Barry Tashian and the Day of the Remains

Story by Bill Kopp

In 1966, an R&B-influenced band -- one that had considerable local following in Boston but was largely unknown outside that region -- got the opportunity of a lifetime: they would be touring with the Beatles. On what would become the Beatles' final USA tour, The Remains (also known as Barry and the Remains) toured and lived with the Beatles for two weeks. Once the tour was over, the group broke up, and shortly thereafter, their sole album was released.

For a lesser band, that would have been the end of the story. But thanks to inclusion of a Remains track on the Lenny Kaye-curated Nuggets compilation -- and due to the sheer quality of the Remains' music -- interest in the band bubbled under, never really going away. Decades later the group reunited; the original quartet now performs a handful of select dates each year. New reissues of the band's slim but essential catalog are available, and both a stage play and motion picture have been put together to chronicle the Remains phenomenon.

The young band got its start in the Boston area in the early 60s. The Remains tuned in to a British influenced a bit sooner than many of their contemporaries. "I would account for that because of my summer in London and Europe in 1964," says Remains leader Barry Tashian. "I picked up the flavor of some of the British music I heard over there and must have retained some part of it." Tashian observes that the Boston music scene in 1964-5 was made up of band that "continued to play contemporary American rock n' roll and pop music."

"We were middle class blokes," he says. "You absorb what you listen to. And we listened to a lot of great 50's rock, R&B, and blues/jazz artists. So, we picked up a certain amount of the vernacular and musical motifs from those great recordings. I don't think we were typical because, from the start, we had a very identifiable sound. Because of the philosophy of listening to each other, we became very tight, very soon after forming. We could jam together free-form and always find ourselves in the end. There was a climax to every Remains performance. At first we thought we were just a jamming unit...but it soon evolved into something stronger, with an intention and ambition that, sooner or later, surmounted our challenges."

The group was signed to Epic Records in 1965, and laid down ten tracks. But the album didn't come out until many months later, and the band felt that the Epic sessions didn't capture the group's energy. Frustrated with Epic, the band and its management decided to make some overtures to the Beatles' U.S. label, Capitol Records. In early 1966, they secured a live-in-the-studio demo session date in New York City.

The 1966 demo session released as A Session With the Remains has a raw, meters-in-the-red ambience that has more in common with the Stooges or the Velvet Underground than with most pop groups of the era. On the session tapes Barry Tashian can clearly be heard imploring his band mates to hurry up, that they only had a limited amount of time. So was the raw vibe intentional or merely a byproduct of a hurried session? "I think," says Tashian, "the reason for that sound is that we recorded direct to two-track. No mixing, no overdubbing. That's just how it went down. The engineer who ran the machines was in the control booth; a friend of ours was manually riding the guitar volume upward during the solo, while it was going down!"

Tashian explains the whole motivation for the New York sessions: "It was a kind of a move on our part to see what Capitol thought of us. It was an audition. Because we were really wanting to make it, and we wanted to be as successful as we could. Our energies were all pushing in that direction." He says that the guys in the band all thought, "'Hey, maybe Epic is not doing as much for you guys as maybe they should be. And maybe Capitol wants you.' Because originally before we signed with Columbia, Capitol had called a number of times saying, 'Listen — Capitol is really interested in you.'" But in late '64 nothing had come of that, and the Remains signed with Epic. Yet a year and half later, the band did the audition for Capitol. "And what is interesting," observes Tashian, "is that while it did not produce a deal for us with Capitol, it did produce the only true example of what we sounded like playing live. We were just running our set."

The band's management at the time included John Kurland, later to find (slightly) greater fame with The Nazz, featuring a young Todd Rundgren. "John was hired as a publicist by our booking agent (and kind of 'loose' manager) John Stukas with Music Productions. And so John came up to Boston with his buddy, Bob Bonus. John Kurland was a publicist; Ivor Associates was the name of his company. Bonus worked with General Artists Corporation (GAC) booking agency; they put the Beatles tour together, and were working with a lot of English acts. They were the first American company that put tours together for the Stones and the Kinks."

"So," Tashian continues, "they came up to see us play at a place in Kenmore Square called Where It’s At. And it was just during that time when we were just playing really very strong shows, which we did that night too, and they just witnessed one of the Remains gigs." Tashian says that nothing definite seemed to result from the visit: "It was kind of like, 'Well, if you come to New York, say "hi"' or something. But I took it farther than that. I decided we had to go to New York, because I had talked with my friend Monty Dunn, a guitarist who had played with Judy Collins and some other folk people. One day Monty just said to me, 'If you really wanna make it, you gotta go to New York.' So," Tashian laughs, "I said to myself, 'hmm…he must be right. He played on Sonny and Cher’s album!' I just told our booking agent, John Stukas that we were gonna move to New York, that we wanted to tie up all of our business and make a change. So, when I got to New York I went to John Kurland’s office and said 'here we are!'"

