Paul Revere & the Raiders on "Swingin' Time":

Swingin' Time

I saw them live when I was a kid and they were great. Under all the stupid minuteman costumes their label made them wear, there was a real band. Songs as "Just Like Me" demonstrated a real band was trying to make itself heard but you just can't take guys in minutemen get-ups seriously.

The same thing happened to the Turtles. They were trying to turn into a real rock band with political and antiwar overtones but their label said no. They were to do light poppy stuff. The band wanted to be released from their contract but the label said no. In disgust, Howard Kaylan deliberately wrote a horrible pop song that he hoped would be so badly received that it would kill the Turtles' career and force the label to drop them. He called it "Elenore" and it went on to be pretty big hit for them.

They did record most of a rock album on that label but never finished it and, as far as I know, has never been released. He and Mark Volman and bassist Jimmy Pons split from the band and left the label even thouogh the band was still under contract. The label retaliated by not allowing Kaylan and Volman to use their real names, so they called themselves Flo & Eddie and along with Pons joined Frank Zappa to form the Mothers of Invention.