The Rain and the Sidewalk

BIOGRAPHY

The Rain and the Sidewalk is a Vancouver, Canada-based project of Trevor Michael Thompson, a songwriter/multi instrumentalist who creates moody, wry, sometimes intense semi-electronic, art-pop with post-punk, gothic and post-industrial influences.

Initially a solo project known as Introvert (until it turned out that there were several other Introverts out there already), the project began recording in 2001. Those sessions, with Rose Reiter on vocals, and Mike McLean engineering, later became the debut release INANIMATE.

The project began live performances in 2002, with Trevor performing solo. Vocalist Shannon Hallett (Betty Kracker, Shrimpmeat), and poet/author Wayde Compton became involved in 2004 have recorded and performed numerous times as a trio. Trevor returned the favour, joining Shannon's punk band Betty Kracker on guitar in 2007.

The first full release, the CD INANIMATE, was released in 2006 was 16 songs conveying brutal honesty, alienation, intelligence, loneliness, and dark, dry wit. The arrangements are complex and layered and as atmospheric as they are danceable. Inanimate inhabits the blurred regions between indietronica, goth, darkwave and ambient. The CD was widely played in college radio, and charted on many stations across Canada.

Trevor also recorded a song for the underground SPOOX compilations (#2), as well as a cover of the song Propeller for an extremely hard to find 2CD tribute compilation for the Australian electronic/experimental group SEVERED HEADS. Trevor later radically remixed some of the Inanimate songs for a limited release, REDUNDANT, in 2008. The remixes highlight Trevor's industrial, darkwave and experimental electronic influences. Following that was an appearance on the CD/magazine One Cool Word (the first recording with Hallett singing), which is now sold out.

The double CD WEAKNESS was released in Sept. 2009. The 28 songs continue The Rain and the Sidewalk's examinations of isolation, rejection and loneliness. The music combines the early 80's postpunk and electronic influences with 21st century ethereal experimental and indie pop. The album charted at several college stations across Canada. Mike McLean filmed the band performing many songs from WEAKNESS (and newer material) at the FacePlant studio in December 2009, a few days before Shannon moved to Quebec. The clips are being posted to YouTube periodically.

The band toured eastern Canada in April 2010 as a duo, with Shannon. New father and noted author Wayde will not be touring with the band, but may perform in Vancouver on some shows in the future. Although Shannon and Trevor live on opposite sides of the country, she still contributes and performs with TRATS, most recently in shows in Vancouver and at Evanfest on Texeda Island in 2012.

The 4-song EP STUCK was released digitally in October 2011. It is a collection of new recordings of fan favourites Slow Motion Shattering and Hollow, plus covers of Vancouver pop band The Organ's It's Time To Go and Kate Bush's Army Dreamers. Shannon sings on all four songs. It was extremely popular, charting again across Canada. It is available as a free download via grrrabbit production's page on SoundCloud and on the band's site.

The next all-new album, entitled NADIR is nearly complete set to be released in 2013.

The songs of The Rain and the Sidewalk are just starting to receive airplay in UK, Netherlands, Greece and other countries, as their music is being discovered and embraced by the darkwave/goth community. The song Regret from WEAKNESS was recently featured on Nightbreed Radio's March 2013 Dark Frequency podcast, hosted by Arcane Winter frontman Piers Sixx.

The band plans to tour Europe as soon as possible. Please contact us if you'd like to see them perform in your city/town!

To talk to The Rain and the Sidewalk, contact:
therainandthesidewalk@yahoo.ca

WHERE YOU CAN BUY THE RAIN AND THE SIDEWALK

INANIMATE and WEAKNESS:
Canada - many record stores in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa
EU: Ciel-Rouge (Dijon, FR) and www.ciel-rouge.fr

All CDs:
Online: CDs can be ordered from this website
Digitally, they can be bought through BandCamp (therainandthesidewalk.bandcamp.com)

SITES/SOCIAL
Website: www.therainandthesidewalk.com (you're soaking in it)
MySpace: www.myspace.com/therainandthesidewalk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/The-Rain-and-the-Sidewalk/366204233794

Soundcloud:
grrrabbit productions (Stuck EP, abum tracks)
https://soundcloud.com/grrrabbit-productions
To hear newest works-in-progress, demo versions and more tunes:
https://soundcloud.com/the-rain-and-the-sidewalk

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/user/robotsmakesushi

CONTACT THE RAIN AND THE SIDEWALK

To talk to The Rain and the Sidewalk, contact:
therainandthesidewalk(@)yahoo(dot)ca
or through grrrabbit productions: grrrabbit(@)hotmail(dot)com
www.grrrabbit.com

TRATS on the SEVCOM community: sevcom
On CBC Radio 3: Radio 3

PRAISE

TRATS has received such disturbingly gushing praise as:

(from Terminal City weekly):
"...the only guy I know that can actually pull off the Joy Division thing, and he doesn't wear crappy girl clothes like all the other bands along that vein..."
John Cow

"...the Rain and the Sidewalk is fucking brilliant and eccentric the way no one else really is..."
"...The Rain and the Sidewalk...fell down on the floor..."
Jenn Wong

(from Discorder):
"...the guy simply could not sing. His voice was truly atrocious..."
"...His songs were really quite good, and the lyrics were intelligent and darkly humorous..."
Steve Tannock, real live action

"...I felt like I was listening to the cure, but with worse hair. Although it was an extremely entertaining live show...songs began to sound a bit repetitive, or maybe that was just their lyrical focus on 'worthlessness' and 'unworthiness'..."
Sofia Japan, Real Live Action