Podcasts about jello

There's no way a Brady/Belichick reunion happens...right? Mike Reiss joins to talk about why the Patriots are all in on Mac Jones and how a loss tonight doesn't necessarily mean the Pats are done. Don Beebe joins to tell us why the Bills will win it all this season. The guys make their On The Plus Side picks and talk about why Jell-O is terrible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's no way a Brady/Belichick reunion happens...right? Mike Reiss joins to talk about why the Patriots are all in on Mac Jones and how a loss tonight doesn't necessarily mean the Pats are done. Don Beebe joins to tell us why the Bills will win it all this season. The guys make their On The Plus Side picks and talk about why Jell-O is terrible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's no way a Brady/Belichick reunion happens...right? Mike Reiss joins to talk about why the Patriots are all in on Mac Jones and how a loss tonight doesn't necessarily mean the Pats are done. Don Beebe joins to tell us why the Bills will win it all this season. The guys make their On The Plus Side picks and talk about why Jell-O is terrible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wayne Resnick sits in for Bill Handel. Space Expert and Host of the "This Week in Space" podcast Rod Pyle joins the show for some 'Cool Space News'. Wayne talks about the awkwardness of greeting people. Also, why don't more men take their wives' last names? And how Jell-O lost its spot as America's favorite dessert.

Hey everyone! In this episode we call hotels and motels and tell them we're making jello in the bathroom.  We've got a dicksword where you can join in the funs!  https://discord.gg/yH2PUY3t   Oh my goodness… there's a Patreon for the show… click this link to see it! https://www.patreon.com/greatbigpranks If you have some aversion to Patreon, then you can buy me a coffee… click here to see what I mean. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/greatbigpranks   Call us and leave a voicemail or whatever: 513-666-4690

The characters spend ages discussing how best to mount a surprise attack on a gelatinous cube, then attempt to retrospectively re-work their actions once things kick off. In other words, it's business as usual. Also this week we chat all things rpgs with Fiona from the What Am I Rolling? podcast. Stay after the credits … Continue reading Episode 117 – Say Jello Wave Goodbye →

The ladies are joined by friend Teena to go over tips for a successful Thanksgiving! From recipes, to pick up lines to etiquette- we have you covered. There's even a listener story, don't forget your toilet table cloth!  ;)Write us some of your cringe stories at [nervouslaughterpodcast@gmail.com](mailto:nervouslaughterpodcast@gmail.com)The socials: [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/nervouslaughterpodcast) | [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/NervousLaughterPodcast) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/NervouslaughPod)

On this week's special Thanksgiving episode, Marissa's guest is Jill Wine-Banks (Watergate prosecutor! General Counsel for the U.S. Army! Brilliant Legal Mind and Owner of Many Pins!). Marissa teaches Jill air-frying techniques (including a wickedly simple recipe for air fryer stuffed mushrooms) and Jill gets Marissa up-to-speed with all the latest legal news, from The Supreme Court to whether Trump can sneak a pardon in Georgia. Plus! How to handle unwanted commentary from your relatives at holiday time and Jill (and Aunt Mill's) famous Jell-o molds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pepper discovered something about Robbie. The quest to get Freddie Prinze Jr on the show has begun. Is rapper Ice Cube a big deal? It's Pepper's 2-year intervention anniversary. The struggle with meal prepping. Pepper's looking for a signature Christmas treat. Our thoughts on Jell-O. A little update on Pepper's current mental state. Advice on dealing with the bad times. Future plans for group counselling. More discussions around addictions and addictive personalities.

When it was published in 2012, The 50 Mile Bouquet was the first book to spotlight a major cultural shift and a transformation around how cut flowers are grown, designed and consumed, closely mirroring the culinary world’s locavore/slow food revolution. One decade ago, the floral industry was just beginning to ask for changes, seeking alternatives […] The post Episode 585: Diane Szukovathy and Dennis Westphall of Jello Mold Farm on the 10-year publication anniversary of The 50 Mile Bouquet appeared first on Slow Flowers Podcast with Debra Prinzing.

The #SistersInLaw come together to explain the role of the new DOJ special counsel Jack Smith, and how he might hold Trump to account for document hoarding at Mar-a-Lago and his role in the J6 insurrection.   Then, they celebrate Speaker Pelosi's legacy of leadership, and explore the latest developments in the abortion wars after Dobbs and recent midterm election referendums on it.  Get #SistersInLaw Merch Now, you can get #SistersInLaw Merch. We have ethically sourced tees, hoodies, pins and more. Support #SistersInLaw by picking up our merch items at the Politicon Merch Store. #Sisters Show Off Their Merch Email the sisters at SISTERSINLAW@POLITICON.COM or tweet using #SistersInLaw From the #Sisters Jill's Jello recipes Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3 Pic 4 From Barb: Concerning the effects of Trump's declared run on DOJ action The impact of Trump's announcement on investigations targeting him A prosecutorial take on how Trump's announcement might protect him Links To This Week's Sponsors Blueland:  To take advantage of Blueland's best sale of the year on green cleaning products with up to 20% off your order, go to blueland.com/sisters Upside: Download upside.com's free app to start getting major cash back on your purchases, plus get $5 back on your first purchase of $10 or more when you use promo code: SISTERS HelloFresh:  Enjoy 65% off and free shipping on delicious HelloFresh meals delivered right to your door when you go to hellofresh.com/sisters65 and use promo code: SISTERS65 Moink:  For farm fresh meats and 1 year of free filet mignon, go to moinkbox.com/sisters Get More From The #Sisters In Law Joyce Vance: Twitter | University of Alabama Law | MSNBC | Civil Discourse Substack Jill Wine-Banks: Twitter | Facebook | Website | Author of The Watergate Girl: My Fight For Truth & Justice Against A Criminal President Kimberly Atkins Stohr: Twitter | Boston Globe | WBUR | Unbound Newsletter Barb McQuade: Twitter | University of Michigan Law | Just Security | MSNBC

Bosses - the good, the bad and the ugly.  We've all had jobs where our leaders have made it great or brought us to the edge of a criminal record.  People make all the difference!  Listen to us discuss on all podcast platforms and at DAMopinion.com.

Recently we lost one of the all time greats in Dead Kennedys drummer D.H. Peligro. This loss was particularly tough as our DK fandom goes back to the band's glory years while we are still in high school. We discovered Jello and the boys along with RAM alum Mark Buell. Mr. Buell is one of the minds behind Connect Humanity, an organization dedicated to bringing the internet to isolated Indigenous...

Recently we lost one of the all time greats in Dead Kennedys drummer D.H. Peligro. This loss was particularly tough as our DK fandom goes back to the band's glory years while we are still in high school. We discovered Jello and the boys along with RAM alum Mark Buell. Mr. Buell is one of the minds behind Connect Humanity, an organization dedicated to bringing the internet to isolated Indigenous areas. And an original Gen X punk rocker. Mark joined us for the episode commemorating the late, great Neil Peart (Rush). But the next time we have him on it will be under better circumstances. We discussed all things DKs. When/how we discovered them, our fave albums and songs, and reminisced about old times. In our "News, Views and Tunes", we hit up the Manitoba Comic Con and local hardcore legends Crown Of Thorns' last gig. Musically we crank some DKs, Autopsy, Government Issue, Black Anvil, R.A.M.B.O., and Konquest. Horns Up and Stay Healthy! This Episode is sponsored by Trve Kvlt Coffee. Summon the coffee demons to possess yourself a cup today! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram  

This week, GamerDude remembers some more of the things that he grew up with that have disappeared since he was a kid.  He talks about how colored toilet paper was a thing, and how it was designed to match the colored fixtures in bathrooms back in the day.  He also talks about how kitchen appliances used to have a variety of colors, from Harvest Gold to Avocado to Coppertone.  He also remembers some of the weird flavors of Jello that used to exist. GamerDude also remembers Saturday morning cartoons, and how shows like Scooby Doo, Hong Kong Phooey and The Wacky Racers started on Saturday mornings.  He also discusses how Disney wormed its way into our subconscious with its Superbowl commercials and its weekly Wonderful World of Disney shows. GamerDude also talks about Wite-Out and how it was the miracle eraser in a  bottle.  He also remembers one of the shows he grew up with: Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, which was one of the first nature shows.  He talks about how he watched it every Saturday night.

“I remember lime Jell-O.” Carol Frank's SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE has been one of my absolute favorite slashers for upwards of 25 years. Much to my chagrin, many horror aficionados don't feel similarly. It's often called slow, despite its 74-minute running time. Too derivative of HALLOWEEN, though the similarities are few (and what ‘80s slasher **didn't** rip off HALLOWEEN?). Though it's not a perfect movie, the performances are strong and the story is more than that of a standard paint-by-numbers horror flick. For those of you who didn't care much for the movie the first time around, come join Tony and I in this slash course in absolute terror. You never know. We just might change your mind. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/blindragepod/message

The celery Jello has been made. The semi-annual Daylight Savings Time rant, and Brent denies Science. The Moviepass CEOs might be going to prison. Robbap update. The people that geolocated a Russian missile programming team using a photograph. The jewelry you should probably never buy for anyone, ever. Malort. The doctor accused of multiple crimes […]

Today we examine some of the recent speeches being given by President Joe Biden. It's been apparent for a long time, he isn't able to do well without a teleprompter. He falls back on old habits, namely, making things up (we call that lying in fly-over country) and inventing history. We start with a tweet from the White House Twitter account, crediting Joe Biden with the biggest increase in Social Security checks in 10 years. Unfortunately, they forgot to remind the American people about the 1972 law mandating cost of living adjustments. The tweet was considered egregious enough to get a Twitter fact-check added to the tweet. They literally were schooled by the very algorithms they have been supporting in order to censor those they don't like. Next, Joe Biden claims the man who discovered insulin told him he did not want to patent it because he wanted everyone to have access to it. The problem with that statement is Frederick Banting, the man who discovered it, died in 1941, a year before Joe Biden was born in 1942. At a different speech, Biden was addressing an audience on an HBCU campus, otherwise known as historically  black college or university. He panders to the crowd, telling them he got his start in a different HBCU, Delaware State University. The problem with that statement is Joe Biden didn't go there. He attended the University of Delaware. In a speech in Florida, Joe Biden decided to throw out a Southern accent and then took the Lord's name in vain while using a phrase that was generally used toward people you felt superior to. But, given he is a Democrat, I doubt the Legacy/mainstream media will discuss it. In fact, I doubt they discuss his pandering to the black audience members at the HBCU or having been around to talk to the man who discovered insulin. A final moment with Joe Biden has him trying to remember what century we are in and how long the Left has been pushing their agenda. It's a magnificent display of how the brain functions when it is slowly turning into Jell-O. And polling is not getting any better for the Democrat party. More and more Democrat voters are saying the agenda is too far Left for the majority of America. People are worried about their finances and about crime. In fact, a recent Rasmussen poll showed the top 5 items on the minds of voters heading into the midterms are: inflation, the economy, election integrity, high gasoline prices and violent crime. Everyone one of those issues are Republican issues and even CNN's Jake Tapper had to admit it's not good for Democrats. Finally, some inner communication from House Democrats in Congress shows they are already getting ready to explain their losses. They are not planning to change their policies, though. How many times have I said the wins need to be by substantial margins or they will convince themselves the reason they lost was due to bad messaging? Guess what? That's exactly what they are preparing to say. They are discussing what message they should have rallied around, rather than admitting it's not about message, but about their radical agenda. Take a moment to rate and review the show and then share the episode on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, GETTR and TRUTH Social by searching for The Alan Sanders Show. You can also support the show by visiting my Patreon page!

We list ten things that we often forget to tell—or remind—our students about cells. We learn how to create a peaceful forest-like retreat in our office using soundscapes, I get my winter shorts ready (seriously), and Margaret Reece comments about teaching urinary concepts. That last topic spurs a rant from Kevin on diversity of course sections. 00:00 | Introduction 00:56 | Pee Again 07:46 | A Forest in My Office 13:54 | Sponsored by AAA 14:27 | Getting Out My Winter Shorts 17:31 | Sponsored by HAPI 18:02 | Things We Forget to Tell Students About Cells 33:45 | Sponsored by HAPS 34:20 | More Things We Forget to Tell Students About Cells 50:02 | Staying Connected   ★ If you cannot see or activate the audio player, go to: theAPprofessor.org/podcast-episode-126.html

Bart & Hahn start off the Power Hour with more of the trade deadline calls from the listeners. Plus, they get into the comments made by NFL Hall of Famer Kurt Warner with regards to Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and how they look as the season goes on. Plus, What was Jerry Jones saying about the Jello?? Also, Will Daniel Jones remain with the Giants beyond 2022?   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wow. This is a special episode for all of our fellow #avgeeks (okay... all of *MY* fellow avgeeks, lol). We are joined by CDR Vincent "Jell-o" Aiello, retired US Navy F/A-18 pilot and real-life TOPGUN instructor. "Jell-o" will also be known to some of you as the host and creator of "The Fighter Pilot Podcast", one of the coolest aviation pods around. Vincent isn't a watch guy, and he doesn't pretend to be. Still, we DO talk a bit about watches and aviation timekeeping. Mainly though, we stick to stuff like cars, fly fishing, his love of a good IPA, and the changes coming to FPP. If you are into cars, watches, aviation, and DON'T listen to "The Fighter Pilot Podcast", this is your wakeup call. Thanks for listening.

Tonight the angels bring forth beautiful streams of divine love for you. Allow yourself to receive this powerful transmission of light and healing.  Then Laurel will take you on an amusing walk down memory lane to the dietetic foods and recipes of the 1970s. It was a time when Weight Watchers ruled and Sweet'n Low, sugar-free Jello and cottage cheese were the royalty of diet recipes. The story begins at  23:35You can learn more about Laurel and the angels at illuminatingsouls.comReceive an inspirational message from Laurel + Illuminating Souls each day via email. Join our Daily Inspiration Blast for a sweet little morsel of goodness delivered to your mailbox Monday thru Friday. Find daily inspirational messages on the Illuminating Souls Facebook page

“There's always room for Jell-O.” Originally recorded on 08 October 2022. Originally edited 20 October 2022 – 21 October 2022. Originally released on 22 October 2022. Music: “Dark Science” by David Hilowitz “The Truth Is What We Make of It” by The Agrarians “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker, Jr. “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher” by Jackie Wilson You can find links for basically everything I Want To Rewatch related here: I Want To Rewatch | Linktree

UN•THERAPY Baes, We all know adultery is a terrible act to commit upon a partner within a monogamous relationship. However, for someone to commit adultery, they must be married first, right?

