PASSINGS: Mark Tulin
Mark Tulin
Electric Prunes bassist
Mark Tulin, 62, bassist for the Electric Prunes, a short-lived 1960s garage band best known for their distortion-filled psychedelic-acid rock single “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” died Saturday in Avalon after a suspected heart attack, said his daughter, Samantha Tulin. A diving enthusiast, he had traveled to Catalina to volunteer for the annual Avalon Harbor Underwater Cleanup event.
The Electric Prunes quintet formed in 1965 in the San Fernando Valley. The band peaked in 1967 when “I Had Too Much to Dream” spent eight weeks on the Billboard pop charts, reaching No. 11, and “Get Me to the World on Time” had five weeks on the charts, topping out at No. 27. The group disbanded in 1968, but some of the original members rejoined a few years ago.
In recent years Tulin had also played bass sporadically with the Smashing Pumpkins and with their frontman, Billy Corgan.
Tulin, who was born Nov. 21, 1948, in Philadelphia, joined the Electric Prunes when he was a student at Taft High School in Woodland Hills. After leaving the band, he held various jobs over the years. At the time of his death he was living in the same Woodland Hills house where the band had practiced as teenagers, his daughter said.
“At the end of the day, all he wanted to do was play music,” she said. “Luckily, he got to do that.”
—Los Angeles Times staff and wire reports
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