S/D: The Turtles

things have changed a lot in 5 years lol

Enjoying Michael Shelley interview(s) with Howard Kaylan but not sure if I want to read his entire book.

― Oulipo Traces (on a Cigarette) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, May 22, 2013 11:40 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

heard one of these, it was really great. I love Flo & Eddie

the '65-'66 stuff is pretty hit and miss (so many similar covers etc.) but man was this band on a roll from '67 on.

agree the Turtles rule. good harmonies and good songs. Battle of the Bands is a lot of fun to listen to.

Howard Kaylan is a fantastic singer too.

they were the perfect fit for the Care Bears. hearing them sing and talk about a magical land of fluffy clouds and stuff just feels natural.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Dinner_with_Jimi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynu7b0diFJU

What the...?

Love this clip, especially the way Mark Volman's bouncing around with his French Horn, not even pretending to actually play. This is the side of the '60s I think Mad Men caught perfectly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRCe5L1imxg

Future Jefferson Airplane/CSNY/Stray Gator Johnny Barbata twirling the sticks!

They repeated their performance schtick in that clip (the twirling, Volman's exaggerated miming of an instrument etc.) seemingly everytime they did that song on TV. Can only imagine the gay panic hatespeech from the control room that accompanied the awkward cutaway from Volman putting his arm around Kaylan in this Sullivan clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq3awlDqAVo

This is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JHN5HaUg28

In the comments, somebody names names on all the managers, and the "Big TV Star" part of 'Manager #6' was...Bill Cosby.

"You Showed Me" hits the spot, always

Great, but I like the Byrds' original even better.

Actually, no--I'll take the Turtles too.

"You Showed Me" hits the spot, always

but how do you feel about third rate brit trippop from the 90's?

i actually liked the lightning seeds cover. but it's nowhere near as brilliant as the original

it's freakin *identical* to the turtles' version iirc

Big fan of the first two Flo & Eddie albums, and scattered bits thereafter.

Keep it warm is such a banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_3aq5OrIls

My thing with the Turtles is, I’ve never seen a photo of them in their prime. I’ve only seen them as fat, old hippies playing Rockin’ 60’s Superstars specials on PBS, so I’ve sort of carried that around subconsciously over the years. I know that they’ve aged and they were young once but I still picture them as a couple of grandpas in the 60’s, making those records, singing those songs on television. To the point that it was their identity in the 60’s, in my mind. Just like The Rolling Stones were the dirty, nasty, rebellious ones, the Turtles were the old guys.

I’ve tended to also picture them wearing turtleneck sweaters. The Turtlenecks.

Howard Kaylan always looked 15 years older than he was, he was 17 or 18 when "It Ain't Me Babe" was released!

Don't think I've ever really been able to figure them out. When I listen to "Happy Together" or "Elenore," I'm not sure to what extent they're sincerely brilliant pop music and to what extent they're sly, knowing parody. Ultimately, it probably doesn't matter.

Wow, I didn't know that about Kaylan's lack of age. So he had a substantial amount of grey hair by the age of 23. Seeing the Turtles in '60s clips I had assumed he was this eccentric older guy who got stuck in a group with a bunch of kids.

clemenza, if intention matters, the lyrics to "Elenore" were written as a deliberate piss-take iirc

They were on a horrible record company who pressurised them to come up with hits and basically ripped them off, so "Elenore" was kind of a fuck you to them. Also it was on "Battle of the Bands" where they were doing songs in different styles as different bands, so it's a self-parody or a satirical version of what the record company thought the Turtles should sound like - which begs the question, why were people ever surprised that Kaylan and Volman ended up working with Zappa? To return to the unlikely youthfulness of Howard Kaylan, the band were all minors when they signed the contract with the record company, or rather when their parents did.

Yeah, come to think of it, I think I did know that "Elenore" was a put-on. Even with "Happy Together," though--which I count as a perfect distillation of everything ecstatic and sunshine-y about 1967--it walks a fine line between a gentle send-up of that mood and the thing itself.

Surely 'Happy Together' is about the 2 guys from the Turtles (Kaylan and Volman, I presume) who are inseparable friends and sing that song to each other every day.

Heh, that’s what I always thought too, at least in the back of my mind, in some dark corner that they and FZ were intent on shining a flashlight upon.

Didn’t they have to start recording as “Flo and Eddie” because their evil manager OWNED THEIR ACTUAL BIRTH NAMES?

Never thought about that but probably. Did they have the same manager as Moby Grape?

No MG had the Jefferson Airplane guy

Everyone should listen to the Andrew Hickey podcast ep on Happy Together he just did btw

This video will explain all their complicated business problems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=183OPk7-eK4

Flo and Eddie were friends with my parents back in the day. My dad was in The Leaves who shared a bad player with them (Jim Pons he played with FZ too) my mom says Howard and Mark shared a house in Lauren Canyon that had a room with a wall to wall waterbed lol.

Bass* not bad he was not bad he was very good

that is amazing that your dad was in the leaves.

dim memories of a syndicated flo & eddie radio show that was picked up by my beloved wlir in the 70s. they would only play the songs until the first appearance of the hook, which meant they could fit in a lot of songs. i remember one episode that was centered around the beau brummels. a quick search pulled this up:

https://archive.org/details/TurningTheTables061FloEddieByTheFiresidePt1Jul82017

Beloved WLIR? Oh right of course. Did you read Richard Neer’s book FM, TSF?

i have not read that book but thanks for the tip. wlir is known -- if it's known at all -- for being one of the first on the new wave tip. there was even a documentary called "dare to be different." but they were great even before that, with weekly live concert broadcasts, first from their own studios, then later from local venues like the calderone and my father's place. the concerts from their ultrasonic studios are legendary.

Right. Although in the pre-New Wave days and even after I seem to recall an element of Southern Rock as well. Feel like I can hear Larry the Duck Dunn saying something about Molly Hatchett in my head whilst riding an express bus to Jones Beach.

But yeah, there’s that one live Big Star album recorded there in 1974, for example.

a couple classic little feat performances, lou reed, dr john, incredible string band, holy modal rounders, gentle giant, frampton...they were all over the place.

I liked the old WLIR and the New Wave WLIR but my um, first love was the year and change of New Wave WPIX.

oh yeah that was a good one too. meg griffin!

Right. And Joe from Chicago, Joe Piasek, I think, her husband at the time maybe. Along with Dan Neer, Richard’s brother. Some of these people would migrate back and forth to and from the next spot on the dial at WNEW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHOZSNRFVdI

I should probably take this stuff over to the Lou Reed WPIX thread.

Heh, found this book about The Clash I never heard about until yesterday that mentions all those people which I probably have to read.

Howard Kaylan’s autobiography is a fun read- basically the exact opposite of Mike Love’s. I recall there being good Zappa stories in it.

i swear to god this song is the songwriter (al nichol) clocking a trans woman and being shitty about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc2QWTeLAQw

al don't knock it till you've tried it, that's all i got to say about that

More like the TERF-les on that particular number

does really bring to light how much transphobia is fundamentally rooted in patriarchy, though. al nichol makes a pretty poor excuse for a radical feminist!