From joining The Mothers of Invention, releasing several albums as a duo, starring in and composing music for cartoons, hosting radio shows and helping their friends find success by contributing their incredible backing vocals, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan did many interesting things while unable to use the name The Turtles and I’m here to tell you all about it so make sure to watch this video all the way through for some fascinating information!
The Turtles had found incredible success but increasing legal battles as well during their career in the 1960s. The label they were feuding with held the rights to the name “The Turtles” and eventually the band decided to throw in the towel. The two silly front men of the group, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan didn’t need to discuss between themselves that they would go on working together, but for a period of time they were out of work, not collecting sufficient royalties and didn’t know what they would do with themselves as they entered the ‘70s.
Howard received some offers including the option to sing for the new band Donald Fagan was making, Steely something or other, but he didn’t want to commit to an untried project especially without his favorite collaborator.
Howard’s second-cousin, Herb Cohen was Frank Zappa’s manager, so Mark and Howard had been friends with and looked up to the incredible Frank Zappa for years and at one of his shows, he informed the lads that he was making a new lineup of The Mothers of Invention and invited them to a family barbecue.
The two were asked to bring their saxophones and show him their skills… Which they don’t really have, so fortunately, Zappa had vision with them being lead and backing vocalists and it was fine that they couldn’t sax up to par with the top-notch professional instrumentalists.
Zappa was constantly looking to push boundaries and try new things and the mystery of what Zappa was working on was far more intriguing than getting any other more typical singer job that may be available to them.
The other members of Zappa’s band of virtuosos were confused by the addition of the pop singers into their anti-commercial group and didn’t initially respect them as equals. Frank was also notorious for being anti-drug and was not happy when he caught the boys smoking herb in and again outside his studio. He laid down the law with the boys but when they proved that they were able to remember every intricacy of his intense compositions, he laid off of them. (And eventually even partook with the band a couple times, but a lot of people still don’t know that)
When they started their adventures on the road together, Frank advised Mark and Howard to use new names in order to avoid more legal issues and they stole some nicknames from, ya know, Carlos and some roadie that looked like an Eddie, and Howard became the Phlorescent Leech and Mark was now simply Eddie.
The first record by this group, “Chunga’s Revenge,” was released in late October of 1970 and The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie contribute to six of the ten tracks. The album is packed with variety, with strict compositions as well as more free-form ideas ranging from blues to avante-garde to progressive rock and jazz fusion while the comical lyrics are largely about sex and groupies.
Personally, the track that resonates the most for me on this is one of the instrumental songs that has more of a Jazz Fusion “Hot Rats” vibe and the rest of the album shows me why some members of the Mothers as well as old Zappa fans had been skeptical going into this new era with two wacky front men.
Though far from my favorite, it is an interesting album and has a few songs that show off Howard and Mark’s abilities. For the best Flo and Eddie moments, listen to the short and silly songs, “Tell Me You Love Me,” “Would You Go All the Way,” “Rudy Wants to Buy Yez a Drink” and “Sharleena.”
I don’t want to spend too long talking about all the craziness of Zappa’s band at this point and I may have a few things slightly out of order here. But it was clear that creating the film “200 Motels” with it’s radical compositions was the next major passion project for Frank. He didn’t expect that shortly before filming, the bassist, Jeff Simmons left the band.
At first, Wilfred Bramble, Paul’s Grandpa in “A Hard Day’s Night,” was brought in to fill his role in the film but after a week of rehearsal, he apparently freaked out and ran screaming down a hallway and wasn’t heard from again.
Ringo Starr’s cheffeur, Martin Lickert walked into the meeting while everyone was stressing about how to replace the replacement and he just happened to be a bassist.
When it came to the band on the other hand, a familiar friend, Jim Pons from the Turtles was called to fill the role and he also appears in the film.
On June 5th and 6th of 1971, the group recorded their shows at Fillmore East to compile for a live album released a couple months later in August as “Fillmore East – June 1971”
Personally, I very much enjoy this record, and feel like live shows by The Mothers and later Flo and Eddie were probably far superior experiences over listening to any of their studio albums. It feels somewhat like a concept album with lyrical themes re-appearing at times, especially once we get into the Flo and Eddie skit, “Do You Like My New Car?” in which Mark is a groupie again and they take from a true story in which Howard had to sing “Happy Together” to a woman.
