DISGRACELAND - Bonus Episode: The Mamas and the Papas (Pt. 1)

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

The wildest on-stage freak outs (and even deaths), Jake's master movie list, your texts calls and emails, and of course... the down low on the latest episode in our extended Manson coverage: the Mamas & the Papas Part 1.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Hey, discos. Need a little more disgrace land in your life? Just a touch to get you through? Yeah, me too. This is the podcast that comes after the podcast. Welcome to Disgraceland, the After Party.

Welcome to the Disgraceland bonus episode, little thing we'd like to call The After Party. This is the show after the show, the party, after the party, the bridge to get you from one full episode of Disgraceland to the other, the backyard dig, into the dirt. On this episode, we are talking about the past episode of Disgraceland on the Mamas and the Papa's Mama Cass Elliot, and specifically about a relationship to the previous disgrace land episode subject, Charles Manson. We're also discussing dying on stage, literally,

cover songs that are better than the originals, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Bruce Springsteen, and as usual, a whole lot of rosy to round us up. All right, before we get into listener calls, texts, and emails, let's get into it. Cass Elliott or Mama Cass Elliott, Mama Cass, as she was known on stage in her group, The Mamas and the Pappas are just Cass to her friends, aka Hollywood's Den Mother, was the subject of our last episode of Disgraceland.

And the reason I wanted to explore Mama Cass as a subject wasn't because I'm a massive fan of hers as either a solo artist or personality or a singer in the Mamas and the Pappas, more on that later, but rather because of Cass Elliott's involvement in one of the biggest true crimes in American history, the murder of her friend Sharon Tate and four others at Sharon Tate's rented home.

Sharon Tate, of course, was a huge star, so she knew lots of A-list celebrities like Mama Cass, so it wasn't for this reason that I wanted to explore Cass Elliott. It was specifically because of an anecdote I read in the book Chaos by Tom O'Neill, a book I spoke extensively about in our last bonus episode. O'Neill got to this story about Cass from another book, the autobiography of actor Michael Cain, entitled, What's It All About? out. As the story goes, Kane, again, in his autobiography, tells the story of him meeting Sharon Tate and Charles Manson at the same party. Once again, Michael Kane tells the story of being at a party

and at that party he met Sharon Tate and Charles Manson. This is an incredible fact that made my jaw drop when I read it. I instantly set out to find Michael Cain's book, and it of course is out of print, And that got my spighty senses up. It was like, why can't I find this? It's Michael Cain. He's a big actor. This shouldn't be hard to get. But not only is it out of print, it's super hard to find.

When I did track it down, it was not cheap. Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I am naturally suspicious. And I wonder if this anecdote about this incredible story of the mastermind of one of the crimes of the century being present at the same party as his victims, I wondered if this story was being. suppressed. I'll never know. What I do know is that the party in question where Michael Cain

says that he met Charles Manson and Sharon Tate and oh by the way, I forgot to mention he also met at this party, or so he says, Voitek Frikowski and Abigail Folger and Jay Sebring, all victims of Charles Manson's. All those introductions happened at drum roll please. Mama Cass Elliott's home in Hollywood. Holy shit. So a little more digging into Mama Cass's life, and it's revealed that her arrest in London in 1967 wasn't really about stolen bath supplies from a hotel, as was reported, but was actually because authorities wanted to grill cast on her international drug smuggling boyfriend, Pick Dawson, a character who is also at the center of Tom O'Neill's reporting on the helter-skelter murders and his disruption of Vincent Bouliosi's helter-skelter motive, which I get into in part two. of the cast story that's coming up next in your feet. Cass Elliott, so damn interesting. Who knew? I didn't.

I never really paid attention to the Mamas and the Pappas. Their music was everywhere and as such, not really interesting to me. It was also music that old people seemed to like. I get it. Old people can like good music too. Hell, to many of you, I'm old people. But when the Mamas and the Pappas broke, they were young people.

And their music was for young people. But old people instantly liked it. And one of the few artists, the mommas and the papas of the 1960s that bridged the generation gap in an era when the generation gap could not have been wider. And this little tidbit intrigued me, and it got me thinking. As a parent, it's plain to see now that there isn't really much of a generation gap when it comes to culture anyways. I mean, aside from things that are appropriate and inappropriate, my eight-year-old walks around in ACDC t-shirts and listens to Metallica, and he loves Metallica.

