Rain Parade
(Lemon/Cherry Red)
In the summer of '86 - July, to be precise - Cali-based sonic alchemists the Rain Parade blitzed a path down the East Coast, and by the time the quintet crossed over the Virginia border into North Carolina, it was as if Sherman's Army had been transmogrified into musical stormtroopers, deploying their scorched earth policy upon all lingering notions about the so-called "Paisley Underground." Initially one of the torchbearers of that loose aggregate of psychedelia-tilting West Coast outfits that included the Dream Syndicate, Salvation Army/Three O'Clock, Green On Red, Long Ryders, True West and the Bangles, this Rain Parade, five years on since forming in L.A. in 1981, was a powerhouse purveyor of atmospheric rawk that, while retaining sufficient trappings to still be loosely described as "psychedelic," was so free-ranging, incorporating elements of prog, punk, classic pop and roots-folk, as to be nigh-on unclassifiable.
To this day, I can still remember the opening moments of the band's set: with the heat and humidity index so high there was literally steam coming off the players' bodies and amps, they launched into the sinewy, throbbing "No Easy Way Down" (one of the band's signature tracks, from their '84 mini-album Explosions in the Glass Palace). And in that moment, amid flanging, modal-laced guitar leads, eerie organ drone and labyrinthine bottom end, I and no doubt a hundred-odd other clubgoers were sucked into a 70-minute vortex of prismic sound and no shortage of synaptic discombobulation. Yeah, the show was psychedelic as fuck, but this wasn't your mama's hippiedelica. Rather, the songs were informed by the ground-up urgency of punk to yield taut, precision-arranged constructs within which the mind was freed to roam. Staggering into the summer night sometime later, staring up at the 2:00 a.m. moon, which just two days' earlier had passed through its full phase (look it up), I could swear I spotted the ol' Man up there smirking back at me...
This all comes rushing back to me now, listening to the CD reissue of Beyond the Sunset, originally recorded live a year and a half earlier during the Rain Parade's December 1984 tour of Japan and subsequently released in Britain on the Island label. A stellar line recording that gets high marks for its crisp mix and even-handed instrumental separation (vocals are prominent but don't unnecessarily dominate, either), BtS serves as both a delightful flashback and righteous introduction to the musical prowess of the Rain Parade - Matt Piucci, guitars and vocals; Will Glenn, keyboards and violin; Steven Roback, bass and vocals; John Thoman, guitars and vocals; Mark Marcum, drums.
The album showcases all the operative sides of the band's collective personality: there's elegant electric folk ("Eyes Closed," featuring haunting violin solo from Glenn); pulsing, intensely melodic garage-rock ("This Can't Be Today"); dreamy, almost Beatlesesque pop ("Don't Feel Bad"); and full on, cortex-crunching psych ("No Easy Way Down," which should be a mainstay of any self-respecting playlist purporting to collect the Best Tunes From The 1980s). Also in the setlist is a pair of key covers. One pays homage to a band that was a huge influence on the band members (and, indeed, the entire Paisley Underground): Television, whose "Ain't That Nothing" here is rendered in appropriately kinetic terms to approach borderline anthemic. The other tips a hat (or five) in the direction of a Rain Parade peer: Green On Red, by way of GoR frontman's timeless, bittersweet confessional "Cheap Wine." On the latter, guests Steve Wynn and Dennis Duck from the Dream Syndicate pitch in on guitar/vocals and tambourine, respectively, further reinforcing the circle of solidarity that marked the loose scene they were part of. For those with long memories, the tune's a lump-in-throat moment impossible to avoid: these were our groups, and they meant something.
Veteran liner notesman (and BLURT contributor) Jud Cost serves up an extended commentary for the Beyond the Sunset booklet, providing a birds-eye history of the Rain Parade - like me, he was smitten early on by their charms - and suggesting that the group's legacy still looms large. He quotes Piucci (nowadays fronting Oakland outfit boatclub), who says, "In a small way, we were sort of like what Brian Eno said about the Velvet Underground, that everybody who bought their records started a band." Adds Cost, "And yet, like most bands built for the long haul whose influence has spread like ripples in a pond, Rain Parade retains its own unique musical footprint." Amen to that.
So here I am in my office now, staring at the record sleeves of my original Island LPs for Beyond the Sunset and Crashing Dream (the '85 album that the Rain Parade was touring behind when I saw them live). They bear the scrawled signatures of five musicians, a detail I'd somehow forgotten from that hot, hazy, humid, hallucinogenic night. Come to think of it, except for what I described above, I don't remember a whole lot about the evening. I dearly wish I could now, because as these things turn out, the Rain Parade broke up not long after that tour.
Thanks, anyway, for the memories guys. How's about putting the show back on the road again and let's work up some fresh ones?
DOWNLOAD: "No Easy Way Down," "This Can't Be Today," "Cheap Wine" FRED MILLS
