The Remains
Encyclopedia
The Remains were a mid-1960s rock group from Boston, Massachusetts, led by Barry Tashian, who later was harmony vocalist and guitarist for Emmylou Harris
and part of the duo, Barry and Holly Tashian
. The Remains performed in Boston in 1964 and 1965, playing The Rathskeller
where fans lined up from Kenmore Square
to Fenway Park
to see them.
They are best known for being one of the opening acts of The Beatles
' final US tour in 1966.
Although associated with the garage rock
scene, the Remains were highly accomplished professional musicians and their recordings, while hard-edged, are notably well-produced and arranged. The band enjoyed a local hit with their version of the Bo Diddley
/Willie Dixon
classic "Diddy Wah Diddy
". Despite considerable local success and strong critical acclaim (including an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show
), the band failed to break through on a national level and folded in late 1966. However, in common with many of their garage rock contemporaries, the Remains gradually acquired a cult
status, and eventually reformed to play at several garage revival shows such as Cavestomp in New York City
during the late 1990s, Las Vegas Grind
in 2000 and a tour of major European cities in 2006. They recorded a new album in 2003.
The band's first and last singles, "Why Do I Cry" and "Don't Look Back
" respectively, are both featured on the Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era box set.
Their single "Why Do I Cry" is featured briefly in the film Superbad (2007) when the character McLovin is being taken to a party in a police car.
In 2007, Epic/Legacy came out with a reissue of The Remains' 1966 album, which received the following review from rock journalist, Mark Kemp
, in Paste Magazine (June 2007): "Had these Boston bad boys stuck it out beyond their 1966 debut, we might today be calling them--and not the Stones--the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band. As it is, The Remains most certainly are America's greatest lost band."
Kemp's praise echoes the well-known critique written 40 years earlier by rock critic (and subsequently Bruce Springsteen
's manager), Jon Landau
, in Crawdaddy!
magazine (January 1967): "They were how you told a stranger about rock'n'roll."
In 2008, the world premiere of a documentary about The Remains, "America's Lost Band," directed by Michael Stich
, took place at the Boston Film Festival
. Steve Simels, Boxoffice Magazine
, describes the film as "a fascinating retelling of one of the great what-might-have-been stories of American music of the '60s."
The Remains' story was also the subject of a stage musical at the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival
, "All Good Things," which received acclaim from a variety of critics. (60sgaragebands.com, News & Nuggets, August 31, 2004).
In 2010, The Remains released a new song about the Boston Red Sox, "Monbo Time," that was done as a tribute to the 1960s Red Sox pitcher, Bill Monbouquette. The Remains pledged that they were donating 50% of the revenues they receive from sales of the song to cancer research. (06880danwoog.com, April 23, 2010; Boston Herald, April 22, 2010).
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
and part of the duo, Barry and Holly Tashian
Barry and Holly Tashian
Barry and Holly Tashian are an American country, folk and bluegrass duo. They are both singer-songwriters and musicians. They have performed and recorded together since 1972...
. The Remains performed in Boston in 1964 and 1965, playing The Rathskeller
The Rathskeller
The Rathskeller was a Kenmore Square live music venue in Boston, Massachusetts that was open from 1974 to 1997. As implied by its name "Ratskeller" , the Rathskeller was a dimly-lit establishment...
where fans lined up from Kenmore Square
Kenmore Square
Kenmore Square is a square in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, consisting of the intersection of several main avenues as well as several other cross streets, and Kenmore Station, an MBTA subway stop. Kenmore Square is close to or abuts Boston University, Fenway Park, and Lansdowne Street, a...
to Fenway Park
Fenway Park
Fenway Park is a baseball park near Kenmore Square in Boston, Massachusetts. Located at 4 Yawkey Way, it has served as the home ballpark of the Boston Red Sox baseball club since it opened in 1912, and is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium currently in use. It is one of two "classic"...
to see them.
They are best known for being one of the opening acts of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' final US tour in 1966.
Although associated with the garage rock
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
scene, the Remains were highly accomplished professional musicians and their recordings, while hard-edged, are notably well-produced and arranged. The band enjoyed a local hit with their version of the Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
/Willie Dixon
Willie Dixon
William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...
classic "Diddy Wah Diddy
Diddy Wah Diddy
"Diddy Wah Diddy" is a song written by Willie Dixon and Ellas McDaniel—known as Bo Diddley—and recorded by the latter in 1956. Over the years, the song has been covered by many bands and artists, including The Astronauts, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, The Remains, The Twilights, Taj Mahal,...
