"THE PATH OF CAHAN" Austin
Songwriter
"ANDY CAHAN INTERVIEW" By Bill
Korman
"CLOSE UP" Music Connection
The Path Of
Cahan
Andy Cahan bills himself as "the most famous musician you
never heard of" As keyboard player for the Turtles (not to
mention associate of Jimi Hendrix, Little Richard, Chuck
Berry, and many other luminaries), he's seen the up and down
sides of the rock-music world since the 1960s. Mostly up for Andy,
who's putting together a book of his memoirs and who has released a
CD of his own material, Snarfel. The CD includes polished and
ruff gems stretching from the'90s (at the beginning of the disk) to
the'60s (at the end). As one man's collection of songwriting in the
thick of the rock n' roll business, the disk is a unique piece of
musical history.
Andy was in town to participate in a John Lennon Birthday Celebration
at Steamboat, as well as for other reasons, which is where I ran into
him and arranged for the telephone interview transcribed here. The
interview was taped on 20 October. When Andy first picked up the
phone , he was panting. I feared he was about to have a heart attack
till he explained he was on his treadmill as he spoke. Very
California.
ASG: Who are the finest songwriters you've worked with?
Cahan: The finest songwriter number one, of course, is Harry
Nilsson and Jimmy Seals of Seals and Croft. Extremely
talented-extremely. And then of course I wrote with Dr. John........
those are the top three.
ASG: So, in your opinion, Harry Nilsson was a great song
writer?
Cahan: Oh incredible,. He was a genius. He's a total genius.
He was extremely intelligent. Like we'd be sitting there watching
Jeopardy on t.v., and he would know the answers before anybody.......
and he's an incredible, incredible story teller. He could talk your
ear off for hours and hours.......
ASG: Great vocalist.
Cahan: Oh incredible vocalist. He is the Beatles favorite
vocalist. That's why when I was befriended by him for four years-the
last four years of his life-we went over Ringo's house a bunch of
times. We went to Timothy Leary's, Joe Walsh, and a whole bunch of
different people.
ASG: So you knew Timothy Leary during some of his last days as
well.
Cahan: Oh, yes, I was over Timothy Leary 's house several
times.
ASG: There was allot of publicity over his illness-could you
comment on that? He was planning to commit suicide over the internet,
and-
Cahan: Right, right. Which I think is fantastic because he
himself is an icon in history. He is Mr. LSD, Mr. Tune In, Turn On,
Drop Out.
ASG: Did you know him back in the San Francisco days?
Cahan: I only met him in the '90s. When I walked into his
house the first thing he did was, he walked up to me and gave me a
nice, big, wet kiss on the lips. I mean, he's just a beautiful guy.
He's got-he-had these nice young girls hangin' around with him in his
place there, and a gigantic Gumby, you know. And his kitchen table
was rainbow colored. It was like going back into the '60s.
ASG: Lets talk about Flo and Eddie { Howard Kaylan and Mark
Volman of the Turtles and the Mothers} It seems that joining Zappa
was a coup for Flo and Eddie at the time but then in retrospect, when
Zappa got injured and they had to quit touring with him, their career
never seemed to recover to the Turtles level. Is that accurate and
could you give us some insight on that?
Cahan: Sure. Basically what happened is, when the Turtles
broke up, their management owned the name "The Turtles." So they
couldn't use {it}. So that's why they used "Fluorescent Leach" and
"Eddie."
ASG: I never knew it was "Fluorescent Leach."
Cahan: "Fluorescent Leach" and "Eddie" were the actual names
Frank Zappa named his road managers. So Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan
used those names instead of "The Turtles." And then eventually, after
two albums on Warner Brothers, and two albums on Columbia, they
finally purchased, I think for like $35,000 or something, the name of
"The Turtles" again. And since about 1983 they've been touring, of
course, under the name "The Turtles" featuring Flo & Eddie.
ASG: Can you compare the direction of rock n' roll today
versus the '60s?
