The Rock Bottom Remainders, with Bruce Springsteen, performing at the American Booksellers Association convention in Anaheim, California, 1992.
Photo by: Jamie Doncho.
The Rock Bottom Remainders, also known as the Remainders, was an American rockcharity supergroup consisting of popular published writers, most of them also amateur musicians. The band took its self-mocking name from the publishing term "remaindered book", a term for books that are no longer selling well and whose remaining unsold copies are liquidated by the publisher at greatly reduced prices. Their performances collectively raised $2 million for charity from their concerts.
The Remainders was founded by Kathi Kamen Goldmark in 1992.[4] Goldmark was then a musician whose day job was in book publicity.[4] Through this, she met many prolific authors.[4] One day while driving one of the authors around, she hit upon the idea of starting a band with them. It stuck.[4] The Remainders' first performance was in 1992 at the American Booksellers Association convention in Anaheim, California. A review of the concert in The Washington Post referred to it as "the most heavily promoted musical debut since The Monkees."[7]
In his memoir On Writing, Stephen King described the Remainders' performances as energetic if sloppy due to the limited music skill of himself and some other writers, and perhaps reminiscent of a bar band when augmented by a few professional musicians.: '...with a couple of “ringer” musicians on sax and drums (plus, in the early days, our musical guru, Al Kooper, at the heart of the group), we sounded pretty good. You’d pay to hear us. Not a lot, not U2orE Street Band prices, but maybe what the oldtimers call “roadhouse money."'[8]Dave Barry later joked "We played music by what I call the Rumor Method, wherein from time to time an alarming rumor went around the band: There might have been a chord change. This prompted everybody to change to a new chord. Although not necessarily the same new chord."[9]
In April 2010, they began the Wordstock Tour presented by the Pearson Foundation and We Give Books, benefiting the children and schools of Haiti.
The Remainders gave their last concert on June 23, 2012, at the annual conference of the American Library Association in Anaheim, where they played their first concert 20 years before. The event, co-sponsored by ProQuest, raised money for library and information science scholarships.[11]
The Remainders last performed together on the August 6, 2012, episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, on which both Stephen King and Dave Barry were guests (although the segment was taped in June 2012 when the band was in town for the ALA concert).
In September 2014, it was announced that the Remainders would reunite to perform at the Tucson Festival of Books in March 2015.[12] On March 15, 2015, the band's reunion was referenced in Merl Reagle's syndicated Sunday crossword puzzle. Titled "Book Notes," the crossword included the band's name and several puns using names of writers who were members.[13]
"In the Midnight Hour" (The Rock Bottom Remainders performed this song during an appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Host Craig Ferguson – himself the best-selling author of Between the Bridge and the River – played the drums. Just before the performance, he joked that "the only reason [he] wanted to write a book was so that he could play with this band." Dave Barry was also the first guest on the show.)
"Louie Louie" (Matt Groening claims he uses the "explicit" interpretation of the lyrics and Dave Barry claimed that it was so filthy that the U.S. Constitution should be amended to prohibit it.)
Several RBR members are featured on the double album Stranger than Fiction ("Don't Quit Your Day Job" Records), along with other noted authors' comic attempts at song.[21]
Dave Barry, Tad Bartimus, Roy Blount Jr., Michael Dorris, Robert Fulghum, Kathi Goldmark, Matt Groening, Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, Al Kooper, Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh, Ridley Pearson, Joel Selvin and Amy Tan, Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude, 1994, with photographs by Tabitha King.
Mitch Albom, Dave Barry, Sam Barry, Roy Blount Jr., Matt Groening, Greg Iles, Stephen King, James McBride, Roger McGuinn, Ridley Pearson, Amy Tan, and Scott Turow, Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (Of Authors) Tells All, 2013. The interactive ebook combines essays, fiction, musings, candid email exchanges and conversations, compromising photographs, audio and video clips, and interactive quizzes to give readers a view into the private lives of the authors.[22]
Dave Barry, Lessons From Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog, 2019.[23]
