By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
BOSTON – When the Remains singer-guitarist Barry Tashian visited the U.K. in 1963, he cited various British bands as his impetus for assembling his own band. “I’d made a trip to England the summer before we got together,” he said to the Music Museum of New England. “I saw what The Rolling Stones were doing with old blues songs and saw The Beatles and the Kinks. I thought, ‘That’s great, I could do that,’ so I came back to Boston very excited and asked these guys if they wanted to form a band.” These guys included Boston University (BU) buddies Bill Briggs, Vern Miller and Chip Damiani who started out playing for the school’s fraternity parties and at Kenmore Square nightclub The Rat.
Photo/Wikimedia Commons
Rapid rise
His decision led to the Remains becoming one of the first rock and roll bands to earn national recognition coming out of Boston. The band signed with Epic Records and by the next year they had two regional hit singles. They had also performed before 14 million viewers on “The Ed Sullivan Show” Christmas special. That plum gig was thanks to one of Tashian’s former BU roommates who was the son of an executive at Lorillard Tobacco, one of the show’s biggest sponsors.
Another one of the highlights of the Remains’ career is when they opened for the Beatles in 1966. That same year, and after only two years with a brush with rock and roll stardom, a handful of singles and one self-titled album, the Remains disbanded. According to Tashian, band members realized they would never be as big as the Beatles plus he felt like the flame had burned down without their original drummer, Chip Damiani, who left the group shortly before their tour began. Vern Miller went on to form other local bands with one featuring a young Donna Summer. Tashian and his wife Holly moved to Nashville and embarked on a career as a folk and bluegrass duo.
Comeback and documentary
In 2006, the former members reconnected and toured Europe and in 2008 the documentary “America’s Lost Band: The Story of The Remains” premiered at the Boston Film Festival. However, licensing issues involving the use of the Beatles’ material and the Remains’ guest spot on “The Ed Sullivan Show” prevented the film from being distributed beyond its festival appearance. Now, their 2008 short film has been reworked, featuring their 2006 reunion and is streaming through Connecticut Public Television.
Tashian’s son Daniel, a songwriter and producer, recently served as a co-producer on Ringo Starr’s latest album “Look-Up.” According to Holly Tashian in an interview with The Boston Globe, their son asked the iconic drummer if he remembered when the Remains opened for the Beatles for three weeks to which Starr replied, “he did not remember anything.”
In her explanation to the Globe about her husband’s disappointment in Damiani’s decision to leave the band, Holly added, “People think there’s some mystery around why the band broke up. Without him, it just wasn’t the same,” she explained. “Barry also saw what it was like to be so famous, like the Beatles, and he just said, ‘This is not a way to live.’ It’s totally understandable.”
Bruce Springsteen’s longtime manager and rock critic, Jon Landau, assisted in immortalizing the Remains when he wrote about their breakup (quoting a line from the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Do You Believe in Magic?”), “They were how you told a stranger about rock ‘n’ roll.”
Barry Tashian, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and Vern Miller are the only surviving members of the Remains. Rudolph “Chip” Damiani, who ran a home improvement company, passed away in 2014 of a cerebral hemorrhage. Briggs, a car buff who was a longtime Porsche salesman, died a few days after his birthday in March 2024.
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