Though not included on this album, these dates not only had a performance of “Billy the Mountain,” but John and Yoko were there as well. And though their show makes it appear as if it were a truly spontaneous jam session, they had actually rehearsed under Frank’s rule, something the former Beatle wasn’t totally comfortable with.
Mark and Howard famously bag Yoko while she’s wailing on stage and I’d always grown up with the impression that this was actually spontaneously done to silence her, but it seems it is something Yoko herself came up with and Mark and Howard referred to her directing them as “A Small Eternity with Yoko Ono.”
Some of these collaborative “jams” first appeared on John Lennon’s album, “Some Time in New York City” in 1972 with a different mix that totally deletes the far more interesting than themselves, Flo and Eddie, turns down much of what is going on on stage, and credits Lennon and Ono as the majority composers, even for Zappa’s composition “King Kong” which Lennon called “Jamrag” and tried to claim all publication rights for.
Zappa’s mix would finally be released in 1992 and renamed the final track to “A Small Eternity with Yoko Ono.” and in 2022, a new version of “Live at Fillmore East” was released with all of the desired bonus tracks from those two nights and properly credits Howard Kaylan as a writer, as he was probably the one who came up with “Scumbag.”
Frank’s experimental movie, “200 Motels” came out in October of 1971. It pushed the limits for visuals at the time, features the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing the most absurd compositions they could have comprehended, Keith Moon as a hot nun and Ringo Starr as a dwarf that dresses up like Frank Zappa. There isn’t a strong plot line and a lot of it is based on real life and is almost like a way of looking at Frank’s perspective of his friends/employees. Some of their dialogue is taken straight from reality, especially if they had anything nasty to say about Frank’s control over them and I think that is a contributing factor to Jeff Simmons leaving the band. Of course, Frank then had to incorporate that into the film as well. 46:00
The experience is mostly a treat for Mothers super fans but Mark and Howard are super funny in it and are the first to appear in the end credits for their “Special Material.”
Unfortunately, a couple of months later, on December 4th, They all came out to Montreux at the best place around but some stupid with flare gun burned the place to the ground. The Mothers were playing an encour at Montreux Jazz Fest when someone in the back lit a flare as appreciation for the excellent show. Someone yelled “Fire,” Howard said “Arthur Brown, Ladies and Gentlemen!” Zappa advised everyone to remain calm, chucked his guitar and ran for it. Flo and Eddie escaped through the kitchen and fortunately nobody died but they all had to sit back and watch the place burn down with all of their equipment inside.
Deep Purple was also at that show and immortalized the scene in their song.
After that, Frank had wanted to end their European tour and go back home but the band voted that they should continue with borrowed gear from The Who and Led Zeppelin. However, just a week later on December 10th, a jealous boyfriend in the audience pushed Frank off the stage. When the band looked down to see if he was okay, he was so twisted that they instantly thought he was dead. The audience didn’t allow the culprit to escape and Herb Cohen beat him up.
Zappa would be confined to a wheelchair and everyone else was once again out of work and directionless.
Back when the lads had first started touring with Zappa, they met and befriended Marc Bolan of T. Rex for whom they happily recorded free backing vocals for. We don’t know if “Bang a Gong, Get it On” would have even been as big of a hit if it weren’t for Flo and Eddie’s vocals on the chorus but we do know they never received a dime for it. They appeared on T. Rex’s albums from 1970 – 1972 but when the struggling duo asked for payment to appear on a fourth album, Marc was too proud to pay them but also was reluctant to give up that signature sound, so he and his producer would attempt to mimic Flo and Eddie when recording future backing vocals.
With similar voices, backgrounds, and mindsets that simply knew what backing harmonies will work, Flo and Eddie were later sought after and used for backing vocals again and again throughout the decades by musicians including Roger McGuinn, Keith Moon, Stephen Stills, Sammy Hagar, Jefferson Airplane, Steely Dan, Duran Duran, Richie Furray, Bruce Springsteen, The Ramones, Blondie, Ray Manzarek, The Psychedelic Furs, their good pal Alice Cooper, and many more.
Back to March of ‘72 ,a live album of recordings from August of 1971 would released titled “Just Another Band from L.A.”
Side B has 4 tracks. Two of which have some Turtley writing credits, including their buddy John Seiter on “Eddie, Are you Kidding?” A song spoofing a local salesman and a horrible tale improvised by Howard that Zappa thought was funny.