Today's your lucky day! Portland design legend Josh Berger of Plazm joins Sean to talk Jello's good advice, elevation-related nicknames, and why you should always keep your receipt when you buy a “gently used” Xerox machine from the State of Oregon.You can find Josh's work online at joshuaberger.com, or on Twitter at @joshua_berger. You can find a recording of Josh's talk, “How I Broke My Brain **and Changed My Mind,” on his website or on the Hand-Eye Supply YouTube channel.Check out plazm.com to see the work from across Plazm's wide-ranging portfolio, and you can even pick up some back issues of the magazine there. If you want to see some of the pieces described in this episode, or just want to dive into some of the design and editorial context around the magazine, visit magazine.plazm.com or check out @p_l_a_z_m on Instagram.Special thanks to Marti Clemmons and the team at Portland State University Library's Special Collections and University Archives their support in the production of this episode. You can find most of the pieces Josh described in their collection, along with tons of other cool, rare works from Portland's art and design scenes.This episode was recorded at the Portland State University Art Building on Friday, September 30, 2022.Check out our still pretty new-ish website: dididothat.design! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Jello Skin trend is emerging as a new K-Beauty trend, promising firmer, more elastic skin that looks like Jello. Plus, there's a new Korean ingredient showing promising results for relieving chronic inflammation and atopic dermatitis. Lauren also shares a popular Korean American artist making murals around the world for the recommendation of the week.    Access Full Show Notes for This Episode: https://stylestory.com.au/blogs/podcast/jello-skin-trend   CONNECT WITH ME My Instagram: www.instagram.com/lauren.kbeauty Shop Kbeauty: www.stylestory.com.au Style Story's Instagram: www.instagram.com/stylestory_kbeauty Jelly Ko's Instagram: www.instagram.com/jellyko_official Facebook: www.facebook.com/stylestory.au Website: www.thekoreanbeautyshow.com Sign Up to Our Mailing List to Join Tester's Club: https://stylestory.com.au/pages/free-gift-signup Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/stylestoryau   (I have translated all of these from Korean so please quote me if using any of the information below)   Jello Skin Trend Hits Korea  Products mentioned Jelly Ko Cherry Blossom Sleeping Mask and Bubble Tea Steam Cream   Potential New Ingredient to Help with Dermatitis People Complaining About the Lack of Visitors at the Kbeauty Expo   Question of the Week - Medical Devices and HIFU Top 3 Best-Selling K-Beauty Products This Week  Kahi Wrinkle Multi Balm  Jelly Ko Bubble Tea Steam Cream  COSRX Advanced Snail Mucin Essence   New Korean Beauty Product Reviews APLB Noni Serum NINE LESS Magic Nine Fill Up Silk Hair Treatment 200ml Purito Centella Green Level Recovery Cream   Recommendation of the Week  @Royyaldog  Check out his website Royyaldog and his InstagramSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the Mess Hall Podcast, part of the Alberta Podcast Network, Locally grown. Community supported. Avery, Lena, and Jim from Film Rage (podcast) try foods with a controversial past: Liquid Death, blueberry muffin KitKat, freeze dried Jello, Lemon Baci, Nanaimo Aero, and Fruit Punch Fanta.  Our bonus is Koolaid Popping candy. Find Jim and Film Rage at: Website www.filmrageyyc.com Youtube www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsuw4WB6zmxbgDBjFn6utlT7PFnaDa0w6 Twitter @filmrageyyc  Facebook @filmrageyyc Instagram @filmrageyyc  Find us at  Twitter @themesshallpod Facebook @messhallpodcas Instrgram @messhallpod  email: messhallpodcast@gmail.com This episode is brought to you by Park Power, your friendly, local utilities provider in Alberta. Offering Internet, Electricity, and Natural Gas with low rates, awesome service, and profit-sharing with local charities. Winter is coming and energy usage for all Albertans will be increasing, so now is a great time for listeners to look at their utility bills and ensure they are on the best plan. Albertans have a choice who they pay their utility bills to. Park Power is happy to provide free no-obligations comparisons. If you decide to switch providers, it's easy. And you can feel good knowing you are supporting a local business, and helping to give back to our communities with your utilities bills. Learn more at parkpower.ca This episode of The Mess Hall Podcast is brought to you by Alberta Blue Cross.  Life as a business owner can be hectic, to say the least. Alberta Blue Cross understands that. They offer flexible health, dental, life and disability coverage for your employees. Even better, you can let your staff enroll and manage their coverage at any time, and on any device. That makes life easier for them and for you. You've got this when it comes to group coverage for your small business. And Alberta Blue Cross has got your back. To learn more and explore your options, head to www.ab.bluecross.ca  

In the season two premiere of The Disciples' Mic, you'll join Sarah as she gets to know her new co-host, Pastor Andrew Asp, campus pastor at Concordia Academy. In this episode, you'll hear more about Andrew, his connections with Woodbury Lutheran Church, and learn his opinions on the most ridiculous things from pools of Jell-O to which kids show he would live in. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-disciples-mic/message

Kayla admits she had too many Jell-O shots and was asked to leave James's party. But it was when she came back in disguise that made him blow her off…

Pre Order Your Mr Jim Book—> MrJimBooks.com Join the HEYMRJIM Family Birthday Shout Out The Spy Starter Pack

Watch where you sit, you've got to keep your eyes peeled for the Killer Recliner--uh, er, Killer Sofa! Jordan, John, and Rhiane discuss John's pick for Spooky Season and how its title is misleading, why the female lead is trying to have a relationship with her gay roommate who wants nothing to do with her, witchcraft, Jello blood, why a man is living inside a recliner, the relationship between the old magi and his girlfriend, a pill problem that is never explained, a man having whoopee with a bra and purse, detectives named Grape and Gravy, and a heck of a lot more. Later, they do a segment of Fact or Fiction and All Sides. Please leave a rating and review on iTunes so other people know that this podcast is worthy of a toast. Check out the 2021 movie "Old" as it will be the topic of discussion for the next episode as we begin Spooky Season with episodes every Tuesday! Thanks for listening!

Pudding Pops were frosty ice pop treats which were originally made and marketed by Jell-O. They were launched with a marketing campaign fronted by Bill Cosby. Pudding Pops first originated in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the 1970s in the United States, and became more popular in the 1980s. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Hi friends! You're in the right place! We've renamed our show. Sharon Says So is now Here's Where It Gets Interesting with Sharon McMahon, and we're so excited to share this change with you! Don't worry–we're still committed to bringing you conversations and stories that spark your curiosity and give you the best brain tingles!So welcome to Here's Where It Gets Interesting! To kick off our new show name, Sharon sits down with one of the most interesting people she knows: Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer who has since amassed over 22 million viewers on his YouTube channel. If there was ever an episode of Sharon Says So that will make your kids think you're cool for listening, it's this one. Learn about what motivates Mark to create, and how he hopes his platform will motivate others to both have fun while learning new concepts and care a little bit more about the world's natural resources. (Pssst…Mark also dishes up some insider info on his good friend and Late Night host, Jimmy Kimmel!) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Don and Professor Ben talk about the risks of eating vintage Jello that is decades old. Dr. Don - not risky

The Big Foodies as always are presented by Berky Orthodontics and in this episode, the guys switch to a different style of snacks in a cup and try different flavors of Jello. Snack packs, Jell-O brand and others get put on trial as Biggie, Matt and BB sit down and try several different flavors of the gelatinous delicacy

On this week's episode, Marissa's guest is Emmy-nominated director and the person who makes Twitter a funnier, more enjoyable place to be, Jeremy Newberger. They discuss it all: From how the whole world seems like a Mort Downey, Jr talk show to who would be the winner in a Jell-O wrestling match: Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell? Plus: Mr. Newberger shares his recipe for diabetic-friendly chocolate chip cookies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ORRA talks about how the Science Appliance aka (Maxine) has destroyed hundred of thousands of lives and has yet to stop the reign of unethical medical terror of the youth around the world.Follow/Subscribe:NOA Website: https://networkofawareness.comPremium Podcast: https://networkofawareness.supercast.tech/IG: https://www.instagram.com/networkofawareness.com1/SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user630997481TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@orra_informationalist?lang=enTwitter: https://twitter.com/orra_noa

ORRA talks about how the Science Appliance aka (Maxine) has destroyed hundred of thousands of lives and has yet to stop the reign of unethical medical terror of the youth around the world.Follow/Subscribe:NOA Website: https://networkofawareness.comPremium Podcast: https://networkofawareness.supercast.tech/IG: https://www.instagram.com/networkofawareness.com1/SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user630997481TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@orra_informationalist?lang=enTwitter: https://twitter.com/orra_noa

Meat Jello aka Aspics is a strange, savory, meaty culinary tradition that boggles the mind. From Atlas Obscura / Gastro Obscura : How America Embraced Aspics With Threatening Auras From futuristic test kitchens to Under-the-Sea Salad, midcentury Jell-O took a turn for the weird. BY DIANA HUBBELL JOIN THE PATREON FOR LESS THAN A $2 CUP OF COFFEE!! https://www.patreon.com/Frumess

