Flo & Eddie

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Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan.

Flo & Eddie were Mark Volman (19 April 1947, Los Angeles, CA - September 6, 2025, Nashville, Tennessee) and Howard Kaylan (born Howard Kaplan, 22 June 1947, the Bronx, New York City, NY). They were a musical/comedy duo formed in 1970, after previously being lead singers in the rock band The Turtles.

Kaylan was related to Herb Cohen.[1] Due to ongoing legal wrangling with their record company they were prevented from using the name of their former band, The Turtles, or even using their own names if working in a music related position. They therefore adopted the names The Phlorescent Leech, shortened to Flo, and Eddie.

Flo & Eddie were most notable as singers, but also played tambourine and saxophone.[2] [3]

Frank Zappa

Flo & Eddie during the Centerville sequence in 200 Motels (The Film).

Flo & Eddie had known Zappa since the mid-1960s. Howard Kaylan recalled, "When the Turtles were just getting started, I remember bringing home Freak Out! and Absolutely Free and playing them really loud in the house, and my father coming into the room and saying ‘what the hell are you listening to?’ So, I showed him the album covers and he started laughing so hard – he turned red and tears came out of his eyes and he said ‘this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard! The guy’s face is the stupidest thing I've ever seen! And I can't believe this guy’s name. Who the hell would call himself Frank Zappa and put out trash like this and look like that.’ And I said ‘Dad, this is the best stuff you've ever heard’; ‘yeah yeah yeah yeah’." - Zappa And The Mothers – The Flo And Eddie Years, 2002.

Flo & Eddie lived in Laurel Canyon on Lookout Mountain Avenue and were part of that community. They joined Zappa as vocalists in 1970 having attended the Pauley Pavilion concert:

"Somewhere in that mass of spectators were Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, a.k.a. Flo & Eddie. They came backstage after the show, said they liked it, and told me that the Turtles had split up and they were looking for something to do. The rest is history. We worked together for about two years after that on several albums and tours as well as the film 200 Motels."[4]

Flo & Eddie played with Zappa between 1970 and 1971, singing and performing sketches on the albums Chunga's Revenge, Fillmore East, June 1971, 200 Motels and Fillmore East, June 1971. Flo & Eddie are featured prominently in 200 Motels (The Film) (1971).

Flo and Eddie also recorded several promotional radio advertisements for the album The Mothers 1971 (Homemade Radio Spot) and 200 Motels (200 Motels Album Ad 1, 200 Motels Album Ad 2, 200 Motels Movie Ad 1, 200 Motels Movie Ad 2, 200 Motels Movie Ad 3, 200 Motels Movie Ad 4, 200 Motels Movie Ad 5, 200 Motels Movie Ad 6, 200 Motels Movie Ad 6, CUT 1 "Coming Soon!...", CUT 2 "The Wide Screen Erupts...", CUT 3 "Coming Soon!..." and CUT 4 "Frank Zappa's 200 Motels...").

Zappa liked Flo & Eddie's "road rat mentality" and ability to entertain the crowd. Flo & Eddie inspired the songs/sketches Do You Like My New Car?, Eddie, Are You Kidding? and Divan: Once Upon A Time ("When the universe consisted of nothing more elaborate than Mark Volman").

"With Howard and I up there, Frank had two Punch and Judy dolls who could personify all the ugliness that the Mothers was – the comedy, the satire, the vast pudgy rock stars, the drugs. And Frank could stand on stage and whip out his guitar solos; he could put his cigarettes on the end of the guitar, look disdainfully at the audience and play a seven minute guitar solo that would make everyone cheer – and then put his hand out to us, and say ‘take it away, you fat dopey clowns.’ When you think of it in that context, it was perfect because it took a lot of the pressure off him on a night to night basis because, musically, he had such a strong band that it really became this whole wild concept, this goofiness and this rock thing up against this really strong musical group." - Mark Volman - Zappa And The Mothers – The Flo And Eddie Years, 2002.

"It's almost too innocent and stupid to be filthy. I think Frank was wise, using us to do that, because we were lovable buffoons – we weren't those street creeps to be feared that he had worked with before. We're just pussycats up there, so to hear us do some of those things, it’s obviously a joke. It took some of the harshness away from it, and it made even Zappa's caustic humour appear palatable not only to those people who knew us in the audience but to those who didn't, to those of the audience who had no idea from whence we came. We were still non threatening." Indeed, when Kaylan’s parents caught a show on that early summer tour, "they just didn't get it. My mother said, ‘I know it's supposed to be filthy, but I don't see how.’ She really didn't understand a lot of the verbiage that was being thrown around, or the allusions that were being made." - Howard Kaylan - - Zappa And The Mothers – The Flo And Eddie Years, 2002.

Another former The Turtles bandmember, Jim Pons also joined the Mothers in 1971.

Flo & Eddie's tenure with Zappa was short-lived as after he was injured at the London's Rainbow in December 1971, the band was dissolved.

Flo & Eddie appearances on Zappa albums

Flo (Mark Volman) & Eddie (Howard Kaylan).

Flo & Eddie songs on Zappa albums

Flo & Eddie at the center of the 200 Motels film poster. Artwork by David McMacken.

Flo & Eddie appearances in Zappa films

Post-Zappa career

Flo & Eddie with Lou Reed.

After leaving Zappa in 1971, Flo & Eddie decided to continue working as a duo and released the album The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie in 1972 using former Mothers Don Preston, Jim Pons and Aynsley Dunbar. This was followed by "Flo & Eddie" (1973) and "Illegal, Immoral and Fattening" in 1975.

In 1974, Flo & Eddie starred in the animated feature film, Down and Dirty Duck, directed by Charles Swenson.

In 1976, Flo & Eddie were the opening act for Zappa at a concert in Detroit. They continued to record and worked as backing vocalists on numerous recordings during subsequent decades. The cover of Flo & Eddie's 1976 album Moving Targets was designed by David McMacken.

In the late 1980s, Flo & Eddie presented their own radio show on WXRK/KROC-NYC. On November 16, 1989, they had a telephone interview with Frank Zappa, broadcast on the show. [7]

Gaining a degree in 1999, Volman taught Music Business & Industry courses in the Communications and Fine Arts department at Loyola Marymount University conducted seminars for the music departments at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Indiana at Bloomington, High Schools, Jr. High Schools, and many others. In 2023, Volman published his autobiography Happy Forever. My Musical Adventures With The Turtles, Frank Zappa, T. Rex, Flo & Eddie, And More.. [8]

In 2013, Howard Kaylan published his autobiography, Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie and Frank Zappa, which had an illustrated cover by Cal Schenkel and a foreword by Penn Jillette. [9]

Mark Volman passed away on 6 September 2025.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Cousin or second cousin or "We’re like third cousins. Herb Cohen was at my Bar Mitzvah."
  2. ↑ https://www.donlope.net/fz/musicians/H-L.html#KaylanHoward
  3. ↑ https://www.donlope.net/fz/musicians/V-Z.html#VolmanMark
  4. ↑ The Real Frank Zappa Book
  5. ↑ On side 4 of the original vinyl LP or Disc 2 of subsequent CD issues.
  6. ↑ Bootleg of the 1976 Detroit concert
  7. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPyIX-CzzUc
  8. ↑ https://medium.com/the-riff/mark-volman-of-the-turtles-looks-back-on-music-with-zappa-lennon-more-in-new-book-interview-44119a5d0002
  9. ↑ https://www.afka.net/Books/Shell_Shocked.htm

External links

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