Garage-Mania with Robby and the Nurse

Tight is Right

    The Remains are one of the best garage rock bands we play on Garage-Mania, the Internet radio show I host with my zany sidekick, Nurse Cheril. Streaming in from Cerritos College, our show can be heard on wpmd.org and on demand from my Web site, robbyrussel Ishow.com.
    If you are a Beatles fan, you may be familiar with the Remains, also known as Barry and the Remains. They were one of the warm-up bands for the Beatles’ last tour of America in 1966. But for rock fans growing up in New England in the mid-sixties, the Remains were much more than an answer to a trivia question—they were Boston’s number-one rock band. The Remains indeed had an impressive list of accomplishments. In a short period of time, from 1964 until their break up in 1966, with TV appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and Hullabaloo, an Epic recording contract and the reputation of being Boston’s hottest live act. Despite all that, The Remains were rarely heard outside of New York and New England. The band broke up shortly after the Beatles tour, and their one and only album not promoted and thus floundered.
    The Remains were formed in 1964 by Barry Tashian on guitar and vocals, Vera Miller Jr. on bass and Rudolph “Chip” Damiani on drums. The band met when they were students at Boston University in 1964 and got their first gig playing once a week for $25 and beer at Gene Brezniak’s Lounge Bar in Kenmore Square. That summer, Tashian traveled to Europe where he got to hear the British Invasion groups like the Kinks, Yardbirds and others that had a tremendous influence on the Remains. In the fall of 1964, keyboardist Bill Briggs joined the band and the Remains started getting a reputation for being a great live act.
    By November 1964, the Lounge Bar’s cellar bar was now called the Rathskeller and featured live music. The Remains started to pack the club, performing on a low stage built from planks and milk crates. Soon fans were waiting in long lines to get in, and within a few months the Remains surpassed the Barbarians and the Lost as Boston’s top act. Epic Records took notice, and after an audition immediately signed them. The band took a year off from school to further their musical careers.
    The Remains had a sharp, tight and amazingly powerful sound. They wrote intelligently crafted songs, and they rocked. Onstage, they were a wild act, jumping around and playing very loud, but they were also very disciplined, and thoroughly rehearsed. They traveled with four 200-watt amplifiers and bought expensive equipment that they couldn’t afford with their earnings. However they never could capture that live driving sound properly in the recording studio.
    In January 1965, during a frantic two-day period in New York, the band recorded several originals such as “Why Do 1. Cry?,” “Ain’t That Her,” “When I Want to Know” and five others, including “All Good Things”—an outstanding showcase piece for Briggs on his keyboards. On June 24 at another New York session, the Remains recorded their gem “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming.” Colin Fleming, in an article about the Remains in Goidmine Magazine (April 16 2004), describes the song “as a mid-sixties blues-rock high point. The song quickens and pulls back in lively intervals with the vengeful aplomb of a Bob Dylan kiss-off. Tashian’s guitar initiates a hyped-up variant on the Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night.” In January 1966, at a recording session in Nashville, they recorded their second and third singles “1 Can’t Get Away from You” and “Diddy Wah Diddy.” The latter—the only Remains song to chart nationally (#129, April 1966)—had the misfortune to be released about the same time the Captain Beefheart version was released. The Remains’ first single, “Why Do I Cry?,” became an instant hit in Boston, reaching number 5, but did not chart nationally. This is a great song and a very popular Garage-Mania Show track. The booklet from the Rhino Box Set, Nuggets Vol. 1 liner notes describes the song as “employing a great midtempo groove, with Tashian’s guitar and Bill Briggs’s Wurlitzer piano meshing effectively behind the passionately delivered vocal. Also notable is the imaginative bridge, which typified Tashian’s songwriting style and demonstrates how The Remains were producing material easily on a par with the best British groups of the period.”    