He loves the Mandalorian. I love Metallica and I love the Mandalorian. Hell, my four and a half year old loves Bluey, and I like Bluey. As I said earlier, I'm old people. One of the things that I thought was cool about my wife's parents when I met them was that they watched the same TV that my wife did despite the age difference. As a proud card-carrying member of Generation X, let me tell you that this was very far from my reality growing up. My parents not only hated, ridiculed, and disapproved of the music and movies that I watched,

they actively tried to get me to not listen to that music or watch those movies. It had nothing to do, I don't think, with taste or family values or anything like that. It just wasn't something that parents approved of. Oh, your 14-year-old listens to Metallica? That band must suck. What are you watching?

The Breakfast Club? Turn this garbage off. Is that a Stephen King book you're reading? Isn't that the hack writer whose crappy books get turned into crappier movies? This is just a small sample of the dynamic between mine and my parents, and I'm sure my friends who I grew up with,

the dynamic they had with their parents as well. I didn't have any friends whose parents were into cool shit. Even my dad, who was a musician, who was into cool shit. It was hard when I was a young kid anyway to get on the same page about what I was listening to. I was in the metal. He was like, Judas Priest is fucking stupid. What are you doing? You know what I mean?

It took a while. And it was because of this generation gap, this huge gap. So the internet obviously destroyed the generation gap. And so too did my fellow Gen X parents, who probably, in an effort to write the wrong, of our parents, probably as parents ourselves, we try too hard to relate to our kids over culture. And by listening to the same music, turning them on, I mean, my kid listens to Metallica because I play Metallica, you know?

And we want them to consume the same film and television and bond with them over it when it's appropriate, obviously. But this will backfire, I'm sure of it. I don't exactly know how, but I know it will. When Metallica and John Hughes's Johnny Bender and Stephen King are no longer subversive, kids, kids, are naturally going to find something else to subvert the approval of their parents with, and that, I fear, will have unintended and dire consequences.

But before that, like I said, Mamas and the Pappas, appealing to kids and their parents in the 1960s, a common ground that seemed impossible given the time in the zeitgeist. It really intrigued me, and I wanted to dive into the Mamas and the Pappas and kind of figure out why. And turns out it's obvious. Their music was awesome. Even if it didn't appeal to me, even if I didn't like it, it's undeniably, objectifiably, great music. You can't fuck with the Mamas and the Pappas, okay?

But not my bag, you know, whatever. I don't know. We start the episode of the Mamas and the Pappas. I talked about dire consequences a minute ago with a very consequential stage performance by Cass Elliott that we're going to get into after the break. Stay tuned. All right. We opened the Cass Elliott episode. in Las Vegas with Mama Cass headlining her much-anticipated Las Vegas residency.

The crowd was packed, like jammed, packed with celebrity friends, Sammy Davis, Peter Lawford, even Jimmy Hendrix was there, Mia Farrow, huge stars. At the time, Cass Elliott, it was, she was just, she was the shit. She was a huge personality, figuratively and literally. She was a massive star. She was on TV all the time. She was now out of the Mamas and the Pappas, and the crowd was hyped to see what she was going to do

at this Vegas review, essentially, this Vegas residency night after night. I think it was like a two-week run or something like that. And she was getting paid a shit ton of money. And she bombed. She went on stage. She was high. I believe she was sick as well.

It didn't matter. She was a fucking mess. She couldn't sing. She performed horribly so bad that the rest of her residency was canceled. And her career at that moment was in serious jeopardy because of it. So it got me thinking about some of the most infamous rock star stageflops that I've become aware of throughout the researching and writing of disgrace land. Off the top of my head, the first thing, the first person I think of is the king of the stage meltdown, Axel Rose of Guns and Roses, probably because we talked to Axel in the last after party episode, but I'm thinking now of his St. Louis on stage meltdown where a full-fledged violent riot breaks out.

I wrote about this in my book, covered it in the two-part episode of Disgraced Santa on Guns and Roses as well. If you're unfamiliar with this incident, I'm not going to get into it here, but just go back and check out these episodes. What a piece of work, Axel Rose. My God.

On the other end of the spectrum, Amy Winehouse has a couple of serious live meltdowns on her resume, one of which was one of her last performances, and we detailed that in our Amy Winehouse episode. You can check that out as well. It's tonally a lot different than the Guns and Roses stories. But it got me thinking about,

about what else I'm unaware of for stage meltdown. So I did a quick Google search. And holy shit, so many artists obviously meltdown on stage. These are high pressure situations with artists who are in pressure cooker environments on the road away from their families, oftentimes addicted to drugs and alcohol with unruly fans. This isn't all on the artist. It isn't all on the fans. I'm not going to litigate these breakdowns.

They are highly interesting. I encourage you to Google rock stars losing their shit on stage and watch some of the videos. My God, the videos. Josh Homme, Queens of the Stone Age, Courtney Love, Billy Corgan. There's too many to mention. And it's almost like the rock star stage meltdown is trite. It's commonplace. The rock star dying on stage list, however, literally dying, is far more interesting.

And we've talked about this on some of our episodes, too. Not as much as you would think. I think Spade Cooley from the first, I think that's the first season of disgrace land, maybe the second. If he didn't die on stage, he died like side stage or just after stepping off stage.

And of course, Mark Samman from Morphine here in Boston, he died on stage in Italy, I believe. These stories are a bit too dark to get into here in this bonus episode. But trust me, it's worth a Google. It's a rattle. habit hole that I found to be very interesting, happened way more, with way more frequency than I would have thought,

especially when you broaden it out beyond musicians and you just start talking entertainers who died on stage. Harry Houdini, I didn't know that. Anyways, check it out. Also worth of Google is covers of the Mamas and the Papa songs, okay? One of the best moments in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, to me is the scene where Cliff picks brick up from the studio lot. And the LA sun is setting.

It's the magic hour. It looks beautiful. All the production hands and the talent are going home for the day. We get to see a part of Hollywood that we seldom see on screen or at least we seldom see it portrayed with this much beauty.

And the song that's playing is the Mamas and the Pappas California dreaming. It's perfect. It's perfect for this scene. But it's not the Mamas and the Pappas version of their song. It's Jose Feliciano's cover of the song.

It's the perfect cue for this montage, and I, of course, prefer this cover to the original, which begs the obvious question, what cover versions of songs are better than their originals? Is the band's version of Atlantic City better than Bruce Springsteen's original? Is Bruce Springsteen's cover of the sun ain't going to shine better than Frankie Valley's original?

Is Frankie Valley's Maasheria Moore better than the original by Stevie Wonder? The answer on that last one is a hard no, by the way, but you get the question. Let me know which covers are better than the originals. You can call or text me to let me know. I'm at 617-90666-6638, or email me at disgracelandpod at gmail.com,

or hit me up on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, all at Disgraceland Pot. Just like Beth from the 360 who texted the following. Hey, Jake, listening to the Manson episode right now. Fun fact, in college, two of my BFFs lived in a home at the bottom of Topanga Canyon that was previously a Manson family crash pad. The house is mentioned in the help,

or Skelter book. And although the book did not indicate that Manson himself ever stayed there, some members of the family did. The house is no longer there. It was behind the feed store, still there, at the bottom of Topanga and PCH, and has been torn down. It had a huge treehouse out back, and we had some banging parties at that place. Love your show, Beth. Beth, thanks for sharing. I love these stories. I love the connection between you listeners and the topics that we cover. The personal connections are awesome. Keep them coming. Text them to me. Call me. Leave the voicemails 617-906-66-6638. Beth, hit us up on Instagram,

Facebook, TikTok, wherever, Twitter, at Discraceland Pod, and Beth, we will get you a free DiscredaSlan T-shirt for sharing that amazing story. Thank you so much. So, Discos, you can also, like I said, leave a voicemail, just like this gentleman from Philly. Hey, Jake, it's your good boy,

Ant from the Silly area at Pasquetti on Instagram, and you were talking about the Beastie Boys. and when you said, ask for Janice, I immediately went to Paul's Boutique, and then when you played the commercial, I was reciting it right along with your podcast.

For the best in men's clothing, Cole, Paul's Buckechique, as for Jenny, so I suggest the number is 4018, 1043. That's Paul's Boutique, and they're in Brooklyn. My favorite Beastie Boys album is Paul's Boutique, and my favorite Beastie Boys moment. I saw them headline Lollapalooza, co-headline of Juggernauts,

smashing pumpkins. In Philly, it was going to be the B.C. Before the pumpkins. And I'm smoking a joint. It's 1992. I'm smoking a joint. My boys out in public, but were protected from security by hundreds of like-minded individuals at the pit.

And this beautiful lady smoking a joint with us. And my friend's like, talk to her, talk to her. I'm like, why should I talk to this woman? It's pointless. And a second, the B.C. boys are going to take the stage, and we're going to get ripped apart like wild dog. And sure enough that happened. and at the end of the show

during the encore, during sabotage, this guy's flying through the air, kissed me in the head with his boot, I'm only 5'8 I go down, I was going to be trampled to death but again, one kind soul, big tall motherfucker like you, Jake, took me up by my shoulders

and got me back on my feet. So I love the Beastie boys. I love you. Keep up the great work and rock and roll, man. Talk to you. All right, great story. Love this. Love the connection to the Beastie Boys

from the previous after party episode and love that this dude described me as a big tall motherfucker so bonus points for that. So if you've got a burning question, comment, whatever it is, if you just want to be heard, man, call me, text me,

617-906-6638. Hit me up on social at Disgracelandpod or email, disgracelandpod at gmail.com. What I'm reading, what I'm watching,

and what I'm listening to and three, two, rock a roll. Alrighty, my favorite part of the show, what I'm reading and what I'm watching and what I'm listening to. I'm going to start with what I'm watching. Still on the White Lotus Season 2 tip. I'm not going to go into it

in too much detail on this show now because I talk about it every week and frankly, I feel like I'm at risk of sounding like an HBO infomercial, but I will say this. The most recent episode, to me, writing this right now, the most recent episode that I watch,

which I think is like episode six or seven or something like that, It's the episode where the subject of beauty is at the center of it. This is the most bad shit, insane episode of this show yet. I love you, Mike White. Keep him coming. So about a month ago, I asked one of our producers here at Double Elvis, Taylor Bettenson, to compile a list for me.

I wanted to watch a bunch of great films by a handful of select filmmakers that I really love. chronologically in relation to themselves. So what I mean is this. I wanted to watch how Alfred Hitchcock influenced Stephen Spielberg, who then influenced Martin Scorsese. Scorsese influences Spielberg back, and you keep going and you get to the Cohen brothers in Tarantino and the Andersons, Paul Thomas Anderson and West Anderson.

So I wanted to see how their filmmaking, influenced each other. I've heard Scorsese and I've heard Spielberg talk about this a little bit. I haven't really heard much from the 90s guys that I love, but you know that they're influencing each other. And I wanted to see this influence in practice. So a bottom out the go, I asked one of our producers here at Double Elvis, Taylor Bettenson,

to compile this list for me. So I asked him, I said, hey, take the following filmmakers. I'm cutting out all the early Hollywood stuff because it's just, it's too radically different from the stuff that I love that happens in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and the nows. So take Hitchcock and just give it to me because I want to see everything I've seen by Hitchcock, right? And that's like a, that's like the pre-list. That's the, that's the workout before the two a days happened. It's not the real two a days, okay?

So I got the whole Hitchcock list after that. We're now late 60s. Who's that knocking at my door, Martin Scorsese, which is 1968, okay? From there, that's the starting point. Give me Scorsese, Spielberg, the Cohen brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, and list out, and those are five of my favorite filmmakers, that's why I gave them those, list out for me all of their movies

as they were released chronologically in one list give me who's that knocking at my door by Scorsese in 1967 Topaz by Hitchcock in 1969 duel by Spielberg in 1971

Frenzy by Hitchcock in 72 Boxcar Bertha Scorsese okay and then we keep going down the list we get to taxi driver 76 we're going to see how taxi driver may or may not have had any influence at all on Spielberg's next film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

We get into the 80s. Here come the Cohen Brothers with Blood Simple in 1984. Then you got Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom by Spielberg in 84. After hours by Scorsese. You get up to the 90s. You've got more Cohen's, Miller's crossing.

Scorsese's got Cape Fear, now Reservoir Dogs in 92, True Romance, and 93. I know he didn't direct it, okay? All right, but I have it in there anyhow. All right. And then Wes Anderson, okay, bottle rocket, 1996, boom, here we go. P.T. Anderson, Boogie Knights, 1997. We still got a bunch of Scorsese and Spielberg peppered in here as well. So my point is, I wanted to watch all of these movies, like the insane person that I am, and I've

roped my wife into this, too, to watch them chronologically, to see if I can clean any influence from one filmmaker to the next. And so far, I'm two films in, all right? I started with Marnie. I went back a little bit before the list actually started. I started with Marnie by Hitchcock in 1964, because it's one of the few Hitchcock movies that I hadn't seen yet.

Did not like it. Didn't love this movie. I just, whatever, I'm not going to get into it. People probably love it. A million of you can write me and tell me how great it is is and how I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. You're probably right. I just didn't like it.

Who's that knocking on my door? Scorsese, 1967. I'm about to get into Topes by Hitchcock as well. And then I'm just cruising from there on out. Of course, I've seen probably half of these movies, if not more. But I've never seen them in this context, because I obviously wasn't alive in going to films in 1972, 73, etc. So that's what I'm doing.

And I'm on a wild tangent here. But I guess my point is I'm going to be talking to a lot about movies in the coming in the coming episodes of After Party. You'll be hearing me recommend these films. And I'm thinking even if you're interested, hit me up on social or email me or call me or whatever, text me. And maybe I'll even share this list. Maybe I'll make it public. I'm sure that's not too hard to do. And if I can't figure it out, Taylor can.

But yeah, don't watch Marnie and watch who's that knocking at my door. and don't send me angry letters about any of this stuff. Okay, that's what I'm watching. What I'm reading, Bruce Springsteen's, all the songs, and I'm going to butcher the author's names, and I apologize, Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guestin. I think that's how you say those names. But I'm, I know I did it wrong.

Anyways, apologies to the authors, but this is a great book. It is just a bare nuts and bolts attack at all, every single one of Springsteen songs and all of the facts and data surrounding the recording and the writing of those tunes. I'm obviously reading this because I am researching, you guessed it, my Bruce Springsteen episode. But what crimes did Bruce Springsteen commit, you ask? Aside from Lucky Town, I'm not sure, but this episode will have a fairly unique angle on the boss that I'm pretty stoked on, so stay tuned. Okay, what I'm listening to, and the answer is, of course, Christmas

music. It's post Thanksgiving, which means it's officially Christmas season. The tree went up three days after. The Bing Crosby records came out, as did the eggnog and the plantation rum. Bing Crosby's Christmas classics, you can't miss with that record. Frank Sinatra's Sinatra Ultimate Christmas, you can't miss with that record. And my favorite Christmas album, I think of all time, Ella Fitzgerald's Swinging Christmas. I'll reveal more of my Christmas listening in the coming bonus episodes, but I'm always on the lookout for great Christmas music. So send me your recommendation. Send them through at Disgracelam pod to all the social channels. Email, disgracelandpod at gmail.com.

Text me, leave me a voicemail 61790666-6638. I want the Christmas wrecks. Hit me. I'll be back with more when we come back in the next bonus episode. But for right now, I'm going to have a sip of tea, take a minute, and then get back into my second favorite part of these bonus episodes right after this. All right, discos, this brings another bonus episode of Disgraceland to an end. Thank you for listening. Next up, part two on the Mamas and the Papa's Mama cast, Elliot,

and the thorough disruption of the helter-skelter motive via Tom O'Neill. Thank you, Tom. So you guys have a safe rest of your week. Enjoy your friends and family as we start the most wonderful time of the year. And by all means, hit me up if you feel like blabbing, 617-906-66-36-3-8 on the text and the voicemail and disgracelandpod at gmail.com and at disgraceland pod on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

Now for my moment of Zen. in honor of Cass Elliott, a reading from the 1957 greater Los Angeles phone book by yours truly. Dina Lee. Paradise Cove, Glenwood, 7-2523. Dixon, Annetta, Globe 6-8-1-60. Dixon, Harold, Glenwood, 7-2-140. Dodd, Dean, Glenwood, 7-2-3-8-8-0. Ducet, Alexander, Glenwood, 7-2343, Downs, Arthur, Globe 6-2476, Dyer, Lester, and C, Globe 6-22227. Drift in, 22878 Pacific Coast Highway, do you drift into the drift in,

Globe 6-2555. Talking and start mixing. Cut it!