The A-Side of this hilarious record is a 24 minute edit of “Billy the Mountain,” a parody of rock opera that was usually over 30 minutes and probably played spontaneously differently at each concert. It tells the story of a beautiful mountain in California finally receiving a royalty check for all of the post cards he’s posed in, so he takes his lovely wife Ethell, a Tree, with him as they go on a vacation across the states, stomping the countryside as they go.
Longer versions of this song can be found on later releases, the compilation with John and Yoko recordings, “Playground Psychotics” and a quadruple live album at “Carnagie Hall” from October 11, 1971.
Throughout the years, both before and after Frank Zappa’s unfortunate passing in 1993, more recordings of Flo and Eddie have popped up and been released on various live compilations due to Zappa’s tendency to re-write his songs in different ways and allow for improvisation in the right places. So if you’re a huge Zappa fan or just need to hear Jim Pons sing in German, fortunately, there is a ton of content to consume. (Show You Can’t Do that on stage)
Prior to this early 1972 release and with Frank out of commission, most of Zappa’s band transitioned to playing material written by Mark and Howard that would have been the next Turtles album and the band did shows with post-Jim Morrison Doors and Alice Cooper.
Guitarist Gary Rowles from the band Love joined the new group that maintained keyboardist Don Preston, drummer Aynsley Dunbar, and guitarist Jim Pons while Mark and Howard were able to regain the positions of writer and producer for their own passion projects. But now they’re in a new type of floundering position. They’re not the hit pumping successes known as The Turtles, they have all this new experience in a bizarre comedy band and have those guys backing them.
Reprise records had no idea who they really are or how to market them and unfortunately, Flo and Eddie mostly went under the radar it seems.
To further complicate things, when their self-produced album, “The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie” was released in September 1972, the album cover’s image had been flipped. Placing Mark on the left, seemingly suggesting that he was The Phlorescent Leech and Howard was Eddie. So during this phase of their lives, they traded their regrettable nicknames.
This is a fantastic rock album utilizing Mark and Howard’s skill for writing catchy and beautiful melodies without too much reliance on repetitive choruses. The over-qualified band are constantly playing with progressive or jazzy mindsets creating a sound that is rich with counter melodies and harmonies. The overly sexual comedy lyrics from Zappa are gone and we hear themes based more around disillusions, finding, losing, longing for love.
The introduction is comical and I always laugh at one of the lines in “Burn the House,” a song about finding love, I believe. One of the many stand-outs is “Lady Blue,” a song Howard wrote about coming to collect the rent at his old house and receiving a temporary payment from the female tenant instead. A Haunting, slow waltz with long drawn out syllables until the part about her perspective of him as a pop star and the music changes to resemble The Turtles before an epic climax.
“Goodbye Surprise” is by the songwriting duo that wrote “Happy Together” about break ups ending as quickly as the love starts
I really dig this album, it’s kind of like pop songs without much reliance on choruses, while a band attempts to do prog or jazz licks in the background, definitely does it for me.
At this time they took off on some joyous European tours with Alice Cooper supporting his School’s Out tour where they discovered that the label had supplied them with very vulgar merchandise for the brand of Flo and Eddie. The label clearly did not understanding how to market Flo and Eddie after their stint with Zappa but the concerts were successful and Alice Cooper’s producer Bob Ezrin produced the next Flo and Eddie album for them to support during the “Billion Dollar Babies” tour. Cooper stated that tours with Flo and Eddie were the best because of the fun energy they would bring.
1973’s album titled “Flo and Eddie” is a little more “typical” sounding album than when Mark and Howard were producing themselves and they allowed Bob Ezrin to lean into heavy guitar lick driven anthem rock. Keyboardist Don Preston dropped out and was replaced by John Herron but otherwise the same band as before.
There is a lot to digest here with a variety of styles and too much to talk about,
One of the highlights is “Afterglow,” this emotional song about the feelings of a fresh break up becomes a driving arena rocker with great dynamic rhythm changes in the verses before a wonderfully catchy chorus.
This is followed by a doo-wop type song about getting back together that leads into a rendition of “The Sanzini Brothers,” a skit that they would do with The Mothers. There is also the song, “Carlos and the Bull” which is like a Spanish inspired drama story with both spoken word and singing about a famous Spanish bullfighter.
The album ends with “Marmendy Mill,” an epic and progressive finale about Howard Kaylan’s childhood. Before that is a soft and beautiful song about life on the road as a struggling, less confident musician, and leading into that is a track called “Another Pop Star’s Life.” It is hard to deny that the song is an attack on Marc Bolan so when he heard it, he was pissed and it seemed their friendship was over forever however everyone eventually hugged it out, got over their disputes, and Flo and Eddie contributed backing vocals to more T. Rex songs.
