Rainmakers (the) - s/t

Name: The Rainmakers
Album: s/t
Year: 1986
Style: College Radio, Jangle-Pop, Cow Punk, Roots Rock
Similar Bands: Bongos, Alarm, Barenaked Ladies, Men They Couldn't Hang, X, BoDeans
"One-Word" Review: Cringy-Embarrassing Americana Jangle Pop
Based Out Of: Kansas City, MO
Label: Mercury, PolyGram

Cover, Lyrics, Record

Back, Lyrics, Record

The Rainmakers (1986)

1. Rockin' At the T-Dance 3:23
2. Downstream 3:28 (single)
3. Let My People Go-Go 3:37 (single, top 20 UK)
4. Doomsville 4:27
5. Big Fat Blonde 2:55 /
6. Long Gone Long 4:08
7. The One That Got Away 2:53
8. Government Cheese 2:53
9. Drinkin' On The Job 3:45
10. Nobody Knows 3:33
11. Information 4:46

Album Rating (1-10): 4.5

Members & Other Bands:

• Terry Manning - Producer, Engineer, Keys (Rock City, Wild Ones, Molly Hatcher, Fastway, Joe Walsh, Michael Anderson, Johnny Winter, Fabulous Thunderbirds, Disel, Al Green, Eddie Hinton, Alex Chilton, Big Star, Chris bell, Booker T & the MGs, more)
• Thomas Hart Benton - Paintings
• Bob Walkerhorst - Words & Music, Lead Vox, Acoustic Guitar (Steve Bob & Rich, Phantasia, Trizo 50, Lakeview Men, Walkenhorst & Porter, )
• Steve Phillips - Words & Music Electric Guitar, Vox, (Steve Bob & Rich, Fields, Elders, Sterling Witt)
• Alan Clutter - Words & Music 
• Rich Ruth - Bass, Vox (Steve Bob & Rich, KC Blues Band, Webb Wilder, Lakeview Men)
• Pat Tomek - Drums (Deco Auto, Hidden Pictures, Howard Iceberg & the Titanics, Bombpops, The Secrets, Lakeview Men, The Stringers, Jonathan Rundman) 
• Wayne Jackson - Memphis Horns Stax artists backing band + more
• Andrew Love - Memphis Horns Stax artists backing band + more
• Jack Hale - Memphis Horns Stax artists backing band + more
• Gary Topper - Memphis Horns (Royal Horns, Christeen, Gary Chapman, BA Robertson, Al Green, Little Jazz Rock Machine, Keith Richards, Toots Hibbert, Four Freshmen, Axelle Red, Dave Lisik Orch, Barbara Blue, Jay Gaunt, Wu-Tang Clan, Paul Rodgers, Michael Lington, Zeshan B)
• Bob Ludwig - Mastering
• Bill Levy - Art Direction
• Bruce Allen - Design
• Laurie Allen - Photography

Unknown-ness: Never heard of this band, but the cover is a painting, which could mean really anything, but it errs to the side of educated, and the back photo looks like the Men they Couldn't Hang or Dexy's Midnight Runners...hoping for the Dexys style, rather than the bland soundscape

Album Review: Holy cow are most of these songs terrible! "Big Fat Blonde" and "Government Cheese" are incredibly embarrassing. The style is almost a Celtic jangle pop meets light cow punk with, to me, a very off-putting quivering main vocal that reminds me of the little i know of Barenaked Ladies. The vocal acrobatics are so cringworthy, they make Weird Al at his worst sound like Sinatra. The only restrained and listenable song is Long Gone Long...its actually a quite catchy song (the final track, Information is not bad, but the lyrics just feel rushed and specifically unrelatable, and it is about 2 min too long). Lots of themes of drinking and being suppressed permeate the album. Somehow, they were more popular in Europe, specifically Norway than the US. After breaking up the band after three albums and a hiatus, they reformed under pressure from their Norwegian popularity, and recorded a new album that went gold there in 1994. They are still together and active (2019) Their last album was in 2015. Stephen King liked them so much that he's included their lyrics in two of his books. 

Stand Out Track: Long Gone Long

Links:

Spotify full album
Wiki

Discogs

Allmusic

website

facebook