The Legend of Wet Sans Brolly

Part I - The Dover Days

Mister E. and Pearl Owens at the Zipper Club.

Wet Sans Brolly is a recent by-product of Kent's underground seed-core movement. The group's auteur, known simply as 'Mister E', was a teenager attending Dover College when he first snuck into the infamous Zipper Club on Abacot Row. He quickly became enamored with the unique sounds of the instrumental bands like Fogou and The Pursuits that regularly graced the club's tiny stage.

It was during this period that he met Pearl Owens, a guitarist who lived in Calais, France, just across the channel. Mister E began taking the ferry to Calais every Saturday, where the two would write songs in the Owens' attic. Eventually, E's long time friend and bassist Knucker began tagging along and Wet Sans Brolly was officially formed. Pearl had an uncle with a modest recording studio in Dunkerque, where the trio could record for free late at night.

Knucker and Shoe at Club Six.

They spent several nights each week in the studio for just under two months, and emerged with seven songs, five of which would find their way onto the group's first EP "Facing South". They released the EP that summer, but before they could begin playing live, they needed a drummer to replace the drum machine samples they had spliced together on the recording. They placed an ad in the Dover paper, and after auditioning nearly a dozen drummers, they found Shoe, an American living in E's hometown of Ringwould.

The quartet began performing at silent movie houses across England's southern shore. In only five weeks they sold out of the first pressing of "Facing South". They were horrified to discover that Pearl's uncle had mistakingly taped over the master, making the EP a rare collectible.

Some insight into the ‘Silent Movie House Days’ can be found in a series of electronic correspondence between E. and (presumably) a man named Alex from the online magazine Glubdub. The following is an except from that correspondence:

(In a previous letter, E. had mentioned that Cornfed Humans was originally intended to be a collection of one-minute songs.)

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Glubdub
Date: Nov 19, 2008

What was the inspiration for the attempt at 60 second songs?

Have you guys done any film work or worked with and visual artists in multimedia pieces. When you perform are you very visual? Is there some purpose for the hidden identity of the band?

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Mister E.
Date: Nov 19, 2008

Oddly enough, the answer to all of your questions is the same. Most of our live shows so far (all of which occurred more than a year ago now - time flies) took place in a few different silent movie houses - or at least indie movie theatres that were showing silent movies. We would play our music while the film played, sometimes matching up in spectacular ways, and sometimes being so inappropriate to the scene that hilarity ensued.

We quickly realized that many scenes in films are only a minute or so long, so a three minute song might be splendid for a bit, then quickly become awkward in the next scene. It was at this point (shortly before we started recording Cornfed Humans) that we thought "Wouldn't it be a kick to just write one-minute songs!" A fine idea, but in practice it was very limiting. A suitable alternative turned out to be three to four minute songs, that had several changes within them (I'm giving away a secret here, but if you listen to the songs with a stopwatch, you'll notice that each section of each song is about a minute long before it changes.)

The identity of the band (or lack thereof) also stemmed from these movie house performances. We would always play from up in the balcony (which would be closed to patrons) for two very practicle reasons: 1) It was the only suitable space, and 2) we could face the screen without having our backs to the audience. No one could really see us up there, but they would applaud and we would greet our fans downstairs after the film. This was always an uncomfortable transistion, and it didn't take long before we stopped coming down, and would load out of the front exit once everyone left. This quickly (and slowly) evolved into a complete disintegration of our identities and the rise of Wet Sans Brolly as 'characters'. We're all much happier this way, and it saves us the humiliation of having an 'image' - even though the lack of one is an image in and of itself. Ironic, I suppose.

Happy Wednesday.

On Christmas Eve 2007, Mister E. received an excited phone call from Shoe that would set in motion a great adventure. An old friend of Shoe’s from the states was starting an indie label, and was interested in signing the band. The money would be modest at best, but they were offered a free place to stay and full access to the label’s in-house recording studio in southern California. Wet Sans Brolly would finally be able to make a proper full length record – if they could make their way to California.

The Burhou I at Felixstowe

Two summers previous, E. had gotten a part time job at the Port of Felixstowe, a busy international shipping hub two hours north of Ringwould. He stayed at his cousin Rudy’s flat just outside of Ipswich, and spent two months typing numbers into a computer for the Port Operations Manger. While working at Felixstowe, E. was introduced to a giant named Barrett Browning. Barrett was just over seven feet tall, thin as a rail, and played the mandolin. He worked as a steward on a 900-foot container ship called the Cosco Busan, assisting the chief cook, and constantly cleaning the pantry, galley, and kitchen areas. (Barrett was not on board, however, when the Cosco Busan ran into the San Francisco Bay bridge less than two years later.)

After the holidays, Mister E. rang Barrett to inquire about the possibility of the band hitching a ride across the Atlantic. As it happened, Barrett was now working on a quaint little vessel called The Burhou I, which was making a run to Newark, New Jersey in just a few days. A few strings were pulled, a small amount of money changed hands and on an icy Monday morning (January 8, 2007) the band embarked on a 12-day journey across a very cold ocean.

Coming Soon - Part II – Journey to America