Unfortunately, not many people bought this album, and I believe they were dropped from their label, the band disbanded and some of the guys went back to working with Zappa. Around this time, the lads got offered a weekly radio show which they called “Flo and Eddie by the Fireside.” Many of their friends and other famous musicians enjoyed being on the show because it was fun and a different vibe from interviews with normal Radio DJs because everyone was basically peers and better understood each other. They had guests like Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr, Joan Baez, Alice Cooper, Keith Moon and many others. When they played music on the show, it was like a strange collage with song clips that would fade into a different song, never allowing more than 30 seconds of a song to play. They eventually made their own company in order to sell recordings of their show all over the country and had some crazy events like gathering feuding members of ELO without telling them the others would be there. This radio show didn’t last forever and eventually in 1989 they started up another 2 year-long radio show on KROC.
By this time, the lads had regained some rights to release Turtles music and bought out their old band members so that they could release a new double compilation album and finally start making some money off of their prior work again.
The animated bit of Zappa’s film, “200 Motels” was produced by Charles Swenson of Murakami-Wolf, later Murakami-Wolf-Swenson. Charles Swenson had then written an adult movie inspired by the success of “Fritz the Cat” with the intention that Mark and Howard take the lead roles. “Down and Dirty Duck” was released July 8th of 1974 and understandably didn’t gather much of an audience, potentially due to the fact that it wasn’t heavily marketed, but probably more so because it is totally insane. It is basically a sex fueled adventure that includes the silly antics and some new tunes from our favorite Turtles. I was able to watch the movie on Internet Archive and I’m not sure that I recommend watching it but if you’re big into crude animated movies as well as Flo and Eddie, then I’d say you should definitely give it a go. It definitely made me laugh quite a bit and I watched sections of it with some of my friends afterwards as well.
They got a deal with Columbia Records and released a single that flopped but later the Columbia executives finally saw the new lineup live and realized it would be wise to capitalize on the humor with a partially live album in 1975. Some of the live tracks for “Illegal, Immoral, and Fattening” are reworked versions of songs from the “Dirty Duck” movie. “Cheap” was the original title for the film and the song of the same title is a great concert and film opener as it makes fun of the audience for paying to spend their time with this nonsense. When Howard’s character in the film goes to uhh.. buy himself a woman of the night, we get to hear the hilarious “Kama Sutra Time” song then “Livin’ in the Jungle” seems super racist but really is intended to point out hypocrisy and I laughed so hard the first time I heard it that I had to explain to everyone around me what I was listening to in my headphones.
The album also brings back some of their Zappa routine and the second half of the “Kama Sutra Time” track makes fun of some of their musician friends and others. George Harrison’s legal team tried to prevent it from being released and had to be paid off but others, like Joni Mitchell enjoyed the jokes at their expense.
After this the label thought it would be wise to re-record their classic Turtles track, “Elenore” in order to help the public understand that these are the same dudes that were once worldwide successes.
This leads us into one of their best albums, “Moving Targets,” released August 13th, 1976. It begins with “Mama, Open Up,” a track that feels super honest about their current position while referencing moments from their past. This track had accidentally played while my band of beginners was at my house and our guitarist Thomas who has a great ear started picking up the song instantly and it became one of our favorite songs to cover.
One of the songs mentions that it is a theme for an unused Television pilot. The guys had at least two opportunities at their own TV shows and since they weren’t picked up, I didn’t find a lot of information about and it doesn’t matter anyway. Some of my favorite songs from this album include, “Keep it Warm,” “Guns,” and “Moving Targets.”
Unfortunately, at the start of their tour for this album, there were two horrible incidents a day apart from each other that were likely related. The producer for “Moving Targets,” Skip Taylor, liked to have clean drugs available to his clients so that the musicians weren’t risking themselves with sketchy dealers. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding or Skip simply tried to Skip out on paying his debt, either way, someone broke into his house as a way of threat and warning. Whether intentional or not, the attacker actually shot a bullet through the “Moving Targets” album cover.
