Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.
Just in case you're in a hurry, here's your bullet point: Best Rock 'n' Roll Memoir Ever. In fact, I could probably say music bios in general and still be right about that. (Remember: my opinion completely outranks yours. But I'm only here to help.)It's always been a bit annoying to contemplate the way Serious Music Fans dismissed The Turtles as just another fluffy pop group, until the day that Kaylan and Volman (and Jim Pons) became fixtures in Frank Zappa's band. But the '70s were way more polarised than younger folks think they were mainly due to our own revisionism. Oh, yes, I always loved The Dave Clark Five, The Monkees and The Turtles. The hell you did, old man. You re lying through your replacement teeth. You were one of the King Crimson fans who were sneering at me (or worse!) for still loving those bands in 1974.Nowadays, of course, people have come around. Sage music journalists (I know they're still out there one of them co-wrote this book) speak reverently of pop music purveyors like The Turtles with the same worshipping tone they use for the '67 Kinks and Zombies. As well they should. And Kaylan's book is right on time.No need to rehash his CV here you're reading Shindig! after all. Suffice to say Howard remembers everything, is hiding nothing, and unlike most oldies artists still has one ear to the ground. He tells his tale in his own voice, and it stays riveting from start to finish. He s honest about The Drug Years, without falling into the predictable David Crosby/Jimmy Greenspoon grey narrative that reads like Matthew 1 and Luke 3: ''Monday woke up, freebased. Tuesday woke up, freebased. Wednesday didn t wakeup. Thursday...''No, it's a great book, and interesting all the way through. Kaylan knows everybody, remember, and he names names. Better even, he's still out there pounding the road into submission a hundred or so nights every year.This is a 262-page book. It could have been 500 and I still would have been sorry when it was over.With any luck, he's left something for Volman to write about. I'm sitting by the phone, Mark! --Shindig! Magazine (UK)