Remains manager John Kurland was soon instrumental in a lineup change. Drummer Chip Damiani left the group right before they went on a cross-country tour with the Beatles, and Kurland found a replacement drummer in N.D. (Norman) Smart. "I think he was seventeen years old," Barry Tashian recalls. "And there was no audition or anything. He just knocked on our door one day." After the Remains, Smart would go on to play with mime-rockers The Hello People, and Todd Rundgren.

Tashian continues, "We told Epic records that we didn’t like the way our records sounded when we recorded; we wanted a grittier sound. Bob Morgan said, 'Well, go to Nashville. You know, they know how to get gritty sounds down there!' So we drove down there in our Econoline van. When we arrived, we poured out of the van, went into the hotel and sat in the lobby for awhile. Eventually our producer showed up to help us check into the hotel, because we didn't know anything about that. And [that producer] turned out to be Billy Sherrill, the legendary producer of country and western and more. I mean, he produced Ray Charles!"

Tashian says that the group "got our best-sounding sides cut" in Nashville. "We cut in a studio that was originally built by Owen Bradley. It was the Quonset Hut, the first studio on Music Row. Columbia Records had purchased that studio. A lot of great records were made there: Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash."

Though Tashian wrote several songs for the group, including the immortal "Why Do I Cry," the most well-known Remains tune -- included on the original Nuggets compilation — would come from an outside writer. Tashian explains how the band came to record "Don't Look Back" by Billy Vera. "Before we went to Nashville, Billy Vera came to New York to meet us and to do some other things. And we cut one song in New York with Billy which was a song called "You Got a Hard Time Coming." While Billy was in New York he took us to his friend Al Gallico, the music publisher. And Al Gallico was given some acetates and demos…just two or three. I still have ‘em. And one of them was Billy Vera doing 'Don’t Look Back.' And it’s really very different from how the Remains would do it. And out of that batch that was the one song we ended up recording much later, back in New York. I think it was one of the last recording sessions we had."

Surprisingly, Tashian wasn't even aware of the Nuggets album (released in 1972) when it came out. "I wasn’t paying attention at all," he says. But he expresses pleasure with the expanded (4CD) re-release: "They added 'Why Do I Cry.'" As a songwriter, Tashian actually made some money from royalties when the Nuggets box sold well.

Remains bassist Vern Miller explains how the relatively-unknown group ended up on a tour with the biggest band in the world. "Bob Bonus was very involved in the organization and logistics of the 1966 tour. He came to us one day and just said, 'How would you guys like to be the opening act on The Beatles' tour?'" It was as simple as that. "While we had vowed never to be an 'opener' for anyone," Miller says, "we jokingly — but wisely — made an exception in this case."

The Remains toured with the Beatles, but on those dates they didn't simply play their own set. They served as the backing band for fellow travelers Bobby Hebb and the (Ronnie Spector-less) Ronettes. Asked how much preparation the Remains had for those sets, Tashian laughs. "Bobby Hebb rehearsed with us in New York. Once. At the top of the Steinway Building on 59th street there’s a big studio with Oriental carpets; it's beautiful, like a concert hall. That’s where we set up and rehearsed with Bobby. We never did rehearse with the Ronettes until Chicago. There, we set up on stage for the gig the day before the show, and they came in and ran their songs one time."

Subjected to primitive PA gear, the Beatles turned to their opening act for help. Tashian says that The Remains' sound man Bill Handley was "really a cutting-edge sound engineer." Handley had wanted to go on the tour, but "of course there was no provision for his being paid or anything. So," Tashian recalls, "he said, 'I don’t care. I’m gonna come out there anyway!' He drove from Medford Massachusetts to Chicago [1000 miles / 1600km], loaded in — unannounced, uninvited — and put all his good stuff in. Because he had great equipment." Prior to that, the acts were using PA designed for cattle auctions and worse. "Our vocals would be three or four seconds behind the music!" Tashian laughs.

Tashian's book Ticket to Ride documents much of the tour. "So that’s how it started, with the union guy saying 'whose equipment is this? You gotta use the house system!' And Beatles manager Brian Epstein came out and said, 'no, we’re going to use this stuff.' And then he hired Bill Handley to come along on the tour for everything east of the Mississippi. Bill would just shore up and jury-rig whatever he could at every venue to make the effect, and set up monitors if he could, or do whatever he could do." Tashian refers to photos in his book that show the performance stage set up on second base of a baseball diamond. "They just had these Voice of the Theater speakers kind of tilted back towards the grandstands, so sometimes Bill just turned one of those around" to use as a rudimentary stage monitor.

