Welcome to the Drum History Podcast. I'm your host Bart Van Der Zee and today I'm talking with Mr. Ron Donet about George Way drums. Ron, how are you? I'm great. How are you doing? Good. Good. I'm glad you're here, man. You're a legend in the industry, both with being the owner of George Way drums, but just your Donet classic drums as a brand is just innovative and I think everyone just loves and respects it. Well, I never know how to respond when someone says legend or anything like that. It always makes me feel a little slightly uncomfortable because I celebrate that when I'm gone. I still got a long way to go, but I do appreciate it. I really do. Absolutely. So we're talking today about George Way and I get messages from people fairly often saying, like, hey, I keep hearing you talk about George Way and they'll say who is he? And he's come up in episodes that people can check out, like such as an episode about Leedy early on with Rob Cook. He was involved in the Camco episode, which obviously we'll talk about. I know you mentioned that maybe you're not the guy who had to go with specific on where he was born and where he went to kindergarten and what kind of baby food he ate and stuff like that, but just broad strokes. Why don't you tell us who is George Way? Why should we care about him and what is his involvement in the drum world? Wow. That's a huge question and I really don't know where to start, but George is in a nutshell. I've got a number of names that I call him by. He's the godfather of the modern drum set. He is the Leonardo da Vinci of the mechanics and design of the modern drum set. He's important on so many levels. I'm just back from New Orleans where I was at Stan Moore's drum camp and someone asked about him and I said, there's not a person in this room, there's not a drummer alive today that doesn't owe George a debt of gratitude because whatever brand of drum you're playing today, I don't care what it is, you're using one of his ideas somewhere, somehow along the way. The one that comes to mind off the top of my head, the one that really stands out is the swivel nut. If I can explain that, it's the threaded insert that goes into a lug that sort of self-aligns. When I inherited or when Rob Cook passed along all of George's estate, included in there were just really important historical drawings of some of the stuff he did and there's a pencil on paper drawing in there. They did 1917, which he was drawing out versions of that particular idea. To the point where I looked at it and I went, the version that he drew is actually the one that we use now. He actually skipped through all of the lug styles where manufacturers used to use springs on the inside and felt.  He drew that in 1917. He's an unbelievably innovative and way ahead of his time on a lot of this stuff. Way ahead of his time and no pun intended there with his name, but there are a bunch of things that are credit to him. He was really the first drum manufacturer to use, I believe what was then called pyroline, but we know it better as a marine pearl wrap. He was the first one to do it. He was the one that popularized it and we still have it going today. All of those wrap finishes, white marine pearl, that was George. Some of that information on that particular company that was making that pyroline was also included in those archives that I received. Let me ask you this. He famously has worked with multiple different drum companies. He was basically an employee of, I know it was companies such as Leedy, Slingerland, Leedy and Ludwig. Then he started his own company, which kind of then became Camco. Was Leedy the first company he actually was employed by to be a drum worker? Actually, and I'm going to rely on the history here. He actually started with George Stone. Of course, Stone has his own legacy. That's Boston, right? Yep. Cool. Yeah. They started working together making sound effects of the time. There's a famous picture of them with these little things that made sounds, pig squeals and those vaudevillian sound effects. Again, in broad big chunks, he eventually ended up in Edmonton, Canada, working at the Tantages Theatre there. That's where things really started happening for him. In addition to being the drummer for that particular entertainment scene, he worked with one of the, I believe he was a boilerman there who worked at the theatre. He started making snare drums, and it was actually in Edmonton, Canada, where he really started with what was known as the Advanced Drum Company. Over the last few years, I've discovered a few of these advanced snare drums, even a wooden one. There are a few archival pictures of him working at this Advanced Drum Company, but I have a couple of those snare drums. Even then, George was so far ahead of his time when everyone was using two plugs, he used one of his early renderings versions of a swivel lug. Now, it didn't swivel 360 degrees, but it was definitely self-aligning. It sort of moved at a 90-degree angle to the shell, and it was this amazingly simple lug design on a metal drum shell. It said, you know, the Advanced Drum Company, Edmonton, Alberta. It was there that he started attracting the attention of Ulysses Leedy, and Leedy made him an offer he couldn't refuse. George and Elsie, his wife whom he met while working in Edmonton, went to work for Leedy, and that's where it all began. I don't know if any of your listeners know this, and they probably won't, but they may have seen, at some point in time, there was a collection of advertising materials that was called Leedy Drum Topics. Yeah. I've posted some pictures of it. That's very popular amongst the drum folks. Amazing stuff. It was basically a magazine that Leedy had put out. Now, here's where it gets really interesting, at least from my perspective, because with my companies, one of the things that's been a piece of the success of Danette Classic and George Way is that all of the graphic design stuff, all of the advertising, all of the photography, all of those catchy, silly little ads, those tongue-in-cheek things that I do from time to time, everything, that's all done in-house. And George was actually a magnificent graphic designer, and again, in with his archives, or all of the tools that a graphic designer would have used back in the day, and he was an artist. His skills were, just from my perspective, with working with computers and cameras, looking back at what he was doing, and I'm going, oh my God, I got a lot of parallels with this guy, and this is a big one. There were jars of paint lettering, books on calligraphy, and there were some beautiful original examples of his work. That genius went as far as all of his handwritten notes, everything was, it wasn't done in cursive, it was all printed. That's wild. What a Renaissance man, just a guy who can do everything. You said it right there. That's probably the best single word to describe him. He was a Renaissance man, and he covered just every base. Yeah, he was a drum designer that was forward-thinking and just had so many ideas, but the marketing concepts, the graphic design, and then you read those leading topics and what they were saying, and actually even some of the letters, and again, I keep referring to these archives that I got from Rob Cook, there are letters in there and exchanges between him and Leedy and him and many of the other people that he had worked with throughout his career, and he had an understanding of, I guess you would call it customer service, that just tied everything in. That's all about quality, the quality of the drum and customer service. Again, yeah, that's the word Renaissance man. His genius wasn't just limited to, hey, I can wrap a drum in Marine Pearl or I think it's Roth needs a parallel release instead of just unhinging it one side kind of thing. Well, and it seems like to me he's actually not to oversimplify, but he's seen drummers as people who are very passionate about their instrument, because we're very early on in the drum set in this point in time, if not in the advent of it being created. So he's like, we're doing right now, we're talking to people, people listening to this are obsessed with the drums like us, and they love it.  