We were reminiscing with friends at the Finch the other day about scene legend Ban Ray of the Memo-Rays. He could fix his forehead so that not only could he drop eyeglasses poised up on his hairline neatly onto his nose, he could casually perform the disturbing trick of flipping the glasses up off his nose to his forehead. (Wiggling ears were involved.)

The Memo-Rays started as a high school doo-wop act but ended a decade later as a practically punk affair, with Ban Ray creating a goofy yet dangerous stage persona that few frontmen anywhere have equaled. In the middle of a song, he’d take a comb out of his pocket and amuse fans in the front row by making phony-mustache faces. His harmony partners Billy Bausch and “Lombo” Lewis would tolerate the hi-jinks even while playing ultra-cool themselves.

The fantastic Ban, who for a time also went by the moniker B-15, eventually spent some time in a sanitarium, claiming to see perpetual sunspots. A lot of people assume his stage madness was borne in his other problems, but his bandmates and friends seem to have all dismissed this.

Ban Ray hasn’t set foot on a stage in eons, but Billy and Lombo and some of the back-up band from the old days are headlining a local “Yesteryear” pageant this weekend at Hamilton’s. We’ve seen the set list, and it’s mostly standards, but there are two or three Memo-Rays classics tucked in there as well.

Is it worth passing up The Oakley Women at the Bullfinch that night? (Not to mention the Bolly Kids at D’ollaire’s?) We suspect so. The past is so bright we’ve got to wear shades.