Skip to footer

Author band the Rock Bottom Remainders calls it quits

The Rock Bottom Remainders, which includes writers Stephen King and Dave Barry, will play their last two shows this weekend in California.

|
Michael Dwyer/AP
Members of the Rock Bottom Remainders include writers Amy Tan (l.), Stephen King (center) and Scott Turow (r.)
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Author supergroup the Rock Bottom Remainders will be playing their last concerts this weekend after two decades together.

The band will perform one show in Los Angeles on June 22, which is also the date of their twenty-year anniversary, and a second in Anaheim on June 23 at the American Library Association convention. Only those attending the ALA convention will be able to attend the second show.

The final lineup for the concert will be writers Stephen King, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Sam Barry, Amy Tan, Mitch Albom, Matt Groening, Scott Turow, James McBride, Greg Iles and Roy Blount, Jr. All proceeds from the show will go to charity, which has been the rule for every Remainders show.

“A few years ago, Bruce Springsteen told us we weren't bad, but not to try to get any better otherwise we'd just be another lousy band,” King said in a statement. “After 20 years, we still meet his stringent requirements. For instance, while we all know what 'stringent' means, none of us have yet mastered an F chord.”

Barry said the group was originally brought together by writer, publishing consultant and musician Kathi Kamen Goldmark, who died last month. She was in charge of a business that brought writers to events and, when she realized that many of the writers she shepherded from place to place were music fans, she decided to see if the authors would be up for a charity performance.

“She sent a fax around to the [authors],” Barry told the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “And if you responded to the fax, you were in the band. You know, the same way the Beatles started.”

Barry said the band will be honoring Goldmark during the show.

“We will be paying our respects to her during the shows, but in a fun way,” he said. “She wouldn't have wanted some maudlin tribute.”

Barry told the AP that Goldmark’s death was part of the reason the band decided to disband.

“We sort of felt this would be a good time to end it because it just isn’t going to be the same without Kathi,” he said.

Guitarist for the Byrds Roger McGuinn, who became involved with the band through author Carl Hiaasen, will be appearing with the Rock-Bottom Remainders for the last two shows.

“They’re not as bad as they claim to be,” McGuinn told the AP of the band.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Author band the Rock Bottom Remainders calls it quits
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0619/Author-band-the-Rock-Bottom-Remainders-calls-it-quits
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe