The area you are entering is extremely dangerous. Proceed with caution.

December Rain

Been listening to a lot of John Lennon this week - next year will be the 30th anniversary of his death. Been thinking about how he was only 40 years old and how I can still remember fairly clearly sitting in front of the 6 o'clock news and it being talked about and at the same time my eldest brother, Joey, comes in the front door - BAWLING. So, lately I have been reading the Neil Gaiman "Sandman" graphic novels and I found an interesting connection between the last 2 novels and some Lennon lyrics from his song "God" off of his 1970 solo album "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band":


"I was the Dreamweaver but now I'm reborn/I was the walrus but now I'm John/and so dear friends you'll just have to carry on/the dream is over".

Without spoiling the novels for anyone who hasn't read them - these lyrics represent so many themes that have been swirling around and inside my head lately (renewal, rebirth, resurrection, reinvention), and how dreams are really the TANGIBLE objects that begin and end everything.




The first 45 I remember listening to when I was 4 years old (a couple years before Lennon was shot) after I quickly tired of Mother Goose's latest hit record was "I Am The Walrus". And I remember playing it over and over again thinking "Wow. Wow. Wow. This is the most amazing thing to listen to" and I remember imagery from a "music video" that I would see in my head whenever I played it on my little portable record player. It is still one of my favorite Beatles songs (and the b-side "Hello, Goodbye" is pretty fantastic as well).





Transmitted by Michael, voice of Hope.

Talkin' Jive with Jason

This week we are graced with correspondence from our very own bassist and expert on the occult, Jason. He gives us the perspective of one's first experience on the radio...

I was on the radio for the first time ever on November 20th, 2009. I have always been told that I had a face for radio, so it was only right and natural. When we arrived at Rollins, I suddenly felt very poor, but then I felt better because Christian was in his work scrubs, so everyone thought he was a doctor.


We played four songs live and acoustic on WPRK: Me, Melting, Centauri, Almanac, and Road Song. It was one of our tightest performances together yet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t recorded because their studio had blown up two days before, making me look like a liar to anyone who couldn’t listen live and wanted to hear it later…

Pictured above: LIAR.

That night, we played a fantastic show at the Copper Rocket. It was a great turnout, however I was a little terrified of the biker gang that Kamillie Ahne brought. In a bizarre coincidence, the guy running sound for us that night was none other than Carlos, formerly of the band Microfun, who taught me how to play bass and taught Kyle how to play barre chords back in 2000. I was even playing the bass I used in my lessons with him! Not because it was an homage, but because I’m poor and can’t afford a new bass.

"See Michael? My guitar has the HORIZONS logo on it!"
Enough, Kyle, we get it...

We have so many shows coming up in 2010 that I can’t even think of all of them off the top of my head. I will be making my first trip to Tampa on Jan 2nd for our show at the New World Brewery. I look forward to meeting all of the friendly Tampons, or Tamponians, or whatever the hell you call them. It is a city that redeemed itself during the 2008 election.

People in Tampa waiting to meet Jason.

On an unrelated note, I’m out of commission for a few days due to a throat infection and high fever. I spent most of the morning lying in bed and playing Disney’s Adventures in the Magic Kingdom for NES. It is still just as hard as it was when I was 7. I can’t beat Pirates of the Caribbean! The controls are awful!

-Jason



That's all for now from the HH universe. A video is on the horizon so check back to see all of Jason's adventures from WPRK in horrifying sight and sound. Like Jason said, lots of shows coming up where we'll be debuting new songs like "You Call This Limbo" & "Lone Home". Do not miss your chance to reach for new horizons with Hadley's Hope.

All systems engaged. Prepare for down-count.

It is with these words from Zlad that we will be playing our show this Friday night at the Copper Rocket in Maitland. Come out, drink and be merry. A video update is coming this weekend so in the meantime I will give you this picture of Jason from our photo shoot, which the video will attempt to chronicle in detail. See you on Friday night.

Building a house of fire baby, building it with our love...

We have a show coming up on November 20th and to celebrate, Jason was put in charge of finding an image for the flier for the first time. They grow up so fucking fast. When asked to explain it, he offered this-



I had always wondered what happened to my Puzzle Master (Made in America). It was through this delicately refined roll of parchment that I would come to experience what would be known forever as, "the sour feeling". Now, all I have are these instructions, ambiguous as they are. I found them whilst cleaning out an old dresser, and now I present them to you. I like to think that my Puzzle Master is still nearby somewhere, and not rotting away in some landfill. I like to think that he/she/it is walking across the Rainbow Bridge, hand in hand with my Tim Murphy (Jurassic Park) figure, which is also missing. But I think Kyle secretly has my Tim Murphy figure and has stashed it away with the NOC-List.

Jason

So come out the 20th, share a drink with the Puzzle Master and have your pantaloons blown off.

That's not our system...

"This board is the future. It's like TRON."

It is an odd thought that a lot of bands have never been in the studio before and to be honest, until we went I never realized how much I would have a love/hate relationship with it. We met with a random 'producer' who didn't even want to hear our demo of Zoom because he had mixed us a year prior or some other excuse. We did not work with him. We elected to go to PARC Studios and through a series of blunders, miscommunication and some inspired performances we came out with a 6 song live disc that was raw, suffice to say.



The album made us happy and we used it at our funeral themed show to unveil the new band name as we were dropping the now legendary Studio K moniker. To be honest I almost enjoyed the photo shoot on the Nostromo more than the recording.


The pictures looked like this, without Ripley.

While working on the LV-426 recording we did work with Chris Short in some capacity but it wasn't until Zoom that he was on board full time. In the time between, we put out "Bells & Strings" on iTunes and lost a bassist. Hesitation was felt going in with Chris again but once we began recording, and drinking, things worked themselves out nicely.


"It's not a boxing match unless someone has a broken whiskey bottle."

Chris, with his 1976 David Soul chops, led us through recording all of Zoom in one night and after some slight tweaking of the mix, Zoom was up on 'Myspace', which was like the Facebook of it's time. Within a month it was being whistled ad nauseam on the docks of West Hollywood. About a month later we decided a full length album was the way to go..

Next time.. from doing the Zoom and the perfect shade of orange to the closest thing to having Sarah Palin in your band...