Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Turtles From A-Z (AM Radio to Zappa) [Episode 181]

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The Turtles From A-Z (AM Radio to Zappa) [Episode 181] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Howard snapped at one point and just said, I'm sick of this. He
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threw every four letter word out there. He also threw all the pool chairs
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into the pool and everything, and then he stormed out and left, and
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he intended to quit the band. Totally bummed rock and Roll, I mean
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gott to leave you to you're reading Little Hens says it's time to rock and
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roll Rock Roll, I totally booked. Welcome back to booked on Rock the
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podcast for those about to read and rock online. It booked on rock dot
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com, where you can find every episode along with links to listening platforms,
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exclusive videos, blogs, and the latest rock book releases. Mark Arnold and
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Charles f Rosney are we turning guests to the podcast. The brand new book
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is titled Not Just Happy Together The Turtles from eight to z AM Radio to
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Zappa discovered the songs and the history of one of the most successful pop rock
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bands ever, The Turtles, who had countless top forty hits, including it
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in Me Let Me Be You Baby, She'd rather be with me, you
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know what I mean? She's my girl, Eleanor you showed me and of
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course the iconic Happy Together. Authors Mark Arnold and Charles f Rosnee have joined
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forces to cover the entire careers of the Turtles, from their early days as
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the Crossfires, through their hit field years into their breakup that led to most
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of the Turtles members joining forces with Frank Zappa's mothers of invention, to Mark
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Vohman and Howard Kln's years as solo artists under the guys of Flowinetti, and
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even their forays into children's records. Mark and Charles are here to talk about
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all of it in this episode. A playlist of the Turtles, Flowinetti and
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more can be found on the show notes page. Mark, Arnold, Charles
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Rosney. Welcome back, guys. Great to see you again, Great to
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see Eric. Thanks for having us. Well, here we are with a
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book on the Turtles. And it's not just a TURTLESO, which is cool.
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You cover pre and post turtles. So tell us what fans can expect
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in this book. Not just happy to gather the turtle from a to z
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Am radio to Zappa. They can expect a lot of silly rapporte between Mark
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and myself in print. There you go, the oh we want to sell
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the bug. We better tell them some more, Yes, tell us more
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it's divided into different sections. Is a Turtle section has a complete history,
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then it has our comments, The second section about Zappa and their time with
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them and our comments, and then the third section is flowing Eddie solo and
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their comments, and then the children's record section that they did because they did
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a number of children's albums. And then the fifth section is all the many
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interviews Charles and I conducted over the last three years. Really proud of those
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because we got to a lot of people, and I think we probably included
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Howard Kaylin from what we know the last interview he's given. We'd like to
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think that it's a pretty complete and comprehensive discography and book on a turn.
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But there's a lot of personality too. Someone is a diehard Turtles fan,
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well, they're gonna love every word, every sentence. And if there's someone
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who knows the band and just thinks, wow, yeah, sure we know
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happy together, maybe one or other one two other songs, they're gonna get
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the deep the deep dive. They're gonna realize that this band is Wow.
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How come they weren't, you know, up there with every phenomenal band of
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the sixties. Why is it the world recognized. Why are they not in
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the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's where I come from. That's
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the aspect I'm coming from. I know about the Turtles, of course,
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I know a few of the hits here and there, but I was blown
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away at how many hit songs that they had and the body of work,
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and not just with the Turtles, but Flowing Eddie and the whole thing.
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So it actually may be more of a fan after reading the book, if
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you could take us back to the start of the sixties, give us a
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brief backstory of how the Turtles formed and know they were not a British band.
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Their story begins in west Chester, California. They started in high school.
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Believe it or not, they weren't the Turtles then, but four of
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the band members that eventually made the Turtles were in school choir together, and
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this was at Westchester High School down in southern California. One thing led to
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another and they started out as a surfing band. They had a couple different
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names. The most famous name that stuck was the Crossfires, and they managed
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to get out a couple seven inch singles during that time. As we're talking
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nineteen sixty three, sixty four era on some very very small labels, but
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they got some traction on the radio at that time in the local area San
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Bernardino and stuff like that down in southern California. Then they got to be
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the regular performers at a local club bar type thing, and at one point
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the owners, they were impressed with their work. They came up to them
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and basically said, hey, we're going to be your managers. They said,
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okay. And one of the first things they suggested, because the Beatles
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had just hit, we're going to change your name. And they were thinking
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of different names like the six pack and the half dozen and stuff like that,
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and they go, Nope, you're going to be the Turtles. And
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they said the Turtles. It's slow fat creatures. Yeah, And then they
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said no, no, no, you know, the Turtles would be a
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good thing because you'll be confused for a British band and everybody will think you
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be coming over well with all those other animals and a similar type name.
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And it worked, you know, they were confused, and they started getting
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bigger and bigger bookings, nationwide bookings, and they got signed to a larger
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label, not the greatest label, but White Whale. Their breakthrough single was
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the cover of a Bob Dylan song It Didn't Me Babe from nineteen sixty five,
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reached number eight. And there's a funny Bob Dylan story attached to this
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song, right they Bob Dylan said, hey, I think you guys should
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record that. Well, he heard it's great, he loved the is He
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didn't realize it was his own song. But I like to say the Beatles
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gave us yeah, yeah, yeah, and the Turtles gave us no,
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no, no. They say you put that in the book. That was
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a foreshadowing of you know, great hits to come. The vocals are great,
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the arrangement is great. I mean, you know, I think it.
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I'm someone who's a Dylan fan will say, oh man, it's not
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you know, like honest to his version. I think it's better. I
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mean, I want a song that's you know, infectious and has a chorus
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and you're gonna sing along to it. I'd love their version of it.
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Yeah. That first album, which they also called it eight Me Babe,
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you know, they did a lot of Dylan covers on that. They did
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like a Rolling Stone and things like that, so you know, they basically
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picked the cream of the crop of like what was considered folk rock at that
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time, and made it their own, you know. You know, that's
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the cool thing about the Turtles is whenever they did a cover, they didn't
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just do it like Dylan or something. They made it their own, you
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know. They sang it. Howard sang it in his own way, in
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his own voice, and the instrumentation by the band was incredible. So the
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lineup of the Turtles we should mention too. Mark Vohman, Howard Kaelin are
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the most well known members. But who else was well in those early days.
