The Music: The Turtles 20 Greatest hits
Before there was Flo and Eddie, they were known as Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. Their producing talent included the legendary Bones Howe, Chip Douglass and Ray Davies. Add to that a flat out amazing collection of songwriting talent ranging from Bob Dylan to PF Sloan to Warren Zevon, and you have a group that, 40 years later still sounds amazingly fresh.
(Dylan, who attended a concert of the Turtles at The Phone Booth in NYC after their recording of “It ain’t me babe” was a hit, was reported to have remarked to the band, deadpan: “That’s a great last song, it should be a record.”)
I guess the best way that I can describe this group, musically speaking to the uninitiated, is to call them the 60’s version of the Toronto group, the Bare Naked Ladies. The sense of humor and optimism that came from every one of their LP’s made them outstanding in their day. Today, it’s bright and refreshing, given the dearth of such outlooks in the music world, today, and BNL is as close as it gets anymore.
I have a bootleg somewhere in my collection, of live recordings done by the BBC, and one of them was my only live recording of the Turtles… and it happened to be of “You Baby”. (I think it was from a show called “Saturday club”, but I’m not sure) The live version lacked the polished smoothness of the Bones Howe production (Did Bones Howe ever record anything that wasn’t smooth?) What it did do, was portray a band that was actually having a good time making this sounds it was making. And that feeling in the recording is worth its weight in gold.
As for the humor aspect, while they won on the tour with Frank Zappa , and I suppose a sense of humor is required there, if anywhere. Perhaps it was all a reaction to getting screwed over by their management not once, but repeatedly. The whole thing devolved into mush quite quickly about the time the Beatles broke up. It was to be expected I suppose, there were many at the time, and since, who have suggested that the Beatles were role models for the Turtles.
But back in the day, what a shine they put up.
* You will remember that this site has committed several times about representative Bill Jefferson (D-LA)… he of the frozen money. Captain Ed points out that the case against him is continuing… Though I’m willing to bet you haven’t heard of it. As regards all that, and the behavior of Newt Gingrich, I can only surmise that he is trying to be seen as being bipartisan. The fact of the matter is Gingrich is wrong, here.
* Michelle Malkin makes a note of the increasing stridentcy of moonbat Rosie O’Donnell on “The View” and wonders how much more embarrassment Disney’s going to take on this.
Personally, I have my doubts that they have a threshold for embarrassment
* I remarked earlier today about this story. Apparently, the left is slightly annoyed about it… as we see from Brit Hume tonight:
Left-wing bloggers, who are a potent force in the Democratic party, are furious with Barack Obama for saying over the weekend that Congress will vote to fund the troops without a timeline for withdrawal if President Bush vetoes the current version of the bill. Obama said that no lawmaker, “wants to play chicken with our troops.”
Markos Moulitsas of the influential Daily Kos Web log writes: “What a ridiculous thing to say. Not only is it bad policy, not only is it bad politics, it’s also a terrible negotiating approach. Instead of threatening Bush with even more restrictions and daring him to veto funding for the troops out of pique, Barack just surrendered to him.”
And Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog says: “If we ever need to negotiate for anything, remind us to not call on Obama to represent us.”
I’d like to think that it wasn’t the far left quoted here that he’s representing; rather I’d like to be naive enough to believe that he’s actually representing the majority of the Democratic party. But I don’t think so. Still, I hold of my comments earlier today; they’re not going to have enough votes to override a presidential veto here. Don’t think for one minute that Obama is alone in his view, gang.the majority may not be with him, but it’s certainly going to be enough to prevent the far left from overwriting the president’s veto of the democrats “Cut, Run, and Pork” bill.
As a matter of fact, they’d better hope so. Do they really understand what “owning the defeat” means?
Tags: BitsBlog, Nightly Ramble
