Quick, imagine there's a band that formed in Berlin in the mid-'80s and named themselves after an instrumental song by Tom Waits. What do you think they sound like? Guess again. Rainbirds' hooky New Wave sound, at least on their 1987 debut album, was decidedly more conventional than their name's origins might imply, but it still makes for an enjoyable listen. Opinions at KCMU were mixed, but seemed to generally lean positive.
If you were digging this album in the '80s and have been wondering what the band has been up to, head Rainbird Katharine Franck has been busy, both under her own name and with the resurrected Rainbirds, who released a new album in 2014. Unfortunately, despite all her lyrics being in English, her web site is entirely in German, so I can't say exactly what she's been up to.
"Deserves some attention - quirky enough vocals, arrangements to catch your attention - Pop-ish, but it grows on you (like moss) - lead vocalist really has a good voice though.""Compartments is okay by me!"
"Sounds like Swing out Seester - I dunno"
"God I hate SOS! This is better than that!"
"ULTRA HAPPY."
"Overproduced pop that sounds like it's trying to hit top 40 while staying mellow enough for the A/C crowd. Ick."
"'Boy on the Beach' is very danceable! Good voice, good mix! Play it up! Goddam this is a good record."
Being that I was quite young and on the other side of the country in the heyday of Seattle's The Visible Targets, I was not familiar with the band or their legacy until quite recently (I was more of a Moving Targets kid). But fortunately, I didn't have to go far to find a wealth of information on t…
Every once in a while in this series, I like to take a break from posting albums by bands I'm embarrassed not to know more about, in order to post an album by a band that there's pretty much no way I could ever have heard of - unless I was born a decade earlier in the midwest, or was a college radi…
