The Turtles – Shell Shock
(soniclovenoize reconstruction)
Side A:
1. Goodbye Surprise
2. Like It or Not
3. There You Sit
Lonely
4. We Ain’t Gonna
Party No More
5. Lady-O
Side B:
6. Gas Money
7. Can I Go On
8. You Want To Be A
Woman
9. If We Only Had The
Time
10. Who Would Ever
Think That I Would Marry Margaret
11. Teardrops
This is a reconstruction of what was intended to be The
Turtles final album Shell Shock. Produced
by Jerry Yester for a 1970 release, the band envisioned Shell Shock as their
masterpiece and career coda but it remained unfinished due to extreme meddling from
their record label. White Whale Records went back on their word to fund the album
and entrapped frontmen Flo and Eddie to bend to their corporate wishes. After dissolving the band, White Whale
trickled out the Shell Shock material, in various forms of completeness, on
various compilation releases until the label themselves dissolved as well. This reconstruction attempts to cull all the
material originally recorded and meant to be a part of the Shell Shock project
into a finished, cohesive album, utilizing the best possible masters of each
track.
An extreme example of the commercial world destroying the
artistic, quite simply: The Turtles are martyrs. Locked into a record contract so rigid that
frontmen Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman were not even allowed to use their
actual names after the break-up of The Turtles, much of their career in the 60s
were spent fighting the industry that restrained them. Miraculously, many of their successes were
embodiments of this—most notably their hit song “Elenore”, a sarcastic response
to their label’s request to write an assembly-line pop hit in the fashion of
their signature hit “Happy Together”. That
friction climaxed in 1969 as the band began winding down after years of biting
the hands that barely fed them as well as the commercial let-down of their previous album, the Ray
Davies-produced Turtle Soup.
In an attempt for a final bravado, the quintet assembled at Sunset Sound studios in
late 1969 and began recording their usual mix of originals and outside-written
tracks. Produced by Jerry Yester, the
band again sought to record another intelligent and musically diverse album as Turtle Soup, this time a bit more commercial. Songs
known to have been recorded during these sessions include: original
songs “Can I Go On”, “If We Only Had The Time”, “There You Sit Lonely”, “We Ain’t
Gonna Party No More” and guitarist Al Nichol’s “You Want To Be A Woman”; the
Bonner/Gordon leftovers “Goodbye Surprise” and “Like It Or Not”; an authentic
cover of Jan & Arnie’s “Gas Money”; and a cover of the band's live staple, Lee Andrews & The Hearts’
“Teardrops”. But midway through the
sessions, White Whale wished The Turtles to have a hit single, and suggested
that Kaylan and Volman fly to Memphis and record vocal overdubs on a
pre-recorded backing track for the ridiculously corny song “Who Would Ever
Thought That I Would Marry Margaret”, penned by professional songwriters Dino
and Sembello. Kaylan and Volman refused,
claiming this transgression would reduce their rock band into transparent pop
idols. In retaliation for their refusal
to turn their band into a pair of fake pop singers, White Whale chained the
doors to their studio at Sunset Sound and even posted guards outside the door, not allowing The
Turtles to even retrieve their own gear, let alone finish the album!
In a desperate attempt to save the Shell Shock recordings
and the hope to somehow finish the album, Kaylan and Volman agreed to record “Margaret”,
although they refused to add anything other than their necessary lead and
backing vocals. This ‘unfinished’ mix
was released to dismal critical and commercial attention—just as the pair had
predicted—and the single was a flop.
Despite Kaylan and Volman’s participation, White Whale still refused to
let The Turtles finish Shell Shock and both parties sued each other: White
Whale sued The Turtles for a breach of contract and The Turtles sued White
Whale for a missing $2,500,000 that was owed to them. The band soon called it quits amidst litigation. In one final plea to salvage the band’s
reputation, White Whale allowed Kaylan, Volman and Nichol to record vocals for a
final Turtles single, the beautiful “Lady-O”.
