MacKinnon formed the band with school friend Peter Raengel in 1979 with third member Resident (born Dennis Kennedy) joining in 1982. While there was a number of other musicians who played with the band during the 1980s, this trio was the longest incarnation of the band. MacKinnon and Raengel met in Year 5 at Wollongong Primary School and went right through Wollongong High School together. "It was while we were in high school, we each bought a $30 Kmart guitar and just started playing in his bedroom through a little amp. "We started playing music in high school with a friend, and then after high school, decided to form a band. A friend of ours who was at school was the one who called us the Sunday Painters. It was after one the Impressionists, it might have been Monet, who was sometimes called the Sunday Painter because he had a day job and that was what it was like for us. "We had day jobs and this was something we did on the side."
While Raengel had a musical background - having learned piano as a child - MacKinnon pretty much worked out how to play guitar himself. That approach no doubt adds to the unique sound of the Sunday Painters. "I don't really consider myself a musician as such," MacKinnon said. "I don't think I'm good enough. We used to joke that the reason we played our own material was that we weren't good enough to be a covers band." The band was very much influenced by the punk scene of the late 1970s - in terms of the DIY attitude, the socio-political songwriting and the embrace of creative art.
The two Peters – Raengel and MacKinnon – formed Sunday Painters after they left Wollongong High School. The releases would be recorded themselves and put out on their own Terminal Records label. The covers were works of art - one EP would come with three different covers; another featured an individually made and coloured cover for each of the 250 vinyl EPs. A cassette release featured Raengel's bloodstains on each of the 100 copies. "Should we be putting them up surreptitiously on eBay and see how much we can get for them? It'd be like 'wow, we finally made some money out of this album'." Today, it's easy for a band to get their music heard around the world. All they have to do is post it online.
But in the 1980s it was much harder - to listen to a band you either had to have a physical copy of their album or know someone who did. Add to that, the fact Sunday Painters never released more than 500 of any record - and in some cases just 250 - the odds of any of them winding up overseas seemed slim to none. "In terms of pressings of albums, we're only talking in the 100s that were ever pressed," MacKinnon said. "For some of them we didn't have a distributor, but we found some of our stuff was ending up in other countries. "Peter got contacted from Germany, the UK and the US. Some of our stuff used to get played on university radio stations in the US back in the day. "So it was filtering out there."
Some of those vinyl releases ended up in Boston, where Michael Train was a college radio DJ. A friend named Chuck sold underground rock in the US and would put together compilation tapes of bands to introduce his buyers to bands they'd never heard of. "Most bands as sonically inventive as they were don't have the pop smarts to get all their ideas into tight songs," Train said. "And they had emotional range too - from tenderness to fury in a beat." Driven by a desire for more people to hear this band from Wollongong, Train initially planned to release a double CD of the Sunday Painters himself. He eventually turned to friend Kevin Pedersen, who runs US indie label What's Your Rupture, for help. The result was a compilation album titled 'In My Dreams' released in 2015. The album collected all three singles transferred from the original reels by Rick O'Neil at Turtlerock Mastering in Sydney and remastered by Jonny Schenke in Brooklyn. The album also contains nine more from "On The Beach 1," a live cassette released as only a handful of copies. Recorded 11 February 1983 at Melbourne's Venetian Room.
"Given how determined Peter Raengel and the other Painters were to get as much music as possible from the far side of the world - New York, Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Ohio - and then turning it into something new, it feels right that a New York label should now be involved," Train said. "It reminds us that the best art freely crosses borders." The news of the re-release pleased MacKinnon, partially because it means he'll be able to own copies of all the band's stuff again. "We're pretty chuffed that there's this interest from overseas," MacKinnon said. "Again I'm certainly not expecting to make any money out of it. That never was the point of the exercise." The band itself never really broke up but rather "petered out" (an apt descriptor for a band with two Peters) in the early 1990s. MacKinnon reckoned the last gig was at the Star Cafe in Port Kembla in 1992. Peter Raengel died in 2007. Dennis Kennedy died in 2015.
Peter Raengel (vocals, guitar, bass, sequencing), Peter MacKinnon (bowed guitar, rhythm guitar), Dennis Kennedy (bass, guitar)
References
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2805252/the-wollongong-80s-band-unappreciated-in-their-time/
The two Peters – Raengel and MacKinnon – formed Sunday Painters after they left Wollongong High School. The releases would be recorded themselves and put out on their own Terminal Records label. The covers were works of art - one EP would come with three different covers; another featured an individually made and coloured cover for each of the 250 vinyl EPs. A cassette release featured Raengel's bloodstains on each of the 100 copies. "Should we be putting them up surreptitiously on eBay and see how much we can get for them? It'd be like 'wow, we finally made some money out of this album'." Today, it's easy for a band to get their music heard around the world. All they have to do is post it online.
But in the 1980s it was much harder - to listen to a band you either had to have a physical copy of their album or know someone who did. Add to that, the fact Sunday Painters never released more than 500 of any record - and in some cases just 250 - the odds of any of them winding up overseas seemed slim to none. "In terms of pressings of albums, we're only talking in the 100s that were ever pressed," MacKinnon said. "For some of them we didn't have a distributor, but we found some of our stuff was ending up in other countries. "Peter got contacted from Germany, the UK and the US. Some of our stuff used to get played on university radio stations in the US back in the day. "So it was filtering out there."
Some of those vinyl releases ended up in Boston, where Michael Train was a college radio DJ. A friend named Chuck sold underground rock in the US and would put together compilation tapes of bands to introduce his buyers to bands they'd never heard of. "Most bands as sonically inventive as they were don't have the pop smarts to get all their ideas into tight songs," Train said. "And they had emotional range too - from tenderness to fury in a beat." Driven by a desire for more people to hear this band from Wollongong, Train initially planned to release a double CD of the Sunday Painters himself. He eventually turned to friend Kevin Pedersen, who runs US indie label What's Your Rupture, for help. The result was a compilation album titled 'In My Dreams' released in 2015. The album collected all three singles transferred from the original reels by Rick O'Neil at Turtlerock Mastering in Sydney and remastered by Jonny Schenke in Brooklyn. The album also contains nine more from "On The Beach 1," a live cassette released as only a handful of copies. Recorded 11 February 1983 at Melbourne's Venetian Room.
"Given how determined Peter Raengel and the other Painters were to get as much music as possible from the far side of the world - New York, Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Ohio - and then turning it into something new, it feels right that a New York label should now be involved," Train said. "It reminds us that the best art freely crosses borders." The news of the re-release pleased MacKinnon, partially because it means he'll be able to own copies of all the band's stuff again. "We're pretty chuffed that there's this interest from overseas," MacKinnon said. "Again I'm certainly not expecting to make any money out of it. That never was the point of the exercise." The band itself never really broke up but rather "petered out" (an apt descriptor for a band with two Peters) in the early 1990s. MacKinnon reckoned the last gig was at the Star Cafe in Port Kembla in 1992. Peter Raengel died in 2007. Dennis Kennedy died in 2015.
Members
References
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2805252/the-wollongong-80s-band-unappreciated-in-their-time/
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