Cahan: I have some very interesting things to say about rock
n' roll today. Rap music does require talent, because you have to
have allot of rhythm. Rap music is based on rhythm because when a
vocalist is doing his rap, his vocals are like a drum solo. You know
like DIT-da-DIT-da-da- da {etc.} So it's all rhythmic. Unfortunately
there's no melodic melodies, and no understandable lyrics. Because I
can't hear them. You know, my daughter can repeat back all the lyrics
to the songs, but I can't.
See, in the '60s with the Animals and Rolling Stones and the Kinks,
you can hear every lyric in the song, and there is always a memorable
melody-hook-that you can sing. You know, {sings} so happy together or
I wanna hold your hand, whatever. You can always recognize the hook.
Now today there's no recognizable hooks. Maybe except for Alanis
Morrisette, or Pearl Jam, or Soundgarden maybe. You know there's some
groups today that definitely have some hooks but they're few and far
between. Ninety percent of the music according to Andy Cahan is
garbage.
And it's garbage because I'm 49 years old and I'm different from the
listening audience today. I'm sure when I was in the '60s, my parents
liked Glen Miller...But, just generally speaking the songs are
lacking melodic hooks.
ASG: Do you think they would sell more if, uh
Cahan:I don't know because the buying audience is different
for each market. So my kids, my daughters, who are 18 and 21, they're
gonna buy R.E.M. and Snoop Doggie Dog. And people my age are into
Bruce Springsteen.
ASG: Do you think the L.A. music industry is meaner today than
in the '60s and' 70s?
Cahan: Oh man it's ridiculous today because-in the '60s and
'70s a songwriter could go into a publishing office or into a record
company A&R room and sit down with his acoustic guitar or sit down at
the good old upright piano, which was probably out of tune, and play
a song for a person. And...that person could understand, "Oh, I know
what he's tryin' to do, I see, I see, we could arrange it like
this."...That's when you can go in with just the bare bones,
........and somebody you were playing the song for would have the
musical knowledge to picture what it's like arranged in a studio.
Okay? But....unfortunately, now in the '90s, all the...A&R people and
the people who are supposedly intelligent musically are stupid. And
they have to hear a full arranged master demo....they couldn't
picture it with just a guitar and a voice .....And the personal in
these Record companies changes every two or three months. And it's
always the cousin of the uncle of the sister of the brother of the
owner of the company. And it's just ridiculous. It's absolutely
insane. That's why I suggest to all my clients, as the Demo Doctor to
go ahead and independently produce your own CD. Because, when
you're sending off cassettes to people to try and get record deals,
it's like going to Las Vegas. The odds are against you. If you
independently do your own CD, and get your own airplay, and get your
own reviews, you have a much stronger fighting chance of getting
recognition. ... Of course doing your own production does cost money.
But I do have some connections regarding airplay. A very, very good
friend of mine, who was also a vocalist on some of my early
demos=8Bhis name is Sam Calle. He is the West Coast top promotional
man. He represents Aerosmith and Melissa Etheridge and the Rolling
Stones ... Tom Petty and Soundgarden, all the big artists, all the
big record labels. Go to Sam Calle to get airplay. And he charges
$1000 per day per song. But the situation is, since he's my friend,
and since we're networking, if people [i.e., ASG members]
wanted to try to get airplay, they could send me a demo (call
818-762-8622 for information].
ASG: Let's talk about Snarfel. Where'd the title come
from?
Cahan: When my children and I were living together ... before
I got divorced in '83, my daughters were four years old and nine
years old. And we wrote a cartoon. And the name of the cartoon was
The Adventures of Snarney and Nookie. And this is, of course, all
coming from their little brains. And so they made up these characters
in the cartoon. And two of the characters were two sea monsters. One
was a blue sea monster by the name of Snarfel. And one was a green
sea monster by the name of Flarfel. Flarfel and Snarfel. So that's
where Snarfel came from. And every time I say that word people either
crack up laughing or say, "That is the coolest word."
ASG: Why'd you choose to do a backwards retrospective?
Cahan: Because, if someone plays the songs from the beginning,
if I'd started from the '60s, I don't think anyone would want to
listen to the rest of the record.
Andy Cahan, the original Demo Doctor, is available for digital
production. For more information, or to order Snarfel, call
818-762-8622.
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