Good morning everyone, In anticipation of their reunion show this Saturday, today's Boston Herald wrote this story about the REMAINS, enjoy! Kate ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *Remains of an era: Pop performers from '60s and '70s take center stage in '99* by Larry Katz Monday, March 15, 1999 Time machine? We don't need no stinkin' time machine. At least not to go back to the 1960s and '70s. All we need for that are the musical happenings of mid-March 1999. Look at the pop singles charts. Cher is back. Her ``Believe'' is No. 1, 34 years after she first topped the charts with Sonny and ``I Got You Babe.'' ``Believe'' sounds more modern than ``I Got You Babe,'' but not much more. Take away its sonic window dressing and it's can't-stop-the-beat disco come back to life. In clubs and concerts halls around Boston, too, a sharp sense of deja vu will be nearly unavoidable this week. Look who's coming: Dan Hicks (Johnny D's, Wednesday); Blue Oyster Cult (The Middle East, Thursday); Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson (Paradise, Thursday); Dave Brubeck (Sanders Theatre, Friday); Jeff Beck (The Orpheum, Saturday); A double bill of America and early '80s flash-in-the-pan Christopher Cross (Lowell Memorial Auditorium, Saturday); and, for the capper, ye olde Rolling Stones (FleetCenter, March 22 and 23). Who's next? Sha Na Na? If we're undergoing a latter-day version of the nostalgia boom of the mid-'70s, we shouldn't be surprised. With pop music dominated by rappers on one side and bombastic balladeers on the other, disenfranchised pop fans have reason to seek succor in the sounds of yesteryear. Amid this onslaught of shows by oldies, one in particular stands out. New England rock history will be brought to life Saturday at the Paradise with a triple bill featuring Barry and the Remains, the Lost and the Rising Storm. This isn't a case of show business as usual, but an event. Which explains in part why Peter Wolf will be on hand as master of ceremonies. All three bands have stories to tell. The Lost went from playing the Rathskeller in Kenmore Square to a deal with Capitol Records in 1965 and a spot on the Beach Boys 1966 tour. Keyboardist and vocalist Willie Loco Alexander went on to replace the departed Lou Reed in the Velvet Underground and later become the godfather of Boston punk. The Rising Storm is a prime example of a sub-genre unique to New England: prep school rock. These Phillips Andover Academy graduates (class of '67) recorded one album, ``Calm Before . . .'' that's become a collectible. After several sporadic reunions, the aging prepsters are readying a new album. The Remains were the kings of Boston rock 'n' roll in 1965 and 1966. And both the Lost and the Rising Storm owe something to the Remains. The Lost's first singles (and early recordings by Peter Wolf's band the Hallucinations) were produced by Remains' singer and guitarist Barry Tashian. The Rising Storm used to cover Remains songs in their set. Today, their music - heard on Rhino's recent ``Nuggets'' boxed set - remains beloved by collectors around the world. The band's existence was brief, but momentous. ``We were together all of two years,'' Tashian says from his home in Nashville, ``from August 1964 to September 1966. We were students at BU. We started playing in our dorm, Myles Standish Hall. We had a lot of energy and determination. We played on `The Ed Sullivan Show' and `Hullabaloo,' recorded four or five singles for Epic and toured with the Beatles.'' The Remains experienced pop madness firsthand. They lived, traveled and played with the Beatles for three weeks on the Fab Four's tumultuous last tour. Three days after it ended, Tashian broke up the band. ``The experience of seeing how big the Beatles were and how little the Remains were was discouraging for me,'' he says. ``I figured we'd never be as great as them, so I just threw in the towel. It was a bummer.'' Tashian went on to have a successful career playing and singing harmony with Gram Parsons and then, for 10 years, with Emmylou Harris. More recently, he's made five country/bluegrass albums as a duo with his wife, Holly. But apart from a one-shot Remains' reunion at Paul's Mall in 1976, Tashian disdained his rock 'n' roll past. ``I thought (rock) was a step backward for me,'' he says. ``I placed it beneath beautiful country and bluegrass.'' But Tashian's feelings changed in 1997 after he turned the diary he kept during the Beatles' tour into a book, ``Ticket to Ride.'' When he was asked to reunite the Remains for a gig in Spain, of all places, he put the group back together: keyboardist Bill Briggs, now manager of an Audi dealership in Burlington; bassist Vern Miller, a New Jersey public school music teacher; and drummer Chip Damiani, who has a construction business near New Haven, Conn. The Remains played Spain last September, New York last November and now comes the big Boston homecoming. ``The idea of doing some new recording is percolating, too,'' Tashian says. But not the idea of turning the Remains into another memories-for-money oldies act. ``We're going to play just enough,'' Tashian says, ``so that the Remains remain a special event. No pun intended.''
