The Remains - "Let Me Through" (Live)

I've spent the better part of the last couple weeks looking at Garage Rock videos and trying to compile the best quality ones I could find. I was really struck when I discovered this one, because it's just about the only one I could find (the other being The Monks on the German show "Beat Beat Beat") where the band is actually playing live and not just miming to the record. And they sound awesome. I'm no Garage expert but I 'm pretty sure that The Remains were one of the best Garage Bands, musicality-wise. They sound amazing here. (I should add that I'm talking about US Garage Bands, there's alot of great live video of Euro and UK Garage and Psych bands, mostly from the German TV show "Beat, Beat, Beat")
Buy The Remains on Amazon.

Comments

[Freak1ta]

I'm old and I followed music really closely then and I never heard of these guys. They are so clearly a 15% Kinks + 85% Yardbirds copycat group.

I also believe that Ed Sullivan was one of the few gigs that REQUIRED live music.

[Cookie]

"The Remains were a mid-1960s rock group from Boston, Massachusetts, led by Barry Tashian, who later was harmony vocalist and guitarist for Emmylou Harris and part of the duo, Barry and Holly Tashian. They are best known for being one of the opening acts of The Beatles' final US tour in 1966."

"Although associated with the garage rock scene, the Remains were highly accomplished professional musicians and their recordings, while hard-edged, are notably well-produced and arranged. The band enjoyed a local hit with their version of the Bo Diddley/Willie Dixon classic "Diddy Wah Diddy". Despite considerable local success and strong critical acclaim (including an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show), the band failed to break through on a national level and folded in late 1966. However, in common with many of their garage rock contemporaries, the Remains gradually acquired a cult status, and eventually reformed to play at several garage revival shows such as Cavestomp in New York City during the late 1990s, Las Vegas Grind in 2000 and a tour of major European cities in 2006. They recorded a new album in 2003."

"The band's first and last singles, "Why Do I Cry" and "Don't Look Back" respectively, are both featured on the Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era box set."

"Their single "Why Do I Cry" is featured briefly in the film Superbad (2007) when the character McLovin is being taken to a party in a police car."

"In 2007, Epic/Legacy came out with a reissue of The Remains' 1966 album, which received the following review from rock journalist, Mark Kemp, in Paste Magazine (June 2007): "Had these Boston bad boys stuck it out beyond their 1966 debut, we might today be calling them--and not the Stones--the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band. As it is, The Remains most certainly are America's greatest lost band."

"Kemp's praise echoes the well-known critique written 40 years earlier by rock critic (and subsequently Bruce Springsteen's manager), Jon Landau, in Crawdaddy Magazine (January 1967): "They were how you told a stranger about rock'n'roll."

"In 2008, the world premiere of a documentary about The Remains, "America's Lost Band," directed by Michael Stich, took place at the Boston Film Festival. Steve Simels, Boxoffice Magazine, describes the film as "a fascinating retelling of one of the great what-might-have-been stories of American music of the '60s."

"The Remains' story was also the subject of a stage musical at the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival, "All Good Things," which received acclaim from a variety of critics. (60sgaragebands.com, News & Nuggets, August 31, 2004)."

[Cookie]

Pretty much all Garage bands ripped off the Kinks or the Yardbirds or the Stones or whatever. That's practically the definition of the genre, American kids ripping off British bands. I'd say the Remains are less guilty of it than most.

[anticookie]

Yeah, Cookie, and it's a fuckin' shame that europe hasn't produced any good music since.

[bud]

Mmm, maybe they just sync well? Because I don't see any cables from the guitars going off to any hidden amps.

[Cookie]

Miming to what? A recording of themselves playing in a large cavernous room very similar to the one they are playing in? Their records don't sound like that.

I know the sound of a live band, having played in them since the age of 14, and they are playing live. I can see leads coming from the instruments so I guess they ARE playing through hidden amps.

Previous commenter said that bands had to play live on Ed Sullivan, not sure if that's true, but this is definitely a band playing live together in a big room.

[Cookie]

The guitar cords/leads are pretty obviously coming out of every instrument.

[rufustfyrfly]

I strongly recommend checking out their album "A Session with The Remains." It's the band playing live at a radio station (reportedly right after the band left a live gig elsewhere, so lots of energy to it). There were lots of copycat garage bands, but The Remains really stand out.

[Arnold]

In my books The Remains are up there with The Seeds, The Music Machine, The Standells, Chocolate Watchband, Shadows Of Knight, The Blues Magoos, The Electric Prunes... well, you get the picture. "Don't Look Back" is a timeless classic and if you didn't know you'd be hard-pressed to say it came out of the sixties. "A Session with the Remains" is great for a glimpse of their live power but the studio album "The Remains" is nothing short of amazing.

[alaimo]

I like the energy of this song! Too bad a better sound check wasn't performed... the keyboard sound is all but lost.

[popsilly]

The Remains are great. I can see where Daniel Tashian got his good musical genes.