". Despite considerable local success and strong critical acclaim (including an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
), the band failed to break through on a national level and folded in late 1966. However, in common with many of their garage rock contemporaries, the Remains gradually acquired a cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
status, and eventually reformed to play at several garage revival shows such as Cavestomp in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during the late 1990s, Las Vegas Grind
Las Vegas Grind
Las Vegas Grind was a festival held in 1999 and 2000 at the Gold Coast Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The programs for these festivals consisted of bands that were inspired by, or actually were part of, the garage rock genre of music of the 1960s...
in 2000 and a tour of major European cities in 2006. They recorded a new album in 2003.
The band's first and last singles, "Why Do I Cry" and "Don't Look Back
Don't Look Back (The Remains song)
"Don't Look Back" was The Remains' last single on Epic Records. The song was composed by B. Vera, who is Billy Vera , who composed and recorded "Storybook Children" for Atlantic Records. "Don't Look Back" was released as Epic 10060 in 1966...
" respectively, are both featured on the Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era box set.
Their single "Why Do I Cry" is featured briefly in the film Superbad (2007) when the character McLovin is being taken to a party in a police car.
In 2007, Epic/Legacy came out with a reissue of The Remains' 1966 album, which received the following review from rock journalist, Mark Kemp
Mark Kemp
Mark Kemp is an American music journalist and author. A graduate of East Carolina University, he has served as music editor of Rolling Stone and vice president of music editorial for MTV Networks...
, in Paste Magazine (June 2007): "Had these Boston bad boys stuck it out beyond their 1966 debut, we might today be calling them--and not the Stones--the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band. As it is, The Remains most certainly are America's greatest lost band."
Kemp's praise echoes the well-known critique written 40 years earlier by rock critic (and subsequently Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
's manager), Jon Landau
Jon Landau
Jon Landau is an American music critic, manager and record producer, most known for his association in all three capacities with Bruce Springsteen.He is currently the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame....
, in Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy! was the first U.S. magazine of rock and roll music criticism. Created in 1966 by college student Paul Williams in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music, Crawdaddy! was self-described as "the first magazine to take rock and roll...
magazine (January 1967): "They were how you told a stranger about rock'n'roll."
In 2008, the world premiere of a documentary about The Remains, "America's Lost Band," directed by Michael Stich
Michael Stich
Michael Detlef Stich is a former professional tennis player from Germany. He is best remembered for winning the men's singles title at Wimbledon in 1991...
, took place at the Boston Film Festival
Boston Film Festival
Boston Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Boston in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It has been held annually since 1984, usually in early September....
. Steve Simels, Boxoffice Magazine
Boxoffice (magazine)
Boxoffice is a film industry magazine dedicated to the movie theatre business published by Boxoffice Media LP. It started in 1920 as The Reel Journal, taking its current name in 1931 and still publishes today, with an intended audience of theatre owners and film professionals.Boxoffice is the...
, describes the film as "a fascinating retelling of one of the great what-might-have-been stories of American music of the '60s."
The Remains' story was also the subject of a stage musical at the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival
New York International Fringe Festival
The New York International Fringe Festival, or FringeNYC, is a Fringe theater festival and one of the largest multi-arts events in North America. It takes place over the course of two weeks every August, spread across several neighborhoods in downtown Manhattan, notably the Lower East Side, the...
, "All Good Things," which received acclaim from a variety of critics. (60sgaragebands.com, News & Nuggets, August 31, 2004).
In 2010, The Remains released a new song about the Boston Red Sox, "Monbo Time," that was done as a tribute to the 1960s Red Sox pitcher, Bill Monbouquette. The Remains pledged that they were donating 50% of the revenues they receive from sales of the song to cancer research. (06880danwoog.com, April 23, 2010; Boston Herald, April 22, 2010).
Members
- Barry Tashian - guitar/vocals (born 5 August 1945, Oak Park, IllinoisOak Park, IllinoisOak Park, Illinois is a suburb bordering the west side of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the twenty-fifth largest municipality in Illinois. Oak Park has easy access to downtown Chicago due to public transportation such as the Chicago 'L' Blue and Green lines,...
) - Bill Briggs - keyboards/vocals (born 19 March 1945, Battle Creek, MichiganMichiganMichigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
) - Vern Miller - bass/vocals (born 31 January 1945, OrangeOrange, New JerseyThe City of Orange is a city and township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 30,134...
, New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
) - Rudolph "Chip" Damiani - drums (born 16 June 1945, WaterburyWaterburyWaterbury is a city in Connecticut in the United States.Waterbury may also refer to any one of the following:-Places:United States*Waterbury, Nebraska*Waterbury, Vermont*Waterbury , Vermont,a village within the town of Waterbury, Vermont....
, ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
) (1964-1966, 1998-) - N.D. Smart - drums (1966)