The Turtles –
Shell Shock
(soniclovenoize
reconstruction)
September
2018 Upgrade
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 Mary 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.
Upgrades to
this September 2018 edition are:
- Upgraded sources from All The Singles and the Turtle Soup remaster
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 an embodiment 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 1970 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 January
1970 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.
At least seven songs are known to have been recorded during these Yester
sessions including: original compositions “Can I Go On”, “If We Only Had The
Time”, “There You Sit Lonely”, “We Ain’t Gonna Party No More”; guitarist Al Nichol’s
“You Want To Be A Woman”; and the Bonner/Gordon leftovers “Goodbye Surprise” &
“Like It Or Not”. The Turtles also recorded a pair of ridiculous songs as: an authentic cover of Jan & Arnie’s “Gas
Money” and a cover of the band's live staple, Lee Andrews & The Hearts’
“Teardrops”. It was released as a very
rare, promo-only single in February 1970, credited to The Dedications.
But midway
through the Yester sessions, White Whale desired The Turtles to have a hit
single after being dismayed by the lackluster sales of Turtle Soup. They 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 Ralph Dino and John 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.
After the the collapse of the reformed Mothers of Invention, Flo & Eddie recorded their first solo album The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie in 1972, which contained new recordings of "Goodbye Surprise" and "There You Sit Lonely", as well as other tracks that would have been originally meant for Shell Shock, had they been recorded. Eventually, time would prove our 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
recently, all the material, remastered from the original mastertapes, appeared on the anthology All The Singles and as bonus tracks on Turtle Soup. 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”, taken from the Turtle
Soup remaster. Following is “Like it Or
Not” and “There You Sit Lonely”, also taken from the Turtle Soup remaster. The twin-singles “We Ain’t Gonna Party No
More” and “Lady-O” conclude Side A, both in their original stereo single mixes,
taken from All The Singles. Unlike the
band’s official reconstruction, I am excluding “Cat In The Window”, it being an
outtake from 1967 and not from the 1970 Yester and related singles
sessions.
Side B
deviates a bit from the band’s own reconstruction, as my version opens with the
ruckus of “Gas Money”, taken from All The Singles. Following is “Can I Go On”, taken from the
Turtle Soup remaster. Another deviation
from the official Shell Shock is my exclusion of “Dance This Dance”, another
track misappropriated to Shell Shock by Rhino, it being from the Turtle Soup demo
sessions a year prior. Instead is “You
Want To Be a Woman” and “If We Only Had The Time”, both from the Turtle Soup
remaster. 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, in it’s true stereo mix from All The
Singles. My reconstruction ends with
“Teardrops”, also taken from All The Singles.
Sources
used:
All The
Singles (Manifesto, 2016)
Turtle Soup
(Manifesto, 2016 remaster)
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