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. The topic is "The People Side of Lean." Our guest is Jeffrey Liker, academic, consultant, and best-selling author of The Toyota Way (https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Way-Management-Principles-Manufacturer/dp/B09BDC3525/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2JABTVWQBAZC8&keywords=the+toyota+way&qid=1661872838&sprefix=the+toyot%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-1). In this conversation, we talk about how to develop internal organizational capability and problem-solving skills on the frontline. If you liked this show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/). If you liked this episode, you might also like Episode 84 on The Evolution of Lean (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/84). Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (https://trondundheim.com/) and presented by Tulip (https://tulip.co/). Follow the podcast on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/75424477/). Trond's Takeaway: Lean is about motivating people to succeed in an industrial organization more than it is about a bundle of techniques to avoid waste on a factory production line. The goal is to have workers always asking themselves if there is a better way. Transcript: TROND: Welcome to another episode of the Augmented Podcast. Augmented brings industrial conversations that matter, serving up the most relevant conversations on industrial tech. Our vision is a world where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is the People Side of Lean. Our guest is Jeffrey Liker, academic, consultant, and best-selling author of The Toyota Way. In this conversation, we talk about how to develop internal organizational capability, problem-solving skills on the frontline. Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim and presented by Tulip. Jeffrey, how are you? Welcome to the podcast. JEFFREY: Thank you. TROND: So I think some people in this audience will have read your book or have heard of your book and your books but especially the one that I mentioned, Toyota. So I think we'll talk about that a little bit. But you started out as an engineering undergrad at Northeastern, and you got yourself a Ph.D. in sociology. And then I've been reading up on you and listening to some of the stuff on the musical side of things. I think we both are guitarists. JEFFREY: Oh, is that right? TROND: Yeah, yeah, classical guitar in my case. So I was wondering about that. JEFFREY: So I play also a classical guitar now. I played folk and rock earlier when I was young. But for the last more than ten years, I've been only studying classical guitar. TROND: Well, so then we share a bunch of hours practicing the etude, so Fernando Sor, and eventually getting to the Villa-Lobos stuff. So the reason I bring that up, of course, beyond it's wonderful to talk about this kind of stuff with, you know, there aren't that many classical guitarists out there. But you said something that I thought maybe you could comment on later. But this idea of what happened to you during your studies of classical guitar actually plays into what you later brought into your professional life in terms of teaching you something about practicing in particular ways. So I hope you can get into that. But obviously, you've then become a professor. You are a speaker and an advisor, and an author of this bestseller, The Toyota Way. Now you run some consulting. And I guess I'm curious; this was a very, very brief attempt at summarizing where you got into this. What was it that brought you into manufacturing in the first place? I mean, surely, it wasn't just classical guitar because that's not a linear path. [laughs] JEFFREY: No. So for undergraduate, I had basically studied industrial engineering because I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. And my father was an engineer. And then I literally took a course catalog and just started reading the descriptions of different kinds of engineering. And industrial engineering was the only one that mentioned people. And in theory, industrial engineering is a systems perspective which integrates people, materials, methods, machines, the four Ms. And in the description from Northeastern University, they said it's as much about human organization as it is about tools and techniques. So that appealed to me. When I got to Northeastern...I was not a particularly good high school student. So I didn't have a lot of choices of what colleges I went to, so Northeastern was pretty easy to get into. But they had a cooperative education program where you go to school, and you work. You go back and forth between school and work and had a pretty elaborate system for setting you up with jobs. I got one of the better jobs, which was at a company called General Foods Corporation at the time, and they make things like Jell-O, and Gravy Train dog food, and Birds Eye vegetables, and a lot of other household names, Kool-Aid, all automated processes, even at that time in the 1970s. And they had been experimenting with something called socio-technical systems, which is supposed to be what I was interested in, which is bringing together the social and technical, which no one at Northeastern University had any interest in except me. But I was very interested in this dog food plant where they were written up as a case study pioneer. And the basic essence of it was to give groups of people who are responsible, for example, for some automated processes to make a certain line of Gravy Train dog food, give them responsibility for all their processes, and they called them autonomous workgroups. And what we try to do is as much as possible, give them all the responsibility so they can work autonomously without having to go and find the engineer or deal with other support functions, which takes time and is kind of a waste. So that fascinated me. I studied it. I wrote papers about it even in courses where it didn't fit. But the closest I could get to the social side was through sociology courses which I took as soon as I was able to take electives, which was about my third year. And I got to know a sociology professor closely and ultimately decided to get a Ph.D. in sociology and did that successfully, published papers in sociology journals at a pretty high level. And then discovered it was really hard to get a job. TROND: Right. [laughs] JEFFREY: And there happened to be an advertisement from an industrial engineering department at University of Michigan for someone with a Ph.D. in a social science and an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering. And I was probably the only person in the world that fit the job. And they were so excited to hear from me because they had almost given up. And I ended up getting that job quickly then getting to Michigan excited because it's a great university. I had a low teaching load. They paid more than sociology departments. So it was like a dream job. Except once I got there, I realized that I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing [chuckles] because it wasn't a sociology department. And I had gotten away from industry. In fact, I was studying family development and life's course development, and more personal psychology and sociology stuff. So I was as far away as I could be. So I had to kind of figure out what to do next. And fortunately, being at Michigan and also being unique, a lot of people contacted me and wanted me to be part of their projects. And one of them was a U.S.-Japan auto study comparing the U.S.-Japan auto industry going at the same time as a study at MIT and Harvard that ultimately led to the book The Machine That Changed the World, which defined lean manufacturing. So this was sort of a competitive program. And they asked me to be part of it, and that's what led to my learning about Toyota. I mean, I studied Toyota, Nissan, Mazda mainly and compared them to GM, Ford, and Chrysler. But it was clear that Toyota was different and special. And ultimately, then I learned about the Toyota Production System. And from my perspective, not from people in Toyota, but from my perspective, what they had done is really solve the problem of socio-technical systems. Because what I was seeing at General Foods was workers who were responsible for technical process and then were given autonomy to run the process, but there was nothing really socio-technical about it. There was a technical system, and then there was social system autonomous work groups and not particularly connected in a certain way. But the Toyota Production System truly was a system that was designed to integrate people with the technical system, which included things like stamping, and welding, and painting, which were fairly automated as well as assembly, which is purely manual. And Toyota had developed this back in the 1940s when it was a lone company and then continued to evolve it. And the main pillars are just-in-time and built-in quality. They have a house, and then the foundation is stable and standardized processes. And in the center are people who are continuously improving. Now, the socio-technical part the connection is that just-in-time for Toyota means that we're trying to flow value to the customer without interruption. So if what they do is turn raw materials into cars that you drive, then anything that's turning material into a component or car physically is value-added, and everything else is waste. And so things like defects where you have to do rework are waste. And machines are shut down, so we have to wait for the machines to get fixed; that's waste. And inventory sitting in piles doing nothing is waste. So the opposite of waste is a perfect process. And Toyota also was smart enough, and all that they figured out was more like folk learning or craft learning. It was learning from doing and experience and common sense. And they didn't particularly care about linking it to academic theories or learning from academic theories, for that matter. So their common sense view is that the world is complicated. Humans are really bad at predicting the future. So the best we can do is to get in the ballpark with what we think is a good process and then run it and see how it fails. And then the failures are what lead to then the connection of people who have to solve the problems through creative thinking. So that was the integration that I did not see before that. TROND: Just one thing that strikes me...because nowadays, comparing the U.S. or Europe and Asia in terms of business practices, it's sort of like, oh, of course, you have to compare them because they are culturally different. But it strikes me that in the automotive industry, was it immediately really clear to you at the outset that there would be such striking differences between the Japanese and the U.S. auto industry? Or is that actually something that had to be studied? Or was it something that was known, but no one really knew exactly what the differences were? JEFFREY: So it wasn't like the American auto companies figured out that if they get good at using chopsticks, they'll be good at making cars. They weren't looking for something peculiar in Japanese culture. But they were addressing the more general problem, which was that Japanese companies were making small fuel-efficient cars at low cost with high quality. And none of the American companies could do that. The costs were higher. The quality was terrible compared to Japan. They took a long time to do everything, including developing cars. So somehow, the Japanese were purported, they weren't convinced this was true, but according to the evidence, the Japanese were purported to be better at just about everything. And the Americans wanted to know why particularly. And at that time, there had been an oil crisis, and there was a demand for small cars. The real question they were interested in is how could they make small cars that were competitive with the Japanese? So they had to understand what the Japanese were doing. Now, they realized that some of what the Japanese were doing were purely technical things that had nothing to do with culture. And then there was also a level of attention to detail and motivation that maybe was, for some reason, peculiar to Japan. But they needed to figure out how to replicate it in the United States. And then, in addition to that, they had Americans like Dr. Deming, who had gone to Japan and taught the Japanese supposedly quality control methods. And Japanese companies had taken quality control methods that were created in the United States more seriously than the American companies. So part of it was relearning what came from America to Japan and got done better. So it wasn't necessarily this kind of strange place, and how can we emulate this strange culture? TROND: Right. But that becomes then your challenge then, right? Because what you then discover is that your field is immensely important to this because what you then went on to do is...and I guess part of your consulting work has been developing internal organizational capability. These are skills that particular organizations, namely Toyota, had in Japan. So you're thinking that this then became...it's like a learning process, the Japanese learned some lessons, and then the whole rest of the automotive industry then they were trying to relearn those lessons. Is that sort of what has been happening then in the 30 years after that? JEFFREY: Yeah, the basic question was, why are they so good? Why are we so bad? And how can we get better in America? Then there were lots of answers to that question coming from different people in different places. My particular answer was that Toyota especially had developed a socio-technical system that was extremely effective, that was centered on people who were developed to have the skills of problem-solving and continuous improvement. And while the study was going on, they were doing a study out of MIT that led to The Machine That Changed the World. And around that same time, a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors had been formed called NUMMI. It was in California. And in their first year, it was launched in 1983, and in the first year, they had taken what was the worst General Motors plant in the world, with the worst attendance, the worst morale, workers who were fighting against supervisors every day, including physically fighting with them, terrible quality, and General Motors had closed the plant because it was so bad. And then, in the joint venture, they reopened the plant and took back 80% of the same workers who were like the worst of the worst of American workers. And within a year, Toyota had turned the plant around so that it was the best in North America with the best workers. TROND: That's crazy, right? Because wouldn't some of the research thesis in either your study or in the MIT study, The Machine That Changed the World, would have to have been around technology or at least some sort of ingenious plan that these people had, you know, some secret sauce that someone had? Would you say that these two research teams were surprised at finding that the people was the key to the difference here or motivating people in a different way? JEFFREY: Well, frankly, I think I probably had a better grasp that people were really the key than most other researchers because of my background and my interest in human-centered manufacturing. So I was kind of looking for that. And it was what the Toyota people would say...whenever they made a presentation or whenever you interviewed them, they would say, "People are kind of distracted by the tools and methods, but really at the center are people." And generally, most people listening to them didn't believe it, or it didn't register. Because Toyota did have cool stuff, like, for example, something called a kanban system, which is how do you move material around in the factory? They have thousands of parts that have to all be moved and orchestrated in complicated ways. And Toyota did it with physical cards. And the concept was a pulse system that the worker; when they see that they're getting low on parts, they take a card and they post it. They put it in a box, and then the material handler picks it up. And they said, okay, they need another bin of these. On my next route, I'll bring a bin of whatever cards I get. So they were replenishing the line based on a signal from the operator saying, "I need more." So it was a signal from the person who knows best what they need. And it also, from Toyota's point of view, put the employee in the driver's seat because now they're controlling their supply in addition to controlling their work process. And it didn't require that you predict the future all the time because who knows what is happening on the line and where they're backed up, and where they maybe have too many parts, and they don't need more? But the worker knows. He knows when he needs it and when he doesn't. It was kind of an ingenious system, but the fact that you had these cards moving all over the factory and thousands of parts are moving just to the right place at the right time based on these cards, that was fascinating. So a lot of the consumers were more interested in that than they were in the people aspect, even though Toyota kept talking about the people aspect. TROND: But so this is my question, then there was more than one element that they were doing right. JEFFREY: There were multiple elements, yeah. TROND: There were multiple elements. Some of them were structural or visual, famously. JEFFREY: Right. TROND: But you then started focusing, I guess, on not just the people aspect, but you started structuring that thinking because the obvious question must have been, how can we do some of this ourselves? And I guess that's my question is once you and the team started figuring out okay, there are some systematic differences here in the way they motivate people, handle the teams, but also structure, honestly, the organizational incentives minute by minute, how then did you think about transferring this? Or were you, at this point, just really concerned about describing it? JEFFREY: Like I said, I was kind of unusual in my background, being somewhere between industrial engineering and sociology and being in industrial engineering departments. So maybe I wasn't as constrained by some of the constraints of my academic colleagues. But I never believed this whole model that the university gathers information structures that formulates it, then tells the world what to do. I never thought that made any sense. And certainly, in the case of lean, it didn't, and it wasn't true. So the way that companies were learning about this stuff was from consultants, largely, and from people who had worked for Toyota. So anybody who had worked for Toyota, even if they were driving a forklift truck, in some cases, suddenly became a hot commodity. I consulted to Ford, and they were developing the Ford Production System. They were using a consulting firm, and all their consulting firm's business was to poach people from Toyota and then sell them as consultants to other companies. And that company literally had people every day of the week who were in their cars outside the gates of Toyota. And as people came out, they would start talking to them to try to find people that they could hire away from Toyota. TROND: It's funny to hear you talking about that, Jeff, right? Because in some way, you, of all people, you're a little bit to blame for the fame of Toyota in that sense. I mean, you've sold a million books with The New Toyota -- JEFFREY: Well, that was -- TROND: I'm just saying it's a phenomenon here that people obsess over a company, but you were part of creating this movement and this enormous interest in this. [laughs] JEFFREY: I didn't feel that that was...I personally had a policy because I had a consulting company too. So I personally had a policy that I would not hire somebody away from Toyota unless they were leaving anyway. That was my personal policy. But the important point was that there were a lot of really well-trained people coming out of Toyota who really understood the whole system and had lived it. And they could go to any other company and do magic, and suddenly things got better. [laughs] And what they were doing was setting up the structures and the tools, and they also were engaging the people and coaching the people. They were doing both simultaneously, and that's how they were trained. Toyota had sent an army of Japanese people to America. So every person who was in a leadership position had a one-on-one coach for years, a person whose only reason for being in the United States was to train them. So they got excellent training, and then they were able to use that training. And then other people once they had worked with a company and then that company got good at lean, then, within that company, you'd spawn more consultants change agents. Like, there was a company that I was studying called Donnelly Mirrors that made exterior mirrors for cars. And one of the persons that was trained by a Toyota person became a plant manager. And he ended up then getting offered a job as the vice president of manufacturing for Merillat Kitchen Cabinets. And now he's the CEO of the parent company that owns Merillat. And he's transformed the entire company. So little by little, this capability developed where most big companies in the world have hired people with lean experience. Sometimes it's second generation, sometimes third generation. And there are some very well-trained people. So the capability still resides within the people. And if you have someone who doesn't understand the system but they just set up a kanban system or they set up quality systems, and they try to imitate what they read in a book or what they learned in a course; usually, it doesn't work very well. TROND: Well, that was going to be my next question. Because how scalable is this beyond the initial learnings of Toyota and the fact that it has relied so heavily on consulting? Because there is sort of an alternate discourse in a lot of organizational thinking these days that says, well, not just that the people are the key to it but actually, that as a leader, however much you know or how aware you are of people processes, it is the organization itself that kind of has to find the answers. So there's perhaps some skepticism that you can come in and change a culture. Aren't there organizations that have such strong organizational practices, whether they are cultural in some meaningful way or they're simply this is the way they've done things that even one person who comes in has a hard time applying a Toyota method? What do you think about that kind of challenge? JEFFREY: Okay, so, anyway, I think what you said is...how I would interpret it is it's a gross oversimplification of reality. So first of all, in the second edition of The Toyota Way, because I realized from the first edition, which was fairly early back in the early 2000s, I realized that some people were taking my message as copy Toyota, even though I didn't say that in the book. And I specifically said not to do that, but I said it in the last chapter. So I put out the second edition a year ago, and I say it in