The Triffids: A Reverie

If you cornered me at a party and made me choose my favourite Australian band, you'd get quite bored as I pro-ed and con-ed between the Go-Betweens and the Triffids. On balance, (and well after you'd snuck off to fish beers in the esky), I'd give it to the Go-B's by sheer dint of sharing their hometown. They do mean a lot to Brisbaneiros of a certain vintage, like me.

But my favourite individual Australian songwriter is, without doubt, and without peer, David McComb of the Triffids. And what an extraordinary band. These songs live forever! A soundtrack to the endless sunny middays of edited memory. So many greats... to pick but a few: Beautiful Waste (surely the finest song about the all-encompassing madness of first love ever penned on these shores); Spanish Blue; Embedded; the entire album "Treeless Plain"; Place in the Sun; Red Pony; Jesus Calling; and of course, their only genuine hit, Wide Open Road.

For those who are fans, check out this page. Its full of downloadable early gems, thanks to the Triffids site.

I never did see the Triffids, sadly - though I did see David McComb sometime in the late 90s. It was after his heart transplant, so it was low energy, but the show was magnificent, the songs sublime. McComb died in '99, at far too young an age.

And now that I think about it, it was an old girlfriend of mine, many moons ago, who introduced me to the Triffids. I first heard this song, 'Raining Pleasure', when she played it to me on acoustic guitar, as the rain pattered on a Quinceland tin roof. So, here it is, a reverie.