The following night, Flo and Eddie performed in my home of Salt Lake City. Mark and Howard went on to the next city with touring mates, The Doobie Brothers while their band stayed at the Hilton and hung out in guitarist Phil Reed’s room on the 9th floor discussing how fun the tour is going to be. Eventually everyone had retired to their own rooms for the night and in the morning, the paperboy found Phil’s lifeless body outside. When I googled articles related to this, it seems the SLCPD framed it as a suicide, but there had been clear evidence of someone tampering with Phil’s door and an ashtray had been left in the doorway to keep the door ajar.
The band feared they were under attack and flew back to California but they were still expected to finish their tour dates so they hired Billy Steele to play guitar and The Doobie Brothers helped get everyone back on schedule with the use of their private plane. Spirits were clearly dampened and in a way this is the end of the “Flo and Eddie” era.
This video is probably way too long at this point so I’m going to rush the rest of it. They started producing records for other bands like DMZ, Roadmaster and Good Rats’ “From Rats to Riches” which is one I actually enjoy quite a bit.
With a small budget but demand for Flo and Eddie to tour Europe, they had an absolutely hilarious stage show starting in 1979 in which they partnered with their keyboardist Andy Cahan to create the 2 and a half man band. Andy, as half a man, would provide backing tracks for Mark and Howard to sing over. It seems they would show slideshows of their history and likely the most memorable thing they did was a spoof of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” called “The Fence.”
They signed to Rhino Records and as the biggest name on the label at the time, they released quite a bit of music, starting with some Turtles songs in 1978.
From 1980 to 1986, they released a total of 8 EPs under the band name “The Rhythm Butchers” of old recordings of The Turtles just screwing around basically and in 1981 they released a compilation of old recordings from their surf roots as The Crossfires.
In a 6 hour session in 1982, Mark, Howard and Andy Cahan created a spoof of German electronic music which they called Checkpoint Charlie and released on a disc that plays from the inside out while crediting Mark and Howard as “Salz und Pfeffer.”
In 1981, the promoter from the legendary New York City venue, My Father’s Place, paid for Flo and Eddie to go record a reggae album at Bob Marley’s recording studio. This album, “Rock Steady with Flo and Eddie” is possibly even more of a waste of your time than Checkpoint Charlie. There is seriously only one song that does not begin with a drum fill before commencing with the most generic reggae you’ve ever heard. Every time the next song starts, I feel like the previous track is on repeat. If anything, listen to the version of “Happy Together” on this disc, but otherwise if you actually find a copy of this, go ahead and throw it in the trash, you won’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
They did a lot more work with Murakami-Wolf-Swenson including scoring The Adventures of American Rabbit, Peter and the Magic Egg and the first Strawberry Shortcake TV specials. They also did 5 albums that introduced the world to The Care Bears outside of the greeting cards that they and Strawberry Shortcake were originally created for. There is a note in Mark Volman’s book that “When Care Bears was released on DVD, Mark and Howard’s voices were replaced” but I don’t believe they actually ever worked on any animated Care Bears projects, only the first 5 albums. If you can find evidence that they recorded on the animated projects, I’d love to hear it as I literally spent over 10 hours trying to confirm this and my friend Ashli bought me a Care Bear to celebrate my going insane.
In October of 1977 they filmed a pilot for a “Happy Together” sitcom. At some points they’d had discussions with David Bowie about appearing in a film that he wanted to do but that never ended up happening. Howard appeared in the 1983 film, “Get Crazy” but Mark walked away from it and was replaced by John Densmore.
In 1984 they began the first “Happy Together” tour in which they would finally tour under the name The Turtles again or I think sometimes, The Turtles Featuring Flo and Eddie. Often joined by friends from other ‘60s bands this tour still happens just about annually to this day though unfortunately Howard Kaylan has had some health problems and retired from touring.
In 2003, Howard released a movie called “My Dinner with Jimi” that celebrates his opportunity to puke all over Jimi Henrix. Then released an enjoyable solo album called “Dust Bunnies” in 2006.
And now I am so exhausted from thinking and talking about Turtles. If you enjoyed this video, please be sure to give it a like, leave a comment, consider subscribing and maybe even share this video with your friends to encourage me to keep doing this. If you haven’t watched my video on The Turtles, I’d recommend you do so and if I got anything incorrect, please let me know or fight me about it in the comments! I’d absolutely love to hear from you and the more engagement on this video, the more people will get a chance to see it!
Thank you so so much for watching, I appreciate it more than you realize so please interact with it in order to get YouTube to push it to more people! Thank you again and have a happy listening session!
Sean's Music Hunt 
Leave a comment