the first page or first few pages. I say, "Don't copy Toyota," and explain why. And then, throughout the book, I say that, and then, in the end, I say, "Develop your own system." So it's probably repeated a dozen times or more with the hope that maybe somebody would then not ask me after reading it, "So, are we supposed to copy Toyota?" So the reason for that is because, as you said, you have your own culture. And you're in a different situation. You're in a different industry. You're starting in a different place. You're drawing on different labor. You have maybe plants around the world that are in different situations. So the other thing I said in the book, which is kind of interesting and counterintuitive, is I said, "Don't copy Toyota; even Toyota doesn't copy Toyota." TROND: So what does that mean? Did they really not? JEFFREY: What it means is that...because Toyota had this dilemma that they had developed this wonderful system in Japan that worked great, but they realized that in auto, you need to be global to survive. So when they set up NUMMI, that was the first experiment they did to try to bring their system to a different culture. And in reality, if you look at some of the cultural dimensions that make lean work in Japan, the U.S. is almost opposite on every one of them, like, we're the worst case. So if you were a scientist and you said, let's find the hardest place in the world to make this work and see if we can make it work, it would be the United States, particularly with General Motors workers already disaffected and turned off. So Toyota's perspective was, let's go in with a blank sheet of paper and pretend we know nothing. We know what the total production system is and what we're trying to achieve with it. But beyond that, we don't know anything about the human resource system and how to set it up. And so they hired Americans, and they coached them. But they relied a lot on Americans, including bringing back the union leader of the most militant union in America. They brought him back. TROND: Wow. JEFFREY: And said, "You're a leader for a reason. They chose you. We need your help. We're going to teach you about our system, but you need to help make it work." So that created this sort of new thing, a new organizational entity in California. And then what Toyota learned from that was not a new solution that they then brought to every other plant, whether it was Czechoslovakia, or England, or China. But rather, they realized we need to evolve a cultural system every time we set up a plant, starting with the local culture. And we need to get good at doing that, and they got good at doing it. So they have, I don't know, how many plants but over 100 plants around the world and in every culture you can imagine. And every one of them becomes the benchmark for that country as one of their best plants. And people come and visit it and are amazed by what they see. The basic principles are what I try to explain in The Toyota Way. The principles don't change. At some level, the principle is we need continuous improvement because we never know how things are going to fail until they fail. So we need to be responding to these problems as a curse. We need people at every level well trained at problem-solving. And to get people to take on that additional responsibility, we need to treat people with a high level of respect. So their model, The Toyota Way, was simply respect for people and continuous improvement. And that won't change no matter where they go. And their concept of how to teach problem-solving doesn't change. And then their vision of just-in-time one-piece flow that doesn't change, and their vision of building in quality so that you don't allow outflows of poor quality beyond your workstation that doesn't change. So there are some fundamental principles that don't change, but how exactly they are brought into the plant and what the human resource system looks like, there'll be sort of an amalgam between the Japanese model and the local model. But they, as quickly as possible, try to give local autonomy to people from that culture to become the plant managers, to become the leaders. And they develop those people; often, those people will go to Japan for periods of time. TROND: So, Jeff, I want to move to...well, you say a lot of things with Toyota don't change because they adapt locally. So my next question is going to be about future outlook. But before we get there, can we pick up on this classical guitar lesson? So you were playing classical guitar. And there was something there that, at least you said that in one interview that I picked up on, something to do with the way that guitar study is meticulous practice, which both you and I know it is. You literally will sit plucking a string sometimes to hear the sound of that string. I believe that was the example. So can you explain that again? Because, I don't know, maybe it was just me, but it resonated with me. And then you brought it back to how you actually best teach this stuff. Because you were so elaborate, but also you rolled off your tongue all these best practices of Toyota. And unless you either took your course or you are already literate in Toyota, no one can remember all these things, even though it's like six different lessons from Toyota or 14 in your book. It is a lot. But on the other hand, when you are a worker, and you're super busy with your manager or just in the line here and you're trying to pick up on all these things, you discovered with a colleague, I guess, who was building on some of your work some ways that had something in common with how you best practice classical guitar. What is that all about? JEFFREY: Well, so, first of all, like I said, the core skill that Toyota believes every person working for Toyota should have is what they call problem-solving. And that's the ability to, when they see a problem, to study what's really happening. Why is this problem occurring? And then try out ideas to close the gap between what should be happening and what is happening. And you can view that as running experiments. So the scientific mindset is one of I don't know. I need to collect the data and get the evidence. And also, I don't know if my idea works until I test it and look at what happens and study what happens. So that was very much central in Toyota. And they also would talk about on-the-job development, and they were very skeptical of any classroom teaching or any conceptual, theoretical explanations. So the way you would learn something is you'd go to the shop floor and do it with a supervisor. So the first lesson was to stand in a circle and just observe without preconceptions, kind of like playing one-string guitar. And the instructor would not tell you anything about what you should be looking for. But they would just ask you questions to try to dig deeper into what's really going on with the problems or why the problems are occurring. And the lesson length with guitar, you might be sweating after 20 minutes of intense practice. This lesson length was eight hours. So for eight hours, you're just on the shop floor taking breaks for lunch and to go to the bathroom and in the same place just watching. So that was just an introductory lesson to open your mind to be able to see what's really happening. And then they would give you a task to, say, double the productivity of an area. And you would keep on trying. They would keep on asking questions, and eventually, you would achieve it. So this on-the-job development was learning by doing. Now, later, I came to understand that the culture of Japan never really went beyond the craftsman era of the master-apprentice relationship. That's very central throughout Japan, whether you're making dolls, or you're wrapping gifts, or you're in a factory making a car. So the master-apprentice relationship system is similar to you having a guitar teacher. And then, if you start to look at modern psychology leadership books, popular leadership books, there's a fascination these days with the idea of habits, how people form habits and the role of habits in our lives. So one of my former students, Mike Rother, who had become a lean practitioner, we had worked together at Ford, for example, and was very good at introducing the tools of lean and transforming a plant. He started to observe time after time that they do great work. He would check in a few months later, and everything they had done had fallen apart and wasn't being followed anymore. And his ultimate conclusion was that what they were missing was the habit of scientific thinking that Toyota put so much effort into. But he realized that it would be a bad solution to, say, find a Toyota culture -- TROND: Right. And go study scientific thinking. Yeah, exactly. JEFFREY: Right. So he developed his own way in companies he was working with who let him experiment. He developed his own way of coaching people and developing coaches inside the company. And his ultimate vision was that every manager becomes a coach. They're a learner first, and they learn scientific thinking, then they coach others, which is what Toyota does. But he needed more structure than Toyota had because the Toyota leaders just kind of learned this over the last 25 years working in the company. And he started to create this structure of practice routines, like drills we would have in guitar. And he also had studied mastery. There's a lot of research about how do you master any complex skill, and it was 10,000 hours of practice and that idea. But what he discovered was that the key was deliberate practice, where you always know what you should be doing and comparing it to what you are doing, and then trying to close the gap. And that's what a good instructor will do is ask you to play this piece, realize that you're weak in certain areas, and then give you an exercise. And then you practice for a week and come back, and he listens again to decide whether you've mastered or not or whether he needs to go back, or we can move to the next step. So whatever complex skill you're learning, whether it's guitar, playing a sport, or learning how to cook, a good teacher will break down the skill into small pieces. And then, you will practice those pieces until you get them right. And the teacher will judge whether you got them right or not. And then when you're ready, then you move on. And then, as you collect these skills, you start to learn to make nice music that sounds good. So it turns out that Mike was developing this stuff when he came across a book on the martial arts. And they use the term kata, which is used in Japanese martial arts for these small practice routines, what you do repeatedly exactly as the master shows you. And the master won't let you move on until you've mastered that one kata. Then they'll move to the second kata and then third. And if you ask somebody in karate, "How many katas do you have?" They might say, "46," and you say, "Wow, you're really good. You've mastered 46 kata, like playing up through the 35th Sor exercise. So he developed what he called the improvement kata, which is here is how you practice scientific thinking, breaking it down into pieces, practicing each piece, and then a coaching kata for what the coach does to coach the student. And the purpose of the scientific thinking is not to publish a paper in a journal but to achieve a life goal, which could be something at work, or it could be that I want to lose weight. It could be a personal goal, or I want to get a new job that pays more and is a better job. And it becomes an exploration process of setting the goal. And then breaking down the goal into little pieces and then taking a step every day continuously toward, say, a weekly target and then setting the next week's target, and next week's target and you work your way up the mountain toward the goal. So that became known as Toyota Kata. He wrote a book called Toyota Kata. And then, I put into my model in the new Toyota Way; in the center of the model, I put scientific thinking. And I said this is really the heart and soul of The Toyota Way. And you can get this but only by going back to school, but not school where you listen to lectures but school where you have to do something, and then you're getting coached by someone who knows what they're doing, who knows how to be a coach. TROND: So my question following this, I think, will be interesting to you, or hopefully, because we've sort of gone through our conversation a little bit this way without jumping to the next step too quickly. Because the last question that I really have for you is, what are the implications of all of this? You have studied, you know, Toyota over years and then teaching academically, and in industry, you've taught these lessons. But what are the implications for the future development of, I guess, management practice in organizations, in manufacturing? Given all that you just said and what you've previously iterated about Toyota's ideas that not a lot of things change or necessarily have to change, how then should leaders go about thinking about the future? And I'm going to put in a couple of more things there into the future. I mean, even just the role of digital, the role of technology, the role of automation, all of these things, that it's not like they are the future, but they are, I guess, they are things that have started to change. And there are expectations that might have been brought into the company that these are new, very, very efficient improvement tools. But given everything that you just said about katas and the importance of practicing, how do you think and how do you teach preparing for the future of manufacturing? JEFFREY: And I have been working with a variety of companies that have developed what you might call industry 4.0 technologies, digital technologies, and I teach classes where a lot of the students are executives from companies where in some cases, they have a dual role of lean plus digitalization. So they're right at the center of these two things. And what I learned going back to my undergraduate industrial engineering days and then to my journey with Toyota, I was always interested in the centrality of people, whatever the tools are. And what I was seeing as an undergraduate was that most of the professors who were industrial engineers really didn't have much of a concept of people. They were just looking at techniques for improving efficiency as if the techniques had the power themselves. And what I discovered with people in IT, and software development, and the digital movement is often they don't seem to have a conception of people. And people from their point of view are basically bad robots [laughs] that don't do what they're supposed to do repeatedly. So the ultimate view of some of the technologists who are interested in industry 4.0 is to eliminate the people as much as possible and eliminate human judgment by, for example, putting it into artificial intelligence and having the decisions made by computers. I'm totally convinced from lots of different experiences with lots of different companies that the AI is extremely powerful and it's a breakthrough, but it's very weak compared to the human brain. And what the AI can do is to make some routine decisions, which frees up the person to deal with the bigger problems that aren't routine and can also provide useful data and even some insight that can help the person in improving the process. So I still see people as the ultimate customer for the insights that come out of this digital stuff, Internet of Things, and all that. But in some cases, they can control a machine tool and make an automatic adjustment without any human intervention, but then the machine breaks down. And then the human has to come in and solve the problem. So if you're thinking about digitalization as tools to...and sometimes have a closed loop control system without the person involved. But in addition, maybe, more importantly, to provide useful data to the human, suddenly, you have to think about the human and what makes us tick and what we respond to. And for example, it's very clear that we're much better at taking in visual information than text information. And that's one of the things that is part of the Toyota Production System is visual management. So how can you make the results of what the AI system come up with very clear and simple, and visual so people can respond quickly to the problem? And most of these systems are really not very good. The human user interface is not well designed because they're not starting with the person. And the other thing is that there are physical processes. Sometimes I kind of make a sarcastic remark, like, by the way, the Internet of Things actually includes things. TROND: [laughs] JEFFREY: And there's a different skill set for designing machines and making machines work and repairing machines than there is for designing software. There are a lot of physical things that have to go on in a factory, changing over equipment, be it for making different parts. And the vision of the technologists might be we'll automate all that, which may be true. Maybe 30 years from now, most of what I say about people will be irrelevant in a factory. I doubt it. But maybe it's 100 years from now, but it's going to be a long time. And there was an interesting study, for example, that looked at the use of robots. And they looked at across the world jobs that could be done by a human or could be done by a robot. And they found that of all the jobs that could be done by a human or a robot, 3% were done by robots, 97%...so this kind of vision of the robots driven by artificial intelligence doing the work of people is really science fiction. It's mostly fiction at this point. At some point, it might become real, but it's got a long way to go. So we still need to understand how to motivate, develop people. But particularly, the more complex the information becomes and the more information available, the more important it is to train people first of all in problem-solving and scientific thinking to use the data effectively and also to simplify the data because we're actually not very good at using a lot of data. We actually can't handle a lot of bits of data at a time like a computer can. So we need simple inputs that then allow us to use our creativity to solve the problem. And most of the companies are not doing that very well. They're offering what they call digital solutions, and I hate that term, on the assumption that somehow the digital technology is the solution. And really, what the digital technology is is just information that can be an input to humans coming up with solutions that fit their situation at that time, not generic solutions. TROND: It's fascinating that you started out with people. You went through all these experiences, and you are directly involved with digital developments. But you're still sticking to the people. We'll see how long that lasts. I think people, from the people I have interviewed, maybe self-selected here on the podcast, people and processes seem enormously important still in manufacturing. Thank you for your perspective. It's been a very rich discussion. And I hope I can bring you back. And like you said if in X number of years people are somehow less important...well, I'm sure their role will change, will adjust. But you're suspecting that no matter what kind of technology we get, there will be some role, or there should be some role for people because you think the judgment even that comes into play is going to be crucial. Is that what I'm -- JEFFREY: There's one more thing I want to add. If you look at industry 4.0, it'll list these are the elements of industry 4.0, and they're all digital technologies. But there's something that's becoming increasingly popular called industry 5.0, where they're asking what's beyond industry 4.0? Which has barely been implemented. But why not look beyond it? Because we've talked about it enough that it must be real. Once we kind of talk about something enough, we kind of lose interest in it. We want to go on to the next thing. So none of these things necessarily have been implemented very well and very broadly. But anyway, so industry 5.0 is about putting people back in the center. So I call it a rework loop. Uh-oh, we missed that the first time. Let's add it back in. TROND: So then what's going to happen if that concludes? Are we going to then go back to some new version of industry 4.0, or will it -- JEFFREY: Well, industry 4.0 is largely a bunch of companies selling stuff and then a bunch of conferences. If you go and actually visit factories, they're still making things in the same way they've always made them. And then there's a monitor that has information on a screen. And the IT person will show you that monitor, and the person on the floor may not even know what it is. But there's a disconnect between a lot of these technologies and what's actually happening on the shop floor to make stuff. And when they do have a success, they'll show you that success. You know, there's like hundreds of processes in the factory. And they'll show you the three that have industry 4.0 solutions in there. And so it's a long way before we start to see these technologies broadly, not only adopted but used effectively in a powerful way. And I think as that happens, we will notice that the companies that do the best with them have highly developed people. TROND: Fantastic. That's a good ending there. I thank you so much. I believe you've made a difference here, arguing for the continued and continuing role of people. And thank you so much for these reflections. JEFFREY: Welcome. Thank you. My pleasure. TROND: You have just listened to another episode of the Augmented Podcast with host Trond Arne Undheim. The topic was the People Side of Lean. Our guest was Jeffrey Liker, academic, consultant, and best-selling author of The Toyota Way. In this conversation, we talked about how to develop internal organizational capability. My takeaway is that Lean is about motivating people to succeed in an industrial organization more than it is about a bundle of techniques to avoid waste on a factory production line. The goal is to have workers always asking themselves if there is a better way. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. If you liked this episode, you might also like Episode 84 on The Evolution of Lean. Hopefully, you will find something awesome in these or in other episodes. And if you do, let us know by messaging us, and we would love to share your thoughts with other listeners. The Augmented Podcast is created in association with Tulip, the frontline operation platform that connects people, machines, devices, and systems used in a production or logistics process in a physical location. Tulip is democratizing technology and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems. Tulip is also hiring, and you can find Tulip at tulip.co. Please share this show with colleagues who care about where industry and especially where industrial tech is heading. To find us on social media is easy; we are Augmented Pod on LinkedIn and Twitter and Augmented Podcast on Facebook and YouTube. Augmented — industrial conversations that matter. See you next time. Special Guest: Jeffrey Liker.

