With The Who undertaking their final tour of the USA as of this weekend, and on the heels of our Crossed Channels podcast this past week discussing the importance and impact of their initial tours of the USA between 1967-69, I am publishing today, for my patron-styled Substack subscribers, another of the interviews I conducted back in 1996-97 for my biography of Keith Moon.

Alongside his life-long musical partner Mark Volman, Howard Kaylan was the key component of hit 1960s American band The Turtles, and subsequently served as Eddie in the duo Flo and Eddie, who served valiant duty in Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention and also supplied backing vocals to records by (among many others) T. Rex, Bruce Springsteen, Blondie and a certain Keith Moon.

Howard and Mark’s interactions with Keith Moon commenced in London at the Speakeasy, continued in London when they all appeared and performed (“acted” would be too strong a word) in Frank Zappa’s surreal 1971 movie 200 Motels, and concluded during Keith’s craziest years in Los Angeles. Kaylan’s career has also included radio shows, an autobiography that I did not know about until this post, a number of external music productions, and a documentary movie about The Turtles that my Crossed Channels partner Dan Epstein considers one of the greatest ever made, and which I really must watch as soon as I have a Sunday evening spare to do so.

For the Moon book, both Howard and Mark gave me excellent phone interviews, and allowed me to return for follow-up questions. I may yet feature Mark’s among these digs into the transcripts archives, but for now, it’s Howard’s turn. His interview was equal parts insightful, erudite and utterly hilarious, recounting many an unforgettable incident from his friendship with Keith, while in turn providing genuine insights into not only Moon’s character, but those of Zappa, Ringo, Lennon and more. As we moved on to discussing Keith’s fated solo album Two Sides Of The Moon, there were also a couple of parts conducted off the record – unincluded here of course – that would be well worth a brave investigative reporter following up on.

As noted above, the full interview is available is available only for my paid-up subscribers – my patr(e)ons, if you prefer – without whose support, truly and honestly, I would not be able to keep this Substack page going. Those of you who remain uncommitted to extending beyond the free subscription, that’s cool as well, it’s great to have you here; just bear in mind you are missing out on all these exclusive in-depth interviews (which have included un-Moon-related transcripts from the likes of Johnny Marr, Keith Richards and Bill Nelson), as well the Crossed Channels podcast and continual access to the full archives, over two years’ worth now. Subs are just $6/5 a month, with 20% off for the full year.

And with that, I’ll provide a teaser introductory quote from Howard as he begins to detail the origin story behind 200 Motels. Sit back and enjoy; it’s quite the entertaining ride.

“It’s story about a girl I had been with in the late 60s in the mid-west, I believe in Des Moines, Iowa. She was beautiful, she was a knock-out, I had things made, and I had her all ready to go and we were in the room and we were hot to trot and just as I'm getting down to the final closing seconds of foreplay this woman has the nerve to look me in the eye and say 'Please sing me your record.”