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Always look it up because I was freaking I got to hear too.
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Al Yeah, So al Nickel was a constant. He was always in the
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group too, along with Howard and Mark. But there's always like a revolving
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door of the other one. But the early ones were Chuck Ports, Don
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Murray, and James Tucker. Those were the early that was the early six
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and then it was like Johnny Barbarash yeah yeah, Chuck Ports, yeah,
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yeah, I said that one. Ports was bass. Howard lead vocals,
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keyboards, Don Murray drums, Mark Volman guitar, vocals, Jim Tucker rhythm
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guitar, and then Al Nickel lead guitar, keyboards, right, and all
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these guys were also in the Crossfires. They were also all in high school
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together, so I mean they were young guys. They were younger than the
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Beatles were when they first started out, mid teens. You know, they're
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a true boy band. What's interesting though, that second album doesn't do well.
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You baby, maybe from nineteen sixty six didn't chart and you give an
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honest assessment the book. That's the thing about this book too. You don't
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sugar code, you just you tell it like it is you are, and
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it's so why didn't it succeed? I always think it's because White Whale wasn't
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the strongest label, and they were more of a singles label. You know,
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there's a lot of labels that were known over the years, you know,
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you know them like Stacks and Bolts and things like that, that they're
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known for their singles. They're not really known for their albums. I mean
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history. You know, later on you look back and I go, oh,
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that's a great Otis Redding album. But at the time people were not
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buying albums as much. They're buying sitting on the dock of the bay or
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something like that. So it's the same with the Turtles. They weren't as
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necessarily buying it Eate Me Babe album somewhere because it obviously tried. But when
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you Baby came along, you know, apparently more people bought the U Baby
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single and they let me be single than the album. And I think we
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got to blame, if blame is to be put, and it's not the
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buying public, and it's not because there weren't you know, great songs on
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some of these albums that didn't sell. But the label, the label wasn't
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pushing an album. It was pushing singles. That's what it knew, and
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it knew that if it had you know, one single, great, we'll
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sell a million of them and then hopefully, you know, the album will
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sell ten thousand because it's on that album. But they come back, and
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they come back big with Happy Together. In nineteen sixty seven, their biggest
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commercial success reached number twenty five, the song Happy Together number one single.
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So a question for each of you guys, Charles, you write quote,
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how could any act have ever passed on recording this? But that's what happened,
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and not just once or twice. Tell us about the history of this
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song Happy Together. So this song was being shopped. I mean, it
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was you know, written, and the writers thought or they had a hit,
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but no act really was able to grasp it and turn it and work
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it and put the what was needed. And the Turtles did. I mean
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they said, yeah we could, this could be a hit. We think
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this has potential, and it needed whatever magic that Turtles flowing, Eddie Mark
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and Howard whatever, the magic they added was what was needed in the arrangement.
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And don't forget, this is not outside you know musicians who were coming
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in like the Wrecking Crew and saying, oh yeah, let's add this high
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hat and let's you know, maybe this kind of a bassline and a Spanish
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guitar intro. This was them. It was them in the studio. It
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was them working out the arrangement the way they wanted to be, the way
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they wanted to sound, and the way they want it released. So I
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really think that what was probably a negative in many ways at the time turned
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out to be a positive because studio musicians might have come in, you know,
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how Blaine and to Desco and some of those people, Glenn Campbell,
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who knows if you know the ones who played on the Beach Boys, and
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they played on Momas and the Popas, and they played on the Monkeys.
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So if this was a band that was on a different label, those people
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might have come in and you might have had a completely different sound and a
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different arrangement, and it might not have been that how I think they might
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have rejected it too. You know, everything about the released version of Happy
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Together by the Turtles, with the lineup they had was just perfection. Mark,
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You have an interesting quote in the book regarding cover versions of the song
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one in particular. You see, it's really difficult to ruin a song like
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this, that's how great it is. But John Davidson and Lucy Arnett tried
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really hard to accomplish that by singing it together on the January twenty ninth,
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nineteen seventy three episode of Here's Lucy, I'm afraid to listen Now? Is
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it that bad? Yeah? Well, you know what's funny is that quote
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came from because I was We've been working on this book for over three years.
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Okay. I'm also a big TV nut, and so I love watching
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old sitcoms on DVD, especially shows where like Here's Lucy, I remember when
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it was on. I didn't watch it every week, you know, I
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just watch it occasionally. When the DVDs come out. I'm watching all of
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them. It's like binge watching. That's what I watch. I don't watch
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the latest hit show. I'm watching old garbage from twenty three years ago.
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But anyway, somewhere along the line, and I probably was working on this
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book at the time, that episode comes up and they start singing happy together,
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and I'm going, oh my god, this is awful. I didn't
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know John Davidson was a singer, to be honest. I mean I remember
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Hollywood Squares and then my dad had the Firestone Christmas album with all the various
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singers on him. I see a couple of Disney movies and things like that.
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But later on, you know, he's known for talk shows and other
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things, and he also toured in a sound of music, so he was
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considered a singer, but perhaps not on the one track. I disagree with
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you, guys, as bad as you know versions that have come out since
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by even the worst singers, this song is still the song. It's still
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a great song, and if it's based on the Turtles version, I still
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will love it. I mean, I can't sing, and I sing and
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I go boy, that's a great talk. It's not good. As proof
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of its longevity, there's a new show or current show called FBI. It's
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not the old from Zymbalist FBI. It's a new show. They used Happy
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Together, not the Turtles version, but they used Happy Together to promote it,
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saying new episodes coming up and in the background, imagine me. It's
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kind of like, that's it again. So many movies, so many it's
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in so many soundtracks. It's incredible. And it's written by Gary Barner and
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Alan Gordon. We should talk about these guys who are Gary Barner and Alan
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Gordon? And how did they team up with the Turtles. There's another song
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hit song they write, which is She'd Rather Be with Me? Number three
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singles. So those two songs, well, let me tell you a little
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bit that we haven't mentioned. You know, this is why people were rejecting
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it. I have never heard the demo. It might exist on YouTube,
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but I'd love to hear it. Apparently they did the demo on the really
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cheap you know, so they were just slapping their knees going jimmy like that,
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and it's like nobody could see that this was a hit, but they
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you know, we were talking about the original band members. By the time
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Happy Together was made, Barbada Johnny Barbada came in and was the new drummer.