We're kicking off the sixth year of this show with a doozy: John Carpenter's underrated Prince Of Darkness from 1987! We discuss the flick and other topics such as Tom and Jerry cartoons, Jello water as a weapon, and our thoughts on various types of Oreos. Stick around for an extended Maniac Feedback segment where you tell us your favorite John Carpenter flicks!

On this week's Off Topic Michael makes plans for Joe's new office space, Shelby drops off chicken pretzel pub sandwiches, Jello shots get slurped, and Joe and Michael count the rolls on their chins. This episode of Off Topic is sponsored by Better Help (http://betterhelp.com/offtopic ), Red Web (Red Web is available wherever you listen to podcasts), and Stamps.com (http://stamps.com + code OFFTOPIC).

This week Grace and Mamrie discuss hot dog flavored popsicles, Great British Bake Off Kids, pumpkin festivals and Taylor Swift. Download the DoorDash app and enter code TMGW2022 to get 25% off your first order of $15 or more. Go to http://coorslightsummer.com to check out what Coors Light has going on this summer.  Go to http://fahertybrand.com/tmgw and use code TMGW at checkout to get this deal.

Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, hosts of “Good Mythical Morning,” extol the virtues of Twinkie Jell-O, order all the food off the Taco Bell menu through song and tell us what you're not allowed to eat on YouTube. Plus, we discuss the current state of the restaurant industry with journalist Corey Mintz, Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette go nuts with their language lesson, and we learn how to make Crete's anything-goes salad.Get this week's recipe for Cretan Salad.We want to hear your culinary tips! Share your cooking hacks, secret ingredients or unexpected techniques with us for a chance to hear yourself on Milk Street Radio! Here's how: https://www.177milkstreet.com/radiotipsListen to Milk Street Radio on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

This one was actually harrowing! Jake Kuhn goes missing and thankfully, Kristy finds him (eventually). We talk about AMM's good work in undermining the moral panic around abducted children, Bart Taylor and gendered toys, and SO MUCH JELL-O (thanks, Mary Anne). Also, two wonderful listener letters! Grab some Jell-O Jigglers (™) and enjoy! 

Today, the theme is Utah. First,  Caitlin tells us about the murder of Zhifan Dong. Then, Sarah shares the case of David Stack.Listener discretion is advised. Full trigger warnings are made before each case begins.Instagram: @luminolpodTwitter: @luminolpodCheck out our website: www.luminolpod.comSend us a message luminolpod@gmail.comBe a beer sponsor!Support the show