I mean, it just gets people more jazzed up about drums. And I think we have him to thank for a lot of that kind of really instilling this love of drums with people.  And what occurred to me was that, and again, something that it's common knowledge out there, but George came from a very wealthy family. And he made a decision very early in life that what he wanted to do was be a drummer. And if you read Rob's book, The Leedy Way, he tells the story in there of how his father rejected that, and wasn't particularly gentle in how he spoke to George about it. And George just turned his back on what could have been a very comfortable lifestyle and decided, no, I'm going to be a, you know, and he quite literally ran away enjoying the circus and never looked back. And when you think about it today, I go, how many times since that happened with George, has that story been told and retold and retold and lived and experienced by every drummer? Who at one point in time is like, you know, been up against it or discouraged and just made that decision and said, you know what, no, this is me. This is who I am. This is what I'm doing. I'm making the commitment to myself and I'm going ahead with it. Sorry mom, sorry dad. This is who I am. This is what I want to be. I've seen here on an article too, it's just so people know he was born in 1891 as George Harrison Bassett, I believe in San Francisco and it looks like his mother got divorced and remarried and that's when I guess his stepfather's last name was Wei. Is that correct? Yep. Okay, just that kind of, there's the very far background. So I'm also on wadrums.com, your website and you have a really good history on here and it's interesting too, like the first little invention thing I'm seeing is 1927, George introduced the Chinese sneeze symbol which is seen today as the modern China symbol, China type symbol. He's creating things even then obviously, he's making new products. Well, my understanding is he didn't actually make those, but he was responsible for, as far as I understand, introducing them and popularizing them. Of course you know that around that time, that Vaudeville and the music of the year were looking for, they didn't have the stuff that we have now, so they were going through the evolution of the drum kit and were using temple blocks and cowbells and symbols obviously and so that's where that China sort of comes into the picture. And China's go way back into for thousands of years to Chinese parades and all that stuff, but you do see a lot of these trap drummers and the Vaudevillian stuff with having a China. So I'm sure that's pretty cool that it became a staple of the drum set there, but cool, so he's with Leedy, then what happens from there? Does he make a switch soon? Ultimately, he went on to work for basically every drum company. The chronology went, he was offered positions with Rogers, Slingerland, Ludwig and Ludwig, pretty much any drum company at the time, but the bulk of his career was spent with Leedy. Okay, and Leedy if I'm not mistaken remembering from Rob's episode was at that point like the biggest drum manufacturer in the world and they would create all these, they were huge and the factory was like a city block long and they were just massive and like many companies they went the way of being sold to someone and then became Leedy and Ludwig and all that stuff, but okay, because he's obviously very closely tied to Leedy. And not all of it was good. I know that at one point he had gone to work for Rogers and I think at that point was really being underappreciated and I was looking back, plugging in after reading some of his letters that he had written about how disenchanted he was with it that he was caught up in some fairly quick moving changes as things were later in his career and my takeaway from it was that he was unhappy there because he felt that all of the drum manufacturers or many of them at the time had really lost, it was I guess what I call the beginning of the commoditization of the drums. You know, where it was like, yeah, we don't care about, you know, don't worry about the quality, let's just kind of get the stuff out of here and don't worry about the customer service thing, you know, we'll just get the sales rep to deal with that.  But to be optimistic, there's people like you and there's the, without naming other brands because I'm going to forget people, there's a lot of boutique brands out there who are creating beautiful drums. So, you know, there's always that side of it as well, but I do think that the big boys have gone to, you know, you have your Taiwan made drums or they're made in China or something like that. So it is more commoditized now.  And in my experience, especially with Taiwan, it's not a bad thing. And I think that the stigma of, you know, made in Taiwan, having been traveled there three times, visited the factories and seen how things work. I've been to factories where they are as passionate about it, if not more so than people on this side of the water. They care what they're doing, you know, state of the art machinery and production. So that's lesser of the angle that I was taking on that. It was more about the manufacturing and more about the sale. Got it. If that makes any sense. Yeah, no, I'm actually, I'm very glad you just said that though, because I think there is a stigma around it. And from a guy who's traveled there and has seen the industry, that's very good to know that that actually is just very passionate people. So I appreciate you kind of shining that light on that. Yeah. I guess what George was talking about was the buying experience, as opposed to, you know, manufacturing thing. And you have to keep in mind, and I run into this all the time, and a guy's going, well, George wouldn't have done this. And George wouldn't have done that. And it's been a really good lesson for me going, yeah, but I'm picking up where George left off. And I'm not trying to bury myself in a time capsule and ignore the progressions of the company where it would have been. Had George not lost it, as he did, and had, you know, gone on to be successful. Yeah. So I go, well, things change. And the way things are made changed. And it is what it is now. And I make no apologies for that. And you know what? Quite frankly, neither does anybody else.  Yeah. He kept moving forward. And that'd be almost out of character for the company to be frozen in time in 1955 or wherever, like it needs to move forward. That's what George was all about. Right. Well, I mean, let me give you an example here. One of the famous books that Rob put out was George's Little Black Book. And it's interesting just from a historic perspective because anybody who gets into this business understands that sourcing is a big thing, you know. And some of those sources are very closely guarded. Back when George started, there was no internet. I mean, it would be word of mouth or a phone book or a shot in the dark, you know, just trying to find somebody to make this or do this or what industry can provide the wing nut that I need. And so he created this book. It's like basically a handheld, handwritten internet of all of his suppliers. And you look at it now and it's a lot easier now than it was back then. And jeez, you know, the only guy that I can think of who's done anything remotely close to what George did is Don Lombardi, whom I have the, you know, he's a dear friend and I have the greatest respect for him.  Again, there was no internet then. He was facing the same kind of thing, so. Sure. So yeah. So let's back up a little bit here. And so I'm on your, like I said, I'm on the history on your website here. It says he was downsized during World War II from Leedy because everything changed. Leedy probably switched over to making whatever, you know, things for the war. Now, because he infamously as we know, he created the George Way Drum Company. Do you want to tell us a little bit about how the actual creation of the George Way Drum Company started from being an employee of all the companies? How did he start his own company? Well, again, big strokes and some gaps in this, but there was a couple of curves in George's career timeline that I'm aware of. And one was where he actually moved to Los Angeles to start a retail drum shop, which ran for, I don't know how long it was there for. It's funny, I was just there and talking with Kerry Crutchfield runs the Hollywood custom advantage drum show. And he said that this is where George's shop used to be. That address doesn't even exist anymore. There's a building that sort of spanned the, those particular street addresses, but it was on, I believe it was on Koenga. But anyway, it wasn't very successful and for whatever reason. And I think it was after that that George moved back and that was where he decided to, again, start manufacturing drums, but this time under his own brand. And that's kind of really important to remember. I mean that he started out as a drum manufacturer. That was the first thing between the instruments and the sound effects he was making with Stone to starting the advanced drum company. So it wasn't anything new to him. No, and it's cool. I'm seeing on the history here. It says that he purchased the George Way drum company. He purchased the factory formerly operated by Kahn's Ledy and Ludwig division in Elkhart, Indiana. So that's pretty cool that he kind of moved in there and there's just so much history. Like this guy is just, he's involved in, he's at the center of everything and it's all revolving around these old companies. Yeah. Well, Elkhart, I often say that's the crucible of modern drum manufacturing and so much seemed to come out of that area. So it seemed appropriate that he set up shop there. When I take a step back and I look at where he was going and if it wouldn't have been for one of his manufacturing partners, I can see where his company would have went on to become, and I'm going to hazard a guess here, something on par with where Ludwig is today. Now, what happened there? What went wrong? Well, I can tell you one thing. It's an example of something that I've seen happen a few times since there and there are some history repeating itself, but George was working. One of his suppliers was a manufacturing, metal manufacturing company known as Kamco and Kamco was owned and operated by this fella. A shrewd dude, businessman named John Roshan. And essentially what happened was Roshan had invested some money. In order to raise money, George had sort of taken the company semi-public and had doled out shares to a number of people he'd asked for money to sort of get this thing going. Roshan was one of them. And one day, Roshan went to George and told him that he had heard that there was going to be a hostile takeover, that someone was going around trying to buy up all of the, as many outstanding shares in the company as possible in an effort to take it over. And he suggested to George that what you should do is if we can do this, if we can consolidate all of those outstanding shares, if you can go to the people that invested in you and supported you and ask them to sell their shares to me, we can probably avoid this takeover. And so George did that. And basically as soon as John got controlling interest in the company, he held a board meeting and called George and Elsie and said, okay, well, I got controlling interest in this thing now and here's what we're going to do. And just in one fell swoop changed the entire culture of what George was doing. And I can just see what was happening or George and Elsie looking at each other going. And I guess during this meeting at one point, George said, well, people are going to think we're crazy. I mean, if you're going to do this, like, you know, we may as well not be a part of this. And Rashawn jumped on that and said, George, I'm glad you feel that way. Let's make your last day Friday. And they went, whoa, they apparently they went home for lunch. And while they were having lunch at home, Rashawn recalled the meeting and said, okay, you know what? Actually, let's make their last day today and send a courier or someone to his house while they were still having lunch and said, yeah, actually, you don't even have to come back. And so, yeah, George was, you know, he got screwed out of his company. And that was fairly late in his career. And that is where, you know, camp code runs as we now know them started. So, I mean, they've always, that's always put a bit of a taint on the camp code brand for me. But, you know, I guess the good news is George and Elsie, I think it was at that point that he went back to work for, I think that might have been when he went to work for Rogers. And there were some legalities in why he didn't just, you know, start the George Wade drum company again. But ultimately what he did was something similar to what Ludwig did when they lost control of the Ludwig name and they started WFL. So he started, he started GHW. And although he wasn't making drums, he was, you know, again, basically selling parts and components and symbols and things like that.   And that's, and that was, that was the end of his career. Man, that's sad. I mean, and so one thing that I think he obviously has countless inventions and things like that. But I think the, just to kind of so everyone knows that, maybe everyone knows that the DW round lugs, which would have been the turret lug, which go back, that was a part of Camco, which go back further than that. That was the George Wade. I mean, so he invented things like that, right? I mean, he was just innovative in creating these, these things like that.  I certainly do. I certainly do. And it was interesting. You know, I had a conversation with Don Lombardi recently and we were talking about the lugs. And I had heard, there are a couple of stories. Don had heard that the design of that lug went on to become the turret lug was a, and based on an aluminum mouthpiece cap for a horn instrument. I had heard that one day George was on the phone at his desk and was absolutely, mindedly stacking milk pods on his desk and was looking at that stack and going, that would make a cool lug. Either way, it was actually, I believe, I'm going to take a chance here. I think it was 57, if I remember correctly. George, when working for Leedy drew up the first, the initial version, the, his original version of that lug, which wasn't called a turret lug at the time. And the difference was that the one that he had originally designed had a couple of tabs, one on the top and one on the bottom.  It was more of an art deco-based shape. Interesting. Yeah. Do you run into any issues using those round lugs on your drums with like, you know, patents or anything against DW? No. But of course, you know, listen, and a moment of complete honesty, I know that there's going to be lots of people listening to this part of it. But Don has been a dear friend. I've worked with him and DW and I adore him. He's been a mentor and I, and that's coming from a place of love and respect for what he has accomplished. It's amazing what he's done. You know, fantastic legacy. And they've made some beautiful products. And I've always been proud to have worked with them and created some fantastic drums together with them. But yeah, this was a sticking point. I was going to have to look at it because DW did have, and rightfully so, some IP, intellectual property rights to that particular round plug. And so being as versed as I have had to become, even though all I want to do is just make drums, I have to understand intellectual properties and patents and trademarks. And I had a good, good, honest look at it. And remembering, I'm coming from a place here of complete honesty in that my intention was to restore and preserve George's legacy and rebuild his company. And after racking my brains, you know, knowing that at some point the tuxedo lug thing was going to run its course. I was going to have to find a way to do a single-ended lug. And I did. I looked at, you know, can I make it single-ended tuxedo? Is that going to work? Can I do this? And I just, there was no way to do it and keep the aesthetic and keep the George in it. Yeah, sure. And so that's when I, you know, ended up looking at what Rob's book and the history and looking at some of those drawings. And I went, you know what? His original lug with the tabs was quite beautiful and striking, and it was different. Sure, there's definitely some similarities, but it's different. And I looked at it and I went, I don't think that there is any chance that anyone is going to ever be confused between a drum that has what I call the aristocrat lugs on it and a cloud badge that says George Way with a round lug drum that has a round badge that says D.W. If you, if anybody is that lacking in knowledge of instruments that they can't, you know, if you can't spot the difference, then I can't help you. But it's certainly not, I'm certainly not going to let it stop me from going ahead and doing what I wanted to do now. Yeah, their high level drum set. So if you're at that point, you can discern the two, obviously. Absolutely, absolutely. Now I had, again, coming from a place of friendship and respect, I had a conversation with Don and Don gets it. And ultimately we found a way of good compromise. And so without getting into the details of that, everybody's good. Cool. Don gets it. I'm not trying to be D.W. with George Way. I'm just trying to rebuild the company. I don't want these drums to look like or be, you know, ultimately compared to George's thing is George's thing. D.W. and Don's thing, they're completely different. And I'll say this because I've said this. I said this to Don. After receiving all of George's estate and some of the absolutely priceless historic treasures that are in there. And you asked me about that in a minute. Totally. I realized that I am just the caretaker of the brand. Yes, I bought it. Yes, I own the trademarks. But I'm not going to be making drums forever. I'm 57 at some point. I want to see that brand to keep moving forward and cheese. Wouldn't it be great someday to see that fantastic lineage of George Way, Campco and D.W. just put back together. Wow. That's a powerful thought that never even occurred to me. Wouldn't it be like I'm like going, and so you can draw your own conclusions there. But, you know, Don Lombardi gets it. Well, yeah. I mean, he's in acquiring Slingerland recently. He's obviously got an eye for the historical, the respect for history. Of course he does. So that's a thought, man. I've never thought about that. Yeah. And, you know, that's what I put it to him in that way. And, you know, when the time comes, that's what I'd like to see. That would be the ultimate thing, I think. It was just to be able to take those pages of history and take them back together in a book in a way that makes sense. I might write the wrong that was done to George there towards the end of the company. Wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah. Wouldn't that be awesome? I don't know if George is watching from some, you know, a cloudy vantage point or whether or not, but I just think that anybody who is a drummer and appreciates the instrument would, that would be so satisfying. And I'm one of those guys. So, you know, that's where I'm coming from on this. Man. Well, to kind of reading in the history here, to wrap up George, it said in 1962, George starts the GHW drum company seven years later on February 21st, 1969, George Harrison Way passes on. So he passed away then. And then I think another thing I want to note that people can Google this, and I've always wondered this, and I'm working on a British drum company episode, but there's a company called Heyman H-A-Y-M-A-N drums, and they use round lugs, and they look identical to George Way and D-W. And I think they're from the 70s, and I always wondered if there's any legality stuff there, because it's like, it's a drum company with round lugs, but it's British. So I don't know if it's because it's international patent stuff. What's up with that? But everyone should Google it, H-A-Y-M-A-N, and you'll see, like, whoa, those are... Yeah. The Heyman Lug always comes into that. Patent and trademark and IP law is mired in nuance and subtlety.  So just because your lug is round, I mean, you know, I think of it in this way.  And depending on how you look at it, you see a step in it. Okay, well, I'm not just gonna make it some, you know, I'm gonna put a step on the bottom and so Heyman or not, I mean, there are some similarities. The first thing that... The first similarity that's most obvious is, well, it's round. And there aren't a lot of... There weren't a lot of diecast lugs around that were around, but here's what I want your people to Google. Go and look up round brass lugs, and you will see so many variations. And I've done this myself that it's like, you know, let Heyman be only one example because there's a lot of them out there. Yeah, cool. Well, I just wanted to throw that out there just because, you know, it's a little rabbit hole to go down for people, but cool. Ron, why don't we kind of get towards the end of the episode here with how did you acquire all this? You were the owner.  You've gotten all the trademarks and all that stuff. What's that story? How did that happen? Some of my dealers had been asking me if I was ever going to do an entry level or mid-level drum, and I was reluctant to do it because I worked so hard to build the Danette brand up to be high-end. But I opened mine and I considered it and I went, well, what would a badge look like? And the first thing I did was I looked at that beautiful Art Deco cloud badge that George designed and I deleted the George way and put the net. And I looked at that and I was horrified. I went, that is sacrilege. That is not going to happen. I will not do that. But in researching the origins of the badge and everything I came across a name of this guy named Emmett McNeese, who happened to be the last owner of the trademark GHW. So I called this guy and he'd run a sheet music store in Elkhart and had a two-hour-long conversation with this fellow. He was very... He's since passed. He was a sweet guy, very old at the time when I talked to him. He gave me the history of the store and everything. And at the end of it, I said, well, Mr. McNeese, I would love to buy that trademark from you. I promise I'll do right by it and right by George's memory. And I'm not sure that you really cared about that, but he said, well, I'll tell you what, here's what I paid for it. You write me a check for this much and it's yours. And he had that check in his head before he hung up the phone. And so that was the GHW trademark that I acquired. But it still left in question where was George Way, that trademark. And again, having to do the research and getting involved in the nuances of intellectual property, that trademark had never been registered. And because there had been such a long time, it was basically an abandoned trademark. When I got hold of it, anybody could have taken it. So it was really like finding a lottery ticket on the ground, a winning one. And I've always said this, thank God it was me because I've seen a lot of heritage brands and I don't even have to name them, just dragged through the mud and basically trashed with all of their intellectual property and just left in tatters. The beaver tail lug, the Swingerland, that beautiful Art Deco design now just homogenized across the board. Really sad to see that being paired up with 5 cent stamped base drum claws and pearl style spurs and round Gibraltar lugs. It's like, oh my God, my design sense. It was meant to be though, it found you. You know what, I think it was. And there's been a few naysayers and critics. You always have to deal with those guys and I go, well, you know what, I got a clear conscience. I know where I lead with my heart and I love George Way. He's been a, never met him, but he's been a mentor to me through his work and I'm proud of a few things, but how I've rebuilt and worked entirely to restore that company to where he would have, where I think he would have liked it to have been completely happy with that. Yeah, I think you're doing a great service to it and I think, and you've got some great players. I've seen, I actually recorded him a while ago, young drummer Joseph Joe Mintz who was at the studio work at a while ago and he's a George Way artist and you've got some other people who are just very respectful and just love what you're doing. I mean, you're doing a great thing. I'm trying to and it's not easy in this market and having rolled this ball up the hill for the last 12 years, ironically, it's now outgrown me. It's become a little bit hard for me to manage how big it's become and grown and yet I still look at it and the potential for it to continue to growing because it's a unique brand and it's a unique product. Yeah. I hope I can find the energy to keep rolling it up the hill. Absolutely. Because to me it's like you see someone playing these or you see these and it's almost like an insider's club of people who know about George which now hopefully thanks to this we're going to get that message out there a lot more but it's just like the truest, it's just as pure as it gets with drum heritage and the stuff you're doing is beautiful. Everyone can check it out at waydrums.com w-a-y-drums.com and also, obviously, Ron is Danette Classic Drums himself which you can go to danette-d-u-n-n-e-t-t.com and obviously you're on social media and all that stuff and yeah, is there anything else anything cool you're working on right now you want to share with the audience? Oh, God. George, way wise, yeah, I mean this has been a transition year for George where, you know, it's the rebirth of the aristocrat lug and all that came with it so it's just working hard to get that out. I'm always working on something. Gosh, I've been working on a pedal for nine years now and I'm getting close to it. I kind of wonder if I could have bought a Tesla with all the money that I put into it but hopefully it's going to pay off and yeah, always got things that I'm working on as far as Danette goes George's, the only thing I have left to do to complete the George Way catalog and have it complete is the double tom holder and I'm working on that this year so hopefully by next year, you know, someone's going to be able to walk up to a sort of George Way drum to the dealer and go, you know, this is what a George Way kit would have looked like if his company would have kept going. Yeah. Well, that's awesome and before we end here, I want to give a shout out to Seamus from DrumGab because he, like I was telling you before, like a year ago, was telling me, he was like, you got to talk to Ron, you got to get him on, talking about George Way and so shout out to him for kind of giving me the idea and like I mentioned, other people along the way, I've probably had five people say to me like you should do George Way and also we want to hear from Ron. I'm going to put some questions in there and here's what I'm going to send a shout out to if anybody is truly interested in understanding your instrument and it's only going to make you a better drummer in the end and it's only going to make your experience playing the drums more fun. Rob Cook's book, The Leedy Way is just a fantastic, it's not just about George Way and Leedy but it really lays out this pageant, this lineage of the history of the drum and there's things in there that you're just going to be surprised to know. This stuff didn't just, it didn't invent itself. Somebody had to do it so I'd encourage you to go buy it. It'd probably be the best 20, 30 bucks you'll ever spend. Yeah, absolutely and Rob truly has become such a friend of this show where an episode rarely goes by where we don't talk about Rob and Tony before I just got a Christmas card from him today which is the coolest thing in the world. Getting a Christmas card from the Chicago drum show is amazing but if people want to hear a little bit more information about that and The Leedy Way before you read it and buy it Episode 6 is the history of Leedy Drums with Rob Cook here on Drum History so you can check that out and get a little taste of what it's going to be like. We're lucky to have a historian like Rob Cook and he's left us, his legacy is a beautiful one. He's left us, he's done all of our homework for us. He left us a beautiful archive of the three of Drums. And a humble and nice guy and anyone can, if I can do it if I can just start this and start to be included in the community then anyone can. Cool, well Ron I appreciate it very much and everyone finds Ron online and keeps up with him on social media and that's it. Ron, thanks for being on the show. Well, thank you so much for inviting me. I love talking about good stuff and this was truly an enjoyable conversation. Excellent. Alright Ron, talk to you later. Yep, bye for now. If you like this podcast find me on social media at Drum History and please share, rate and leave a review and let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future. Until next time, keep on learning. This is a Gwynn Sound podcast.


The cell world is a complex place. Interacting through chemical, electrical and even mechanical cues, our biological building blocks are constantly buzzing with activity. Unfortunately, some of the most popular methods for understanding this bustling world in the lab capture only a slice of the action. While tremendously useful for capturing much of the biology that occurs at the cellular level, the practice of growing and observing cells on dishes and slides misses out on an entire dimension of complexity, meaning that when it comes to predicting how cells actually behave inside the human body, the results of 2D cell biology fall, well, flat. The Fall 2017 special issue of MRS Communications shines a spotlight on how material scientists and engineers are expanding cell research into the all-important third dimension. Just what does a 3D approach to cell biology offer? Perhaps most importantly, it enables researchers to recreate the cellular environment more fully than ever. That might sound obvious, but it's not simply a matter of filling more space with biological material. It's about engineering that space with the right materials. And that's crucial, because over the past few decades, research has shown that cells are just as sensitive to the structure of their surroundings as they are to its chemical makeup. With that knowledge, materials researchers are leading the way towards sophisticated methods of building cell models from the ground up. For some, that involves engineering biological scaffolds with nanoscale features or incorporating more exotic functionalities, such as magnetism, to control shape. Others are choosing to build with gelatin-like biomaterials known as hydrogels, which match the pliability of real tissue and are proving valuable in studying the progression of cancer. And several researchers are choosing to work without a template material at all, using biochemical and mechanical cues alone to coax cells to clump together to form tiny replicas of target organs. Introducing this whole other dimension, however, means an entirely new set of challenges to address. Among the most pressing is figuring out how to adapt microscopy and other techniques for probing cells from 2D to 3D. After all, once cell models are built, researchers need reliable methods of knowing what's going on inside of them. But as highlighted in this issue of MRS communications, bolstered by advances in material science and engineering, researchers are gaining ground in both understanding and replicating the cell world in 3D.


Item Number SCP-665 Object Class Safe Special Containment Procedures SCP-665 is not to leave his room under any circumstances, barring a full site evacuation, in which instance, a specially designed stainless steel crate has been constructed. SCP-665's room is to be constructed entirely of stainless steel, or a similar metal. SCP-665's bed is to consist of a single mattress, specifically constructed to have a mass greater than 1,000 kilograms. SCP-665 is only to be fed a specially formulated liquid diet, which is to be dispensed into the drinking glasses fused to his hands. SCP-665 is allowed to access live animals, provided that said animals are not wearing a collar or other similar adornment, and that he does not attempt to feed said animals. Physical contact with SCP-665 is highly discouraged. If it becomes necessary, it is to be done with bare skin only, and to be kept to a minimum. Description SCP-665 is a human male. Age All of this information, including his species, was obtained through an interview. He has refused to provide further information, see addendum. Further physical descriptions cannot be given at this time, as SCP-665's external appearance changes frequently. Any non-living solid object with a mass less than that of SCP-665, that comes in contact with SCP-665's body, instantly fuses to it. Within one hour, the object will effectively become part of SCP-665's body, and will affect smaller objects in the same manner. It is worth noting that this means SCP-665's mass increases with each item added. Therefore, all personnel are advised against adding any further objects. Surgical analysis of SCP-665 has proven difficult, as most surgical instruments are simply assimilated into his body. The few items isolated from SCP-665 via a bisecting laser have revealed that SCP-665's cardiovascular system has expanded to include these items. Furthermore, although these items retain their original appearance, their inherent chemical properties more closely resemble those of human flesh. It is not presently known how SCP-665 was able to obtain nourishment prior to containment. As the aforementioned drinking glasses were added by the Foundation, specifically for the purpose of containing liquid nourishment. Addendum. SCP-665 has recently proven to be largely uncooperative with Foundation personnel, refusing to answer questions or submit to examinations. While SCP-665 has not shown any signs of violence, it must be stressed that personnel are expressly prohibited from introducing any item to SCP-665 that may conceivably be used as a weapon. Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-664, The Floor to Nowhere, right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


The security is right. Okay, yeah. So I will move on to the smack update and we'll just do all the questions at the end. So the smack update, yay, smack. Stickers, anybody want some? I've got the red ones and the green ones. So what's new in smack this year? Most of what's gone on in smack has actually been done to it as opposed to for it. In particular, Paul mentioned this earlier, the mount and LSM infrastructures have been rather thoroughly revised. And as a result of this, there's been a lot of work, a lot of things have gone on inside smack in order to accommodate that. We added a rule KMM cache for the smack rule lists and got significant performance improvement by doing that. That was a very obvious change that one of the people at Samsung working on Tizen added. Also, there was this, in order to list out the labels that are known to the system, there was this kind of funky global label list associated, threaded through everything. And somebody recognized that there was an easier way to do it, that you didn't need that list after all and so we just took that out. Again, making it more performant and less memory consumptive, especially on small systems. And there were some bugs in the way IPv6 ICMP was handled that led to things, the bad neighbor syndrome that Paul was talking about earlier today. And just by actually taking care of that, a lot of cases where it was hanging before where you would get a timeout are immediately rejected. So kind of a big win there, especially for those people who are using IPv6. So there hasn't been a lot of change, but just to give you an idea of this, of how many time changes have gone in, we had 44 total changes. Most of them were in the stacking infrastructure. By far the next most was the mountain or the mountain's infrastructure changes. And actually there's some overlap in there because there are mount infrastructure changes for stacking as well as for the mountain infrastructure. Bunch of the cleanup that's been going on throughout the Linux kernel showed up here as well. So again, everybody who's here who had a hand in this, thank you very much. If there's nobody here, well, oh well. So what are we gonna do next? What's on the to-do list? By the way, the amount of work that I've been able to do personally on has been taken up by some other things that we talked about earlier. What are we gonna do next? Well, one of the things that came up in the process of actually doing the stacking was that the networking code really has got some cruft, it's got some bad ideas in it. And they're all mine. I will own up to that, those are all mine. But that was done before we had Calypso. Now that we have Calypso, the IPv6 code can be done a whole lot cleaner than it was initially. So probably the biggest task there is to replace the current IPv6 port-based controls with Calypso. And the other project that I thought was really interesting is we've got somebody who really wanted to do this. And so he's writing a translator for SC Linux policy to translate SC Linux policy into smack rules. That's going to be very interesting to see what the actual outcome of that is. I think we're gonna find that there are a lot of things where we have conceptual issues that are gonna make that something you can't really do automatically. But it will be an interesting thing to see how it comes out. And I hope to talk about that next year. And there's just one other thing I wanted to do as the last presenter here. I just want to call out James and we should give him a round of applause for putting this together and running the conference for us.


TLO what's Then We are on twitch we are not live you can leave a like comment subscribe turn on your post notification bells man Let's continue to grow the family from Chicago to the UK Today is documentary Monday. We recently got blocked. We did the Kray twins, which is probably one of the most interesting Documentaries, I didn't go a lot. I shoot fire. It was like they almost a negative boys Especially Ron and Dan Freddy Freddy do Freddy whoever is my Freddy Freeman crazy So I did a poll because this one got blocked Obviously the winner of the poll it was a Manchester UK crime underworld or Charles Bronson because it got blocked so y'all chose Charles Bronson so 130 for how many people voted hundred and forty people voted fifty-fifty percent chose Charles Bronson So that's what we're going to do. Let's get into a mind. That's the one. I got red wave video Let me see if there's any better ones Charles Bronson 1.2 million they got this one One from prison. I don't want to see one from prison The life inside anything is Charles Okay, he must be he must apply slavery I think We're coral century spend 22 solidly confound damn Prison boy got no prison skill is 22 out of 25 You gotta be mad to survive Smell Like a cancer Brins most dangerous prison, why is he cuffed to that man?  We're the straw Cutting it See, this is real life. This is like different. This is like cinematography type documentary man. Oh, wow Question did they really be wearing them wigs in the courtroom over there when y'all go to jail? Like we don't court procedure. They be putting the wings on us. That's Okay, she's physically picked me up above his head. That's how strong he is And he got to bury mine that while he was doing this he was like screaming like a banshee Checking it out She was like screaming like a banshee I Don't want to watch no intro The swarthy character with Anastash came into the shop we pulled a gun from his belt and I knew then that we had serious trouble.  He's always botched him up. I don't know why he ever tried him again, really Driving him insane very talented. He's very creative. He's very understanding. It's very articulate I've caught him a picture of a right-hander on the chin As he's going down caught with a left of right upper and another right They're my five-piece big nugget. He's only ever kissed me on the cheek before He kissed me on the mouth In public You graduated from a side chick I'm just playing. Let me stop. I'm excited. I don't know. He's not a hard man. He's very soft-hearted man But people don't know this then you they only know what they read in the papers. This is the intro. I already knew it Just get into Charles Bronson was jailed for armed robbery in 1974 and should have been free three years later Except for a few fleeting weeks of freedom on the outside. He's been behind bars ever since but Charlie has never killed anyone a Quarter of a century in the prison system has changed him both mentally and physically a lot of people wear that beard He faces or that mustache At times he is aggressive and dangerous capable of incredible destruction But Charlie a prolific cartoonist can also show great charm warmth and humor Convicted certified cartoonist. How did Michael Peterson a small-time criminal become Charles Bronson Britain's most feared prisoner? Good question Charles Bronson was born Michael Peterson on December the 6th, 1952 He was the second of three brothers living in this modest council house in Luton His father Joe ran a decorating business and the family was respectable and law-abiding beautiful child very loving Just an ordinary child, but he was very affectionate and He's loving little trips out and things like that like a mama's boy Love going out with his dad Okay, down the park feet docks and things like that Just a normal happy child Although Ira remembers happy times child. I've got here my daughter in the background. I am not sorry deal with it He was beginning to have brushes with the law the police knocked at the door one day where they've been caught. They've been taking shoe polish laces Stupid little things what boys wouldn't have any rate and they used to hide them in this This lads shed and the police followed him this day and that was the first time I ever known him to be in trouble When he was in school, he didn't used to like being in a mixed school He didn't like being in the classroom with girls He never done serious things. He just played up the teachers and okay got cheeky and got expelled At 15 Charlie went for a fresh start to live with his grandmother at Ellesmere port in Merseyside His best friend was John Bristow the worst we got up to when I used to knock around with him was Going around the back of shops pinching the pot bottles taking the bottles back for the money. That was it like There was nothing really worse than that Charlie found work in a range of laboring jobs in the area We were in the ball one night I think we went for a darts match and there was these two girls sat down and We got chatting to unbought some a drink and eventually we both married them And that's how Ricky met his wife I do Y'all found love in a club that is hard to do in 2021 it's impossible I think he said I had nice big eyes He was a definitely a charmer The better decision is very charming towards me and very gentlemanly. He never You know did anything at all. It's very very protective towards me and looked after me and open car doors for me and He was really just a gentleman I got pregnant and I was only so young and he was so young and I mean I've got a very Sheltered upbringing the only thing to do is to get married that you have to get married in those days He was actually made up He said I'm going to really settle down now his mum and dad used to I was so happy It's going to get married to you. I'm because he's going to settle down and keep out of trouble and everything Which he did do For a little bit a couple of years He started to go out on drinking binges They'd go out in the evening and not come back for about four or five days He just completely disappeared. They wouldn't know where he was They come back out about five days So where have you been and he'd say oh I've been to when my friends I had a bad hangover It's taken me five days to get over my hangover It's just sort of really drifting apart We used to row all the time and he was hardly ever at home then and I know now that this is when he used He was planning the Robbery that he went away for He was on his drinking binges That's what those type of ideas always come around man They'd be licking at 21 Charlie took part in an armed robbery on a garage in Cheshire with three other men He carried the gun and although no shots were fired. He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment He was taken down in the cells In Chester and I went down they allowed me down there to see him. I went with my sister and And he just said me don't worry, mommy says I'll soon be out And he was absolutely devastated and so is our control Well, the solicitors a little boy was actually Robin behaved itself. He should be out in just over three years So solicitors I now know that that means lawyers That means lawyers. I'm thinking because I watched like a bare-knuckle bot documentary that thought he says so listen I thought he was like somebody standing outside of a corner store Trying to sell stolen goods or something or sell their bodies. We tend to not condone you too Charlie found prison impossible to cope with within six months. He was taking his frustrations out on other inmates a Lifer jailed for strangling his girlfriend and attacking his daughter ended up with a broken nose and ribs. Oh, yeah A few days later Charlie attacked a man. He believed was a grass. Oh, who? Next he assaulted to a grass. What is an officer's with a stick? For that he was given a beating thrown into solitary confinement and six months were added to his sentence It was the beginning of a pattern that would last to this day So my man originally went into seven years and kept getting in trouble and somehow I was in there a quarter century Oh Sound like Batman For Irene it was all too much This life's not for me. He's not going to get out. We'd be getting divorced if he wasn't in prison We'd be getting divorced anyway. So what's the point? If I got locked down and sent you to a quarter century could I'll kind of owe you to be there to support me mentally? Obviously not Irene Damn you so I thought well now have to divorce him Charlie's spiral of violence continued He repeatedly glanced another inmate in the face the man had infuriated him by banging on his ceiling from the cell above At this time Charlie was in prison with armed robber Frank Cook in them particular days Charlie wasn't a very big talker. Anyway, it was rather sensitive young man One of his own enemies was yourself fear of just being normal. I would say at that particular time It was over controlled Which was to his judgment and to his mental health and quality of life within the prison system Charlie was literally going out of his mind From the job Charlie didn't sound like a very mentally stable person anyway, so This is bound to break a secure hospital awaited It was 1979 Here he met fellow patient Chris Reed He was a very thoughtful person very considerate he genuinely cared about people When he first went to Rome what he was okay He just went down or because they put him on drugs all interesting He's controlling you by either two lines by physical or mental and they control you mentally by and giving you giving your drugs one month and He seemed all right the next month. We went he'd put on nearly three stone Where they were pumping drugs into him. He didn't even look like my son when we got there We just drug that he was drugged all the time We just couldn't even understand his letters sometimes He used to talk about having the drugs and he used to say that if he if he didn't have them willingly Then they'd make him take them So he didn't really have a lot of choice and half the time He was drugged up anyway when they were giving him the next lot They didn't he didn't even have the heart to fight back Charlie became no stranger to what was known as the liquid kosh the drug luggactyl These dramatizations Like I'm Charlie You can get locked your you're eating all the time No, I'm used to giving fit and making wet himself and things like that Charlie found it difficult to mix with most of the other Broadmoor patients One day whilst watching television one of them began staring at him Ronnie Craig.  That ain't it Ronnie's dig me in the ribs. He says what you reason now, so I said come on I said what you want? He said one that if you'd hit me Did we you talk about you won't be with you. This is what I like people to hit me So I've caught him a picture of a right-hander on the chin As he's going down of caught him with a left of right and up and another right He gave him a five piece deluxe chicken From Nando's with a side of the Brazilian rice that they be having No drink A Roof top protest by a patient at Broadmoor top security Hospital in Berkshire The man has been shouting complaints about hospital conditions and it's understood he wants to be transferred to a hospital in Liverpool So rooftop stuff was just a board more Charlie became a first man to make it onto the roof in a hundred years Yeah, three groups of protest that conditions about him wanting to move out of there He just had enough he just ways being treated with drugs now they can find him and they kept him in conditions, which were bad And he just he just said he wants it out. That's what he wants. He wanted to get out of Broadmoor I know at one time his brother and his father turned up to beg him to come down and It broke their hearts and it broke his heart as well seeing them because they walked as they walked away could see you know his dad's shoulders were slumped and everything and he was really upset about it and It just broke everyone's heart. I think to see him up there Eventually Charlie was moved from Broadmoor Back in the mainstream prison system. His attacks continued More long periods of solitary confinement If you take somebody from a natural cage 24 hours at 23 hours a day and then stick him outside in the community Just drop me outside the gate and say get on with it He's gonna survive. He's gonna be able to cover that. Yeah, but that's exactly what happened to Charlie in 1987 having served what should have been three years, but in fact became 14 A free man again he went to stay with his parents and Abba is with Once he saw the sea he brought all his kit with him for training because he was a bit fanatic for training And he's to run along the beach about six o'clock in the morning Really enjoyed it, but he says oh, I've got no way could I live here because it was so small People walking behind his back Because he'd been stabbed In prison by someone in the back My husband took him over to this pub and he went up to the bar and the man said How much the round was he didn't have a clue what to give that man because he didn't know the money He didn't know how people dressed. He did. He'd never seen traffic like the traffic that it was about today In fact, I think one of the world has said to him when he left that prison that day See you soon Hey, no, we're not about reform. You was in this business 23 7 23 hours out of the day you was locked up now you got all that freedom You're bound to go mad or you're gonna go crazy or outside He knew that Michael wasn't ready for the outside world prison system filled up Charlie stayed in Aberystwyth for just five days before going to London Then he was a lot of it and charged with pent-up anger. He decided his future was in boxing His coach gave him the fight name Charles Bronson after the actor Although Charlie had never seen a Bronson film. It was a name that would stick Wow, whoa, too What Charlie lacked in style he made up for with aggression Definitely a character But his lack of control proved too much of a handful even in the boxing ring This bout only went to three rounds before he was disqualified He did win a few fights, but the prize money didn't go far Charlie was broke Charlie was too much of a brawler The longer his mustache grew the more power he had in his fists The door opens and this very large guy came into the shop brother a swathe character with a mustache and He strode to the counter in a fairly purposeful way and when he got to the counter he didn't stop Because he came to the cap and the counter before the gun started to peer out of the waistband I realized we had serious trouble. Well, he was extremely aggressive and agitated Are these his drawings? Top tier people like dope colleagues I think that a jeweler safe is probably leg in a laden's cave Which when opened will spell its contents almost onto the floor like an Alibaba cartoon But of course the vast majority of the stocks in the windows and it's not in the safe till We close I Said there was no money in the safe that it was all in the tell he grabbed that and turned to the door was gone He's an extremely large individual and could have probably And blown all of us over particularly me Charlie got away with jewelry worth around a thousand pounds But he was no more able to pull off a successful robbery than cope with life It didn't take long for the police to catch up with him After just 69 days of freedom.   He said, yeah, I'm really really love you. I should have seen it before He got involved with a girl called Kellyanne Which I think Didn't help him one little bit and then he kissed me. He's only ever kissed me on the cheek before We kiss me on the mouth In public sort of I think it played with his mind a little bit He wasn't used to relationships for a start and I don't think she was the best person to have a relationship with at that time for him He asked me would I marry him and he'd smuggled in a ring for me He put it on my finger If it's a wedding That's to ring Never took place However, Charlie wasn't without other female admirers He's told me he's been engaged to about four different women during this time. He's been inside All he's done is written to women and they've written back to him profess their love and all this and that and He's took it all, you know for granted and thought oh everything's gonna be lovely. I'll get engaged to this one and then of course, I Family line after he sent him a ring and all that they don't want to Charlie had a lot of better love life than most of us free Yeah, full of that I think half of them just like the thought of being with someone that's got a name for themselves and I think he's very vulnerable The prison system was unable to contain or control Charlie Increasingly desperate his protests and attacks were becoming more extreme in Belmarsh prison three Iraqi hijackers Just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think the bloke was a London bloke that he was after and he'd given Mick a load of abuse from his cell and Mick's for then like, you know if I ever get old of him, I'm gonna take him hostage and Make him take his words back and He happened to be with the Iraqis When he went to take him hostage, so he had to take them all Oh What in the world Charlie Typically for Charlie was out the BDSM.  I will tell you a spinal cord from your body if you do not tickle my toes you too We do not can tone the tickling of toes under any type of scrutiny or Spinal cord removal, I don't condone none of that. I'm just here for entertainment Charlie the seven hour incident had almost comic irony He thought it was very funny because the Iraqis come over and they took hostages in the plane And they come to asylum and he said and they end up in a madman's cave like you know with me But the siege meant another seven-year sentence for Charlie For them as When We don't want no copyright Or is this a freestyle Hostage taking became a regular habit for Charlie at one prison He even took the governor victim the governor from part lane was on the phone and He said like will you please speak to him?  I didn't go I wrote and told him off By now Charlie's fearsome reputation was known throughout the prison system It took at least six men to guard him on what was known as a riot unlock Most of his time was spent in solitary confinement where to date he's clocked up 22 years In this regime prisoners have to show they can behave before they are loud back into the normal system All right, man, that's part one We definitely gonna be part two. Just give me a couple seconds, man Leave a like comment subscribe turn out pulls. Let me know what you think so far.