On the tour dates, the audience screaming started long before the Beatles ever took the stage. Tashian laughs and notes that "the only reason that really happened was because we were first. And everyone was so excited that 'the show’s underway…oh boy!' We’d get into the swing of things, and then later on as the Cyrkle and the Ronettes and Bobby Hebb did sets, it kind of calmed down. 'When are the Beatles coming on?' and that kind of thing. Though the first act on was kind of low on the totem pole, I think in this case it was really kind of a privileged position."

One of the most infamous moments of the Beatles ‘66 tour was the "cherry bomb incident" during the show in Memphis, Tennessee. Part way through the George Harrison song "If I Needed Someone," a concertgoer lit and threw a firecracker. It can clearly be heard on an (unreleased) audience recording of the show. Even though it's quite loud, the Beatles keep right on playing, never missing a beat. "They very much did hear it," Remains leader Barry Tashian asserts. "They looked all around, and they looked at John because they figured he was gonna be the one" to be targeted.

Tashian continues with memories of Memphis. "They were being extra careful at that concert, and we had been told to get ready to go as soon as we were finished playing. So we did. We packed up and got on the bus. We parked right outside the back door; our bus was sitting there with the engine running. When the Beatles were done, I remember that they ran directly out the [venue's] door and hopped on the bus. They were still soaking wet with sweat, and they had towels. The bus took right off and went to the Air Force base where the charter plane was waiting."

Asked which show from the tour was the most memorable, Tashian pauses. "What I recall most was my experience with the Beatles. That’s what my memory is the most 'green' about. I really don’t remember many specifics about any one show. I do remember the indoor shows were the favorites because we were much closer to the audience. We could look at the girls, and smile, and wave and stuff." But concerning the tour as a whole, Tashian quotes something band mate Bill Briggs said right after the tour ended: "It wasn’t really a musical event. It was a theatrical production of a musical event!"

Though a number of bootleg recordings document the Beatles' shows from that tour, there are no recordings of the Remains. Well, except one, a recently-surfaced recording from Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. While the sound is predictably rough (Tashian: "the sound quality is not what you would call real pleasant"), listeners are treated to a complete version of "I'm a Man" plus snippets of a few other songs, including "Why Do I Cry." Though it's a mere few seconds, the group's onstage power -- often written about but officially undocumented -- is undeniable.

Bootleg recordings aren't the only bits of history to turn up years after the fact. "Last year I got a 1966 photograph of The Remains with George Harrison and (Beatles roadie) Neil Aspinall standing on a tarmac, outside of the plane." The photo was sent to Remains band mate Bill Briggs by a friend in Poland.

Looking back at the tour, Tashian observes that "I actually came away from the tour wanting to calm my on-stage persona. I felt that I would be more 'respectable' if I stood still while singing. Having said that," Tashian smiles modestly, "I do know that on more than one occasion, John Lennon commented that he would like to have had the energy that The Remains had on stage."

Feeling that they had taken things as far as they could commercially, and that further success would not be forthcoming, Tashian folded the Remains shortly after the tour. Their self-titled Epic LP belatedly hit store shelves not long after, too late to capitalize on buzz from the Beatles tour, and too late for the group.

Vernon Joynson's Fuzz, Acid and Flowers, the indispensable guide (long available in html format) to U.S. psychedelic and garage music contains two listings relating to Tashian. The primary one -- the listing for the Remains -- contains concise and accurate details of the band's limited discography. Their only 1960s album release was the 1967 self-titled Epic LP. The previously-mentioned New York session album saw release some twenty years after its recording.

That listing references another band: "Barry was also connected with Chirco who released one rather rare LP The Visitation on Crested Butte." The link to the Chirco listing notes that Tashian "helped the band record" their lone album.

"No," says Tashian, he did no such thing. "But I know the group, and can tell you about them. The group was named after the drummer, Tony Chirco, who was a very fine studio and jazz drummer in Fairfield County, Connecticut."

Tashian recalls the group's vocalist. "Bobby Lindsay was, to me, a legendary singer. He was previously part of a group, Dick Grass and the Hoppers. They had a regional hit when I was in junior high school ("Mr. John Law" b/w "Please Dear"). "Mr. John Law" had a siren and the sound of a car motor and everything. They would appear on local rock n’ roll shows that I would go to in Norwalk, Connecticut. They were heroes to me, because they were up there. I was in the 8th grade."

