The Electras

The Electras would’ve probably been relegated towards the fuzzed-out annals of ’60s garage rock history if not for the post-garage career of bassist (and future Senator) John Kerry. Developing in 1961 at Concord, New Hampshire’s special St. Paul’s College (a prep college whose alumni consist of acting professional Judd Nelson, cartoonist Gary Trudeau, and FBI movie director Robert Mueller), the Electras’ main aim was to “meet up with more babes” based on the maraca-playing co-founder Andrew Gargarin. Gargarin and guitarist Larry Rand had been desperate to meet up girls from going to universities and struck upon the thought of forming a rock and roll combo. The parts fell jointly quickly, Gargarin and Rand discovered willing classmates to take up the drums (Peter Property), rhythm electric guitar (John Prouty), piano (John Radcliffe) and saxophone (Tim Norris), and resolved on fledgling bass pupil John Kerry to circular out the reduced end. The septet trained themselves a small number of instrumentals and several gruff vocal quantities (“Summertime Blues,” “Ya Ya,” etc.), and performed their fuzzy surf-inspired quantities at college dances and debutante celebrations. In 1962, the group (minus sax participant Norris) collected around one mike and produced a tape documenting of their music, sending the tape off to RCA’s custom made recording department and eventually pressing up 500 LPs to market at dances. Their eponymous debut was hardly ever accessible, but internet rumours persist of copies from the record changing hands on the web for over $2000. The Electras became their only documenting, and the music group dissolved sooner or later thereafter, but Kerry continuing to play electric guitar though his 2004 presidential operate. (For the really curious, sound examples are available at http://www.kerryrocks.com.)