Written and performed acoustically by Judee Sill, it was a gentle
goodbye to the band.
Shell Shock remained in the vaults and as Kaylan and Volman regrouped as Flo and Eddie and were
absorbed into Frank Zappa’s reformed Mothers of Invention, White Whale
continued to exploit The Turtles name, the label’s only charting
act. After re-releasing some of their
mid-60s singles, White Whale released the more completed Shell Shock material
on the compilation More Golden Hits in 1970.
But time would prove the protagonists as victors, as White Whale went bankrupt
and their assets auctioned off in 1974. Who was it that bought The Turtles
back-catalog? Two gentlemen by the name
of Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan!
As “Happy Together” proved to be a timeless classic, the
legacy of The Turtles seemed profitable enough for re-releases, this time
controlled by the actual founders of The Turtles. Notable from this first reissue campaign on
Rhino Records was an official reconstruction of Shell Shock released in 1987, attempting
to match what the band might have released in 1970 had the album been finished! Unfortunately, Flo and Eddie’s own official Shell
Shock reconstruction is long out-of-print and is not even mentioned in the band’s
own online discography. Luckily for us, all of
the songs trickled out as bonus tracks on The Turtles reissues on the Repertoire
and Sundazed labels in the 90s. The most
recent—which features the most superior mastering—is the anthology Solid Zinc,
although the left and right channels are mysteriously swapped.
Even though the band’s own take
on Shell Shock is long forgotten, we have no trouble replicating it… or rather,
making our own take on it, an album that never was!
My reconstruction of Shell Shock begins similarly to The
Turtles own out-of-print reconstruction from 1987, with the bombastic rocker “Goodbye
Surprise”. We are using the master from
Solid Zinc but with the channels swapped to be correct. Following is “Like it Or Not” taken from the compilation
Let Me Be: 30 Years of Rock n Roll. “There
You Sit Lonely” and “We Ain’t Gonna Party No More” follow, with Side A concluding
with the uplifting “Lady-O”, all taken from Solid Zinc but with the channels
swapped. Unlike the band’s official reconstruction,
I am excluding “Cat In The Window”. While
apparently produced by Jerry Yester—suggesting it indeed dates from the Shell
Shock sessions—the track sounds unfinished and more reminiscent of an outtake
from their first album. Without more
information, the song is dropped to make a more concise album.
Side B deviates a bit from the band’s own reconstruction, as
my version opens with the ruckus of “Gas Money”, currently a bonus track from Flo & Eddie's self-released reissue of It Ain’t Me Babe. Following is “Can I Go
On” also from the Let Me Be compilation.
Another deviation from the official Shell Shock is my exclusion of “Dance
This Dance”, a track rendered redundant because of the superior version
found on the previous album Turtle Soup, as well as the fact that it didn’t
even date from the Yester Sessions. Instead
is “You Want To Be a Woman” from the Repertoire reissue of Wooden Head, and
then “If We Only Had The Time” from the Repertoire reissue of Turtle Soup. While many feel that the atrocious “Who Would
Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret” was never truly intended to be on the album,
I propose it probably would have been White Whale's condition for the album's release and it is included here as a historical curiosity at the very least. Note
that I am using the extremely rare stereo mix, only released once in 1970 on
More Golden Hits; every other release is the mono mix at an incorrect speed My reconstruction ends
with “Teardrops”, taken from the Repertoire You Baby reissue.
Sources used:
It Ain’t Me Babe (2012 Amazon KYDC on-demand CD)
Let Me Be: 30 Years
of Rock ‘n Roll (1995 Laserlight CD)
More Golden Hits (1970 White Whale personal vinyl rip)
Solid Zinc (2002 Rhino CD)
Turtle Soup (Repertoire 1998 CD)
Wooden Head (Repertoire 1992 CD)
You Baby (Repertoire 1993 CD)
flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR, Audacity and Goldwave
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* md5 files, track notes and artwork included