We start season four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs with an extra-long look at "San Francisco" by Scott McKenzie, and at the Monterey Pop Festival, and the careers of the Mamas and the Papas and P.F. Sloan. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Up, Up, and Away" by the 5th Dimension. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, all the songs excerpted in the podcast can be heard in full at Mixcloud. Scott McKenzie's first album is available here. There are many compilations of the Mamas and the Papas' music, but sadly none that are in print in the UK have the original mono mixes. This set is about as good as you're going to find, though, for the stereo versions. Information on the Mamas and the Papas came from Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas and the Papas by Matthew Greenwald, California Dreamin': The True Story Of The Mamas and Papas by Michelle Phillips, and Papa John by John Phillips and Jim Jerome. Information on P.F. Sloan came from PF - TRAVELLING BAREFOOT ON A ROCKY ROAD by Stephen McParland and What's Exactly the Matter With Me? by P.F. Sloan and S.E. Feinberg. The film of the Monterey Pop Festival is available on this Criterion Blu-Ray set. Sadly the CD of the performances seems to be deleted. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Welcome to season four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. It's good to be back. Before we start this episode, I just want to say one thing. I get a lot of credit at times for the way I don't shy away from dealing with the more unsavoury elements of the people being covered in my podcast -- particularly the more awful men. But as I said very early on, I only cover those aspects of their life when they're relevant to the music, because this is a music podcast and not a true crime podcast. But also I worry that in some cases this might mean I'm giving a false impression of some people. In the case of this episode, one of the central figures is John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas. Now, Phillips has posthumously been accused of some truly monstrous acts, the kind of thing that is truly unforgivable, and I believe those accusations. But those acts didn't take place during the time period covered by most of this episode, so I won't be covering them here -- but they're easily googlable if you want to know. I thought it best to get that out of the way at the start, so no-one's either anxiously waiting for the penny to drop or upset that I didn't acknowledge the elephant in the room. Separately, this episode will have some discussion of fatphobia and diet culture, and of a death that is at least in part attributable to those things. Those of you affected by that may want to skip this one or read the transcript. There are also some mentions of drug addiction and alcoholism. Anyway, on with the show. One of the things that causes problems with rock history is the tendency of people to have selective memories, and that's never more true than when it comes to the Summer of Love, summer of 1967. In the mythology that's built up around it, that was a golden time, the greatest time ever, a period of peace and love where everything was possible, and the world looked like it was going to just keep on getting better. But what that means, of course, is that the people remembering it that way do so because it was the best time of their lives. And what happens when the best time of your life is over in one summer? When you have one hit and never have a second, or when your band splits up after only eighteen months, and you have to cope with the reality that your best years are not only behind you, but they weren't even best years, but just best months? What stories would you tell about that time? Would you remember it as the eve of destruction, the last great moment before everything went to hell, or would you remember it as a golden summer, full of people with flowers in their hair? And would either really be true? [Excerpt: Scott McKenzie, "San Francisco"] Other than the city in which they worked, there are a few things that seem to characterise almost all the important figures on the LA music scene in the middle part of the 1960s. They almost all seem to be incredibly ambitious, as one might imagine. There seem to be a huge number of fantasists among them -- people who will not only choose the legend over reality when it suits them, but who will choose the legend over reality even when it doesn't suit them. And they almost all seem to have a story about being turned down in a rude and arrogant manner by Lou Adler, usually more or less the same story. To give an example, I'm going to read out a bit of Ray Manzarek's autobiography here. Now, Manzarek uses a few words that I can't use on this podcast and keep a clean rating, so I'm just going to do slight pauses when I get to them, but I'll leave the words in the transcript for those who aren't offended by them: "Sometimes Jim and Dorothy and I went alone. The three of us tried Dunhill Records. Lou Adler was the head man. He was shrewd and he was hip. He had the Mamas and the Papas and a big single with Barry McGuire's 'Eve of Destruction.' He was flush. We were ushered into his office. He looked cool. He was California casually disheveled and had the look of a stoner, but his eyes were as cold as a shark's. He took the twelve-inch acetate demo from me and we all sat down. He put the disc on his turntable and played each cut…for ten seconds. Ten seconds! You can't tell jack [shit] from ten seconds. At least listen to one of the songs all the way through. I wanted to rage at him. 'How dare you! We're the Doors! This is [fucking] Jim Morrison! He's going to be a [fucking] star! Can't you see that? Can't you see how [fucking] handsome he is? Can't you hear how groovy the music is? Don't you [fucking] get it? Listen to the words, man!' My brain was a boiling, lava-filled Jell-O mold of rage. I wanted to eviscerate that shark. The songs he so casually dismissed were 'Moonlight Drive,' 'Hello, I Love You,' 'Summer's Almost Gone,' 'End of the Night,' 'I Looked at You,' 'Go Insane.' He rejected the whole demo. Ten seconds on each song—maybe twenty seconds on 'Hello, I Love You' (I took that as an omen of potential airplay)—and we were dismissed out of hand. Just like that. He took the demo off the turntable and handed it back to me with an obsequious smile and said, 'Nothing here I can use.' We were shocked. We stood up, the three of us, and Jim, with a wry and knowing smile on his lips, cuttingly and coolly shot back at him, 'That's okay, man. We don't want to be *used*, anyway.'" Now, as you may have gathered from the episode on the Doors, Ray Manzarek was one of those print-the-legend types, and that's true of everyone who tells similar stories about Lou Alder. But... there are a *lot* of people who tell similar stories about Lou Adler. One of those was Phil Sloan. You can get an idea of Sloan's attitude to storytelling from a story he always used to tell. Shortly after he and his family moved to LA from New York, he got a job selling newspapers on a street corner on Hollywood Boulevard, just across from Schwab's Drug Store. One day James Dean drove up in his Porsche and made an unusual request. He wanted to buy every copy of the newspaper that Sloan had -- around a hundred and fifty copies in total. But he only wanted one article, something in the entertainment section. Sloan didn't remember what the article was, but he did remember that one of the headlines was on the final illness of Oliver Hardy, who died shortly afterwards, and thought it might have been something to do with that. Dean was going to just clip that article from every copy he bought, and then he was going to give all the newspapers back to Sloan to sell again, so Sloan ended up making a lot of extra money that day. There is one rather big problem with that story. Oliver Hardy died in August 1957, just after the Sloan family moved to LA. But James Dean died in September 1955, two years earlier. Sloan admitted that, and said he couldn't explain it, but he was insistent. He sold a hundred and fifty newspapers to James Dean two years after Dean's death. When not selling newspapers to dead celebrities, Sloan went to Fairfax High School, and developed an interest in music which was mostly oriented around the kind of white pop vocal groups that were popular at the time, groups like the Kingston Trio, the Four Lads, and the Four Aces. But the record that made Sloan decide he wanted to make music himself was "Just Goofed" by the Teen Queens: [Excerpt: The Teen Queens, "Just Goofed"] In 1959, when he was fourteen, he saw an advert for an open audition with Aladdin Records, a label he liked because of Thurston Harris. He went along to the audition, and was successful. His first single, released as by Flip Sloan -- Flip was a nickname, a corruption of "Philip" -- was produced by Bumps Blackwell and featured several of the musicians who played with Sam Cooke, plus Larry Knechtel on piano and Mike Deasey on guitar, but Aladdin shut down shortly after releasing it, and it may not even have had a general release, just promo copies. I've not been able to find a copy online anywhere. After that, he tried Arwin Records, the label that Jan and Arnie recorded for, which was owned by Marty Melcher (Doris Day's husband and Terry Melcher's stepfather). Melcher signed him, and put out a single, "She's My Girl", on Mart Records, a subsidiary of Arwin, on which Sloan was backed by a group of session players including Sandy Nelson and Bruce Johnston: [Excerpt: Philip Sloan, "She's My Girl"] That record didn't have any success, and Sloan was soon dropped by Mart Records. He went on to sign with Blue Bird Records, which was as far as can be ascertained essentially a scam organisation that would record demos for songwriters, but tell the performers that they were making a real record, so that they would record it for the royalties they would never get, rather than for a decent fee as a professional demo singer would get. But Steve Venet -- the brother of Nik Venet, and occasional songwriting collaborator with Tommy Boyce -- happened to come to Blue Bird one day, and hear one of Sloan's original songs. He thought Sloan would make a good songwriter, and took him to see Lou Adler at Columbia-Screen Gems music publishing. This was shortly after the merger between Columbia-Screen Gems and Aldon Music, and Adler was at this point the West Coast head of operations, subservient to Don Kirshner and Al Nevins, but largely left to do what he wanted. The way Sloan always told the story, Venet tried to get Adler to sign Sloan, but Adler said his songs stunk and had no commercial potential. But Sloan persisted in trying to get a contract there, and eventually Al Nevins happened to be in the office and overruled Adler, much to Adler's disgust. Sloan was signed to Columbia-Screen Gems as a songwriter, though he wasn't put on a salary like the Brill Building songwriters, just told that he could bring in songs and they would publish them. Shortly after this, Adler suggested to Sloan that he might want to form a writing team with another songwriter, Steve Barri, who had had a similar non-career non-trajectory, but was very slightly further ahead in his career, having done some work with Carol Connors, the former lead singer of the Teddy Bears. Barri had co-written a couple of flop singles for Connors, before the two of them had formed a vocal group, the Storytellers, with Connors' sister. The Storytellers had released a single, "When Two People (Are in Love)" , which was put out on a local independent label and which Adler had licensed to be released on Dimension Records, the label associated with Aldon Music: [Excerpt: The Storytellers "When Two People (Are in Love)"] That record didn't sell, but it was enough to get Barri into the Columbia-Screen Gems circle, and Adler set him and Sloan up as a songwriting team -- although the way Sloan told it, it wasn't so much a songwriting team as Sloan writing songs while Barri was also there. Sloan would later claim "it was mostly a collaboration of spirit, and it seemed that I was writing most of the music and the lyric, but it couldn't possibly have ever happened unless both of us were present at the same time". One suspects that Barri might have a different recollection of how it went... Sloan and Barri's first collaboration was a song that Sloan had half-written before they met, called "Kick That Little Foot Sally Ann", which was recorded by a West Coast Chubby Checker knockoff who went under the name Round Robin, and who had his own dance craze, the Slauson, which was much less successful than the Twist: [Excerpt: Round Robin, "Kick that Little Foot Sally Ann"] That track was produced and arranged by Jack Nitzsche, and Nitzsche asked Sloan to be one of the rhythm guitarists on the track, apparently liking Sloan's feel. Sloan would end up playing rhythm guitar or singing backing vocals on many of the records made of songs he and Barri wrote together. "Kick That Little Foot Sally Ann" only made number sixty-one nationally, but it was a regional hit, and it meant that Sloan and Barri soon became what Sloan later described as "the Goffin and King of the West Coast follow-ups." According to Sloan "We'd be given a list on Monday morning by Lou Adler with thirty names on it of the groups who needed follow-ups to their hit." They'd then write the songs to order, and they started to specialise in dance craze songs. For example, when the Swim looked like it might be the next big dance, they wrote "Swim Swim Swim", "She Only Wants to Swim", "Let's Swim Baby", "Big Boss Swimmer", "Swim Party" and "My Swimmin' Girl" (the last a collaboration with Jan Berry and Roger Christian). These songs were exactly as good as they needed to be, in order to provide album filler for mid-tier artists, and while Sloan and Barri weren't writing any massive hits, they were doing very well as mid-tier writers. According to Sloan's biographer Stephen McParland, there was a three-year period in the mid-sixties where at least one song written or co-written by Sloan was on the national charts at any given time. Most of these songs weren't for Columbia-Screen Gems though. In early 1964 Lou Adler had a falling out with Don Kirshner, and decided to start up his own company, Dunhill, which was equal parts production company, music publishers, and management -- doing for West Coast pop singers what Motown was doing for Detroit soul singers, and putting everything into one basket. Dunhill's early clients included Jan and Dean and the rockabilly singer Johnny Rivers, and Dunhill also signed Sloan and Barri as songwriters. Because of this connection, Sloan and Barri soon became an important part of Jan and Dean's hit-making process. The Matadors, the vocal group that had provided most of the backing vocals on the duo's hits, had started asking for more money than Jan Berry was willing to pay, and Jan and Dean couldn't do the vocals themselves -- as Bones Howe put it "As a singer, Dean is a wonderful graphic artist" -- and so Sloan and Barri stepped in, doing session vocals without payment in the hope that Jan and Dean would record a few of their songs. For example, on the big hit "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena", Dean Torrence is not present at all on the record -- Jan Berry sings the lead vocal, with Sloan doubling him for much of it, Sloan sings "Dean"'s falsetto, with the engineer Bones Howe helping out, and the rest of the backing vocals are sung by Sloan, Barri, and Howe: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena"] For these recordings, Sloan and Barri were known as The Fantastic Baggys, a name which came from the Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Oldham and Mick Jagger, when the two were visiting California. Oldham had been commenting on baggys, the kind of shorts worn by surfers, and had asked Jagger what he thought of The Baggys as a group name. Jagger had replied "Fantastic!" and so the Fantastic Baggys had been born. As part of this, Sloan and Barri moved hard into surf and hot-rod music from the dance songs they had been writing previously. The Fantastic Baggys recorded their own album, Tell 'Em I'm Surfin', as a quickie album suggested by Adler: [Excerpt: The Fantastic Baggys, "Tell 'Em I'm Surfin'"] And under the name The Rally Packs they recorded a version of Jan and Dean's "Move Out Little Mustang" which featured Berry's girlfriend Jill Gibson doing a spoken section: [Excerpt: The Rally Packs, "Move Out Little Mustang"] They also wrote several album tracks for Jan and Dean, and wrote "Summer Means Fun" for Bruce and Terry -- Bruce Johnston, later of the Beach Boys, and Terry Melcher: [Excerpt: Bruce and Terry, "Summer Means Fun"] And they wrote the very surf-flavoured "Secret Agent Man" for fellow Dunhill artist Johnny Rivers: [Excerpt: Johnny Rivers, "Secret Agent Man"] But of course, when you're chasing trends, you're chasing trends, and soon the craze for twangy guitars and falsetto harmonies had ended, replaced by a craze for jangly twelve-string guitars and closer harmonies. According to Sloan, he was in at the very beginning of the folk-rock trend -- the way he told the story, he was involved in the mastering of the Byrds' version of "Mr. Tambourine Man". He later talked about Terry Melcher getting him to help out, saying "He had produced a record called 'Mr. Tambourine Man', and had sent it into the head office, and it had been rejected. He called me up and said 'I've got three more hours in the studio before I'm being kicked out of Columbia. Can you come over and help me with this new record?' I did. I went over there. It was under lock and key. There were two guards outside the door. Terry asked me something about 'Summer Means Fun'. "He said 'Do you remember the guitar that we worked on with that? How we put in that double reverb?' "And I said 'yes' "And he said 'What do you think if we did something like that with the Byrds?' "And I said 'That sounds good. Let's see what it sounds like.' So we patched into all the reverb centres in Columbia Music, and mastered the record in three hours." Whether Sloan really was there at the birth of folk rock, he and Barri jumped on the folk-rock craze just as they had the surf and hot-rod craze, and wrote a string of jangly hits including "You Baby" for the Turtles: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "You Baby"] and "I Found a Girl" for Jan and Dean: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "I Found a Girl"] That song was later included on Jan and Dean's Folk 'n' Roll album, which also included... a song I'm not even going to name, but long-time listeners will know the one I mean. It was also notable in that "I Found a Girl" was the first song on which Sloan was credited not as Phil Sloan, but as P.F. Sloan -- he didn't have a middle name beginning with F, but rather the F stood for his nickname "Flip". Sloan would later talk of Phil Sloan and P.F. Sloan as almost being two different people, with P.F. being a far more serious, intense, songwriter. Folk 'n' Roll also contained another Sloan song, this one credited solely to Sloan. And that song is the one for which he became best known. There are two very different stories about how "Eve of Destruction" came to be written. To tell Sloan's version, I'm going to read a few paragraphs from his autobiography: "By late 1964, I had already written ‘Eve Of Destruction,' ‘The Sins Of A Family,' ‘This Mornin',' ‘Ain't No Way I'm Gonna Change My Mind,' and ‘What's Exactly The Matter With Me?' They all arrived on one cataclysmic evening, and nearly at the same time, as I worked on the lyrics almost simultaneously. ‘Eve Of Destruction' came about from hearing a voice, perhaps an angel's. The voice instructed me to place five pieces of paper and spread them out on my bed. I obeyed the voice. The voice told me that the first song would be called ‘Eve Of Destruction,' so I wrote the title at the top of the page. For the next few hours, the voice came and went as I was writing the lyric, as if this spirit—or whatever it was—stood over me like a teacher: ‘No, no … not think of all the hate there is in Red Russia … Red China!' I didn't understand. I thought the Soviet Union was the mortal threat to America, but the voice went on to reveal to me the future of the world until 2024. I was told the Soviet Union would fall, and that Red China would continue to be communist far into the future, but that communism was not going to be allowed to take over this Divine Planet—therefore, think of all the hate there is in Red China. I argued and wrestled with the voice for hours, until I was exhausted but satisfied inside with my plea to God to either take me out of the world, as I could not live in such a hypocritical society, or to show me a way to make things better. When I was writing ‘Eve,' I was on my hands and knees, pleading for an answer." Lou Adler's story is that he gave Phil Sloan a copy of Bob Dylan's Bringing it All Back Home album and told him to write a bunch of songs that sounded like that, and Sloan came back a week later as instructed with ten Dylan knock-offs. Adler said "It was a natural feel for him. He's a great mimic." As one other data point, both Steve Barri and Bones Howe, the engineer who worked on most of the sessions we're looking at today, have often talked in interviews about "Eve of Destruction" as being a Sloan/Barri collaboration, as if to them it's common knowledge that it wasn't written alone, although Sloan's is the only name on the credits. The song