainor Trio (JT3 plays a 45 minute set first, and then finishes up with Abbey Road.)

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!) happening as part of the event.

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

Your pal,

Jill

Categories
Awesome-sauce Uncategorized

Gig: Billy Joel Tribute – August 13, 2011

This Saturday, Hot Breakfast! joins forces with the Joe Trainor Trio and some other swell folks to bring you a night of music by Billy Joel. It’s a fundraiser to benefit City Theater Company and the Grand School of Music, two local Wilmington arts organizations who help bring awesomesauce to our mighty city.

We aren’t allowed to divulge the set list (Joe has threatened our lives), but we can tell you that we’ll be singing a “full band version” of a song we’ve been known to cover… so that’s a hint at least. Matt will be playing guitar, alto and tenor saxes, and singing his fabulous lungs out for this show, and I’ll be singing, playing saxes and playing a bunch of percussion, too. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to play triangle, and I’m totally serious.

The show happens this Saturday night at 8pm at the Baby Grand, which is 818 Market Street in Wilmington. Tickets are $17, though I think they tack on a $3 service charge or something… so plan on $20 tickets. It’s general admission seating, so sit where you want. The show starts right at 8pm, there’s no opening band.

Make a night of it and get some dinner beforehand at the tasty restaurants around Market Street. If you haven’t hung out downtown in a while, consider giving it a shot; it’s cute, and there’s lots of tasty foodz in just about every price range.

Cool? Cool!

Hope to see you there!

Your pal,

Jill

Categories
Awesome-sauce Benefit Rocking Uncategorized

GIG: July 23rd Zach Lowe BBQ Benefit

We know that not all of you are on The Book1, so we wanted to make sure you had the information for tomorrow’s show at Bankshots on Route 40 which benefits Zach Lowe. We’re pretty sure we’re one of the few non-hard-rock bands there, which makes it extra-cool that we were invited to play. Just because we’re acoustic doesn’t mean we won’t ROCK YOUR FREAKIN’ FACES OFF. We’re glad that people are gettin’ that dang message.

THE CLIFFS NOTES VERSION:
WHERE: Bankshots Rt. 40 (2689 Pulaski Highway, Newark, DE)
WHO: A zillion bands!
WHAT: We’re raising money for cancer treatments for Zach Lowe (the son of Hallowed Cain drummer Brian Lowe)
WHO CAN ATTEND: It’s a 21+ show.
WHEN: July 23rd, 2011. The event starts at 3pm and goes until Bankshots’ closing time. Hot Breakfast! plays at 5pm.

THE VERBOSE VERSION:
This info was ganked directly from the Facebook Page for the Event:

Join us for a fun-filled day of great music, cool spirits, and lip-smackin’ BBQ all while raising money for a wonderful cause. At just 9 years old, Zack Lowe – the son of our very dear friend and Hallowed Cain drummer Brian Lowe – was recently diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, a type of malignant bone cancer. He’s currently undergoing extensive treatments at AI DuPont hospital to battle this awful disease. But cancer won’t bring him down. He’s keeping his spirits high and muscling through like the tough kid that he is. Please come out and help us raise money to help him and his family during this difficult time.

We need all the help we can get folks! The event starts at 3PM and runs into the night. $20 gets you free food and beer from 3-8PM. At 8PM, door cover charge drops to $10 and you get to drink beer for free until the kegs are tapped. If there’s any left, Killer BBQ food will be sold at affordable prices from 8PM to close. We’ll have local bands lined up to play throughout the entire event and tons of cool stuff to auction off. If you’re not busy that day, we could use help from our fellow Pit Masters cooking and prepping all the food and also volunteers to help serve it. We are also excepting donations for the Chinese Auction and Raffle. Anything from Phillies tickets, gift packages, gift certificates/cards, baskets of cheer, etc. is most welcome. Your help with anything will be very much appreciated and will certainly not go unnoticed.

CONFIRMED BANDS: Hallowed Cain, My Friends, Von Kull, FelixHunger, Altar of Dagon, The Paper Janes, World Lost, Hot Breakfast, Offset, Solecraft, The Essence of Blues – A Blues Brothers Tribute. (1 more band to be announced).