"Bobby Lindsay," Tashian says, "could sing anything really high. And he had a great voice. I used to go to a function hall in Norwalk, Connecticut on Wednesday nights and watch that big band rehearse, and I just dug it. You know, all of the saxes and trombones and trumpets." This was in the period just after the Remains broke up, a time during which Tashian says he was doing "not much. Pretty much just hangin' out. I was staying at my mother's house. But I used to like going to watch these guys rehearse. Tony Chirco, the drummer, was great. Duke Ellington stuff. Count Basie, whatever. I got to know Tony, and this group was recording, and was looking for material. I had this song called "Mr. Sunshine" and I gave it to him. And the next thing I know he sends me a copy of the album which they recorded in Colorado."

"I listened to it," Tashian says, "and it’s nothing like what I would do, and to me it’s totally different than anything I would expect of Bobby Lindsay’s vocals." He recalls something Lindsay told him at one of Chirco's rehearsals: "I’m giving this one more try, and if this doesn’t work I’m just gonna sing for the Lord." Chirco's album didn't sell in large quantities, and despite later overtures from impresario Don Law, Lindsay never recorded again. He passed away some years ago.

In the years after the Remains, Barry Tashian began a move toward sounds beyond rock'n'roll. "I played in clubs around Los Angeles for most of 1967 and early 1968. It was an R&B band, with some of the International Submarine Band (Gram Parsons' group), and Bobby Keys," (later sax player for the Rolling Stones). He recalls that they played "Stax material such as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, and Eddie Floyd. This was a new thing for me. I was copping Steve Cropper licks. The other half of my learning was in country and blues. I was soaking up records that I had never heard, by anyone and everyone that I could: George Jones, Hank Williams, Lowell Fulson and Elmore James. I was not very prolific making records or writing at that time, but I was learning a lot about life and playing the guitar."

Tashian recalls that by early '68, that group was "in the process of disbanding, and I was part of a new 'bar band' that we formed called The Flying Burrito Bros. We played in clubs around Los Angeles for about a year. That was the original Burritos." Though there are no officially-available recorded evidence of his time with the group, "I have a few home tapes," he reveals. Asked if that material has ever been considered for release, he shakes his head. "It's not fit to be licensed, really. It’s just a bunch of guys jamming around in the living room, not really playing any complete songs. The only record I’m on with Gram is G.P. (1973), and that’s from after the Burritos."

Remains keyboardist Bill Briggs was also in Los Angeles at the time and was involved in many of the same projects as Tashian. Bassist Vern Miller recalls that he "did not stay in L.A. very long after The Beatles' tour. I came back east shortly after The Remains broke up began playing in a band named Crow." That band's lead singer was a young Donna Summer.

The 2007 film Superbad featured The Remains' Why Do I Cry," and as a result Tashian finally enjoyed some significant royalties from the more than 40-year-old song. "I was lucky," he says. "I got the publishing rights back from the New York publisher, but it took a few years before that happened. It’s nice to be 61 and get a taste of some of that kind of money." He mentions that the song was included on a Wal-mart-only soundtrack CD packaged with the DVD. "And they paid in advance for quite a large number of units. So put those two together, and that was the best year in show business I ever had in the music business, as far as income goes!"

The Remains (the four original members, including Chip Damiani on drums) did attempt a reunion in the 1970s. But, says Tashian, "we weren’t ready."

But eventually the Remains again bowed to fan demands and reunited for a show. "I was ready this time, and everybody else was too. I think it was 1998," he recalls. "That was when we got a call from Spain. So I called the guys. They were ready to go, and I was ready to go, and everything was copasetic. So we did the show [Purple Weekend Festival in Léon] in Spain, and it went over really well. That spawned a gig in New York a couple of months later: the Cavestomp."

In 2002 the reunited Remains recorded an album -- officially their second -- titled Movin' On. Tashian muses, "It's a mystery why we did it. All I know is that the time was finally right. It was in us and it had to come out."

Tashian continues the latter-day chronology of the band. "Since then, every year we’ve played a concert once or twice a year, which is enough. And we did Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, The Garorock Festival in Bordeaux, and London in a 10-day run. And that was so much fun. It was a dream come true for the band. And other than that we played in Boston, New York, a wedding in Chapel Hill, Las Vegas at the Grind, and then in Los Angeles."

In early 2009 the Remains played the legendary Ponderosa Stomp Festival in New Orleans. "We had to follow Dale Hawkins and James Burton," Tashian marvels. "It was the best swamp-rock band I ever heard." He says that Ira Padnos, the Stomp founder and organizer is "like a saint" for his efforts to give underappreciated artists their due. He says that the Ponderosa Stomp is "a pretty intense experience, and I was very inspired by the trip to New Orleans. We were already riding high, because of the film America’s Lost Band."

The film America’s Lost Band was produced by Fred Cantor, a lifelong Remains fan. But the project started out as something else. Several years ago, Remains leader Barry Tashian and his wife Holly were at one of their annual New Year's Eve gigs in Tashian's hometown of Westport Connecticut. Their friend Fred (a musician himself) approached the couple and said, "I have an idea. What would you think of doing an off-Broadway show about the story of the Remains?"

Cantor told them that he had a record of success through sheer perseverance. "And," Tashian says, Cantor "pulled this thing together. He got it into the New York Fringe Festival. There were five performances in Greenwich Village in a big church basement. It was quite an experience to see. They did interviews with us to get the story, and they actually got young actors to play all of us, the guys in the band, and it was a good evening. And on the last night a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend (who happened to be a director in Hollywood for CBS-TV) came out to see the play. He loved it, and he said 'let’s do a film about it!'"

In the end, rather than produce a film-about-the-play, it was decided to do a documentary. The Remains traveled to Hollywood and filmed extensively for two days solid. Locations included Dodgers Stadium, a radio station, a club, and Amoeba Records. At Amoeba, Tashian beams, "we played a set. And then they put us in an old ’60s Cadillac convertible, and he had us going up and down Sunset Boulevard, following us in the convertible and interviewing us in the car."

The Remains played a gig on Sunset Strip the second night, by which time Tashian says they were all "pooped out, but we did the best we could." Of course all of this was filmed, and the modern-day footage made up the second half of the 65-minute film. The first half was comprised of vintage clips of the Remains on the Ed Sullivan show, plus material provided by the band – photographs, posters, and other memorabilia — to help tell the story of what happened in the 50s and 60s in Boston, all the way through to the Beatles tour. Tashian is pleased with the result, and says that director/editor Michael Stitch "did a great job with it. I just still can’t believe that there’s a film about the Remains!"

"The film was in the Nashville Film Festival," Tashian recalls. "And so it played at a big theatre close to where I live. All of the guys came to Nashville and stayed with me for six days. We rehearsed and jammed, and then we’d go over to the theater for the screenings and do a question-and-answer session after. On the festival's closing night they had a big party at The Cannery, a ballroom in Nashville, and we got to play a 45 minute set there. And for whatever reason it was the best set I can remember since I was 19 years old! I swear to God. The sound — everything — was perfect. I was plugged into a ‘65 Fender Deluxe Reverb amp. Stock."

All of the reminiscing for the film had gotten Tashian to thinking. He muses what would have happened "if we had stayed together and had some monster hit back in the 60s. With things the way they were going, the drug scene and alcohol and all, there’s a good chance that some of us could be dead by now. Either that, or we'd be in court suing each other over something." Instead he says that "we’ve all had great lives. And we are able to get together and play together. We love each other to pieces! It's great to be able to get the same guys together 45 years later and rock. It’s a happy story."

Forty-five years after the debut album, there's more Remains news. "Epic/Legacy released a compilation re-issue CD, titled The Remains. And Sundazed Records released a wonderful double vinyl album also titled The Remains. The great thing about this album is that it's pressed in heavy vinyl and is a total mono mix...just like our single records in the Sixties!"

Since the 1970s Tashian has written, recorded and performed with his wife Holly; the duo's sound is an upbeat acoustic country-flavored concoction. Live dates across the USA and worldwide -- including songwriting workshops -- keep the couple busy. But Tashian and his old band mates make time for a handful of Remains dates each year; he says that while "it’s good for us to play just once in awhile at this age, we’re not ready to just go on the road" and tour like back in the 60s.

Way back at the tail end of that decade, Lillian Roxon put together one of the earliest serious, critical overviews of the rock scene, Lillian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia. Her keen and prescient sense of what would be lasting value is remarkable, even four decades later. Her entry for the Remains reads:

"As Barry and the Remains, this tight-knit group of four Boston University dropouts reigned supreme in New England for over two years from 1965 to 1967. Internal strife as well as difficulty expressing themselves in the recording studio eventually led the group to disband. Barry Tashian, the lead guitarist in the Remains is still regarded in some circles as one of the foremost rock musicians of this decade."

Tashian laughs self-effacingly when the passage is read to him, but it's clear he's proud of the work he did -- and does once again — with the Remains.

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