The Rainyard | A Thousand Days

Definitely the most important release of the year is this retrospective from Perth 80s group The Rainyard. Of course, there are still 9 months left but nothing can trump this in my view. I’ve waited several years, since reading “The Rainyard” among the planned releases on the old Bus Stop website and then being in touch with ex-members on myspace. It was hearing “1,000 Days” maybe back in 2006, on the Summershine comp Just a Taste (Slumberland) that did it for me. I tracked down a copy of their only Summershine 7″ a few years later, but that track is not on it. Neither is it on the band’s 1992 minialbum Let It Speed. I eventually found out that there had been a cassette of demos, but sold in local record stores as a proper release, called Icecream Overdrive and probably recorded around 1989. That’s where “1,000 Days” came from as well as a couple of tracks they had on myspace, and these quickly became some of my alltime favourites. While getting into the Australian indie scene, it soon became apparent that The Rainyard had connections to other pop groups, like The Palisades, The Stolen Picassos and The Summer Suns, mainly through Jeff Baker. These bands have given me much joy and I thank The Rainyard for getting me into them and the many other great Australian pop bands from long ago.

Mp3s of the tape eventually appeared on the There and Back Again Lane blog, and now suddenly, this compilation has appeared on bandcamp. It includes all the single tracks, the 8 tracks from the tape, an early version of “Die”, two tracks that were slated for a Firestation compilation as well as two more unreleased songs. The latter four of those songs are so great it makes you wonder how they could not have appeared on a single during the intervening 20 years. Go to bandcamp to buy (name your price!), here is my favourite of the bunch.

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I got to know The Rainyard one day having a look at Australian music on BandCamp.com, where I upload my music as well, so I found them and immediately loved their music so much that a few months after I contacted them and covered their song “Beyond The Pale” . It Is available on my website in case you want to have a listen.

Hi there, just to let you know that there is now an official Rainyard facebook page (facebook.com/rainyardband) where we hopefully soon to be announcing the physical reissue of those early tracks. Cheers!

From myself and, I know I can talk on behalf of the other Rainyard members, thank you all so much for your lovely comments. I really am astounded that people are still interested in our music so many years after the event. I’m informed there’s going to be a vinyl release in the near future. I’ll re-post once it’s out.

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