R A I N E R' S M U S I C

"It's a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll" (ACDC)

His genre is a fusion of various influences from jazz and rock culminating in an original "wall of sound" style, often with full orchestration. His lyrics are original - often ballads and sometimes based on poetry by Leonard Cohen and others.

You can view his whaling protest song incorporating actual whales singing in "it's not too late" on youtube. Also his critique of man's mismanagement of the planet in "dead Wallum Frog" .

And continuing in his theme of all things dead try "dead man's boat" . Then there is "and love itself was gone", a poem by Leonard Cohen which he published before he found out that Cohen had himself recorded it ( a totally different version of course). You may also enjoy Rainer's racy "Andalusian Sky", his protest song "let go of my hand" and the spooky "everyone burns with shame"

There is a selection of some of his audio tracks below. They can be played and downloaded free.

Head phones are recommended.

The Red Onions were arguably the greatest influence on the burgeoning Australian music scene in the early 1960's.

Hear the Red Onions' first ever recording, live at the Kew Town Hall in 1963.

Many kids who went on to become world ranking musicians cut their teeth at

the Onion Patch in Oakleigh.

Olivia Newton John had her stage debut there. Glen Shorrock of the Little River Band and Brian Cadd of Axiom were also regulars. Rainer joined the Red Onions with Gerry Humphries after they had been playing as a three-man skiffle group in various dives around Melbourne. Gerry (and two other Red Onion members) later formed the Loved Ones, rated amongst the top ten Australian bands of all time. They were recently inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

Rainer had started his musical career in a duet with Trevor Lucas who later formed the British rock group

"Fairport Convention" with Sandy Denny, whom he married.

They had a world number one hit with the hauntingly beautiful "Who knows where the time goes?"

INXS had a world number one covering the Loved Ones' "The Loved One".

Rainer left the Red Onions after three years on banjo, guitar and vocals when he failed second-year university. He continued to experiment with various music genres, recording with the very first generation Moog synthesiser, and overlaying with two four-track tape-recorders. In the 1980's he progressed to Atari sequencing software until Mac took over the digital music scene.