Of Beatles & Hobbits Part 1

The big music news recently is that Sir Peter Jackson of 'Lord of the Rings' fame is going to take a crack at re-editing all the unseen footage of the Beatles from January 1969, with the goal of creating a new documentary. One presumes that the end result will replace 'Let It Be', although the original is still expected to also be released as part of the process. That seems equitable, a carefully chosen word. There is still a lot of tension over the project, the most abysmal failure of the Beatles' career. Some back story might help.

The reason behind 'Let It Be' dates all the way back to December 1963, when Brian Epstein, the Beatles'  manager, signed a three picture deal with United Artists. It was a good move for Epstein; one picture a year, with no guarantee at that moment, just months before the Beatles would conquer America, that the group would still be a going concern that far in the future. The first movie, 'A Hard Day's Night', proved wildly popular. 'Help' was put together quickly in 1965, this time in color.

There was a team built up around these projects that had proved successful. Richard Lester, an expatriate American, was trusted as the director. Certain actors, such as Victor Spinetti, had become friends with the group, showing up repeatedly. Spinetti even co-wrote a play with John Lennon. The machinery seemed in place to finish the contract the next year.

There was a four month gap built into their 1966 schedule in the fall to do the third film, but they couldn't agree on a script. The Beatles were 'arty' by now, not satisfied with the amount of artifice in 'Help'. Various screen writers were hired, such as John Osborne, more in the 'Kitchen Sink' school, but all scripts were rejected. In actual fact, the Fab Four had just finished a punishing world tour, including trouble in the Philippines and the famous 'We're bigger than Jesus' crisis in the States. They wanted a break.

Hidden between the lines is the fact that the Beatles' organization managed a film in 1967, 1968 and 1969, all under the new 'Apple Corp' banner. Brian Epstein was involved in the first two in the months before he died. However, both wouldn't start serious production until after his death. The last one, 'Let It Be', would be released under both Apple and ABKCO. In 1970, they were working on a history of the Beatles 'called 'The Long & Winding Road'. More on that later.

It was thought that perhaps 'Magical Mystery Tour' from 1967 could satisfy the contract, but United Artists found the end result too amateurish. Recording started immediately upon completion of the Sgt. Peppers' sessions, so much so that they really bleed together. Most of the songs from that television special, as well as three of the four new songs that would appear in 'Yellow Submarine', were recorded before 'Sgt. Peppers' was even released. They even managed to squeeze in a few singles as well before shooting and editing their Christmas special.

Deciding to manage themselves, it fell on Paul McCartney to be the organizing force. Ringo was good at acting, while John's occasional ideas were pretty weird but interesting. George got his slot and hung around, complaining. Trying to direct 'Magical Mystery Tour' themselves, Paul was the only one who would bother to do any homework. With the crew waiting every morning for instructions, it was natural for him to become the organizing force.

'Yellow Submarine' was also started in 1967, premiering in January 1969, but it was a side deal with producer Al Brodax, who had done an animated Beatles series for American television. The band initially had no enthusiasm for the project, but when the producer hired a German graphic designer with a more artistic bend who quickly put together the 'Eleanor Rigby' segment, they were on board. All was needed were a few new songs to be scraped together for the film. All of the new tunes were outtakes and leftovers

It was 1969, and the contract was still owed one more picture. The Beatles, Paul and George in particular, were red hot creatively, continuing to work very hard after the completion of the grueling 'White Album' sessions. Both produced albums for Apple signings, Mary Hopkins and Jackie Lomax specifically, working diligently to make their new company a success. Now owning the  means of production, with technical guru Magic Alex supposedly turning the basement of their office building into a studio, the best selling band in the world looked to be in a great position for continued success.

The dream would all be over in a mere month. How it happened is all locked within the 'Get Back sessions, as well as the following 'Abbey Road' album. That's one reason that McCartney has such negative feelings about the period. The other is the arrival of Allen Klein on the scene. In fact, he first met John and Yoko on January 28, 1969, right near the close of the sessions. By the time of the rooftop concert, Klein was representing part of the Beatles

Allen Klein had already marched through rock and soul music like Sherman marched through the South during the Civil War, burning everything in his path. He was an accountant by trade, but he had found a specialty in going after record companies on the behalf of recording artists, uncovering unpaid royalties. He was good at it, too, even if he was abrasive. Unfortunately, he would often control the money seized in his own bank accounts. That was the fine print on the contract that the artist failed to read.

