The recent fame that this presidential race has shed on the Electras has led Rand and Prouty to remaster their 1961 album. The original master tapes were so primitive that the sounds bled together.
In order to amend this problem as best as possible, Prouty and Rand gave the tape to Bob Ludwig, the man responsible for remastering albums by such luminaries as the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones. The re-mastered album is now being sold on the band’s official website, www.theelectras.com.
Samples of many of the re-mastered songs are also online, as are some songs from the live recording in Concord. Listening to the recordings is like taking a trip back in time to rock’s heyday, replete with perky guitars and happily tapping drums.
The music has even elicited the praise of Who guitarist Pete Townshend, who in a recent USA Today interview proclaimed, “The band sounds great to me.”
Amazingly, copies of the original vinyl album that sold for $5 at shows back in the ’60s now sell for as much as $2,500 on Ebay.
Together Again
Keeping in touch with Kerry and the other members of the band has been difficult because of busy schedules. However, Rand and Prouty have been incommunicado ever since the media broke news of Kerry’s past rock ‘n’ roll life early this year. The two old high school friends, apart from remastering their old album, recorded a new political CD in Nashville entitled Electras for Kerry.
An Electras reunion is also in the works. They hope to bring together all thirteen members who played under the Electras banner to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the band next year.
“I’m almost positive we’ll have a reunion if John is elected. And if he’s not elected, we might have a reunion anyway,” Rand says. “After John accepted the Democratic nomination, in one of the interviews the camera panned in on him and he was holding an Electras record and he winked and said to the reporter, ‘I’ve heard a little about a reunion.’ There’s nothing I’d rather do than play at John Kerry’s presidential inaugural ball.”
In the meantime, there will be a reunion of sorts when Rand and Prouty perform on Wolf Blitzer Reports on CNN today at 5:00 p.m. “It will be the first public performance by any combination of the Electras in 43 years, so we’re working on it,” says Rand.
The band is also coming together politically in support of Sen. John Kerry—for the most part. Three members are rooting for the other guy.
“I can tell you that the four founding members of the band are probably behind John Kerry,” says Rand. “And we’re doing a little word play here, but what we call the Electral E-L-E-C-T-R-A-L College are overwhelmingly for Kerry, in spite of the fact that he’s a Yale graduate. But we don’t have much choice, do we? They’re all Yale graduates. Anyway that was a 10-to-3 vote.”
When asked if he thinks Kerry will win the election, Prouty answers, “Yes, I do. I think in people’s guts, when you get rid of all the flim-flam, it’s time to have somebody you would trust and respect as president, not somebody you would like to have a beer with in a tavern.”
Come Nov. 2, Prouty, Rand, Lang and the rest of the nation will decide whether they’ll be sharing the inauguration stage with Kerry, or no more than a pub pint.
—Staff writer Sarah L. Solorzano can be reached at solorzan@fas.harvard.edu.