Tuesday 16th June
I know, you’ve never heard of them – but you should hear them. They started in The Turtles in the mid 60’s and though composing and singing such great songs as ‘Happy Together’ and ‘Elenore’ which were both huge hits the band had a troubled time. The same old story, their record company were only interested in hits and marketed the band as clean-cut American kids – which they were decidedly not. The band broke up and Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, the two most prolific songwriters and singers joined the chaos that was Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. They featured strongly in the film ‘200 motels’ and had extended solos on the live albums ‘Just Another Band From L.A.’ and ‘Fillmore East – June 1971’. They perfected their musical comedy routine with The Mothers and sank into more and more outrageous profanity, no doubt encouraged by Frank from the sidelines.
Ongoing legal issues with the Turtles record and management companies meant they could not use either ‘The Turtles’ or indeed their own names in ANY musical context, so ‘Flo and Eddie’ they became. Frank fell off stage in London in 1971 and broke his leg, so the constant touring was halted. Flo and Eddie released their debut album as ‘The Pholorescent Leech and Eddie’, and what a gem it is. Only two comedy numbers but beautiful melodies and their voices were just like honey slowly dripping on the turntable; there is not a bad song on the record. A second gem followed called simply ‘Flo and Eddie’, another excellent album of mostly their own compositions but a wonderful cover of ‘Afterglow’ by the Faces, and my favourite the autobiographical ‘Marmendy Hill’. A year later they released a largely live album ‘Illegal, Immoral and Fattening’ which is again quite amazingly brilliant. Great hilarious piss-takes on the current rock-scene where they imitate Joni. Yoko and George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix and many more, but also the best song they ever recorded, ‘Rebecca’, an obscure minor hit from the early sixties given the Flo and Eddie treatment.
They followed this up with the slightly less wonderful ‘Moving Targets’ and that was just about it from Flo and Eddie I am afraid. They really should have been more successful, but could never decide whether they wanted to do comedy or seriously good rock music. They ended up touring again as ‘The Turtles’ and released a Reggae record and another live Turtles CD. They also sang as session-men on many records over the next three decades but it seems sad that their own great songwriting seems to have stopped in their prime. Their ‘Greatest Hits’ though is well worth a listen.
