Raining Pleasure:

• Jesus Calling
• Embedded
• St James Infirmary
• Everybody Has To Eat
• Ballad Of Jack Frost
• Property Is Condemned
• Raining Pleasure

Lawson Square Infirmary:

• Figurine
• When My heart Breaks
• Mother Silhouette
• Mercy
• Crucifixion Speech
• Not The Marrying Kind

Field Of Glass EP:

• Bright Lights Big City
• Monkey On My Back
• Field Of Glass

The rest:

• Dear Miss Lonelyhearts
• Native Bride
• Beautiful Waste

A Personal View:

Beautiful Waste and other songs

Beautiful Waste and other songs is a collection of some of those songs that did not appear on a full length album but are important and well loved songs in The Triffids catalogue.

Dave always had more songs than he could possibly use and most of them were very good as witnessed by the B-sides that graced official singles and the side projects that were undertaken at all stages of The Triffids’ career. The years ’83 to ’85 were particularly fruitful. Beautiful Waste brings together a collection of songs that never made it onto an official album release but are important songs in the overall catalogue. It begins with the astonishing Raining Pleasure EP/mini album. I smile whenever I hear it – the production is brim full of ideas, sound effects, sirens, backwards tape, smoky jazz piano. It’s a year or so after Treeless Plain and the bar has been raised. Jill Birt, keyboardist until then, was talked into singing the song Raining Pleasure and it was a stroke of genius. Her innocent tones singing this song of desperate carnality make for a piece of music that was far beyond the capabilities of most of the more successful Australian acts at the time. And quite a few of them are generous enough to admit it.

Lawson Square Infirmary

Just before The Triffids travelled to the UK for the first time in 1984, all members minus Jill Birt recorded an acoustic live recording long before “unplugged” was ever heard of. They were joined by a songwriting collaborator of Daves, James Paterson and a friend of James’ – me. The songs all had a country lilt to them. I played dobro, James sang one of his songs and a good time was had by all in a recording hall at the Sydney Opera House in the early hours of the morning. It’s something of a precursor to the more fully realised In the Pines recording of a couple of years later and it was released under the name Lawson Square Infirmary. The Triffids shared a rambling, run down house in Lawson Square, Redfern in Sydney. LSI neatly illustrates Dave’s quest for diversity and the prodigious output of songs he had at the time.

Field Of Glass

Hold onto your hats as the final crystalline notes of LSI fade. You’re in for the same rude awakening fans of The Triffids more conventional, hook laden sounds had when the band got back from the UK. The Field Of Glass EP was a psychodrama from beginning to end (thanks James), with a ferocious, partly improvised maelstrom of a sound to match the tortured, twisted and sometimes very funny lyrics. It’s as far as you can get from the sound of LSI as possible. Nothing The Triffids had done to this point could have prepared listeners for the onslaught of Field Of Glass. And nothing the band did since has matched it in that particular territory.

A single that was recorded in ’85 but never released featuring two exquisite rockers Native Bride (actually a much older song revamped) and Dear Miss Lonelyhearts, follows on from FOG. Much more conventional in sound but just as forceful for that. It’s astonishing that songs like these could be on the bottom of any pile. Last comes the title track, a single release from the time between Treeless Plain and Raining Pleasure. It’s a majestic, anthemic song that you’d think could not fail to be a big hit, but it did just that of course.