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

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!

We had a really wonderful weekend, and we wanted to tell you about it.

On Friday afternoon, we were at Jill’s house rehearsing a few tunes and relaxing before we had to start thinking about getting down to Chapel Street for our show there later that evening. Matt decided to start loading our sound equipment (speakers, cables, PA, etc.) into the car when he realized… uh, it’s not here at the house.

You see, we played a Thanksgiving-eve show in Philadelphia and were heading out of town immediately after the show to visit family, so friends of ours from Philly let us store our equipment in their basement so we didn’t have to schlep our sound system up to New England… and then we forgot it was up there because we’re super-geniuses. So up to Philly we went to grab our sound equipment. Thank Elvis that traffic was kind– totally fortuitous considering it was a Friday afternoon during the holiday season.

So anyhoo, we made it back to DE with almost two hours to spare, so we still had time to brush our teefs and look marginally presentable for the show.

The show was really fun– we played for about 25 minutes, from 7:50 – 8:15, as a pre-game show for Chapel Street Players’ production of The Santaland Diaries. We love playing for theater crowds– they tend to get our dork-rock humor, and they’re kind and generous with the applause. Everyone’s pal Kevin Regan was there to shoot video of the plays, and he was kind enough to record our set, too. Here’s a video of us doing Total Eclipse of the Heart from that night (Thanks, Kevin!):

Anyway, the rest of the night went just as nicely and dorkily, and we were treated to seeing Seasons Greetings and The Santaland Diaries. Afterwards we headed out for dinner (sooo hungry!) and drinks, and our night ended with a high-five of rockitude.

Our set list from Chapel Street Players went thusly:
No Myth
Defend0r (an HB! original)
Fairy Tale of New York
Hole in Your Pants (an HB! original)
Heaven on Their Minds
Total Eclipse of the Heart
Do They Know it’s Christmas (featuring Andrew Mitchell as Bono)

Saturday we met for brunch at a local haunt around 1:30pm (that’s when rockstars eat breakfast!), and afterwards Joe Trainor came over to the ol’ HB! rehearsal space and we ran through “She’s Right On Time” by Billy Joel, which Joe was going to sing with us at our Film Brothers gig that evening.

We loaded into Film Brothers around 5:30-ish, met our opening band Fish Castle (we love them!), did a sound check, and hung out until the show started. Fish Castle played a lovely set– they’re an acoustic folk duo and they play probably 10 different instruments between the two of them– and that’s just for an hour-long set. I wonder how many instruments they’d play if they had a whole two-hour show to fill?

We took the stage right after Fish Castle, and played for a little over an hour. The audience helped us write a spontaneous holiday song (though I couldn’t come up with anything to rhyme with “gift”– argh! — but in hindsight I should have thought of “stiffed”), we debuted a few new songs, and had a generally warm, happy night. After we packed up the car we headed next door to Extreme Pizza where we enjoyed noshes and beverages and a jolly time was had by all.

Here’s our set list from the night:

Wastepaper Basket Fire
Defend0r (an HB! original)
Major Tom
Eye in the Sky
She’s Right on Time (featuring Joe Trainor)
An Easy Mistake (an HB! original)
Merry Christmas from the Family (featuring Cyril Everett on dobro)
Hole in Your Pants (an HB! original)
Gravity (an HB! original)
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Take the Lead
“spontaneous holiday song”
Here I Go Again
Kiss Off
Total Eclipse of the Heart

Thanks to everyone who came out to support us for those shows; it was great to see everyone especially during this nutty-crazy time of year.

Here’s to some happy, relaxing, rocking holidays coming up!

Rock on,

HB!