The Rain Parade | Early Excursions (WarfRat Grammophon SLP 0183) 1983
Flapping about the same time zone are the nine aggregations collected in ‘WarfRat Tales‘, the prime movers of which are the long serving Last. The flavour of WarfRat is homegrown garage psychedelic, the sound conscientiously coarse, and the concept is well-executed.
Meet, amongst others, Leaving Trains, Rain Parade, and 100 Flowers. The music veers from tame nostalgia (Rain Parade) to relatively uplifting (The Last) with much minor damage inflicted in the hazy area between.
Named after one of Mao’s rather ambiguous purges spurs-of-artistic-activity in the ’50s, 100 Flowers have their own posthumous platter out and are neither psychedelic nor power pop. Formerly left-field punkers The Urinals, they are the misanthropic side of the garage alternative.
I like this record much less than either the single “Presence Of Mind” or the compilation track “Reject Yourself” led me to expect, but at their best they’re like early Stranglers/Warwaw played by The Go Betweens, or an ascetic/domestic version of Mission Of Burma’s “Fun World”: a sparse, hungry sound which over the length of an LP gets a little drab.
Aside from a version of “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” as sizzling as Lennon’s on ‘Help!’, the emotions of this record are constricted by a rather mordant offhandedness. There’s no “Who Wants The World” here. (NME, 02/07/83)
The Rain Parade tracks on the LP:
“I Look Around”
“This Can’t Be Today”
Matthew Piucci (guitar, vocals)
David Roback (guitar, vocals)
Will Glenn (keyboards, tambourine)
Steven Roback (bass)
Eddie Kalwa (drums, percussion)
(including Brian Norris and Kendra Smith)
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