Thank you to everyone who has already reached out to us! It’s extremely heart-warming having such outgoing, positive people in our lives.

The band line-up goes like this:
Solecraft 3:50 – 4:30
The Paper Janes 4:30 – 5:10
Hot Breakfast! 5:00 – 5:40
FelixHunger 5:40 – 6:20
My Friends 7:00 – 7:40
Essence of Blues 7:40 – 8:20
Altar of Dagon 8:20 – 9:00
Hallowed Cain 9:20 – 10:00
Offset 10:20 – 11:00
World Lost 11:20 – 12:00
Von Kull 12:20 – Close

We hope to see you there for this super-worthy cause.


——–
1 That’s Facebook, yo.

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Ass-kicking Gigs Awesome-sauce Uncategorized

Gig: July 20th – Hot Breakfast for lunch!

Let Hot Breakfast help you over the workweek Hump Day by playing for you at lunchtime (also known as the workday Hump Hour)!

Wilmington’s Grand Opera House is running their Summer Salon concert series once again, and they’ve asked us to get Market Street rockin’ on July 20th at lunchtime, from noon to 1:30pm.

July 20th also happens to be Matt’s birthday, so you can feel free to bring him a piece of birthday pie.. which he probably won’t eat, but with any luck he will give it to me instead. So make sure you bring me him either apple, cherry, or key lime. 🙂

We’ll be playing right in front of The Grand, which is 818 Market Street in downtown Wilmington.

See you there? We hope so!

Your pal,

Jill

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Cool Little Brothers Rocking Uncategorized World Domination

Looking for your socks? (plus, a set list)

Hot Breakfast! at Bellefonte Cafe; photo by Joe del Tufo

 

photo (c) 2011 Joe del Tufo

For those of you who got to your cars last night and realized that your socks were gone, you can thank us for rocking them the hell off. To retrieve them, check with the Bellefonte Cafe staff; we left them in a plastic bag from Target– ask for Frank behind the bar.

Seriously… thanks so much to everyone who came to the show last night. We had a great time, and hearing y’all yell “HOT BREAKFAST!” and singing along makes it all worth while. We’re very lucky that we get to do what we do for appreciative people. So really, we owe you the thanks here.

photo (c) 2011 Joe del Tufo

Also: Woot! As of this writing we’re up to 135 people who like us on Facebook. WORLD DOMINATION IS IMMINENT, PEOPLE. Can you taste it? (We can, and it tastes sorta like the brunch we had at Hank’s this morning. Highly recommended.)

We’ve been getting requests for us to post our set list, so we’re gonna start doing that after each show. The tunes marked with an asterisk are our originals, written by our Hotness, Matt Casarino. Covers have their original artists noted in parentheses.

SET 1:
Can You Picture That? (Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem)
* Defender (Matt Casarino)
Vienna (Billy Joel)
* An Easy Mistake (Matt Casarino)
Wastepaper Basket Fire (Brian Dewan)
Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen)
Rock of Ages (Def Leppard)
No Myth (Michael Penn)
Eye in the Sky (Alan Parsons Project)
* Good for You (Matt Casarino)
Crazy (Gnarls Barkley)
Take on Me (A-Ha)

SET 2:
Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne)
* Hole in Your Pants (Matt Casarino)
Two-Headed Boy (Neutral Milk Hotel)
Downeaster Alexa (Billy Joel)
Kiss Off (Violent Femmes)
Wine – with special guest appearance by Brian Elam (Saul Williams)
* O Hell (Matt Casarino)
In the Aeroplane over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)
The Chauffeur (Duran Duran)
Kiss Me Son of God (They Might Be Giants)
* Gravity (Matt Casarino)
Fairy Tale of New York (The Pogues)
* Yeah Baby (Matt Casarino)
Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler)

Encore (thanks so much for that!)
Heaven on Their Minds (Jesus Christ Superstar / Murray Head)

Last night our Founding CLB Brian asked us when our next gig is, because as of now all we have are private shows booked1. Have no fear, folks. We’ll be back at the Bellefonte Cafe soon enough, and we’ll also be playing at Between Books on an upcoming balmy Friday night. We also will be playing at open mic nights (granted, not a lot of bang for your buck there) at The Kennett Flash, World Cafe Life at the Queen, and Legendary Dobbs in Philly. We’re also talking to the people who book shows at Logan House, Mojo Main, and The Tin Angel. Stay tuned for details and dates! Don’t worry, we won’t leave you hanging.

