Rain Parade

Track	Album
What She’s Done To Your Mind	Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
This Can’t Be Today	Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
Talking In My Sleep	Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
You Are My Friend	Explosions In The Glass Palace
No Easy Way Down	Explosions In The Glass Palace
Night Shade	Beyond The Sunset
Depending On You	Crashing Dream
Don’t Feel Bad	Crashing Dream
Real World	3×4
Last Rays Of A Dying Sun	Last Rays Of A Dying Sun

l-r Eddie Kalwa (drums), Steven Roback (vocals, bass), Will Glenn (keyboards, violin), David Roback (vocals, guitar), Matt Piucci (vocals, guitar) – back cover photo from the debut album by David Arnoff

For many of us who came of age on 80s college radio, the bands who loomed largest were R.E.M. and the Replacements – the Big Rs. But for some of us, there was a third Big R: Rain Parade. Like R.E.M. and other college radio acts of the era, Rain Parade embraced the treble-happy jangle of the classic Byrds. But they infused the music with a gentle dose of late 60s psychedelia – more like the Byrds circa The Notorious Byrd Brothers, with traces of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and Satanic Majesties-era Rolling Stones.

The band arose as part of the early 80s’ so-called Paisley Underground, a loosely-affiliated group of indie musicians (primarily in Southern California) with a shared love of post-punk pop music and late 60s garage bands. Of these, the Bangles probably found the most commercial success (that band’s Susanna Hoffs had played with a Rain Parade precursor), while other key acts included the darker Dream Syndicate, early Americana pioneers the Long Ryders, and sunshine psych-pop band the Three O’Clock.

Alas, Rain Parade had one of the shortest runs of the Paisley Underground, with a relatively lean discography (though one of their founders would find greater 90s fame with Mazzy Star, noted below); but they also left behind one of the truly essential records of the 1980s. More significantly, their brand of slightly-trippy retro-psych-pop formed the template for many acts that followed, from late 80s/early 90s Britpop and shoegaze bands like the Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine, and Ride, to more recent psychedelic acts like Asteroid No. 4 and Triptides.

Initially fronted by brothers David and Steven Roback (guitar and bass, respectively) and guitarist Matthew Piucci, Rain Parade released their debut single in 1982. What She’s Done To Your Mind sounds like a great lost Nuggets compilation track, pure 60s psych-pop, given just the slightest updating for more contemporary ears. Brimming with shimmering Rickenbacker guitar lines, a pretty melody, and just a hint of darkness, it still feels hopelessly lost in time.

Their 1983 full-length debut, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, built on that initial framework of melodic, slightly trippy guitar jangle, arriving at a record that holds up as one of the decade’s best. With songwriting duties shared among the Robacks and Piucci, the record offers plenty of variety, but all tethered to a hypnotic blend of chiming pop and drugged-out bliss. There’s not a bum track to be found, but the strongest highlight (besides a sped-up, slightly more muscular re-recording of the preceding single) is the psychedelic opus This Can’t Be Today, a lysergic headphone-friendly expedition with hypnotic keyboards and fizzy guitars, tricked out with embellishments like backwards tapes, stop-start tempos, and wall-of-sound reverb. Meanwhile, Talking In My Sleep revisits the lighter nostalgic pop of Mind, a hummable earworm that’s still trippy enough to trigger pleasant daydreams.

David Roback left the band after the debut (more on him in a moment). And while he had made significant contributions to the record, the EP which followed – 1984’s 5-song Explosions In The Glass Palace – feels like an equally majestic continuation of its predecessor. (Indeed, CD reissues would combine the two records pretty seamlessly.) You Are My Friend is another delightful pop song, wistful and pretty and slightly sad, but pure magic. More notable is the nearly 7-minute No Easy Way Down, the band’s most deliriously psychedelic track, with guitars that sound like buzzsaws and bagpipes, and an extended jam that calls to mind the Doors’ The End.

