The Rock-and-Roll Past of John Kerry: Let's Touch Bass
By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 2, 2004; Page C01
They had buzz in 1961, even if the buzz could be heard only on the campus of St. Paul's, the exclusive New Hampshire prep school where they were trained for the Ivy League and life in the ruling class. The Electras would have remained a vague memory for a few dozen debutantes and the group's seven musicians -- but guess who put the bomp in their bomp-bah-bomp-bah-bomp?
None other than John Kerry, future senator and current Democratic presidential hopeful. Before he took off for Yale and then Vietnam and then a career in politics, Kerry flailed away at a bass guitar with a few schoolmates, playing primitive instrumental covers in the tradition of surf bands like the Ventures and dawn-of-rock stars like Eddie Cochran.
"We made a lot of noise," Kerry said yesterday before a campaign stop in Fargo, N.D., where he took a few minutes to reminisce by phone about his band. "It was a very good time."
It all started with a very simple idea, said Andrew Gagarin, the group's co-founder and maraca player and one of Kerry's prep school classmates.
"The whole idea was to meet more babes," he said, calling from Watch Hill, R.I., where he's in the real estate business. "At that time, life wasn't worth living without a girlfriend, so we spent every waking moment of our lives looking for ways to meet girls." Trouble was, during the school year, opportunities were limited to the occasional mixer. Music for these tightly chaperoned events was provided by a DJ spinning records, until Gagarin and a guitar-playing buddy named Larry Rand dreamed up a way to raise their cachet with the busloads of visiting maidens from area girls' schools.
Other musicians were quickly recruited for drums, rhythm guitar, piano and sax, but the bass player slot was unfilled. Kerry at the time was known for his ice skating skills and political ambitions, which were public enough that "everyone knew he wanted to be president of the United States," said Gagarin. "Everyone." Less known was that Kerry had just acquired a bass guitar and was trying to learn the rudiments of the instrument. Rand offered some tutorials and the rest he learned on the fly.
"I knew the songs I knew," Kerry recalled, sounding less than impressed with his own abilities. "I also knew that I didn't know a lot. I didn't go at this whole hog."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4009-2004Feb1.html
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