New England Spotlight: The Remains - Once Before and Diddy Wah Diddy

The New England Battle Of The Bands just keeps rolling! The bands we have featured in the last five posts have been small potatoes. All but one of those artists only had one release. The other artist, The Blue Beats, two releases. Today we turn our attention to a real, legitimate band.

The Remains hailed from the unofficial capital of New England, Boston, Massachusetts. The members of the band, Barry Tashian, Vern Miller, Billy Briggs and Chip Damiani, all met while Freshmen students at The University of Boston in 1964. From day one the band was in a groove. And the kids at BU knew it. The legend goes: acoustic dorm room rehearsals with kids spilling out into the halls led to the kids in Kenmore Hall setting up a rehearsal spot for the band in the basement. Kids from all over Boston started showing up to hear them groove. Then came the first gigs already filled with adoring fans pouring out into the streets. Epic Records heard of the legend and the band was signed in the waning hours of 1964.

The band released their first single in March of 1965. The Tashian penned Why Do I Cry was sophisticated and catchy. A real gem of production. But we're going to jump ahead and feature the band's third single. And of course, we're going to flip the sides.

The Flip-Side of their March 1966 release was composed by the rhythm section of the band, Vern Miller, the bassist, and Chip Damiani, the drummer. Once Before is a rocket fueled attack that would have made The Yardbirds proud. And damn, it's catchy too! Tashian's vocals are matched beautifully by his edgy guitar tone and wonderful rhythm guitar work and tastefully subtle fills.

The A-Side was a cover of the traditional blues number, Diddy Wah Diddy, and certainly picked up from Bo Diddley's version. The Remains do a great, peppy version that tracks closely with Mr. McDaniels' take on the number. It was a solid choice for the A-Side.

Everything was going great for The Remains. Epic Records moved them to New York, took them into a studio to record a full length album of killer track after killer track. Then they got the call. The Remains were tagged to open for The Beatles on what would prove to be the band's last ever tour. The Remains got a spot performing live on The Ed Sullivan Show. Hullabaloo was next. Everything was looking perfect. But just days before The Remains were to take off on the tour, drummer Chip Damiani decided he didn't want to go. What?!?!?!?! The band soldiered on without him but the remains of the band felt that it wasn't the same without him. So just as their album was released, the band broke up. Sheesh!

Barry Tashian went on to play with numerous Nashville-based acts including performing with Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris and is still active in music today.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the week: Josh Rouse - It's The Nighttime

[originally posted May, 2011] 
Sometimes we just dig songs because we just like the way they sound. That's the case with our SoTW, It's The Nighttime, by singer and songwriter, Josh Rouse. We flipsters first learned about the native Nebraskan when Rouse opened for another act in Washington, DC. It was this song's chunk-a-chunk-a acoustic guitar and pedal steel that caught our attention and led us to the virtual record store to check out his work. Six years later, it is still this song that makes us smile with remarkable frequency.

It's The Nighttime was co-written by Josh Rouse and Daniel Tashian. When we saw the latter name, our musicologist spidey-senses went into overload. A little investigation proved our spidey hunch correct, Daniel Tashian is the son of Barry Tashian, the singer and leader of one of America's best garage bands and original Nugget poster-boys, Boston's The Remains. Cool.

That tidbit aside, we hope you listen to this song a few times. It may not grab you at first, but, if you are anything like us, we think you'll be humming this in your sleep before too long.

Enjoy.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

[photo by Allen Clark]

Song of the Week: Gram Parsons - A Song For You

"Jesus built a ship to sing a song to." At least that's the way Gram Parsons sees life. It's one of those curious lines from a song that just sticks out to me as being so quizzically beautiful that it makes me smile with wonderment every time I hear it.

This week's installment of Song of the Week is filled with those type of lines. The song is A Song For You from Gram Parsons' first solo album, GP, released in January of 1973. In my humble opinion, the song is the standout on the more than solid album. 

Gram Parsons, like all good musicians who died far too young, has become a bit of a legend. The stories of his multi-million dollar upbringing, his exploits, his death at the tender age of 26 and his bizarre burial have been overstated too many times and I won't bother to repeat them here. If you want to read about that, just go to our friend, señor wiki. What's important here is that Parsons had a major influence on the evolution of music. You need not look any farther than Wilco, Calexico, Whiskeytown or the Jayhawks to see his direct influence. Long story short, Gram Parsons is often credited with creating "country rock" through his groundbreaking work in the International Submarine Band, his stint in The Byrds, his formation of the band The Flying Burrito Brothers with fellow Byrds Alumnus, Chris Hillman, and, of course, Parsons' two solo albums. In fact, he probably gets too much credit, but I digress.

Let's get back to our Song of the Week, A Song for You. The song is simple as could be. This does not succeed because of the stellar musicianship -- which includes James Burton of Elvis Presley fame, Emmylou Harris and Barry Tashian of the Remains fame -- but because of the sincerity of Gram Parsons himself. Parsons was gifted with a sweet voice and the ability to paint a different color on your front door with his lyrics. I always get a sense that his songs are deeply personal but shared with a larger audience as a tool to articulate what he can't say to the real intended recipient: "I loved you everyday, and now I'm leaving. And I can see the sorrow in your eyes. I hope you know a lot more than you are believing, just so the Sun don't hurt you when you cry."

I'm going to cut it off here, and just ask you to stop and really listen to all the lyrics in this song. Pay particular note to how and when Emmylou Harris harmonizes with Parsons, bringing importance to some lines more than others, and how Parsons' voice wavers under the strain of his words.