Also: If you’re interested in booking us for a house concert, let us know! We love those.

OK, that’s it for now.

It’s 11pm, and this rockstar has some leftover rice that isn’t gonna eat itself.

Your pal,

Jill

—–
1 Did you know you can hire us to play your soiree/BBQ/wedding? We can class it up if we need to. Email us (scroll down after you click the link) if you’re interested and we’ll tawk!

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Rocking Uncategorized World Domination

Gig: June 4th at Bellefonte Cafe

It’s true! It’s true! Hot Breakfast! is returning to the super-cool Bellefonte Cafe on Saturday June 4th. After such a groovy and jam-packed time in April, the Bellefonte folks signed us up for a second gig that very night… we were flattered because we love that place, and lots of incredible folks have played there. We hope you’ll join us for some coffee, some banter, some tasty food, and a bunch of new tunes, too.

What new tunes?
Here’s a teaser: Do you like Duran Duran? How about A-ha? And what about Alan Parsons Project? And do you like Matt Casarino’s originals? YES YOU DO. So you should come on out and support not only a local business that serves local food, but also live, local indie music played by people who can actually, like, sing in tune without comput0rz.

Besides, how can you resist a new tune called “Hole In Your Pants”? You simply cannot.
The power of pants-holes compels you!
The power of pants-holes compels you!
The power of pants-holes compels you!

The show starts at 7pm and ends around 9, though something tells us they won’t be too upset if we go a little later. For those of you with a schedule to keep (or a touch of OCD), we promise to start as close to 7pm as possible.

See you then? See you then!

Categories
Awesome-sauce Recording Uncategorized

We’ve been recording

We thought it was time to create an EP, so we set up The Knappshack greatroom with Matt’s fancy-pants recording equipment and we started laying down some songs.

Though there are many different ways you can record, we thought we would just record everything live as if we were playing a show. We just played through our tunes a few times and picked the best take, though sitting far apart from each other during the recording allowed us to go back and fix little things here and there if we needed to. Once we got the guitar and the lead vocal solid, we overdubbed some backing vocals or a few little guitar things here and there just to fill out the sound… and voila.

Matt is doing the mixing. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do about the album artwork yet, but we suppose getting a title probably has to happen first. Right now it’s tentatively titled “What You Want.” We asked our Facebook pals for album name suggestions, and everyone came up with breakfast-related puns… many of which were delightfully groan-worthy. Of those, my favorite was “I’ll Have The Face Melt” which was submitted by Rob McDonald. We decided we wanted to stay away from the food/breakfast-related titles, cute as they may be… so yeah, for now, we’re going with “What You Want.” Matt came up with it, though he says he got it because I say it whenever I’m eating something that’s particularly hitting the spot. So maybe it comes down to food after all.

Anyway, while we were recording I set up my laptop with Flix32 and a webcam and had it take an every-15-seconds stop-motion video. After the session (it lasted about 3 hours, I guess?) I added some captions and then uploaded it to YouTube. So here it is. It intentionally has no sound.

So there’s a little insight into our recording process, as well as a glimpse into my living room. 🙂

We’ll be posting more of these, so stay tuned!

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Ass-kicking Gigs Uncategorized

OH SNAP. Kennett Flash gig has been canceled.

Sadly, the folks at the Kennett Flash accidentally double-booked some other bands to play the night that we were supposed to play (May 27th), so… we’re not playing that night. It was an innocent, honest mistake, there are no hard feelings, so it’s all good in the hood. We’ll play there again soon, so stay tuned for the new date.

I suppose it’s a blessing in disguise; it is Memorial Day weekend after all, and we were expecting our usual crowd to be lighter than usual due to vacations. And speaking of vacations, Jill canceled her Memorial Day vacation plans to do the gig, and now she can go camping with her nutty pals in Texas where she can will bitten by fire ants and covered in poison ivy. Everyone loves a Blotchy Breakfast.

