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the Rainy Days - FaceWork

Face Work – to appear in person with other people, front up, press the flesh, schmooze ‘n booze.

Face Work –  there is arm work and there is leg work but greatest rewards go to the Face Work.

Face Work – the work done at the edge of the coalface.

Face Work – the third album by the Rainy Days.

CD (G.I.C.S.N.) 2005

1. Facework
2. Way Out West
3. Swing That Thing
4. The Photographer
5. It's A Way Out
6. Personal Best
7. Liquid Oxygen
8. Do Pussycats Have Bellybuttons?
9. Youth Of Today
10. Out In The Wide Open


Dave (guitar+sing) Aimee (drums) Karin (bass+sing) Tom (sax) Angel (piano)

Recorded at Frisbee #7 (Gt. North Rd.) by Bob, Oct. 2004, mixed and mastered in Rich's garage by Bob & Rich, 2005.

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Reviews

**** the best local CD I never got to hear in 2005. It was FaceWork by Auckland band The Rainy Days. Nearly every song here deserves to be a single - they're short, punchy, witty, and attached to melodies so splendid they take up permanent residence in your head the first time you hear them. Listening to them made me feel glad to be alive again, despite the holidays being over ...
The band's reference points are impeccable. FaceWork's title track is primitive, Stooges-style garage rock; "Way Out West" recalls the first Modern Lovers record; "Swing That Thing" is clunky garage funk; "The Photographer" sounds like Miles Davis jamming with the Go-Betweens, and the banjo-heavy "It's a Way Out" is pure pass-the-moonshine hillbilly heaven. And when principal songwriter-singer Dave Graham (the only member of the band to use his surname) adopts an exaggerated Mick Jagger sneer and rhymes "livin' in a cave" with "shoppin' at Pak 'N Save" on "Youth of Today", it's so unexpectedly brilliant I can only rejoice that this man's parents chose to have sex at the right time 30-something years ago so that young Dave could be born and grow up to do exactly what he is doing now.

Grant Smithies, Sunday Star-Times (22 Jan 2006)

***** Having released only a handful of singles and albums since forming in the early 90s, Auckland's Rainy Days can hardly be described as prolific, which is a pity, because the diverse and uniformly excellent FaceWork shows what a brilliant, original band it is. The album covers a lot of ground within a loose garage rock paradigm, from the raw Stooges romp of the title track, through the indie-folky Go Betweens sound on cuts like "The Photographer", to the gently trippy "Liquid Oxygen". The banjo on "It's A Way Out" recalls Beggars Banquet-era Rolling Stones. In short, absolutely bloody fantastic.

Stephen Kerr, Sunday Star-Times (13 Nov 2005)

Hanging on to your garage band aesthetic after 10 years together is no small achievement; most bands get slick or split. But Auckland's Rainy Days keep both playing and production dirty enough to bring Dave Graham's songs to life on their third album, while ornamenting them with unexpectedly sophisticated details; note the doubled sax and guitar lines. And his songs are worth it, from the soul groove of "Swing That Thing" to the country stomp of "It's A Way Out" and folk balladry of "Personal Best".

Nick Bollinger, The NZ Listener (28 Jan 2006)

The Rainy Days are, perversely, one of the funkiest bands in Auckland. Why perversely? Well, listen to them with your eyes closed and then open them and take a good hard look at the cover; there's a huge and wonderful disparity there. The Rainy Days take your pre-conceptions, your pre-occupations and your pre-tense and turn them all the way up-side down and inside out ...

full review on cheeseontoast.co.nz

About it...

2003 saw the release of debut album Spongo, Mummagumma, Bullybeef + Microchips a compendium of twenty recordings from the Rainy Days’ first ten years.

2004 saw the release of Hot Shit!, a new ten song album including radio hits Suitable Suit, The Boy Next Door and Third World Shoes.

2005 saw the release of the Rainy Days lastest album Face Work

The Rainy Days are Dave (sing+guitar), Tom (sax), Karin (bass+sing) and Aimee (drums)
– a renowned and occasionally infamous live act performing the songs of one-man song factory Dave Graham (a.k.a. Davy G, Graeme Graham and Mr.WWIV). The same band line-up as for Hot Shit!, and continuing with that album’s aesthetic.

True to their own “garage” sound of acoustic chaos and electric precision the Rainy Days bring you their new album Face Work

You’ll cry (Out in the Wide Open), you’ll want to die (It’s A Way Out), you’ll want to know why (Do Pussycats Have Bellybuttons (Have Platypuses Got ‘Em)?), you’ll get high (Face Work), you’ll learn to fly (Personal Best) and a whole lot more besides.

Strangely familiar, yet like nothing you’ve ever heard before. An eclectric, hand-made wall of sounds that defy genrefication. Deeply detailed but never difficult. Catchy sing-a-long songs that demand and reward repeated listening.
Like a collection of 10 singles, the songs are distinct from each other, but make the album a complete listen.

Recorded live in the studio at Frisbee in about 12 hours in October 2004 with piano by Angel and ping-pong by Velvet Tiger. Mixed and over-dubbed in 2005.

Free Single!

Rainy Days - Photographer singleThe Photographer

Downloadable mp3 0" (G.I.C.S.N.) 2005

A-side: The Photographer (download the hi-res mp3 =full stereo ~6Mb)

B-side: Swing That Thing (download the hi-res mp3 =full stereo ~4Mb)

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