Somewhat confoundingly, the band’s second full-length was a live album, culled from a late 1984 performance in Japan. 1985’s Beyond The Sunset is a fine record – great, even, as the band were always a reliably solid live act – but an odd choice for a sophomore release, mixing a few songs from Emergency and Explosions with some new tracks. Of the new songs, Night Shade stands out, the trippy pop of the prior records infused with live energy. (Even better is a faithful yet compelling cover of Television’s Ain’t That Nothing, which the band make their own.) The original record is out of print, but an alternate version called Live In Japan currently streams, and several tracks can also be found on a recent deluxe edition of the follow-up record.

Later that year saw the release of the band’s second proper studio album, Crashing Dream. With a few exceptions, they pare back much of the psychedelic accoutrements of the first LP and EP, opting for more straightforward jangle pop balladry. The result isn’t bad, just a little bland (with some telltale 80s production), some of the quieter songs failing to make a strong impression. Still, there are a number of standouts that live up to the band’s early glory. Album opener Depending On You, while moving at the slower pace of much of the record, is sonically rich, giving it some emotional heft. But the real highlight is Don’t Feel Bad, with dueling bass and guitar lines that feel deeply indebted to the Beatles’ Revolver, a punchy psych-pop track that carries on where the debut left off.

Commercial success largely eluding them, by 1986 the band decided to call it quits (at least for the next few decades), aside from a 1991 collection of relatively lo-fi demos called Demolition.

Which isn’t to say they didn’t keep busy. Having departed after the first LP, David Roback embarked on a one-off 1984 side project called Rainy Day, featuring members of Rain Parade, the Bangles, Dream Syndicate, and the Three O’Clock playing covers of songs by the Who, Buffalo Springfield, Jimi Hendrix, Big Star, the Velvet Underground and more. It’s a sparse but endlessly appealing record, capturing the amiable vibe of some friends getting high and jamming along to their favorite records. It’s long out-of-print, one of history’s great long-lost albums, but you can probably find most of it up on YouTube.

David then formed Opal with Dream Syndicate’s Kendra Smith, recording a lone LP of spacey dream-pop, Happy Nightmare, Baby. It’s a great record for fans of headphone-friendly psychedelia, Smith’s ethereal vocals wafting over Roback’s trippy guitar jams; unfortunately, it’s out of print and doesn’t stream (a recurring theme in this Toppermost). By the time of the planned follow-up, Smith had departed, so Roback found a young singer named Hope Sandoval to replace her. He changed the band’s name from Opal to Mazzy Star, added some production sheen, and found some surprising success on the mid-90s alternative rock scene.

Brother Steven, meanwhile, formed an indie band called Viva Saturn, whose late 80s/early 90s records sound like a logical progression from Crashing Dream, jangly pop with mild psychedelic touches. (Guess what? Also out of print.)

Likewise, Matt Piucci released several records, both as a solo artist and with assorted other projects. His 2000 solo album Hellenes in particular sounds like a solid part of the Rain Parade legacy (as does the record he released 20 years later as The Hellenes).

And for Rain Parade themselves? It turns out the story wasn’t over. They played a few reunion gigs over the years, finally getting back into the studio for the 2018 compilation 3×4. The record features four of the original Paisley Underground bands (Rain Parade, Bangles, Dream Syndicate, Three O’Clock) each recording covers of the other three bands’ songs. While hardly indispensable, it’s a fun trip down memory lane for fans of the original scene. Rain Parade’s cover of the Bangles’ Real World is particularly lovely. (The Bangles return the favor with a terrific version of Talking In My Sleep.)

A few years later, Rain Parade finally managed a proper album of new originals. 2023’s Last Rays Of A Dying Sun is nice enough, predominantly melodic jangle pop. The band do visit their psychedelic roots here and there; album opener Angel Sister respects their earlier sound without living in the past, fresh and punchy. And they throw a bone to lovers of their classic era with the title track, which kicks off with a psychedelic drone that almost sounds like a coda to No Easy Way Down before launching into their classic fizzy guitar sound.

Regrettably, David Roback wasn’t part of the reformed Rain Parade; he had become ill, and passed away in 2020. (Which presumably means reissues of the long-lost Rainy Day and Opal records are off the table.) As for the rest of the band, they’ve continued to play periodic gigs, and released a short EP in 2024.