Your pal,

Breakfast (Jill)

Categories
Cool Little Brothers Rocking Uncategorized World Domination

GIG: May 18th at the Blue Parrot (updated!)

Hey Ninjas!

Hot Breakfast! is opening for the Joe Trainor Trio at the Blue Parrot Bar and Grill in Wilmington on May 18th. I’m pretty sure we go on at 9pm, but keep your eyes peeled here and we’ll let you know for sure. Matt’s parents are going to be there, so make sure you say hello to them. (Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever even met them, so maybe if you say hello you can introduce us since you’ll be all buddy-buddy.)

[UPDATE: We start promptly at 9:30. We play until about 10:15. JT3 goes on at 10:30 sharp.]

Rumor has it that we’ll be playing a fairly good-sized set; perhaps 45 minutes to an hour. Of course, knowing Joe, he’ll cut our set down to 12 minutes or something. If that happens, maybe we can ask our Cool Little Brothers (who always have our back) to hold Joe down while we keep playing. We have an artistic statement to make, and we’re not leaving that stage until we’ve made it, golldarnit.

As of this writing, for some reason we’re not showing up on the Blue Parrot’s concert calendar. I’m not sure what that’s all about. We’ll get our people working on that right away. But you can trust us: we’re playing there.

[UPDATE: They updated their website, and our spiffy picture is on their band calendar. Woot! We’re famous! World Domination is IMMINENT!]

If you’ve got any requests, let us know. You can reply here if you want. We like it when you reply here.

OK, that’s all I’ve got to report for now.

Your pal,

Breakfast (aka Jill)

Categories
Awesome-sauce Cool Little Brothers Uncategorized

Hot? Breakfast? Who’s who?

There has always been some debate/confusion over which band member is “Hot” and which is “Breakfast.” Jill is convinced she’s “Breakfast” and that Matt is “Hot,” but Matt begs to differ. Fans also have mixed opinions. We were thinking about putting it up to a vote by polling the most important people, our Cool Little Brothers, but a piece of evidence surfaced that supports Jill’s argument: She is Breakfast. And you kinda can’t argue with this.

What is this evidence? It’s a piece of music called “Breakfast,” by LeLe. The song and the video are not work safe, but hoooo-lordy are they catchy and awesome. So feel free to click ahead if you’re feelin’ unsheltered.

If you don’t catch yourself randomly singing this song, you’d best be gettin’ some rhythm, son.

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Rocking Uncategorized

Here. Have some awesome-sauce.

Here’s a nice little video of us doing “Kiss Off” from our January 22nd show at the New Candlelight.

Apologies to everyone for having to endure the butt-cam. Had I known my butt was going to be front and center, I would have worn jeans that looked a bit better.

Your pal,

Jill (a.k.a. “Breakfast”)

Categories
Ass-kicking Gigs Rocking Uncategorized

GIG: April 9th, Bellefonte Cafe

DATELINE: APRIL 9TH, 2011.
The time is 7:00pm. You’ve just arrived to the cozy Bellefonte Cafe in Wilmington, DE and you’re looking over the menu. You’ve heard the guacamole is amazing, though you also heard that the black bean soup is stupendous. You can’t decide. Maybe you can convince the other people you’re with to split something with you. You’re also debating whether or not to get coffee… it’s after 5pm and you don’t want the caffeine to keep you up, but dude, it’s also a Saturday night, and what are you, like 93 years old? As you peruse the rest of the menu, suddenly BLAMMO! Your entire face explodes in one shot, just like that.

What the hell happened? HOT BREAKFAST! happened, baby. That’s what.

Matt and Jill took the stage, and within 47 seconds your face was rocked the hell off, in the blink of an eye. In fact, it was rocked off SO HARD that it exploded into 10,000,000 little pieces. CSI: Wilmington, Hot Breakfast! Unit was called in to begin filming.

Thanks to this unfortunate event, you (or what’s left of you) are now a famous TV star. Sadly, because you’re dead though, you are unable to sign an acting talent waiver. But hey– your friends signed it on your behalf, making sure to re-word the legalese so that all fees due for your services go directly to them.

I’d call your friends opportunistic assholes, but that would be a mean thing to say… because after all, they came to see our show… and for that, we thank them.

Your pal,

Jill (a.k.a. “Breakfast”)