{"id":331,"date":"2010-11-02T05:08:47","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T10:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=331"},"modified":"2010-11-02T05:08:47","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T10:08:47","slug":"day-of-the-remains-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/02\/day-of-the-remains-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Day of the Remains, Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

continued from part one…<\/em><\/p>\n

Remains <\/strong>manager John Kurland<\/strong> was soon instrumental in a lineup change. Drummer Chip Damiani<\/strong> left the group right before they went on a cross-country tour with the Beatles<\/strong>, and Kurland found a replacement drummer in N.D. (Norman) Smart<\/strong>. \u201cI think he was seventeen years old,\u201d Barry Tashian<\/strong> recalls. \u201cAnd there was no audition or anything. He just knocked on our door one day.\u201d After the Remains, Smart would go on to play with mime-rockers The Hello People<\/strong>, and Todd Rundgren<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Tashian continues, \u201cWe told Epic records that we didn’t like the way our records sounded when we recorded; we wanted a grittier sound. Bob Morgan<\/strong> said, \u2018Well, go to Nashville. You know, they know how to get gritty sounds down there!\u2019 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\u2019t know anything about that. And [that producer] turned out to be Billy Sherrill<\/strong>, the legendary producer of country and western and more. I mean, he produced Ray Charles<\/strong>!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tashian says that the group \u201cgot our best-sounding sides cut\u201d in Nashville. \u201cWe cut in a studio that was originally built by Owen Bradley<\/strong>. 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<\/strong>, Brenda Lee<\/strong>, Johnny Cash<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Tashian wrote several songs for the group, including the immortal \u201cWhy Do I Cry,\u201d the most well-known Remains tune \u2013 included on the original Nuggets <\/em>compilation — would come from an outside writer. Tashian explains how the band came to record \u201cDon\u2019t Look Back\u201d by Billy Vera<\/strong>. \u201cBefore 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 \u201cYou Got a Hard Time Coming.\u201d While Billy was in New York he took us to his friend Al Gallico<\/strong>, 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 \u2018Don’t Look Back.\u2019 And it’s really very different from how the Remains would do it.\u00a0 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Tashian wasn\u2019t even aware of the Nuggets <\/em>album (released in 1972) when it came out. \u201cI wasn’t paying attention at all,\u201d he says. But he expresses pleasure with the expanded (4CD) re-release: \u201cThey added \u2018Why Do I Cry.\u2019\u201d As a songwriter, Tashian actually made some money from royalties when the Nuggets <\/em>box sold well.<\/p>\n

Remains bassist Vern Miller<\/strong> explains how the relatively-unknown group ended up on a tour with the biggest band in the world. \u201cBob Bonus was very involved in the organization and logistics of the 1966 tour. He came to us one day and just said, \u2018How would you guys like to be the opening act on The Beatles<\/strong>\u2019 tour?\u2019\u201d It was as simple as that. \u201cWhile we had vowed never to be an \u2018opener\u2019 for anyone,\u201d Miller says, \u201cwe jokingly — but wisely — made an exception in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Remains toured with the Beatles, but on those dates they didn\u2019t simply play their own set. They served as the backing band for fellow travelers Bobby Hebb<\/strong> and the (Ronnie Spector<\/strong>-less) Ronettes<\/strong>. Asked how much preparation the Remains had for those sets, Tashian laughs. \u201cBobby 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\u2019s\u00a0 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subjected to primitive PA gear, the Beatles turned to their opening act for help. Tashian says that The Remains\u2019 sound man Bill Handley<\/strong> was \u201creally a cutting-edge sound engineer.\u201d Handley had wanted to go on the tour, but \u201cof course there was no provision for his being paid or anything. So,\u201d Tashian recalls, \u201che said, \u2018I don’t care. I’m gonna come out there anyway!\u2019 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.\u201d Prior to that, the acts were using PA designed for cattle auctions and worse. \u201cOur vocals would be three or four seconds behind the music!\u201d Tashian laughs.<\/p>\n

Tashian\u2019s book Ticket to Ride<\/em> documents much of the tour. \u201cSo that’s how it started, with the union guy saying \u2018whose equipment is this? You gotta use the house system!\u2019 And Beatles manager Brian Epstein<\/strong> came out and said, \u2018no, we’re going to use this stuff.\u2019 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.\u201d Tashian refers to photos in his book that show the performance stage set up on second base of a baseball diamond. \u201cThey just had these Voice of the Theater speakers kind of tilted back towards the grandstands, so sometimes Bill just turned one of those around\u201d to use as a rudimentary stage monitor.<\/p>\n

On the tour dates, the audience screaming started long before the Beatles ever took the stage. Tashian laughs and notes that \u201cthe only reason that really happened was because we were first. And everyone was so excited that \u2018the show’s underway…oh boy!\u2019 We’d get into the swing of things, and then later on as the Cyrkle <\/strong>and the Ronettes and Bobby Hebb did sets, it kind of calmed down. \u2018When are the Beatles coming on?\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

continued<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

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continued from part one… 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}