Helen Gassmann profile picture

Helen Gassmann

About Me

Old vinyls etched with the sounds of Bob Dylan and the Beatles made me want to write music. Spend An Evening With Saddle Creek made me believe that I could do it. Dylan, John Lennon, and later Conor Oberst taught me how to pen songs, and Maria Taylor and Jenny Lewis taught me how to sing them.
I accepted my first guitar into my life at the age of twelve and started writing songs immediately. Now, I'm sixteen and have over 100 compositions. I live in the small town of Hamburg and find it both terribly frustrating and highly inspiring at the same time. I have never played my own show. My guitar doesn't even have a pick up. For the past three years I have been writing songs in my room when I can't sleep or in study halls when I need a distraction. Now I want you to hear them.
She's the biggest musical sensation of Hamburg, and her guitar doesn't even have a pickup. Currently a junior at Hamburg High School, Helen Gassmann is incredibly prolific, having penned more than 100 compositions since she first received her guitar at the age of 12...
Gassmann describes her music as "bedroom prophesies written by a 16-year-old girl," but a quick listen will reveal that her songs are written with a maturity and artistry that are well beyond her years. Otherwise, she couldn't be more accurate: her songs are remarkably honest and personal portraits of suburbia. But unlike most music written of the same subject, hers is in no way trite, wishy-washy, or over-romanticized. Hearing her music is as powerful and intimate as it would be to have her standing straight across from you. It's like sitting down for a long talk with your best friend and listening to them spill their guts out - Gassmann just does it in a way that you can sing along to...
-Nicole Guldin, Voices
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My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 2/1/2008
Band Members: It's all me.
Influences: Falling apart. Old folk songs about the government. Punk rock kids. Suburbia. Troubles with living. You.
Azure Ray. The Beatles/John Lennon/George Harrison. Blind Melon. Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst. Capgun Coup. David Dondero. Bob Dylan. Eve 6. The Felice Brothers. Fleet Foxes. Jacob Golden. The Good Life/Tim Kasher. Woody Guthrie. Emily Haines. Ryan Harvey. Simon Joyner. Ben Kweller. Leadbelly. Jenny Lewis. Nirvana/Kurt Cobain. Phil Ochs. Rancid/Tim Armstrong. Sex Pistols. Paul Simon. Elliott Smith. Sufjan Stevens. Tilly and the Wall. Two Gallants. The Wallflowers/Jakob Dylan.
Sounds Like: Bedroom prophecies handwritten by a 16 year old girl with a guitar.
If you'd like a better idea, my CD "These Fifteen Years" is available and free for a limited time (until I run out of money to make and ship them).
Record Label: unsigned
Type of Label: Unsigned

My Blog

Independent Artists Company, Youtube Channel, Other Business

Two songs from last weekend's session are now available for streaming on my profile at the Independent Artists Company: Kevin Arnold and Different State. You can listen here: http://iacmusic.com/artis...
Posted by on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:28:00 GMT

New (Old) Song

"My Nerves Abandon Me"Written in the eighth grade during an insufferable academic study in Mr. Snyder's homeroom. How many of us E-L's remember those days?I was recording yesterday, stumbled upon it, ...
Posted by on Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:01:00 GMT

Math Problem

I believe that I would leave tonight, if my feet could find the ground. It's Friday in suburbia and your parents are tracking you down. They've already called all your friends' mothers. Yeah, they've ...
Posted by on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:43:00 GMT

Find Your Place

I am a little girl playing dress up; I do not fit in these clothes that I wear. I am a portrait that hangs in your bedroom. I'm saying nothing. I'm wasting your time.Grieving mother, I saw her crying....
Posted by on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:38:00 GMT

Marie Antoinette In This Dress

I'm thinking my friends are going to be mad at me today, just because I don't feel much like talking. Well anyway, I don't always say what I'm thinking. I don't always feel what I'm saying. I don't al...
Posted by on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:29:00 GMT

Skinless

Two, three, four.Think that I can't tell when you are lying to me? Think that I don't see those looks you're giving to me? "See you later, see you later." Okay. Whatever. Come down, come on down, down...
Posted by on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:20:00 GMT

Fill A Shoebox

Open up my closet. Well, I'll be. Those dresses don't hang half that good on me. I hope you understand that this was not my plan, and I don't have the upper hand. Today I want to sell everything I own...
Posted by on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:12:00 GMT

Different State

He asked me, "Who is this Jason that you're always singing about?" And I said, "He's nobody." And that's the truth, at least for now. But if you're trying to make me an offer, well, it's more than a p...
Posted by on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:01:00 GMT

These Fifteen Years

Let's hear a new sound: let's press our ears unto the ground! Let's reinvent this town and make it livable again. Wish on 11:11, lift your hands unto the heavens, gamble on lucky sevens, try anything ...
Posted by on Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:35:00 GMT

Ive Got Nothing

I went to Philadelphia for a one night stand with brotherhood hoping in the morning things would still be good. But come that rising daybreak he was gone and I was empty again for familiar company. ...
Posted by on Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:32:00 GMT