My Life with the Turtles, Flo & Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc
SHELL SHOCKED
Howard Kaylan
with Jeff Tamarkin
This is a long
awaited memoir of one of rock & roll’s greatest singers. Kaylan may not be
a household name but he is a perfectly endowed insider who can spill the beans
on any number of pursed-lipped, groupie groping, self-indulgent Hall of Famers
with or without a conscious. Kaylan crafted 34 chapters of hippie truth and
lies that reveal the author’s humility and rebel nature. In the Forward Penn
Jillette recalls his first rock concert experience in 1971 featuring Frank
Zappa and the Mother’s. It was a life changing event, the best show he’d ever
seen. He was even aware that the front men were formerly the lead singers of
the Turtles, a hot pop hit-making machine. Kaylan’s pre-chapter expose But
First: A Rock group Inside Enemy Territory delineates the divide between the
freaks and the uptight establishment. As legend has it The Turtles were invited
to the White House to perform for President Richard Nixon’s daughter the petite
and beautiful Tricia Nixon. They performed their hits and then some, high on
weed, coked up and loose as a goose. By Kaylan’s estimate Mark Volman fell off
the stage a few times and even hit on Luci Baines Johnson. But that’s only a
smidgen of six pages, all pre-chapter musings. It seems to me that Kaylan’s life
as a pop star has a Huck Finn quality that turns work into play and play into
work...not bad when it pays the bills.
I must admit that I’m a lifelong fan of the Turtles (and Flo
& Eddie). I saw them perform at Central Michigan University in 1969 and
became a true believer. I’ve never heard anyone sing like the Turtles. They
blended their voices to create an incredible pastiche of melody, harmony and
perfectly executed leads. We may have heard it all before but not in such a
perfect blend of craft and humor. They soaked up the good hygiene of applause
and adulation and mirrored it back to the audience. It was a brilliant
performance.
Things get dicey in Chapter Four. Kaylan’s first band the
Nightriders morphed into the Crossfires and by ’64 they were learning their
craft by covering the hits of the Beatles, Kinks and the DC-5 – not too
shabby. After the Beatles first
performance on the Ed Sullivan Show every red-blooded teenage folk singer traded
in his acoustic for an electric guitar - Stratocaster, Epiphone, Gibson Les
Paul, didn’t matter, go electric. Within the span of a week the Crossfires
performed their “Farewell Performance” at It Ain’t Me Babe became a monster
folk-rock hit. It was just the beginning of an incredible string of perfectly
crafted songs. Like an old smithy that makes objects from gold, The Turtles
created a string of 45’s that climbed the upper regions of the charts from 1965
through 1970. 17 top 100 Hits in all.
First off Kaylan is a first rate storyteller as revealed by
the 1991 Happy Together VHS tape released by Rhino Records, 90 minutes of rock
& roll history that would have otherwise been lost in time. Kaylan and
Volman provided first hand sketches of icons such as Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the
Beatles as well as other obscure rock & roll moments. They effortlessly mix
irony and laugh out loud humor with a touch of bathos. I loved the piece on
Dick Clark Caravan of Stars Tour when Tom Jones taunts his adoring fans through
the bus window about his smiling meat-and-two-veg penis that he named “Wendell.”
Another good source is Kaylan’s current spate of interviews on You Tube. There
is a wonderful piece on Warren Zevon that you won’t find in this book. Kaylan is a superb storyteller who can mix
deep issues with a nudge and a wink, not to soften its impact but to fill in
the spaces. It’s kidding on the square at its best i.e., joking with serious
intent (thanks Mose Allison).
Kaylan and Tarmarkin weave an incredible tale of Dionysian
excess mixing snippets of music and creativity with low brow tales of sexual
exploits. Kaylan makes a point that even fat guys get laid, not just by
groupies but by beautiful, intelligent women who may or may not have a clue why
they demean themselves…father hunger. Kaylan conveys these stories with some
humility, self-effacing humor and a bit of healthy guilt and wonders how his
children may feel about it. As a fan of Kaylan’s work I’m more interested in
his music than in his sexual adventures. It is hard to get enough of something
that almost works such as the next woman…or the next high or whatever. It sets
up a weird alchemy that reduces the women and Kaylan to component parts -T
& A.
I would rather learn more about the Turtles recording sessions
for such seminal songs as The Story of Rock & Roll, Elenore, You Baby, She’s
My Girl (a masterpiece) and the great anti-war anthem We Ain’t Gonna Party (No
More) as well as the Turtle Soup sessions and the inside skinny on the mercurial Ray Davies.
Happy Together deserves special mention. It is the Turtles
biggest hit and it is just a great song. The authors Bonner and Gordon shopped
it around to anyone who would listen, no takers. But Kaylan and the Turtles
heard something the other’s had missed. Kaylan’s singing was inspired and the
background harmonies gave it a lush feel. The arrangement was simply brilliant
and Johnny Barbata’s backbeat snapped everyone to attention. It will always be
on the charts.