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Chip Douglass came in and he was also a bass player but also a
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producer, so you know together. He was listening with all this and they
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played Happy Together many many times in concert before or they recorded it. They
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kind of did like what the Marx Brothers used to do in the early films,
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is that they would perform it on stage and from in front of an
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audience and fine tune it and everything. So by the time that they recorded
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this thing, it was basically a guaranteed hit. Yeah, great call.
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As you mentioned, you know, the two composers, it's not just She'd
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Rather be Me, but they did a lot. There's other Turtle songs that
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they covered. But and I think I say it in the book, they
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don't have that magic, they don't have that spark, they don't have the
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infectious hooks that She'd Rather be with Me and and Happy Together. Did you
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know they caught magic in a bottle for those two songs, and not really
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a lot of others. Did they write songs for a lot of other bands
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and acts. Those two guys, I know they wrote Goodbye Surprise, which
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was supposed to be on The Turtles last album, which was not completed,
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and then when Flow and Eddie did their first solo album, they re recorded
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it. Unfortunately, the Flow and Eddie name wasn't as marketable was the Turtle's
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name even in nineteen seventy two. And so, you know, the album
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just basically stiffed, you know. But there's some excellent stuff on there,
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and stuff from Honor and Gordon. The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands.
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This was released in nineteen sixty eight. The follow up to Happy Together,
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only reached one twenty eight in the US but forty three on the US
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cash Box Chart. It's a concept album, a really cool concept. Tell
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me about the concept. But also you both feel the record label White Whale
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didn't market this one the right way either. Oh they've failed big f on
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that one. You know, we had the Beatles Pepper and you have Stones
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Her Majesty's Mother's invention freak Out. So many albums are concept albums, and
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the Turtles were a product of their time obviously, and they wanted to put
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out an album that showed a lot more of their colors, a lot more
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of their flavors. And in this concept album, they were all these different
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bands with all these different styles and most of them most of them great.
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But for some reason he thought they was at the label. Again, the
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album did not do as well as it could. And that's an interesting You
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mentioned cash Box. It charted much much higher than Billboard, and I wonder
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if one had more of a sales impact. I'm trying to remember what was
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the difference is why there would be that much a diverse of right, Yeah,
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I wonder was cash Box based on Yeah, how did they differentiate the
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two charts? One of them obviously is airplay on radio, but cash Box
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would be sales, more sales, I think. But that wouldn't make sense
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because the album didn't sell that it wasn't being picked up like the Gary Puckett
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albums of the time. So it's that doesn't make sense. So I never
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really understood. And if I did a chart analysis, maybe I did a
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you know, figured out across the board why and out because if you look
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at so many of the billboards where it was something was number eighty and then
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on cash Box, well it was eighty five or seventy six. It was
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always much closer for this particular album. That that was a gigantic differentiation doesn't
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make sense. And it's amazing that an album with two top ten hits wouldn't
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even get closer to the top ten itself. I mean, it had Eleanor
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and you showed me yes, and yeah, there's a lot of other songs,
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of course, you know, but those are the two big hits.
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And you can't even say that about Sergeant Peppe. There's no single off of
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that. And you know, with the numbers on those two singles, how
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high did they chart Eleanor? And I think Eleanor was like three, and
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you showed me as like six something like that, or they might be to
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six or something like that. But it was a top ten. Yeah,
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well top ten. That's strange too, because in those days, well I
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guess you could buy forty five's but still in those you have two hit singles,
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people going to buy the whole album to get the singles. Well,
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I guess they still didn't do it. Then. I mean, it's like
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at least with White Whale, because I think it's again white Whale probably had
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distribution problems with came to albums. I mean, I studied the whole White
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Will catalog and they had a few other hit singles by other acts, but
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album wise, the two highest charting albums White Male ever had was Happy Together
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at twenty five and their Golden Hits, their first compilation, was their only
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top ten. It went till number seven on the charts, and every other
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act basically didn't chart or was in the lower near two hundred regions signed to
19:27
White Whale. I mean, what was the local Los Angeles label? And
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I think you know that. You know, if you watch the Turtles documentary,
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they trusted everybody, you know, so you know, the guys that
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ran the nightclub said hey, where are your managers? And they go okay,
19:44
you know, and so they probably were friends with the guys at the
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label and they said, here's your label. Okay. Well, say that's
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the trouble of trying to find one. You did it, you know,
19:52
thanks, you know, the first one who came along. You mentioned the
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Golden Hits album. And at the time, I remember we'd gotten this new
20:03
fangled item called a cassette player, which able to now play in a car
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Eric, you're too young, so you wouldn't know. Oh no, I
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remember you had cassettes where my cassettes were right my strike zone. I was
20:14
born in seventy two, so so but I had obviously everything on vinyl.
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We had, you know, all the Supremes albums in the Four Seasons,
20:21
and the Beatles and the Monkeys and Gary Puckett, on and on and on.
20:23
So when we got the cassette, we were going to listen to stuff
20:26
in the car, and it had to be stuff that we didn't already.
20:30
My parents and I went, we didn't already have in vinyl. So the
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first two out of the box, whereas Golden it's the Turtles and Tom Jones
20:41
go figure, Oh my god. Yeah, you're in the introduction you talk
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about those car rides from New Haven to New York. Right, you were
20:48
initially lived in New York, right, and your mom missed New York so
20:51
you'd go and visit family members, right, correct, Yes, right,
20:55
very good. And so those were you know, hour and a half two
20:57
hour rides, close to two hours because there were tolls along the way back
21:02
then. And sure enough we had cassettes, and you know, it became
21:06
grand Fong and became other things. But the first two i'd ever unwrapped,
21:10
and I found it so weird to, you know, take out the little
21:14
sleeve and not have a big item with you know, lyrics and that vinyl
21:19
to put it in. But the plugging in was so convenient, and though
21:22
over and over we played every Turtle song and that's how that's why I fell
21:26
in love with them. Well, Mark's story I can relate to as well,
21:30
because I used to go to the local coldors here in town, and
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you'd look through the bargain bin and you look for cassettes and if it was
21:38
ninety nine cents or whatever, it's like what do I have to lose?
21:41
You know? And then you discovered these these artists. That's why you discovered
21:45
the Turtles, right Mark, Yeah, it was. I sett it was
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the greatest hits out but it wasn't Golden Hits, but it was I believe
21:52
a Mexican pressing called Greatest Hits, and it had like twenty five tracks,
21:57
and I go and it was like three bucks or something. I said,
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Hey, I really only know happy together. I think I knew she'd rather
22:06
be with me. I think that was it. But I said there's a
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bunch of stuff on here, let's try it out. If it's terrible,
22:11
I can just toss it out. And you know, I think I do
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go through the book song by song. My first impression. Some I liked,
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some I didn't, some I loved, and I was like, Wow,
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where's this band been all my life? You know? That's cool?
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Yeah? I think you mentioned too. I had the little hole, a
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punched hole in the plastic. Yeah, it was the cutout bind We never
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had those cutoup binds. I used to raid those things all yeah, and
22:32
they were never in order. It was just a big, one, big
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mess, you know. Random. You just had to look through it.
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Yeah. So the last Turtles album nineteen sixty nine is Turtle Soup, produced
22:41
by Ray Davies of The Kinks, and it fared slightly better on the charts
22:45
than Battle, the band's number one seventeen in the US. Do you say
22:48
it's kind of a schizophrenic album? Now, Yeah, that's fair. Ray
22:52
didn't want it to be a king's album, and the Turtles wanted it to
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be a king's album, and they it just didn't. It didn't. It's
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schizophrenic. It's a great word for that. Yeah, I'm not sure which
23:03
one of you guys wrote it, but I think one of you described it.
23:06
Maybe it was Mark schizophrenic. Yeah, because they didn't know what they
23:10
wanted it to be, that's really bottom line. The unfortunate thing is it
23:14
didn't really have a hit single off of it by that point, you know,
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you showed Me really was their last big hit, and so they had
23:22
some minor hits and they're good songs, you know, like House on the
23:25
Hill and you Don't have to Walk in the Rain things like that, but
23:27
it's like they're not songs people remember, they don't get any airplay nowadays.
23:33
That was one of my loves of doing this book is Mark was very much
23:40
more well versed in the Turtles, you know, history and discography and all
23:44
that, and so for me, yeah, I knew all the hits,
23:48
I knew some of the B sides. I knew a lot of the stuff
23:51
that the world may or may not know unless they're music people. But going
23:56
into the whole albums and hearing the stuff that was like so many scenarios of
24:02
how could this not have been a hit. That's what I was getting a
24:06
lot of, And of course I was also getting a lot of Oh yeah,
24:07
I can see why it wasn't a hit because you know, so bland,
24:11
it doesn't have a strong car, so whatever. But that's gonna be
24:14
the case with every recording artist on the planet. But for an act that
24:18
had so many great hits, the ones that could have been follow up hits
24:22
and should have been hits never were, And that leaves the question mark of
24:27
was it the label's fault? Was it a matter of the you know,
24:32
the producer. There's no real answer to that. But what the book does
24:36
a good job of, I think, is pointing out which songs should be
24:41
known and which songs we understand why they're not as known as they are.
24:45
And then the end of the Turtles just like that were in nineteen sixty nine.
24:49
But it's not just one thing that leads to the end of the band.
24:52
Management issues, lawsuits, label conflicts all play apart. And then there
24:57
are a few crazy stories he's involving the band at private parties that are in
25:03
the book, one at the White House and another where Howard left the stage
25:07
mid song. And they don't even talk about this as the Turtles documentary.
25:10
So it was news to me when I figured it out, and found out
25:12
later by the other sources, probably been Howard's autobiography. But you know,
25:17
it's like they got to the point where they weren't playing like the big stadiums
25:22
of the big clubs anymore for some dumb reason, and White Whale was encouraging
25:26
them to play anywhere and any everywhere. So they'd play like for somebody's it'd
25:33
be some rich person and throw them a few thousand dollars and they'd play in
25:37
the backyard. And so, you know, it just just Howard snapped at
25:42
one point and just said, I'm sick of this. You know. He
25:45
threw every four letter word out there. Sure, but he also threw all
25:49
the pool chairs into the pool and everything, and then he stormed out and
25:52
left, and he intended to quit the band. You know, this is
25:56
when they were recording Turtle Soup, so they went ahead and recorded without him,
26:02
with other the other Turtles taking on lead vocals. When he did return,
26:07
he wanted to replace those vocals. And they say, ah, my
26:10
vocals on here. So a happy thing for fans is that you get to
26:14
hear all the Turtles take on a lead vocal. But for Howard's sake,
26:18
it was just like Yeah, it's like they weren't being taken seriously anymore.
26:22
And I mean, you see, if if Ray Davies wants to work with
26:26
him, and if Frank Zappa, who's freaking brilliant, wants to work with
26:30
these guys, they have legitimate skills. The White House story was with the
26:36
That was when Nixon was right. Yeah, Mark, I'll let you tell
26:40
us right, but before we do, Eric, what what you said?
26:42
They were funny guys. So it's they were taken very seriously by their peers,
26:48
Springsteen, Mark Bolan, you know, t Rex, certainly Zappa.
26:52
They were recognized as great vocalists and people wanted to work with them. But
26:57
yet I don't think they and it's on that Mark would have gotten upset,
27:03
Howard have gotten so upset and walked off because they didn't take themselves as seriously
27:08
as you would think. And if you saw them through the years live,
27:12
their show was as much comedy as it was music, you know, right
27:18
up to you know, recording Gary Shandling's theme song. Everything with the Turtles
27:22
tied in with you were and personality, and that's that's one of my loves
27:27
of the Beatles, The Monkeys, the Turtles, is it's not just music,
27:32
it's personality, it's comedy. It's you know, let's what are they
27:36
gonna say and do next? And you know, they would make fun of
27:40
their peers, they would goof on other recording acts. So they never took
27:45
themselves seriously I think on stage, but certainly took themselves seriously in the studio.
27:52
That's why that whole Howard incident of walking off, you know, had
27:56
to have been oh my god, this is you know, well, they
28:00
weren't. They weren't appreciating him. Like I said, it was some wealthy
28:03
family. They got the turtles, and the turtles were just like background music.
28:07
Nobody was paying attention to them, nobody, you know, and that's
28:10
what was really kind of angering him. You know. He wanted to performance
28:14
in front of an appreciative crowd, not people that are like drinking and talking
28:18
to each other and eating while they're performing their hits. Wid like a secondary
28:25
wedding band, right right, right, yeah, yeah, So yeah,
28:29
they felt, you know, at least Howard, it felt they were better
28:30
than that, you know. And it's like the White House gig was like
28:34
almost a different animal. It's still was a wealthy family of course, but
28:37
apparently Tricia Nixon, which was one of Richard Nixon's daughters, said that The
28:44
Turtles was one of her favorite bands, and so somehow the checker, so
28:53
somehow this got back to the White whale of the Turtles. They got an
28:57
invite to go and play at the White House, and they initially turned it
29:03
down because oh Nixon, yeah, you know, and everyone convinced him that
29:07
it's like, well, you know, it's not really a political thing.
29:11
He's not going to be there. It's more kind of honoring your country,
29:15
you know, and stuff like that. And they kind of said, okay,
29:18
you know, on that level, and there's money and you know the
29:25
story, and Howard and Mark tell this very well in the documentary if you
29:30
have a chance, you know. But it's like they're all waltzing in with
29:33
their instruments and everything. It's a secret service, so they're bringing it in.
29:37
They don't know how to handle things, and so they're dropping drum kits
29:40
and everything, and one of them had a metronome inside and started ticking,
29:44
and so they thought it was a bomb. So they told everyone to hit
29:47
the dirt and then they pulled out the metronome. He pulls out this one
29:52
lever and it makes an a chord, you know, you know, just
29:59
so every thought, oh no, it's gonna explode. And so they leave,
30:03
come back with this metronome that's torn apart, and they say, here,
30:07
it's a metronome's and they think they paid him a check of seventy five
30:11
dollars for the broken metronome. Most underrated Turtle song in your opinion, We'll
30:15
start with Mark and then Charles. Most underrated song You're shocked wasn't a hit?
30:21
Well, it might be because it's like I love it, Love in
30:23
the City. Yeah, probably. I want to give a different angle on
30:27
the answer. I'm a big surf music guy, Telstar all that, you
30:33
know, the Ventures, and I thought that the stuff that the Crossfires were
30:37
putting out was maybe not you know, hit after hit, but certainly on
30:41
par with the good surf music of the time. And that I think that
30:48
was if someone is listening and say, oh, what what song should I
30:52
get to love? There's a few surf there's a bunch that's actually a bunch.
30:56
But I would say check out the cross Fire stuff because it really is
31:02
it's a product of its time, but it also holds up it's fun,
31:06
and then how much of it is available? They put out everything on a
31:11
CD. So the singles that I mentioned earlier they're on there. And I
31:15
think there's like fifteen tracks, including a couple of alternate takes. I mean,
31:18
I think they have everything that they ever did. They even did a
31:22
Christmas record Santa and the Sidewalx Surfer, and you know, it's a crack
31:26
up the book down. Rock Podcasts will be back after this. Mark Howard
31:33
and Charles f. Roseney, authors of the brand new book titled Not Just
31:36
Happy Together The Turtles from A to z AM Radio to Zappa, which is
31:40
where now we're at. Frank Zappa? How did that gig come about?
31:42
It's the two guys that joined the band's Mark and Howard are flowing any Yeah,
31:48
how did that all come together? La music scene? Everybody knew each
31:52
other, so, you know, the Zappa, the Monkeys, the Turtles,
31:56
all these guys were playing together, you know, or knew of each
31:59
other at the released. In sixty nine, Zappa disbanded his original Mothers of
32:06
Invention. They had been together for about five years or something like that,
32:08
and they were on the payroll, but he wasn't having hits, and he
32:13
said, why are all these people on my payroll? He's paying him out
32:15
of his own pockets. So he fired everyone and then he realized, oh,
32:20
I want to go on a tour again after he did the Hot Rats
32:22
album, So he assembled a new Mothers of Invention. I think a couple
32:28
of the members from the old Mothers of Invention came back, if I remember
32:30
correctly, But he decided on this time out he wanted some good singers,
32:36
or at least a good singer. And you know, like I said,
32:39
everybody knows everything. The Monkeys were kind of winding down, and so he
32:44
initially pursued Mickey Dolan's and asked him, and Mickey just said, no,
32:51
interesting, huh. He wasn't interested in that type of music. So,
32:54
I mean, even the Monkeys did some crazy sounds and wild things, but
33:00
I think even that was beyond head and beyond what they were doing. So
33:06
or maybe his managers said, you know, I don't know the exact story.
33:08
Maybe his managers said, you don't want to do that. Right.
33:14
In the case of the Turtles, they had nothing to lose. I mean,
33:16
White whel was folding up, they were running out of money. The
33:20
Turtles hadn't had a hit and well over a year, and they were really
33:22
the bread and butter artist on that label. So they eventually they got to
33:28
the point where they were like reissuing stuff from the first album, like Eve
33:32
of Destruction and even charted like a number one hundred and stuff like that.
33:37
But anyway, on the Zappa side, so he went to Howard Kalin next
33:40
and he said, hey, Howard, would you like to be in the
33:44
Mothers, and and Howard was a Zappa fan. He said sure, but
33:47
you got to bring my friend Mark because we worked together. And Zappa was
33:52
like, okay, you know, and then he thought, yeah, they
33:55
can do some good harmonies. There's a good reason for this and so,
34:00
and it's kind of funny when you're young, everything seems to take forever,
34:05
but when you look through the history, they probably were out of work officially,
34:09
maybe like two weeks, you know, yeah, but you know the
34:15
story, you know, it's like, oh, we're out of commission for
34:19
like a couple of years, and finally Zappa threw us a bone. You
34:22
know, it's like, no, it was only a couple of weeks,
34:23
dudes. But actually technically there were three guys from the band Recus. Jim
34:28
Ponds, the bassis for the Turtles, was there. He didn't he didn't
34:31
join initially, but eventually he did. Yeah, it took a few months
34:36
because he had What had happened was they did have a bassist. And if
34:39
you've seen the movie two hunderd Motels, they actually do a story on that
34:43
in the movie is the basis they had. And I can't think of his
34:46
name off the top of my head, said I don't want to play the
34:51
Zappa's crap music. I want to play good classical music and jazz and other
34:57
stuff, you know. And so he left. Strangely if you got him
35:00
to recreate that for two hundred Motels, you know, but that's about the
35:05
time when Ponds came in, so they're both in this movie. I haven't
35:08
seen two hundred Motels, but I heard it's bizarre. It makes Magical Mystery
35:14
Tour look like a straightforward picture, or head looked like a straightforward picture.
35:20
You know, it's almost incomprehensibly. He was probably looking at not just people
35:28
who were musical, but maybe people who had a similar mindset as far as
35:32
comedy and entertainment. I tell the story I had some kind of poster from
35:37
two hundred Motels. I think it was probably a promo sheet or something.
35:43
And I went to see Theodore Bikel live. Mark you've probably heard this story
35:46
and theater Bikel is a very established, you know, highbrow performer, singer
35:52
and all this, and somehow I guess it forced him into this film and
35:58
he and I asked so at Theodore mcael at the Woolsey Hall or some high
36:02
fluent place, and I said, can you sign this for me? Please?
36:07
And he went just he just like, oh my gosh, anything but
36:10
anything but that he dreaded that someone knew that he was in it, and
36:15
that was that was part of his residence. Yeah, it's magical mystery tour
36:22
and and head are you know our sensible classics compared to two hundred Motels.
36:29
Yeah, I still need to see that. And Howard and Mark or On
36:31
Zappa's nineteen seventy album Chunga's Revenge, tell Me You Love Me is just a
36:37
kick ass tune. Yeah, I love that. I mean that could have
36:39
been a Turtle song, you know, really what you know? They had
36:43
some songs. Zappa released a lot of weird stuff, but he had a
36:46
commercial ear too. I mean, you know, not necessarily with flowin Eddi,
36:51
but I mean, you know, later on he did Dance in Full
36:53
and Valley Girl and things like that, so he had a commercial ear absolutely
36:57
yeah. Yeah, And Jim is on the Fillmore East June nineteen seventy one
37:01
album, so all three guys are on that one. And then nineteen seventy
37:05
two is just another band from La also a live album. And then Howard
37:09
and Mark changed their names because White Whale Records had ownership of their real names.
37:15
They changed their name to what was it again? They had two roadies
37:19
and one of them was known as the Fluorescent Leech right it was later shortened
37:23
to Flow. Interestingly, Howard was originally Fluorescent Leech and Mark was Eddie,
37:30
but somehow it got switched and so but you know, they were named after
37:36
the two roadies. I reveal who the roadies were in the book, but
37:39
it was just like an ind joke because they couldn't use the name Mark Volman
37:43
or Howard Kalin for a time. It's just crazy that changed later, you
37:47
know. But the news business is like not like I just did an interview
37:51
with an author who did a book on Moby Grape and their manager forced them
37:55
to sign something where he owned the name of the band. So then when
38:01
they split ways, the managers going around promoting that are his own mobi grape
38:07
and then there's the real Mobi Grape playing at some time. So nineteen I
38:13
think the nineteen ten Fruit Gum Company, a bubblegum band had the same scenario
38:16
where you know, well, it's when the Monkeys tour, they have to
38:22
license their guitar logo. They don't own it. You know, Mickey Dolans
38:25
goes out, he's Mickey Dolans. But if he wants it to be a
38:29
Monkey's tour and they want to use the logo, they're they're paying for it.
38:31
It's a very similar situation. And they weren't flowing Eddy. No way
38:37
were they going to pay to use the name Turtles. It was just screw
38:39
it. But in this case, this is their real name. Yeah,
38:45
you own contract. And like I said, you know they they by their
38:50
own admitutes. They greeted everything, they signed anything. They didn't read it.
38:53
You know, they're kids, you know, they didn't know what they're
38:55
doing. Actually, they didn't have lawyers there. Nowadays, he probably have
38:59
three lawyer around you. You probably don't want to sign that. We got
39:02
to take that out, you know, and they'd be reading it themselves,
39:06
you know. But back then, you know, sign these kids up quick.
39:09
They can sing right right. This incident where Zappa falls off stage during
39:15
a show in London in seventy one, this is crazy. He could have
39:19
died. I mean, I mean the way he's described like he's he's in
39:22
the orchestra, pitt looking up. Yeah, they're just staring. Let's back
39:25
up a bit. The thing that stopped them first was some guy lit a
39:31
flare when they're performing, and that became the basis for Deep Purple's Smoke on
39:37
the Water, you know. And the venue burned down, plus their instruments,
39:39
so they had nothing, and Zappa asked, well, do you want
39:44
to continue, and most of them said yeah, we got to continue.
39:46
So the next gig was in England, in London somewhere, and oh that
39:52
was the next gig after the next game. It was like a week later,
39:55
and they rented instruments because they didn't have their own. They're burned up
40:00
yeast gig and so here they're starting to perform again. Hey, you know,
40:05
we're back on track. Blah blah blah, blah blah. And then
40:07
at the very end of the show, and there's audio recording of this.
40:10
You know, some jealous guy thought that Zappa was flirting with his girlfriend off
40:15
stage, and so he rushed the stage at the end, pushed him into
40:19
the orchestra pit. He felt thirty feet or something like that. Yeah,
40:22
and he was like, he's in the orchestra pit with like his leg is
40:25
all bent in his Yeah. You know, it's like, you know,
40:29
they all say, you know, it looked like he was dead and he
40:31
wasn't. But he was in a wheelchair for like a year, and he
40:36
certainly couldn't tour, and so that basically ended the Flooring Eddi version of the
40:40
Zappa Mothers. Yes, right, that's where flo starts. They released a
40:45
handful of studio albums from seventy two to eighty one. What are your personal
40:49
highlight songs or albums from those years? The first one, which is called
40:52
The Fluorescent Leech and Eddie, came out in seventy two. If you get
40:57
the CD booklet, it even says in there that they went to them.
41:00
They were on Reprise Records by this point, and they asked them, do
41:05
you want to put this out as a Turtles album or a Flow and Eddie
41:07
album, and it could have been another Turtles album, but for some reason,
41:13
everybody kind of agreed that Turtles were old news. By nineteen seventy two,
41:17
Flow and Eddie are hot off of being with Zappa for a couple of
41:21
years. Let's continue with that name. I don't know if it was the
41:23
shrewdest move, you know. I think they could have put it out under
41:28
the real names. By that point, they probably had the rights to the
41:30
real names Mark and Howard, you know, or some variation thereof, or
41:34
even come up with a new name. Flow and Eddie's not very catchy,
41:37
but they did what they did, and it's a very good album. Like
41:42
all the Flow and Eddie albums, there's a couple weird comedy cuts that are
41:46
kind of goofy on the second album, which is called Flow and Eddie.
41:51
They had this one called Carlos and the Bull and they do these bad Mexican
41:55
accents. They out their own talk show for a while, didn't they.
42:01
Oh yeah, they had a radio show. The first time I ever heard
42:06
the name Flown Eddie was just seeing kit A Jeene and Paul from Kiss during
42:10
Music from the Elder Era in nineteen eighty. Yeah, and it's this surreal
42:15
interview where like they're just they're all being goofy, you know, Gene and
42:17
Paul are being goofy, and flowin Eddie are being goofy. I was like,
42:21
who are these guys? Folow Eddie. There's this box set that Rhino
42:24
put out that's long out of print, but if you can find it,
42:27
it's really good. We talk about it in the book called The History of
42:29
Flow and Eddie and the Turtles, and they have various sound clips from the
42:34
radio show. They have Ringo on there and Harry Nilssen and Alice Cooper,
42:39
Keith Moon, all sorts of different things. They actually got the Move together,
42:44
which is Jeff Lynn's group before Yellow, and they tricked them into arriving
42:50
at the studio together so that they would reunite. It's like, you know,
42:53
I go, why didn't ever anybody think of that with the Beatles to
42:57
get them together, right, you know? But they got the Move together
43:00
and they're a little bit just out of sorts, but then they agreed to
43:05
be interviewed. Well we're here now, you know. Yeah. The sound
43:08
of Flown Eddie is it vastly different from the Turtles, is it? Is
43:12
it similar? Now we're into the seventies, so just so. But I
43:16
mean, you know ones that sound good that should have been hits like let
43:21
Me Make Love to You, Rebecca, you know, things like that.
43:25
They had that sound. You know, they had the harmonies, you know,
43:29
still because Mark and Howard just knew how to sing together. Howard is
43:32
a you know, an underrated great lead vocalist, and somehow Mark, you
43:37
know, you hear Mark. Nowadays it's you have to discount it, you
43:42
know, because years later and you know, it's taken it tall. It's
43:44
hard him to sing. But back then he was. His harmonies were great.
43:47
They were spot on and together they blended so beautifully. What I wanted
43:52
to touch on what you guys discussed. You know, they were on Reprise
43:55
Records, which was Sinatra's label. I mean, this was a major label.
44:00
I don't think it was an issue for them to have gotten the name
44:04
Turtles and used it at that point. I just think they were so this
44:08
is the past, you know, that was the sixties. We want to
44:10
move ahead, and they did move ahead sound wise, because it was you
44:15
know whatever at five ten years later. But yet it's you still hear the
44:20
sound, you still hear the vocals. Then if you play a Turtle song
44:22
with a flow and Eddie first album or second album song, you you can
44:27
see the symmetry, right, yeah. Yeah, And you talk about the
44:30
vocals. They did backing vocals on some of the biggest albums. I'm looking
44:36
here, t Rex Steely, Dan Keith Moon's solo album, Steven Still's Alice
44:43
Cooper. They are doing backing vocals on Springsteen's Hungry Heart. Yeah, yep,
44:50
Wow, Blondie Paul Canton Auto American album, The Blondie One. That's
44:54
the one with the tightest high and rapture. And they're on that right,
44:58
Jefferson Airplane in nineteen eighty nine, Duran, Duran that mid nineties album thank
45:06
You. Yeah, and then they recorded children's albums. How did that all
45:09
come about? Well, well, back up a little bit. Yeah,
45:13
So two hundred Motels had an animated segment in it. It was like,
45:19
if I remember correctly, one of the character's head trips, you know,
45:21
it's like and so it was animated by this company called Murror Zaki Wolf,
45:28
and they ended up animating like Nielsen's the point if you've ever seen that special.
45:32
And they did a special with Marlo Thomas called Free to Be You and
45:37
Me. And they later were doing specials with characters Strawberry Shortcake and the care
45:43
Bears, which were American Greetings characters. So Bloe and Eddie knew these guys
45:50
and vice versa, and so they invited him to write and sing new songs,
45:54
and they did, you know, so, you know, they write
45:58
songs like here come the care Bears, introduce them all, you know,
46:00
Here's Happy Bear, Here's Sad Bear. Whatever. I don't know the characters
46:05
name, you know, or you know the Strawberry Shortcake theme, Here comes
46:08
Strawberry, you know that type of thing, and kids ate it up.
46:12
They didn't know who Flowing Eddie were, they don't know who the turtles were,
46:15
but those are good kids songs. And I like Strawberry Shortcake. So
46:19
I'm playing this record, so that's it. And then how many albums did
46:22
they put out children? I think they did five each of those characters that
46:25
did a G I. Joe Storyteller album, you know, with the you
46:30
know GI Joe, you know, in the eighties version of G I.
46:34
Joe with that had an animated series and they did a Gumby compilation where various
46:40
singers would sing songs about Gumby and it was marketed on Disney Records. They
46:45
got Frank Sinatra Junior to do a song, They got duezl and Moon Unit
46:51
Zappa to do a song, and Flowing Eddie did a song about Gumby that
46:54
sounds like I Am the Walrus. It has the same kind of you know
47:00
it, Mark, I'm so glad you mentioned that back when Eric, when
47:02
you asked what one song should the world knows that it's that Gumby song.
47:08
It's it's it out ruddles the ruddles. It's like the most beatle non Beatles
47:14
song there is that Gumby song. Oh is that on Spotify? Because I
47:17
put together a playlist for each episode? Is it on Spotify? Any think
47:22
it should be? I mean, I'll get you the name of the exact
47:25
name of the song. That's awesomeby the Blockheads, Pokey the Legends. The
47:35
official title is we All Are Gumby? Were we all are Gumby? We
47:39
All are Gumby? Yeah, Gumby had a gummy behead. There was a
47:43
resurgence for Gumby. I remember in the nineties or no, Yeah, they
47:47
used to play it after you. I remember coming home from school in the
47:50
mid eighties watching it and to make a connection even stronger with the Beatles,
47:54
that album came out with a green cover that looks like the white album.
47:59
But instead of saying that Beatles, it's a Gumby Oh my god, that's
48:02
great, perfect, that's great. And speaking of the eighties, they brought
48:06
back the Turtles, right Howard and Mark. They brought it back after some
48:08
legal battles, but Howard retired in twenty eighteen. However, Mark still continues
48:15
with Ron Dante of the Archies. Yeah, he's missed a few shows Mark
48:19
for health reasons. But when you go see the Happy Together Tour, they're
48:23
the headliners. It's Ron Dante doing Howard's parts because Howard's done. Mark still
48:29
does comedy, but Ron plays it straight, does the songs exactly note for
48:34
note as they were, and it's still great. It keeps the music alive.
48:37
Mark still keeps the personality and comedy alive. And people who go,
48:42
you know, they know, I think they know they're not seeing the original
48:45
five Turtles. But that's how it is with every band, whether it's grassroots,
48:49
whoever you're gonna see now, you know, the Monkeys is Mickey.
48:52
You know, different bands is different people. But as long as Mark's out
48:55
there, it's still give that. I don't know if it will continue beyond
49:00
you know, when Mark actually, you know, hangs it up and stops
49:01
playing, if ron Dante of the Archies will then be the Turtles with the
49:07
band that they play with now, we don't know. But right since about
49:09
twenty eighteen, the Happy Together tour, aside from COVID when it stopped for
49:15
a little while, has been It's been for since the eighties, Happy Together.
49:20
And we had the privilege of interviewing most of the people who played with
49:25
the Turtles when they were the Turtles, when they were Post Turtles, and
49:30
right up on through their touring years. A lot of the musicians who they
49:34
had a West Coast and an East Coast band on some times for financial reasons,
49:38
it made sense to have a group playing when they played their California gigs
49:43
and their New York area gigs. And now when it's a Happy Together tour,
49:46
it's one band that backs up, whether it's the Cowcils or the Association
49:52
or the Vogues or whoever. Is on the bill. It's the Turtles band
49:55
backing everybody else up and the book Not Just Happy Together. The Turtles from
50:00
A to z Am Radio to Zappa is out now and you can find it
50:05
where books are sold right Amazon, all the places that usually get your books,
50:08
and then people can also find you. Guys. You're all over the
50:13
place. Let's start, actually, Mark, when we start with your podcast.
50:15
You've had a lot of the guys from the Turtles. Yeah, I
50:19
mean, if you want to hear the interview Ideas Uncut and everything with Charles
50:22
and I. I mean they're on the Fun Ideas podcast, which I've done
50:25
since about twenty eighteen. Originally I didn't know who I was going to interview
50:30
on my podcast. I just was doing my normal interviews and then I said,
50:35
hey, I can make this work double duty. I can interview somebody
50:37
and then that interview can work for my books. Coming soon. I have
50:40
a two volume Mad magazine history book called Unconditionally mad Well. I interviewed a
50:46
lot of the Mad guys and so those are on different episodes. So it's
50:50
not all music for me. It's all my just various interests, DD movies,
50:54
animation, whatever. So I am a subscriber. I listened regular and
51:00
Charles people could find you online social media, the Beatles Tours, whatever you
51:06
want to all over the place. Yeah, like manure, you just spread
51:09
everywhere. I will tell you that we went to do a shout out to
51:14
Genius Books who put out this amazing addition. This it's a hardcover. It's
51:20
really almost five hundred pages. It's really a beautiful job that they did by
51:24
Henry Dilts. The front cover and back cover rock photographer Henry Gilder from the
51:30
Doors and the Monkeys and the Beatles. We got a nice forward from Gary
51:35
Puckett, Gary Pucket and the Union Gap. The book is, as you
51:37
said, in all the places, all the normal usual suspects. But the
51:42
website for it is www not just Happy Together dot com. Then you can
51:49
order straight from there. And yeah, I do the Beatle Tours Liverpool Tours
51:52
dot com. If people want to come to the Holy Land Liverpool in London
51:57
with me, I want to go. We were just talking before we started
52:02
to wet, just before we started recording. We're talking about they're going to
52:06
make biopics on each of the four guys and the Beatles. You gotta be
52:08
looking forward to that, so exciting. And the other thing we're looking forward
52:13
to, aside from Mark's Mad book, is another book with an eminent him
52:16
and I. Mark and I are working on a Monkey's collection that's going to
52:21
be coming out, hopefully before the end of the year, so we'll let
52:23
you know all about that one as well. Excellent, What Me Worry?
52:28
Mad Magazine Classic Classic? Is Mad Magazine still going? They're still going.
52:35
It's a reprint book now. They have occasional they have new covers. The
52:39
latest issue has Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, the football Travis Yeah. Yeah,
52:46
see yeah, I couldn't think of his name off the top of my
52:49
head. I'm like mister Swift, right Swift. But you know, it's
52:57
a funny it's a funny timely cover. So they still try to keep up.
53:00
They still occasionally have a new article here and there, and they have
53:04
new fold ins and stuff like that. So they try. But you know,
53:07
I hope for at some point that they will come back, but you
53:10
know, at least they're being published. So yeah, looking forward to that
53:14
book. Thanks for being on guys, Thank you so much for having us.
53:17
Thank you. That's it. It's in the books.