was given to a new signing to Dunhill Records, Barry McGuire. McGuire was someone who had been part of the folk scene for years, He'd been playing folk clubs in LA while also acting in a TV show from 1961. When the TV show had finished, he'd formed a duo, Barry and Barry, with Barry Kane, and they performed much the same repertoire as all the other early-sixties folkies: [Excerpt: Barry and Barry, "If I Had a Hammer"] After recording their one album, both Barrys joined the New Christy Minstrels. We've talked about the Christys before, but they were -- and are to this day -- an ultra-commercial folk group, led by Randy Sparks, with a revolving membership of usually eight or nine singers which included several other people who've come up in this podcast, like Gene Clark and Jerry Yester. McGuire became one of the principal lead singers of the Christys, singing lead on their version of the novelty cowboy song "Three Wheels on My Wagon", which was later released as a single in the UK and became a perennial children's favourite (though it has a problematic attitude towards Native Americans): [Excerpt: The New Christy Minstrels, "Three Wheels on My Wagon"] And he also sang lead on their big hit "Green Green", which he co-wrote with Randy Sparks: [Excerpt: The New Christy Minstrels, "Green Green"] But by 1965 McGuire had left the New Christy Minstrels. As he said later "I'd sung 'Green Green' a thousand times and I didn't want to sing it again. This is January of 1965. I went back to LA to meet some producers, and I was broke. Nobody had the time of day for me. I was walking down street one time to see Dr. Strangelove and I walked by the music store, and I heard "Green Green" comin' out of the store, ya know, on Hollywood Boulevard. And I heard my voice, and I thought, 'I got four dollars in my pocket!' I couldn't believe it, my voice is comin' out on Hollywood Boulevard, and I'm broke. And right at that moment, a car pulls up, and the radio is playing 'Chim Chim Cherie" also by the Minstrels. So I got my voice comin' at me in stereo, standin' on the sidewalk there, and I'm broke, and I can't get anyone to sign me!" But McGuire had a lot of friends who he'd met on the folk scene, some of whom were now in the new folk-rock scene that was just starting to spring up. One of them was Roger McGuinn, who told him that his band, the Byrds, were just about to put out a new single, "Mr. Tambourine Man", and that they were about to start a residency at Ciro's on Sunset Strip. McGuinn invited McGuire to the opening night of that residency, where a lot of other people from the scene were there to see the new group. Bob Dylan was there, as was Phil Sloan, and the actor Jack Nicholson, who was still at the time a minor bit-part player in low-budget films made by people like American International Pictures (the cinematographer on many of Nicholson's early films was Floyd Crosby, David Crosby's father, which may be why he was there). Someone else who was there was Lou Adler, who according to McGuire recognised him instantly. According to Adler, he actually asked Terry Melcher who the long-haired dancer wearing furs was, because "he looked like the leader of a movement", and Melcher told him that he was the former lead singer of the New Christy Minstrels. Either way, Adler approached McGuire and asked if he was currently signed -- Dunhill Records was just starting up, and getting someone like McGuire, who had a proven ability to sing lead on hit records, would be a good start for the label. As McGuire didn't have a contract, he was signed to Dunhill, and he was given some of Sloan's new songs to pick from, and chose "What's Exactly the Matter With Me?" as his single: [Excerpt: Barry McGuire, "What's Exactly the Matter With Me?"] McGuire described what happened next: "It was like, a three-hour session. We did two songs, and then the third one wasn't turning out. We only had about a half hour left in the session, so I said 'Let's do this tune', and I pulled 'Eve of Destruction' out of my pocket, and it just had Phil's words scrawled on a piece of paper, all wrinkled up. Phil worked the chords out with the musicians, who were Hal Blaine on drums and Larry Knechtel on bass." There were actually more musicians than that at the session -- apparently both Knechtel and Joe Osborn were there, so I'm not entirely sure who's playing bass -- Knechtel was a keyboard player as well as a bass player, but I don't hear any keyboards on the track. And Tommy Tedesco was playing lead guitar, and Steve Barri added percussion, along with Sloan on rhythm guitar and harmonica. The chords were apparently scribbled down for the musicians on bits of greasy paper that had been used to wrap some takeaway chicken, and they got through the track in a single take. According to McGuire "I'm reading the words off this piece of wrinkled paper, and I'm singing 'My blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin'", that part that goes 'Ahhh you can't twist the truth', and the reason I'm going 'Ahhh' is because I lost my place on the page. People said 'Man, you really sounded frustrated when you were singing.' I was. I couldn't see the words!" [Excerpt: Barry McGuire, "Eve of Destruction"] With a few overdubs -- the female backing singers in the chorus, and possibly the kettledrums, which I've seen differing claims about, with some saying that Hal Blaine played them during the basic track and others saying that Lou Adler suggested them as an overdub, the track was complete. McGuire wasn't happy with his vocal, and a session was scheduled for him to redo it, but then a record promoter working with Adler was DJing a birthday party for the head of programming at KFWB, the big top forty radio station in LA at the time, and he played a few acetates he'd picked up from Adler. Most went down OK with the crowd, but when he played "Eve of Destruction", the crowd went wild and insisted he play it three times in a row. The head of programming called Adler up and told him that "Eve of Destruction" was going to be put into rotation on the station from Monday, so he'd better get the record out. As McGuire was away for the weekend, Adler just released the track as it was, and what had been intended to be a B-side became Barry McGuire's first and only number one record: [Excerpt: Barry McGuire, "Eve of Destruction"] Sloan would later claim that that song was a major reason why the twenty-sixth amendment to the US Constitution was passed six years later, because the line "you're old enough to kill but not for votin'" shamed Congress into changing the constitution to allow eighteen-year-olds to vote. If so, that would make "Eve of Destruction" arguably the single most impactful rock record in history, though Sloan is the only person I've ever seen saying that As well as going to number one in McGuire's version, the song was also covered by the other artists who regularly performed Sloan and Barri songs, like the Turtles: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "Eve of Destruction"] And Jan and Dean, whose version on Folk & Roll used the same backing track as McGuire, but had a few lyrical changes to make it fit with Jan Berry's right-wing politics, most notably changing "Selma, Alabama" to "Watts, California", thus changing a reference to peaceful civil rights protestors being brutally attacked and murdered by white supremacist state troopers to a reference to what was seen, in the popular imaginary, as Black people rioting for no reason: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Eve of Destruction"] According to Sloan, he worked on the Folk & Roll album as a favour to Berry, even though he thought Berry was being cynical and exploitative in making the record, but those changes caused a rift in their friendship. Sloan said in his autobiography "Where I was completely wrong was in helping him capitalize on something in which he didn't believe. Jan wanted the public to perceive him as a person who was deeply concerned and who embraced the values of the progressive politics of the day. But he wasn't that person. That's how I was being pulled. It was when he recorded my actual song ‘Eve Of Destruction' and changed a number of lines to reflect his own ideals that my principles demanded that I leave Folk City and never return." It's true that Sloan gave no more songs to Jan and Dean after that point -- but it's also true that the duo would record only one more album, the comedy concept album Jan and Dean Meet Batman, before Jan's accident. Incidentally, the reference to Selma, Alabama in the lyric might help people decide on which story about the writing of "Eve of Destruction" they think is more plausible. Remember that Lou Adler said that it was written after Adler gave Sloan a copy of Bringing it All Back Home and told him to write a bunch of knock-offs, while Sloan said it was written after a supernatural force gave him access to all the events that would happen in the world for the next sixty years. Sloan claimed the song was written in late 1964. Selma, Alabama, became national news in late February and early March 1965. Bringing it All Back Home was released in late March 1965. So either Adler was telling the truth, or Sloan really *was* given a supernatural insight into the events of the future. Now, as it turned out, while "Eve of Destruction" went to number one, that would be McGuire's only hit as a solo artist. His next couple of singles would reach the very low end of the Hot One Hundred, and that would be it -- he'd release several more albums, before appearing in the Broadway musical Hair, most famous for its nude scenes, and getting a small part in the cinematic masterpiece Werewolves on Wheels: [Excerpt: Werewolves on Wheels trailer] P.F. Sloan would later tell various stories about why McGuire never had another hit. Sometimes he would say that Dunhill Records had received death threats because of "Eve of Destruction" and so deliberately tried to bury McGuire's career, other times he would say that Lou Adler had told him that Billboard had said they were never going to put McGuire's records on the charts no matter how well they sold, because "Eve of Destruction" had just been too powerful and upset the advertisers. But of course at this time Dunhill were still trying for a follow-up to "Eve of Destruction", and they thought they might have one when Barry McGuire brought in a few friends of his to sing backing vocals on his second album. Now, we've covered some of the history of the Mamas and the Papas already, because they were intimately tied up with other groups like the Byrds and the Lovin' Spoonful, and with the folk scene that led to songs like "Hey Joe", so some of this will be more like a recap than a totally new story, but I'm going to recap those parts of the story anyway, so it's fresh in everyone's heads. John Phillips, Scott McKenzie, and Cass Elliot all grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, just a few miles south of Washington DC. Elliot was a few years younger than Phillips and McKenzie, and so as is the way with young men they never really noticed her, and as McKenzie later said "She lived like a quarter of a mile from me and I never met her until New York". While they didn't know who Elliot was, though, she was aware who they were, as Phillips and McKenzie sang together in a vocal group called The Smoothies. The Smoothies were a modern jazz harmony group, influenced by groups like the Modernaires, the Hi-Los, and the Four Freshmen. John Phillips later said "We were drawn to jazz, because we were sort of beatniks, really, rather than hippies, or whatever, flower children. So we used to sing modern harmonies, like Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross. Dave Lambert did a lot of our arrangements for us as a matter of fact." Now, I've not seen any evidence other than Phillips' claim that Dave Lambert ever arranged for the Smoothies, but that does tell you a lot about the kind of music that they were doing. Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross were a vocalese trio whose main star was Annie Ross, who had a career worthy of an episode in itself -- she sang with Paul Whiteman, appeared in a Little Rascals film when she was seven, had an affair with Lenny Bruce, dubbed Britt Ekland's voice in The Wicker Man, played the villain's sister in Superman III, and much more. Vocalese, you'll remember, was a style of jazz vocal where a singer would take a jazz instrumental, often an improvised one, and add lyrics which they would sing, like Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross' version of "Cloudburst": [Excerpt: Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, "Cloudburst"] Whether Dave Lambert ever really did arrange for the Smoothies or not, it's very clear that the trio had a huge influence on John Phillips' ideas about vocal arrangement, as you can hear on Mamas and Papas records like "Once Was a Time I Thought": [Excerpt: The Mamas and the Papas, "Once Was a Time I Thought"] While the Smoothies thought of themselves as a jazz group, when they signed to Decca they started out making the standard teen pop of the era, with songs like "Softly": [Excerpt, The Smoothies, "Softly"] When the folk boom started, Phillips realised that this was music that he could do easily, because the level of musicianship among the pop-folk musicians was so much lower than in the jazz world. The Smoothies made some recordings in the style of the Kingston Trio, like "Ride Ride Ride": [Excerpt: The Smoothies, "Ride Ride Ride"] Then when the Smoothies split, Phillips and McKenzie formed a trio with a banjo player, Dick Weissman, who they met through Izzy Young's Folklore Centre in Greenwich Village after Phillips asked Young to name some musicians who could make a folk record with him. Weissman was often considered the best banjo player on the scene, and was a friend of Pete Seeger's, to whom Seeger sometimes turned for banjo tips. The trio, who called themselves the Journeymen, quickly established themselves on the folk scene. Weissman later said "we had this interesting balance. John had all of this charisma -- they didn't know about the writing thing yet -- John had the personality, Scott had the voice, and I could play. If you think about it, all of those bands like the Kingston Trio, the Brothers Four, nobody could really *sing* and nobody could really *play*, relatively speaking." This is the take that most people seemed to have about John Phillips, in any band he was ever in. Nobody thought he was a particularly good singer or instrumentalist -- he could sing on key and play adequate rhythm guitar, but nobody would actually pay money to listen to him do those things. Mark Volman of the Turtles, for example, said of him "John wasn't the kind of guy who was going to be able to go up on stage and sing his songs as a singer-songwriter. He had to put himself in the context of a group." But he was charismatic, he had presence, and he also had a great musical mind. He would surround himself with the best players and best singers he could, and then he would organise and arrange them in ways that made the most of their talents. He would work out the arrangements, in a manner that was far more professional than the quick head arrangements that other folk groups used, and he instigated a level of professionalism in his groups that was not at all common on the scene. Phillips' friend Jim Mason talked about the first time he saw the Journeymen -- "They were warming up backstage, and John had all of them doing vocal exercises; one thing in particular that's pretty famous called 'Seiber Syllables' -- it's a series of vocal exercises where you enunciate different vowel and consonant sounds. It had the effect of clearing your head, and it's something that really good operetta singers do." The group were soon signed by Frank Werber, the manager of the Kingston Trio, who signed them as an insurance policy. Dave Guard, the Kingston Trio's banjo player, was increasingly having trouble with the other members, and Werber knew it was only a matter of time before he left the group. Werber wanted the Journeymen as a sort of farm team -- he had the idea that when Guard left, Phillips would join the Kingston Trio in his place as the third singer. Weissman would become the Trio's accompanist on banjo, and Scott McKenzie, who everyone agreed had a remarkable voice, would be spun off as a solo artist. But until that happened, they might as well make records by themselves. The Journeymen signed to MGM records, but were dropped before they recorded anything. They instead signed to Capitol, for whom they recorded their first album: [Excerpt: The Journeymen, "500 Miles"] After recording that album, the Journeymen moved out to California, with Phillips' wife and children. But soon Phillips' marriage was to collapse, as he met and fell in love with Michelle Gilliam. Gilliam was nine years younger than him -- he was twenty-six and she was seventeen -- and she had the kind of appearance which meant that in every interview with an older heterosexual man who knew her, that man will spend half the interview talking about how attractive he found her. Phillips soon left his wife and children, but before he did, the group had a turntable hit with "River Come Down", the B-side to "500 Miles": [Excerpt: The Journeymen, "River Come Down"] Around the same time, Dave Guard *did* leave the Kingston Trio, but the plan to split the Journeymen never happened. Instead Phillips' friend John Stewart replaced Guard -- and this soon became a new source of income for Phillips. Both Phillips and Stewart were aspiring songwriters, and they collaborated together on several songs for the Trio, including "Chilly Winds": [Excerpt: The Kingston Trio, "Chilly Winds"] Phillips became particularly good at writing songs that sounded like they could be old traditional folk songs, sometimes taking odd lines from older songs to jump-start new ones, as in "Oh Miss Mary", which he and Stewart wrote after hearing someone sing the first line of a song she couldn't remember the rest of: [Excerpt: The Kingston Trio, "Oh Miss Mary"] Phillips and Stewart became so close that Phillips actually suggested to Stewart that he quit the Kingston Trio and replace Dick Weissman in the Journeymen. Stewart did quit the Trio -- but then the next day Phillips suggested that maybe it was a bad idea and he should stay where he was. Stewart went back to the Trio, claimed he had only pretended to quit because he wanted a pay-rise, and got his raise, so everyone ended up happy. The Journeymen moved back to New York with Michelle in place of Phillips' first wife (and Michelle's sister Russell also coming along, as she was dating Scott McKenzie) and on New Year's Eve 1962 John and Michelle married -- so from this point on I will refer to them by their first names, because they both had the surname Phillips. The group continued having success through 1963, including making appearances on "Hootenanny": [Excerpt: The Journeymen, "Stack O'Lee (live on Hootenanny)"] By the time of the Journeymen's third album, though, John and Scott McKenzie were on bad terms. Weissman said "They had been the closest of friends and now they were the worst of enemies. They talked through me like I was a medium. It got to the point where we'd be standing in the dressing room and John would say to me 'Tell Scott that his right sock doesn't match his left sock...' Things like that, when they were standing five feet away from each other." Eventually, the group split up. Weissman was always going to be able to find employment given his banjo ability, and he was about to get married and didn't need the hassle of dealing with the other two. McKenzie was planning on a solo career -- everyone was agreed that he had the vocal ability. But John was another matter. He needed to be in a group. And not only that, the Journeymen had bookings they needed to complete. He quickly pulled together a group he called the New Journeymen. The core of the lineup was himself, Michelle on vocals, and banjo player Marshall Brickman. Brickman had previously been a member of a folk group called the Tarriers, who had had a revolving lineup, and had played on most of their early-sixties recordings: [Excerpt: The Tarriers, "Quinto (My Little Pony)"] We've met the Tarriers before in the podcast -- they had been formed by Erik Darling, who later replaced Pete Seeger in the Weavers after Seeger's socialist principles wouldn't let him do advertising, and Alan Arkin, later to go on to be a film star, and had had hits with "Cindy, O Cindy", with lead vocals from Vince Martin, who would later go on to be a major performer in the Greenwich Village scene, and with "The Banana Boat Song". By the time Brickman had joined, though, Darling, Arkin, and Martin had all left the group to go on to bigger things, and while he played with them for several years, it was after their commercial peak. Brickman would, though, also go on to a surprising amount of success, but as a writer rather than a musician -- he had a successful collaboration with Woody Allen in the 1970s, co-writing four of Allen's most highly regarded films -- Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Manhattan Murder Mystery -- and with another collaborator he later co-wrote the books for the stage musicals Jersey Boys and The Addams Family. Both John and Michelle were decent singers, and both have their admirers as vocalists -- P.F. Sloan always said that Michelle was the best singer in the group they eventually formed, and that it was her voice that gave the group its sound -- but for the most part they were not considered