The Bret Harte Breakers

Monica Topping For the Times-Standard

The Bret Harte Breakers are a community of happenstance. The Arcata band's founding members, Wick Prichard and Joe LaManna, met while working at an outdoor school in the Stockton area. The two jokingly swap jabs about their home states of Georgia and Missouri, respectively ("He always feels a little out of place because Missouri looks a lot like Georgia, but of course, it's not Georgia," says Prichard, a native of the Peach State, about LaManna).

After singing silly science camp songs about slugs and worms for hundreds of fifth graders, LaManna had the idea to move up to Humboldt, for school. Prichard and his girlfriend were close on his heels and they all moved into a house behind the Arcata Co-op that is known to have housed one famous writer, Bret Harte. They call it the Bret Harte house, but that's not to be confused with the Journalism department office on the Humboldt State University campus, of the same name.

Long before Prichard moved to Arcata, he had actually heard of Harte, through a book of short stories his father had brought back after a trip to the west coast, while Prichard was in high school. It was that familiarity that led to the band calling itself the Bret Harte Breakers (besides, who doesn't like the play on words?).

The band started small, with Prichard on guitar and vocals, LaManna on banjo, cello, occasional guitar and vocals, their roommate Brett Vivyan on guitar and former roommate Jay Forbes, now of Strix Vega, on drums. Late last year, as the band played outside during November's Arts Arcata, they met Gena Trimarco, who showed up with friends to dance to the band's music. By the end of the set, one of Trimarco's friends asked the band if they would play her birthday party the following month and they agreed. Shortly thereafter, Trimarco and her friends ran into Prichard and LaManna once again and another friend of Trimarco's told LaManna that she played the fiddle, and she became a member almost instantaneously.

On the band's second practice with Trimarco, they were joined by mandolin player (and recovering bass player) Rob Fowler, who lives upstairs from the fiddle player. Drummer Daven Tyler came across the group on local Craigslist listings.

The Bret Harte Breakers play a number of original tunes, plus covers from Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen and Peter Rown, amongst others. Their motto: "No genre, lots of instruments, music is fun." They've even been known to take cover requests at shows, bringing audience members in to sing, when they don't know they words.

In a live setting, the Bret Harte Breakers can be anywhere from one-to-six members, but Prichard hopes to institute a policy of a minimum of three members at a time; the pressure is a little bit less, that way.

The Bret Harte Breakers can be found at Six Rivers Brewery in McKinleyville this Saturday, June 6, at 9 p.m. They'll be back at Six Rivers on the Fourth of July.


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