Posted by
The Wet Secrets
on Apr 18, 2008
An Irregular Rock Fantasy
The Wet Secrets are coming to a small town near you, in full marching band regalia
Published April 17, 2008 by Scott Lingley in Music Preview
The Wet Secrets
Apr 18 (8pm). The ARTery (9635 Jasper Ave). Tickets: $10 at the door.
If you’ve been to one of The Wet Secrets’ previous CD release parties, the band would like you to know that they’re really going to release their CD this time.
“We’re pleased to announce that we actually have a CD,” boasts trombonist/singer Donna Ball.
“What have we played? Like, four CD release shows now?” asks drummer/singer Trevor Anderson.
“I think it’s embarrassing to have a CD at your CD release,” opines bassist/singer Lyle Bell. “It’s almost gauche now.”
Four of the five Wet Secreters have congregated in a busy Grandin eatery on a Saturday morning prior to a trip to Calgary to set eyes for the first time on a factory-pressed copy of Rock Fantasy, their long-awaited debut LP. How long-awaited?
“Over the last two years we’ve been pushing it into existence,” Anderson says.
“It spiraled somewhat out of control,” Bell continues, “then got roped in a bit, then it got put on the back burner, then put in the fridge, then taken out of the fridge and put in the microwave...”
“...And then it went down to the root cellar,” Anderson adds. “And now, two years later, we’ve got a disc with drawings by Chad Van Gaalen and layout by Lyle and photography by 310...”
“And music on it!” Bell concludes.
I agree with the band that it’s quite a nice package.
“For Trevor, that’s the highest compliment,” Bell says.
According to local lore, The Wet Secrets formed in February 2005 on a dare to come up with a band and an entire set of songs in just one week. Anderson and Bell recruited the va-va-voomish brass section of Ball and tubaist/trumpeter Kim Rackel and conscripted Jeremy Nischuk to play keys. Then, somehow, marching band outfits got involved. An entire album was recorded in the kitchen and a legend was born. The wait for a full-lengther was on.
Rock Fantasy offers improved versions of WS classics from their first recording, brand new songs filled with gang vocals, coarse language, sludgy bass, primal drumming, Herb Alpert-esque horn voicings, and the keyboard stylings of new member Doug Organ. The album also features remixes by Roland Pemberton III (aka Cadence Weapon) and Nik Kozub of Shout Out Out Out Out.
Friday’s CD release party, then, is actually a CD release, though the album won’t hit stores (through the auspices of Six Shooter Records) until mid-May, when it should also turn up on iTunes. But don’t get the idea that national distribution means a nationwide tour to flog their wares.
“I think we agreed that no one in the band is eager to get in a van and drive across Canada playing small towns,” Anderson says. “But we certainly like getting on planes and headlining in other cities.”
“Or opening for KISS,” chimes in Rackel, precipitating a lengthy tangential fantasy about gigging with the aging kabuki-rockers and stealing their plane. Talk of the recent Gene Simmons sex tape ensues. I excuse myself to the washroom but my recorder captures a band discussion about whether the KISS Army is bigger than the Canadian army, and if there might be a KISS Secret Service with undercover agents everywhere.
Impossible dreams and strange digressions seem to be an integral part of the Wet Secrets’ ethos, so there is further talk of arriving at shows in personalized Plexiglas helicopters and recording albums underwater before Bell—who is also a key ingredient in Whitey Houston, Shout Out Out Out Out, and The Whitsundays—speaks up as a musician in all seriousness about the joys of donning the red and white drum major get-up.
“There are moments when you get into the business of it and everyone’s trying to plan stuff that’s maybe not as fun as usual,” he says, “but it seems like when we get in the room and start rehearsing, it is uplifting still. It’s able to make me forget about work and having a permanent scowl on my face.”
What’s more, the band is united by a goal that Anderson is glad to articulate. “We do have a longstanding dream that we share of actually learning to march, getting people to pull powered amps in red wagons, and people marching in regalia just holding up cords so we don’t trip, going to a small town unannounced, and marching down Main Street while the bus whips around and picks us up on the other side before anyone knows what hit them. Guerrilla marching band strikes on small towns—it will be fun if we don’t get arrested. Or maybe even if we do.”
“I think we’ll be too fast to get arrested,” Rackel says.
“Oh you do, do you?” Anderson laughs. “You think that will be a speedy process, setting up and rolling down the street?”
“We just need to make sure we’re at the front,” Rackel replies evenly. “And we’ll need a few sacrificial lambs to volunteer.”
“You can tell people, ‘In your mugshot, you’ll be wearing [a marching band outfit],’” Anderson suggests.
They may not yet be mobile, but The Wet Secrets’ CD release show at the ARTery will feature their signature musical pageantry plus a special something for the folks who get there early.
“The first 40 people in the door get a free moustache,” Rackel says. “We have purchased them for your pleasure.”
“I have five drinks and a Sharpie,” smiles Bell, “and everyone gets a moustache.”