as particularly astonishing lead vocalists. Certainly, neither had a voice that stood out the way that Scott McKenzie's had. They needed a strong lead singer, and they found one in Denny Doherty. Now, we covered Denny Doherty's early career in the episode on the Lovin' Spoonful, because he was intimately involved in the formation of that group, so I won't go into too much detail here, but I'll give a very abbreviated version of what I said there. Doherty was a Canadian performer who had been a member of the Halifax Three with Zal Yanovsky: [Excerpt: The Halifax Three, "When I First Came to This Land"] After the Halifax Three had split up, Doherty and Yanovsky had performed as a duo for a while, before joining up with Cass Elliot and her husband Jim Hendricks, who both had previously been in the Big Three with Tim Rose: [Excerpt: Cass Elliot and the Big 3, "The Banjo Song"] Elliot, Hendricks, Yanovsky, and Doherty had formed The Mugwumps, sometimes joined by John Sebastian, and had tried to go in more of a rock direction after seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. They recorded one album together before splitting up: [Excerpt: The Mugwumps, "Searchin'"] Part of the reason they split up was that interpersonal relationships within the group were put under some strain -- Elliot and Hendricks split up, though they would remain friends and remain married for several years even though they were living apart, and Elliot had an unrequited crush on Doherty. But since they'd split up, and Yanovsky and Sebastian had gone off to form the Lovin' Spoonful, that meant that Doherty was free, and he was regarded as possibly the best male lead vocalist on the circuit, so the group snapped him up. The only problem was that the Journeymen still had gigs booked that needed to be played, one of them was in just three days, and Doherty didn't know the repertoire. This was a problem with an easy solution for people in their twenties though -- they took a huge amount of amphetamines, and stayed awake for three days straight rehearsing. They made the gig, and Doherty was now the lead singer of the New Journeymen: [Excerpt: The New Journeymen, "The Last Thing on My Mind"] But the New Journeymen didn't last in that form for very long, because even before joining the group, Denny Doherty had been going in a more folk-rock direction with the Mugwumps. At the time, John Phillips thought rock and roll was kids' music, and he was far more interested in folk and jazz, but he was also very interested in making money, and he soon decided it was an idea to start listening to the Beatles. There's some dispute as to who first played the Beatles for John in early 1965 -- some claim it was Doherty, others claim it was Cass Elliot, but everyone agrees it was after Denny Doherty had introduced Phillips to something else -- he brought round some LSD for John and Michelle, and Michelle's sister Rusty, to try. And then he told them he'd invited round a friend. Michelle Phillips later remembered, "I remember saying to the guys "I don't know about you guys, but this drug does nothing for me." At that point there was a knock on the door, and as I opened the door and saw Cass, the acid hit me *over the head*. I saw her standing there in a pleated skirt, a pink Angora sweater with great big eyelashes on and her hair in a flip. And all of a sudden I thought 'This is really *quite* a drug!' It was an image I will have securely fixed in my brain for the rest of my life. I said 'Hi, I'm Michelle. We just took some LSD-25, do you wanna join us?' And she said 'Sure...'" Rusty Gilliam's description matches this -- "It was mind-boggling. She had on a white pleated skirt, false eyelashes. These were the kind of eyelashes that when you put them on you were supposed to trim them to an appropriate length, which she didn't, and when she blinked she looked like a cow, or those dolls you get when you're little and the eyes open and close. And we're on acid. Oh my God! It was a sight! And everything she was wearing were things that you weren't supposed to be wearing if you were heavy -- white pleated skirt, mohair sweater. You know, until she became famous, she suffered so much, and was poked fun at." This gets to an important point about Elliot, and one which sadly affected everything about her life. Elliot was *very* fat -- I've seen her weight listed at about three hundred pounds, and she was only five foot five tall -- and she also didn't have the kind of face that gets thought of as conventionally attractive. Her appearance would be cruelly mocked by pretty much everyone for the rest of her life, in ways that it's genuinely hurtful to read about, and which I will avoid discussing in detail in order to avoid hurting fat listeners. But the two *other* things that defined Elliot in the minds of those who knew her were her voice -- every single person who knew her talks about what a wonderful singer she was -- and her personality. I've read a lot of things about Cass Elliot, and I have never read a single negative word about her as a person, but have read many people going into raptures about what a charming, loving, friendly, understanding person she was. Michelle later said of her "From the time I left Los Angeles, I hadn't had a friend, a buddy. I was married, and John and I did not hang out with women, we just hung out with men, and especially not with women my age. John was nine years older than I was. And here was a fun-loving, intelligent woman. She captivated me. I was as close to in love with Cass as I could be to any woman in my life at that point. She also represented something to me: freedom. Everything she did was because she wanted to do it. She was completely independent and I admired her and was in awe of her. And later on, Cass would be the one to tell me not to let John run my life. And John hated her for that." Either Elliot had brought round Meet The Beatles, the Beatles' first Capitol album, for everyone to listen to, or Denny Doherty already had it, but either way Elliot and Doherty were by this time already Beatles fans. Michelle, being younger than the rest and not part of the folk scene until she met John, was much more interested in rock and roll than any of them, but because she'd been married to John for a couple of years and been part of his musical world she hadn't really encountered the Beatles music, though she had a vague memory that she might have heard a track or two on the radio. John was hesitant -- he didn't want to listen to any rock and roll, but eventually he was persuaded, and the record was put on while he was on his first acid trip: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand"] Within a month, John Phillips had written thirty songs that he thought of as inspired by the Beatles. The New Journeymen were going to go rock and roll. By this time Marshall Brickman was out of the band, and instead John, Michelle, and Denny recruited a new lead guitarist, Eric Hord. Denny started playing bass, with John on rhythm guitar, and a violinist friend of theirs, Peter Pilafian, knew a bit of drums and took on that role. The new lineup of the group used the Journeymen's credit card, which hadn't been stopped even though the Journeymen were no more, to go down to St. Thomas in the Caribbean, along with Michelle's sister, John's daughter Mackenzie (from whose name Scott McKenzie had taken his stage name, as he was born Philip Blondheim), a pet dog, and sundry band members' girlfriends. They stayed there for several months, living in tents on the beach, taking acid, and rehearsing. While they were there, Michelle and Denny started an affair which would have important ramifications for the group later. They got a gig playing at a club called Duffy's, whose address was on Creeque Alley, and soon after they started playing there Cass Elliot travelled down as well -- she was in love with Denny, and wanted to be around him. She wasn't in the group, but she got a job working at Duffy's as a waitress, and she would often sing harmony with the group while waiting at tables. Depending on who was telling the story, either she didn't want to be in the group because she didn't want her appearance to be compared to Michelle's, or John wouldn't *let* her be in the group because she was so fat. Later a story would be made up to cover for this, saying that she hadn't been in the group at first because she couldn't sing the highest notes that were needed, until she got hit on the head with a metal pipe and discovered that it had increased her range by three notes, but that seems to be a lie. One of the songs the New Journeymen were performing at this time was "Mr. Tambourine Man". They'd heard that their old friend Roger McGuinn had recorded it with his new band, but they hadn't yet heard his version, and they'd come up with their own arrangement: [Excerpt: The New Journeymen, "Mr. Tambourine Man"] Denny later said "We were doing three-part harmony on 'Mr Tambourine Man', but a lot slower... like a polka or something! And I tell John, 'No John, we gotta slow it down and give it a backbeat.' Finally we get the Byrds 45 down here, and we put it on and turn it up to ten, and John says 'Oh, like that?' Well, as you can tell, it had already been done. So John goes 'Oh, ah... that's it...' a light went on. So we started doing Beatles stuff. We dropped 'Mr Tambourine Man' after hearing the Byrds version, because there was no point." Eventually they had to leave the island -- they had completely run out of money, and were down to fifty dollars. The credit card had been cut up, and the governor of the island had a personal vendetta against them because they gave his son acid, and they were likely to get arrested if they didn't leave the island. Elliot and her then-partner had round-trip tickets, so they just left, but the rest of them were in trouble. By this point they were unwashed, they were homeless, and they'd spent their last money on stage costumes. They got to the airport, and John Phillips tried to write a cheque for eight air fares back to the mainland, which the person at the check-in desk just laughed at. So they took their last fifty dollars and went to a casino. There Michelle played craps, and she rolled seventeen straight passes, something which should be statistically impossible. She turned their fifty dollars into six thousand dollars, which they scooped up, took to the airport, and paid for their flights out in cash. The New Journeymen arrived back in New York, but quickly decided that they were going to try their luck in California. They rented a car, using Scott McKenzie's credit card, and drove out to LA. There they met up with Hoyt Axton, who you may remember as the son of Mae Axton, the writer of "Heartbreak Hotel", and as the performer who had inspired Michael Nesmith to go into folk music: [Excerpt: Hoyt Axton, "Greenback Dollar"] Axton knew the group, and fed them and put them up for a night, but they needed somewhere else to stay. They went to stay with one of Michelle's friends, but after one night their rented car was stolen, with all their possessions in it. They needed somewhere else to stay, so they went to ask Jim Hendricks if they could crash at his place -- and they were surprised to find that Cass Elliot was there already. Hendricks had another partner -- though he and Elliot wouldn't have their marriage annulled until 1968 and were still technically married -- but he'd happily invited her to stay with them. And now all her friends had turned up, he invited them to stay as well, taking apart the beds in his one-bedroom apartment so he could put down a load of mattresses in the space for everyone to sleep on. The next part becomes difficult, because pretty much everyone in the LA music scene of the sixties was a liar who liked to embellish their own roles in things, so it's quite difficult to unpick what actually happened. What seems to have happened though is that first this new rock-oriented version of the New Journeymen went to see Frank Werber, on the recommendation of John Stewart. Werber was the manager of the Kingston Trio, and had also managed the Journeymen. He, however, was not interested -- not because he didn't think they had talent, but because he had experience of working with John Phillips previously. When Phillips came into his office Werber picked up a tape that he'd been given of the group, and said "I have not had a chance to listen to this tape. I believe that you are a most talented individual, and that's why we took you on in the first place. But I also believe that you're also a drag to work with. A pain in the ass. So I'll tell you what, before whatever you have on here sways me, I'm gonna give it back to you and say that we're not interested." Meanwhile -- and this part of the story comes from Kim Fowley, who was never one to let the truth get in the way of him taking claim for everything, but parts of it at least are corroborated by other people -- Cass Elliot had called Fowley, and told him that her friends' new group sounded pretty good and he should sign them. Fowley was at that time working as a talent scout for a label, but according to him the label wouldn't give the group the money they wanted. So instead, Fowley got in touch with Nik Venet, who had just produced the Leaves' hit version of "Hey Joe" on Mira Records: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe"] Fowley suggested to Venet that Venet should sign the group to Mira Records, and Fowley would sign them to a publishing contract, and they could both get rich. The trio went to audition for Venet, and Elliot drove them over -- and Venet thought the group had a great look as a quartet. He wanted to sign them to a record contract, but only if Elliot was in the group as well. They agreed, he gave them a one hundred and fifty dollar advance, and told them to come back the next day to see his boss at Mira. But Barry McGuire was also hanging round with Elliot and Hendricks, and decided that he wanted to have Lou Adler hear the four of them. He thought they might be useful both as backing vocalists on his second album and as a source of new songs. He got them to go and see Lou Adler, and according to McGuire Phillips didn't want Elliot to go with them, but as Elliot was the one who was friends with McGuire, Phillips worried that they'd lose the chance with Adler if she didn't. Adler was amazed, and decided to sign the group right then and there -- both Bones Howe and P.F. Sloan claimed to have been there when the group auditioned for him and have said "if you won't sign them, I will", though exactly what Sloan would have signed them to I'm not sure. Adler paid them three thousand dollars in cash and told them not to bother with Nik Venet, so they just didn't turn up for the Mira Records audition the next day. Instead, they went into the studio with McGuire and cut backing vocals on about half of his new album: [Excerpt: Barry McGuire with the Mamas and the Papas, "Hide Your Love Away"] While the group were excellent vocalists, there were two main reasons that Adler wanted to sign them. The first was that he found Michelle Phillips extremely attractive, and the second is a song that John and Michelle had written which he thought might be very suitable for McGuire's album. Most people who knew John Phillips think of "California Dreamin'" as a solo composition, and he would later claim that he gave Michelle fifty percent just for transcribing his lyric, saying he got inspired in the middle of the night, woke her up, and got her to write the song down as he came up with it. But Michelle, who is a credited co-writer on the song, has been very insistent that she wrote the lyrics to the second verse, and that it's about her own real experiences, saying that she would often go into churches and light candles even though she was "at best an agnostic, and possibly an atheist" in her words, and this would annoy John, who had also been raised Catholic, but who had become aggressively opposed to expressions of religion, rather than still having nostalgia for the aesthetics of the church as Michelle did. They were out walking on a particularly cold winter's day in 1963, and Michelle wanted to go into St Patrick's Cathedral and John very much did not want to. A couple of nights later, John woke her up, having written the first verse of the song, starting "All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey/I went for a walk on a winter's day", and insisting she collaborate with him. She liked the song, and came up with the lines "Stopped into a church, I passed along the way/I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray/The preacher likes the cold, he knows I'm going to stay", which John would later apparently dislike, but which stayed in the song. Most sources I've seen for the recording of "California Dreamin'" say that the lineup of musicians was the standard set of players who had played on McGuire's other records, with the addition of John Phillips on twelve-string guitar -- P.F. Sloan on guitar and harmonica, Joe Osborn on bass, Larry Knechtel on keyboards, and Hal Blaine on drums, but for some reason Stephen McParland's book on Sloan has Bones Howe down as playing drums on the track while engineering -- a detail so weird, and from such a respectable researcher, that I have to wonder if it might be true. In his autobiography, Sloan claims to have rewritten the chord sequence to "California Dreamin'". He says "Barry Mann had unintentionally showed me a suspended chord back at Screen Gems. I was so impressed by this beautiful, simple chord that I called Brian Wilson and played it for him over the phone. The next thing I knew, Brian had written ‘Don't Worry Baby,' which had within it a number suspended chords. And then the chord heard 'round the world, two months later, was the opening suspended chord of ‘A Hard Day's Night.' I used these chords throughout ‘California Dreamin',' and more specifically as a bridge to get back and forth from the verse to the chorus." Now, nobody else corroborates this story, and both Brian Wilson and John Phillips had the kind of background in modern harmony that means they would have been very aware of suspended chords before either ever encountered Sloan, but I thought I should mention it. Rather more plausible is Sloan's other claim, that he came up with the intro to the song. According to Sloan, he was inspired by "Walk Don't Run" by the Ventures: [Excerpt: The Ventures, "Walk Don't Run"] And you can easily see how this: [plays "Walk Don't Run"] Can lead to this: [plays "California Dreamin'"] And I'm fairly certain that if that was the inspiration, it was Sloan who was the one who thought it up. John Phillips had been paying no attention to the world of surf music when "Walk Don't Run" had been a hit -- that had been at the point when he was very firmly in the folk world, while Sloan of course had been recording "Tell 'Em I'm Surfin'", and it had been his job to know surf music intimately. So Sloan's intro became the start of what was intended to be Barry McGuire's next single: [Excerpt: Barry McGuire, "California Dreamin'"] Sloan also provided the harmonica solo on the track: [Excerpt: Barry McGuire, "California Dreamin'"] The Mamas and the Papas -- the new name that was now given to the former New Journeymen, now they were a quartet -- were also signed to Dunhill as an act on their own, and recorded their own first single, "Go Where You Wanna Go", a song apparently written by John about Michelle, in late 1963, after she had briefly left him to have an affair with Russ Titelman, the record producer and songwriter, before coming back to him: [Excerpt: The Mamas and the Papas, "Go Where You Wanna Go"] But while that was put out, they quickly decided to scrap it and go with another song. The "Go Where You Wanna Go" single was pulled after only selling a handful of copies, though its commercial potential was later proved when in 1967 a new vocal group, the 5th Dimension, released a soundalike version as their second single. The track was produced by Lou Adler's client Johnny Rivers, and used the exact same musicians as the Mamas and the Papas version, with the exception of Phillips. It became their first hit, reaching number sixteen on the charts: [Excerpt: The 5th Dimension, "Go Where You Wanna Go"] The reason the Mamas and the Papas version of "Go Where You Wanna Go" was pulled was because everyone became convinced that their first single should instead be their own version of "California Dreamin'". This is the exact same track as McGuire's track, with just two changes. The first is that McGuire's lead vocal was replaced with Denny Doherty: [Excerpt: The Mamas and the Papas, "California Dreamin'"] Though if you listen to the stereo mix of the song and isolate the left channel, you can hear McGuire singing the lead on the first line, and occasional leakage from him elsewhere on the backing vocal track: [Excerpt: The Mamas and the Papas, "California Dreamin'"] The other change made was to replace Sloan's harmonica solo with an alto flute solo by Bud Shank, a jazz musician who we heard about in the episode on "Light My Fire", when he collaborated with Ravi Shankar on "Improvisations on the Theme From Pather Panchali": [Excerpt: Ravi Shankar, "Improvisation on the Theme From Pather Panchali"] Shank was working on another session in Western Studios, where they were recording the Mamas and Papas track, and Bones Howe approached him while he was packing his instrument and asked if he'd be interested in doing another session. Shank agreed, though the track caused problems for him. According to Shank "What had happened was that whe