In the mid 1970s, David Bowie was working on a script that he wanted to turn into a film. The movie, conceived as a comedy, would star Bowie and the duo known as Flo & Eddie (Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of the fabulous Turtles). Volman and Kaylan are funny dudes, and Bowie felt they were the guys to help make his film a cinematic success. 

In late March 1976, Bowie flew Volman and Kaylan to New York City to meet and discuss his script notes, which were several hundred pages long.
 

Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman.

In his autobiography, Shell Shocked, Howard Kaylan wrote about the Bowie project.

Bowie flew Mark and me into New York at the end of the month to meet about his screenplay. It was a first-class journey that wound up at his Madison Square Garden concert, backstage. Then we went to the Village for more of the same. Limos took us everywhere, although we got to see David for all of about ten minutes. Still, I don’t think there were any complaints about the trip. Whatever Bowie wanted.

There was a screening of The Man Who Fell to Earth, starring Bowie, at a theater in Westwood. David had sent us our invitations in a large cardboard box. What the hell? Ah, also enclosed were two copies, some 750 pages each, of David’s screenplay notes for a feature film to be called The Traveler. The film was to deal with the very real alter ego that Bowie had created for himself, that of the Thin White Duke. Eschewing air travel, David would only travel to and from American via ocean liner where, once aboard, he would assume a disposable two-week identity where his lines between fact and fiction blurred and he regaled the other passengers with amazing tales of his conquests and heroics.

There was a lot to take and it offered a great many opportunities for fantasy and wordplay. I was excited. It took many hours to read this “outline,” as David called it.

About a year and a half later, Volman & Kaylan returned to New York to go over the film idea with Bowie in more detail. They met up at the Mayfair Hotel, where Bowie was staying. The three spent the next couple of days hanging out, culminating with Volman and Kaylan interviewing Bowie for the Canadian TV program, 90 Minutes Live. After the interview, Flo & Eddie hugged Bowie and said their goodbyes.

The duo never heard another word about The Traveler.
 

Mark Volman, Ronnie Spector, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop. New York City, March 26, 1976.

A portion of the 90 Minutes Live interview is embedded below. The segment aired stateside on The Midnight Special in April 1978.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘I’m gonna kill you, Tin Man!’: Axl Rose’s knuckle-brawl with David Bowie over a girl, 1989
Little Ziggy: Photographs of a young David Bowie
When David Bowie was in Iggy Pop’s band: Their final concert
Happy Together: The Turtles in the 1960s

 
Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, AKA Flo & Eddie, are two of the most unlikely pop stars on the planet. Neither one was ever what you’d call a “dreamboat” and Volman was unashamedly fat and took great pains to point out that fact. They were also funny at a time when rock musicians took themselves way too seriously.

That could never be said of Flo & Eddie.

They started, of course, as the magic voices of The Turtles, to my mind one of the greatest 60s groups, even if they don’t really get their due today. “Happy Together,” “Elenore”, “Lady-O”—The Turtles were simply an amazing band.
 

 
Check out this clip of their hit, “She’d Rather Be With Me”—pure pop perfection. The harmonies, the melody, these guys were tight.
 

 
Plenty more Flo & Eddie after the jump…

 
So the story goes like this: In the spring of 1978, shortly after he’d released the amazing LP Street Hassle, Lou Reed was asked to host an episode of NBC’s late-night music program The Midnight Special. Reed was asked to submit lyrics to the songs he wished to perform, and, quelle fucking surprise, NBC balked at airing some of them. Rather than alter his work, Reed declined to appear, no harm done, except that an episode that could have been an all-time classic was instead ultimately hosted by—hold on to your lunch—Journey.

But Midnight Special did something exceptionally cool. Instead of just letting this matter pass quietly, they invited Reed on as a guest, in an interview segment hosted by Turtles/Zappa madcaps Flo & Eddie, specifically to talk about exactly why he wasn’t serving as the program’s host that night, and in the process they discussed censorship in broadcast media and the validity of “shock value” in pop music! At a generous seven and a half minutes long, the segment covered a lot of ground, and astutely at that. Perhaps because they were fellow weirdo musicians, Flo & Eddie got a genial, reflective Lou Reed, not the notoriously spiky prick who could and would unhesitatingly annihilate interviewers.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
Cranky Lou Reed interview from 1975 is full of hilariously nasty gems
‘Lou Believers’: Sonic Youth in the weirdest Lou Reed ‘tribute’ you’ll ever see
(B)Lou’s on first? Dangerous Minds sparks clash between Blue Man Group and Lou Man Group!

 
Slow and steady wins the race: I’m nuts about The Turtles and I have been for my entire life. A 45 of “Happy Together” b/w “Eleanor” purchased on a family trip to Washington, DC when I was 8 or 9 years old was one of the first singles that I ever bought. Loved it then, loved it now and their Turtle Soup album (which was produced by head Kink Ray Davies) easily places in my top ten of all time.

Most people know The Turtles’ two biggest hits, but the soaring falsetto harmonies of Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman can also be heard on classic songs like “Get It On (Band a Gong)” by T.Rex, Blondie’s “T Birds,” “Love My Way” by the Psychedelic Furs and Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart.”
 

 
In any case, fellow Turtles fans, this half-hour compilation of “The Turtles in the 1960s” is a treat. It even has footage of the pre-Turtles surf-rock group, The Crossfires. The entire thing is a delight, but there are some especially fun moments, like during the clip of “Outside Chance” that starts at the 15:40 mark. Mark Volman was known for often “playing” an instrument not being heard whenever the group was obliged to mime along to their records on TV. Here he sticks out his arm and Howard Kaylan pretends it’s a keyboard. In a performance of “Happy Together” (32:17) Volman sports a sort of infantile “Baby Huey” outfit that’s almost… disturbing.

But what I especially want to call to your attention—aside from a young Mark Volman’s uncanny resemblance to Jonah Hill (who should option the rights to The Turtles’ life story stat)—is the promo clip made for the group’s final single, their absolutely gorgeous rendition of folk singer Judee Sill’s “Lady-O.” That starts at 26:25. I’ve never seen a watchable version of this on YouTube. The song’s a stunner.

Also included, “She’s My Girl,” “She’d Rather Be With Me,” “Eleanor” and more.
 

 
Bonus: I wanted to see if there was a video for their single “A Guide for the Married Man,” a number composed by John Williams and Leslie Bricusse for the 1967 bedroom farce of the same name starring Walter Matthau and directed by Gene Kelly. There is a performance clip of the song, but I’m going to embed this one, which is cut to scenes from the film. I’ve never seen this before, but it looks like a must! Dig the cameos! Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, a young Robert Morse, Terry-Thomas, Jayne Mansfield, Sid Caesar, Louis Nye, Phil SIlvers, Carl Reiner, Joey Bishop, Art Carney and the voice of “Underdog” Wally Cox:
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Voices of angels on AM radio: Isolated vocal track for The Turtles’ ‘Happy Together’

 
If anyone has the skills to make a trite Boomer pop cliché like the Turtles’ “Happy Together” relevant to the hip-hop generation, it’s a guy like Brownsville, Brooklyn’s Brian Daniel Carenard a.k.a. the rhymer Saigon.

As part of their REWIND series for rap tunes that deserved but never got visual treatment, director Court Dunn’s Restless Films crew has provided a surprisingly Brady Bunch-y visual treatment for Sai’s early-‘00s tune “Together (Dear Black America)”.

Saigon’s new album The Greatest Story Never Told (which doesn’t include this tune) drops on February 15th on Suburban Noize Records.
 

 
Via 2dopeboyz