Raffa and Rainer are so cool, they don't even hold total ignorance against you.

Softer Rock
The Very Short Story of Raffa, Rainer and A Pretentious New Writer

By David Tanner

I sit here, needle in hand, delicately sewing my tongue to the inside lining of my right cheek.

I’m surfing the Internet with my feet to dictionary.com, past the annoying pop-ups I manage, after many missteps (ah ha), to find the entry I’m looking for: pretension. 

Certainly folk acoustic duo Raffa and Rainer don’t fit the definition. (Try your hand at surfing, preferably with your hands, to their Myspace site at myspace.com/raffaandrainer.) Don’t get confused by the profile pic, and stay a while.

Oh my, great googly-moogly, do they rock.

Truthfully, until recently, I hadn’t taken the opportunity to peruse this modest sampling of their catalog, and through their storied career I’ve managed to show up late, and just miss their performance, every time. However, after an afternoon listening to their latest album “Stolen Coal,” I dragged my weary ass to a performance at Books & Books in Coral Gables. 

Books & Books is killer, a long-standing local bookstore that owner Mitch Kaplan has kept going in spite of the opening of one big-store-book-barn after another. (In your face corporate tyranny!)

I showed up, late again (doh!), with my wife and kid in tow. Apparently I’m quite the professional.  I declined an apricot ale from a friend, and found that Raffa and Rainer were set up in the central courtyard just past the entrance where locals were busy assisting me with my consternation over definitions. 

The main seating area was packed with patrons, pinkies extended toward the sky, shooting derisive glances at one clique or another as Raffa crooned on.  She has a brilliant voice — it’s as if she’s at times channeling Billie Holiday while aptly holding down the rhythm guitar, as Rainer accents her tone with perfectly placed pluckings of juicy goodness.  At this performance the duo was accompanied by a bassist cradling an upright, true to their motto of “rock a little softer.”  Their style is a folksy acoustic feel. Raffa illustrates her musings on life and love in a way that makes you wanna light a candle, make a salad, and kick back on your favorite front porch swing, lazily watching fireflies careen through the night and crash into your cars windshield, trying to make sweet love to the flashing LED of your car alarm. 

Unfortunately this is Miami, and it’s the middle of summer.  I smiled as the chic crowd lightly daubed at their collective sweat-beaded brow, high-priced makeup dripping into the merlot.  Don’t be fooled, the Raffa and Rainer faithful were there in force, mixing it up with the need-to-be-seen Coral Gables regulars. 

I got a chance to talk to the duo during a break between the two sets, as newly-minted fans clamored for a disc and personal interface. 

I should have done more prep work. 

Turns out the album is old, and between appearances Raffa and Rainer are currently in the studio working on a new album that is due in a few months.  I asked about the Wednesday night open mic that the two used to run at Churchill’s Pub in Miami and was greeted with a vacant stare.

“We stopped doing that a while ago,” Raffa said with a smile. (Both she and Rainer were quite gracious, even with my bumble-assed interview style.)  I slinked away to my family and crawled back to suburbia with my tail between my legs, knowing full well just how pretentious a guy writing a music column can be.

Maybe next time I'll have that beer.

Raffa and Rainer will perform on Friday, July 31 at 9 p.m., at Soya e Pomodoro, 120 N.E. First St., in Miami. The show is free.

They will also perform at 9 p.m. on Aug. 1 at the Dada Restaurant and Bar, 52 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach, free; At 7 p.m. on Aug. 22 at Respectable Street, 518 Clematis St, West Palm Beach, free; and at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 10 at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Fort Lauderdale, 3970 N.W. 21st Ave, Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $12.

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