A big share of
Kaylan’s greatest musical moments involve his years with Zappa from Chunga’s
Revenge and Just Another Band From LA to 200 Motels and the Mothers Live@ the
Fillmore East - June 1971. Kaylan has obvious pride in being part of the Zappa
legacy. It is a well-deserved remembrance as Zappa seemed to come alive and
reach his creative zenith with Kaylan (and Volman) fronting the band. As the vocalists, Flo & Eddie became the
tie-dyed manifestation of the musical landscape and the embodied spirit of
Turtlefucking Mothers.
The Flo and Eddie discography is filled with great music
that even Rolling Stone couldn’t totally dismiss. They may have been “masters
of drug satire” but they also created an
incredibly lucid and varied body of music that included the following albums;
The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie (Feel Older Now, Who But I, There You Sit
Lonely), Flo & Eddie (Another Pop Star’s Life, Days, Afterglow), Illegal,
Immoral & Fattening (with the exquisite Rebecca and an entire side of
perfect X-rated satire), and finally
Moving Targets ( Hot, Mama Open up, and a remake of Elenore). The History of
Flo & Eddie & the Turtles is one of my favorite albums. I would like to have been a fly on the wall
during those sessions.
Rolling Stone reviewed Kaylan’s career extensively. The
various writers seemed ambivalent at best offering begrudging praise alongside
damning indifference and hostility. Here’s a few snap shots rock & roll
press at its most mediocre:
·
Jim Miller panned the Battle of the Bands LP as
something of a bore. He wrote that most of the tracks are parodies that lack
real musical merit. (January 1969)
·
Rob Houghton’s turgid review of The Phlorescent
Leech & Eddie album spoke to their identity crisis (Nov 1972).
·
Ken Barnes partial thumbs up for the second Flo
& Eddie LP despite his disdain for the comedy bits of the Sanzini Brothers
and Carlos the Bull (June 1973).
·
Ben Edmunds review of Illegal, Immoral and
fattening seemed like a back handed compliment followed by a slap in the face
despite his assertion that it was the party record of the year (October 1975).
·
Ken Tucker review of Moving Targets mixed
admiration with reasonable criticism. He asserted that this was their best
album due in part by their interesting self-consciousness. He also tagged the
heresy of reveling in commercialism that they are contemptuous of (November
1976).
Sometime in the nineties Kaylan and Volman were working at
the Miss Universe offices (of all things) with plenty of free time with nothing
to do. They were both heavily into coke. By this time in their life they had
been using for a great many years. Addiction was taking its toll. For Kaylan (and all of us) there is always a basis for
the need to soothe or relax. It seems to
be an unconscious attempt at solutions to personal problems that are buried in
time. So dismissing drugs as a bad habit misses its functionality. There can be
functional aspects to dysfunctional behavior…just ask Howard or me. Kaylan
wrote about its seductive quality; it increased his productivity and made him
more lucid. But his strength became his Achilles Heel. Both of our heroes were
sniffling badly – Kaylan’s nose started to bleed. He looked at Mark and asked,
“What do you think? Volman Replied, “Let’s do it.” They flushed their vials of
white powder down the drain and never looked back.
Howard Kaylan has led an extraordinary life. He’s won and
lost fortunes, resided on the outskirts of fame and to this day he’s still working
his craft, taking the Happy Together Tour on the road. I’d like to see it again,
just one more time. He’s loved well and lost with dignity and a touch of humor.
Howard has rubbed shoulders with the Rock Gods and came out of it all with an
open mind and honest appraisals of his connection to it all. He was close with Marc Bolan of T. Rex fame. Several
critics that reviewed Electric Warrior credited the soaring harmonies of Kaylan
and Volman as integral components to the success of both Electric Warrior and
the top ten single it spawned…Bang a Gong (Get it On), the only top ten hit for
T. Rex in the states.
Kaylan is capable of great love for others and has sustained
long-time friendships. He grieved deeply upon Bolan’s untimely death. Kaylan
felt it was the day music died (for him) when Nilsson passed away. When John
Lennon was murdered, Kaylan “cried all night for all of us.” In late 1992, Zappa’s
cancer was in then news. Kaylan visited his ailing friend and reached a type of
closure that he never gotten from his own father. They hugged goodbye and it
was understood…they would never see each other again. Frank Zappa died on
December 4th, 1993. Death is the great
mystery of life and we may bring our dead back to life through a wishful
hallucination and the psychic pain moves us toward a completion of mourning yet
we will carry the memories of our friends and lovers forever and keep them
alive in our dreams.
Howard married Michelle Dibble in 2005. It was his fifth
marriage although Howard may be the first to say he’s not a marriage junkie and
Michelle’s not a runaway bride. This time may be the charm.
Kaylan’s Coda: When it’s all over and the piper plays Happy
Together one last time, I want to kiss my wife, hug my dog, take a giant toke,
and smile my way through the obsidian void.
My end is my beginning: Kaylan’s memoir is akin to a church
confessional. It’s worked for 1800 years – and it worked perfectly now.
Peace
Bo White
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