 Their final single, "Don't Look Back”—a Garage-Mania classic, was released in August of 1966, coinciding with the Beatles tour. The song was written by musician Billy Vera, who occasionally writes for RCN. It also features the group's new drummer, 17-year-old N.D. Smart, who replaced Damiani when he declined to go on the Beatles tour. This song rocks from the very first chord, and is the Remains' finest moment-a song for the ages. It should have been a major hit record.
    In fact Billy sent us an incredible rare cover of the song by Robert Plant that can probably only be heard on Garage-Mania. It was originally recorded for, and intended to be on, Plant's album Manic Nirvana, but only made it to the promo CD. Then, this year, it was included on the Rhino Robert Plant box set, Nine Lives. On the day after Christmas 1965, the Remains appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. The band was an unlikely choice because they didn't have a record album or a hit single. They played “Let Me Through,” a song that they had just written, Unfortunately, Miller's amp blew up in rehearsals and he had to borrow one at the last moment. There were also complaints that on the show the band members were positioned too far apart from one another. I have personally watched this performance on a DVD with old TV videos and was blown away by how professional and tight they really were. That is one of the reasons I wrote this article. Disappointed with how the show went, they never recorded the song. Still, their good luck continued to such an extent that even without a hit, they landed an appearance on April 4, 1966 on NBC's Hullabaloo when they sang a backing track of”Diddy Wah Diddy.”
    Feeling that Epic Records was partially to blame for their lack of record sales and not promoting their efforts enough, The Remains auditioned in New York City on May 26, 1966 for Capitol Records. They had just played a gig at Ondine, a popular club the night before, and had only two hours to record. The session was recorded monaurally, with no opportunity to double-track their voices or Instruments
    “We just plugged and went from there,” Tashian said. “We played mostly covers; we were having too good a time to think of anything else.” Some of the songs recorded that day were an excellent version of “Hang On Sloopy,” “All Day and All of the Night,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and a new version of “Why Do I Cry?” superior to the first studio version, and five other audition songs. Band members have long said that these are the only recordings that come close to capturing the band's energy and excitement of their live shows. To the band's dismay, Capitol passed. In 1966, Sundazed released it as A Session with the Remains, with five additional studio rehearsals as a bonus. This album is worth seeking out for your record collection.
    The Remains were booked solid into the summer of 1966 with gigs in New England and New York when the band was offered a supporting billing on what was to become the Beatles last tour. The Cyrcle, who had the big hit penned by Paul Simon, “Red Rubber Ball,” also were chosen for the tour. Chip Damiani decided to not go on the tour and was replaced by Smart. The Remains backed up The Ronnettes-minus Ronnie Spector-and Bobby Hebb of “Sunny” fame. In addition, they had a 20-minute set of their own music.
    Here was the band's set list: “Hang on Sloopy,” “Why Do I Cry?” “Diddy Wah Diddy,” “Thank You,” “Don't Look Back” and “I'm A Man.” As the tour got underway, “Don't Look Back” was released the same day as a new Beatles album Revolver.
    This three-week Beatles tour was filled with tension. John Lennon's “We're more popular than Jesus” remarks were misconstrued through out the country, especially in the Bible Belt. There were anti-Beatles campaigns springing up everywhere, and bonfires burning Beatles records and merchandise. Security was tripled because of death threats, and one show was delayed because of a bomb scare. If you are interested in the Beatles, the Remains or both, check Barry Tashian's account about the Beatles' last tour in his book Ticket to Ride.
    Shortly after the Beatles tour, Tashian did the unthinkable: he disbanded the group, He told Blitz Magazine: “I'm not even sure why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
    Remains fans were in total shock. They were the hottest band in New England, were heavily booked for months and gained priceless publicity from the Beatles tour. Furthermore, their album was just about to be released. But there were many reasons for the breakup. The band was impatient due to the fact they never had a national hit record. They were disappointed that Capitol Records rejected them for an album deal, and there was a logistics problem: Smart lived in Ohio, and that would have made touring New York and New England difficult. Rock was changing, and the members were growing as musicians and going in different directions, Nevertheless; the Remains still had engagements running into November 1966, Their album was released in September but they never toured to promote it. Their final show was at Bowdoin College in Maine and that was the end of Barry and the Remains The band reunited in 1976 for awhile, and toured Spain and Europe in 1998. In 2002, they released a new album titled Movin' On with the original band members and all new recordings. Tashian has been involved over the years with- Gram Parsons, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Emmylou Harris among Others, and has had a brilliant career since the Remains. One can make an argument that the Remains are one of the most overlooked rock bands of all time. The members were exceptionally good musicians and had a lot of talent. Their guitars are Rolling Stones heavy, with their sound relying on hard electric keyboards, wild song-ending accelerations, major-minor chord blends and strong powerful vocals. They are now known mainly as a garage band because of the inclusion of two of their songs on the Rhino Nuggets Box Set; however, they do not truly belong in that classification. Many garage bands are judged more on raw enthusiasm than talent. However, the Remains were extremely talented, producing music up to the level of the top British Invasion groups of the mid-sixties rave-up sound. If there was an American version of the Yardbird's sound, they were it. It is no surprise to me, after researching this article, why the Remains ruled Boston in the mid-sixties and were maybe the most underrated band of that era. Their live shows are also now legendary as well.
    Please check out our radio show, Garage-Mania. We play punk, garage and psych rock from the sixties and seventies. Many of our songs are sent to us from our faithful listeners, and you will not hear them anywhere else. Plus, we guarantee you a fun time with our 20— 20 Wacky Newscasts and our cast of zany characters, including our radio psychiatrist Mary Jane and her useful advice on her Tips for Teens segment. We would love to send a free copy to any reader of RCN. Just e-mail us at my Web site at www.robbyrussellshow.com. New on our Web site: several short two-minute animation films created by cartoonist Joey the K.

GARAGE-MANIA – Live Saturdays
1 to 3 PM on www.wpmd.org
Replays 5-7 AM, 9 TO 11 PM, I TO 3AM
Click on the alternative stream
New!! Go to www.robbyrussellshow.com
Click On Demand to hear past shows
All times are Pacific

This article written by Robby Russell first appeared in printed form in the record magazine RECORD CONVENTION NEWS it is copyrighted by RECORD CONVENTION NEWS and GARAGE-MANIA . I authorize all future and past articles can be used by VAGUE Magazine with my permission.