Klein started handling the Rolling Stones during their most stressful times, after a series of drug busts in 1967. Their current manager, Andrew Loog Oldman, bailed, convinced that the days of high tide and green grass were over. ABKCO managed the Stones until they became a successful band again, even in charge of most of the logistics of their 1969 American tour. For saving the band from extinction, Klein wound up owning all their recordings before 1970 forever. It was a magnificent screw job, especially painful to Mick Jagger, who had attended the London School of Economics.

It is quite possible that for once the Beatles borrowed an idea from the Rolling Stones instead of vice versa. Jean Luc Godard had just spent some of the summer of 1968 filming the Stones in the studio, working through various arrangements of 'Sympathy for the Devil'. Combining it with Godard's usual agitprop bullshit, and a film came out with art school credentials. The Stones really didn't have to work too hard, just do what they would normally do.

Sounds good, unless you have had the misfortune of actually seeing the movie. Even then, chances are you weren't awake when the end credits rolled. 'One Plus One', the original title, was released at the end of 1968. It shows the London band as somewhat broken, with Brian Jones so stoned that he literally cannot focus his eyes. Keith Richards even replaces the bass player, Bill Wyman, on the track. And the half of the film that doesn't have the band in it is the usual incompetent and amateurish left wing political propaganda, totally unwatchable.

There was another Rolling Stones film project that year that might have had an even bigger influence, at least in terms of personnel. 'The Rolling Stones' Rock & Roll Circus' might have been unreleased for a quarter century, but John Lennon had been one of the participants. The director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was familiar to both groups, having shot music videos going back to 1966, working on shows such as 'Ready, Steady, Go' before that. He would be in charge of the new Beatles documentary that would get United Artists off the band's back.

The rumor mill has been saying for at least a decade that 'Let It Be', the 1970 movie about the Beatles rehearsing and recording their follow-up to 'The Beatles' aka 'The White Album', would never get released. The reason is Paul McCartney, plain and simple. While the initial idea for the project was his, by the time editing came around, Allen Klein had entered the picture. That meant that McCartney wasn't around for any of the editorial decisions, since he split to Scotland with his pregnant bride.

Klein had a history not only in music accounting but also film production. As early as 1962, he was a producer on a film called 'Without Each Other'. He had a long association with Tony Anthony, a American working in Italy, mostly doing spaghetti westerns. He had also done a music film with Herman's Hermits. 'Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter', which is as horrible as you might expect. He continued to produce and distribute movies after his associate with the Beatles ended.

There has recently been a school of thought that thinks than Allen Klein's involvement with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones was actually beneficial. By the time that management papers were attempted to be signed by all four Fabs in September 1969, Apple was a financial disaster, mainly due to the activities of some of the band. School friends had been brought in from Liverpool and given positions of importance despite having no experience. Theft was rampart.

It didn't take Klein long to tidy up some of Apple's business affairs. Firing Magic Alex and shutting down the Zapple label was low hanging fruit. Getting rid of various hangers on also increased efficiency, even if it killed the idealism on which Apple had been built. It was only when he tried to fire Neil Aspinall, the longest person working with the band who would eventually take over the company until near his death in 2008, that the purge was slowed.

The real problem with Allen Klein is that while taking over management of the group, he played favorites. He used John's infatuation with Yoko Ono to get Lennon to sign by promising her a major art exhibit. Only later was it learned that the Beatles paid for it. He got Ringo a spot in the movie 'Blindman',  a Tony Anthony western so misogynistic that it never even got a release in the States. George, who despite his spiritual leaning was the most money oriented of the band, was the first to turn against Klein over the delay of releasing funds to the Bangladesh relief efforts.

The most significant failing on Allen Klein's part was his negotiations with NEMS, Brian Epstein's old firm, over the control of the song copyrights tot he Lennon/McCartney catalog, worth untold millions. His blitzkrieg approach to the Epstein family so horrified Brian's brother and mother that they immediate sold the controlling shares to Dick James, the ultimate English music sharpie. In time, he sold them to Michael Jackson. That remains salt in Paul McCartney's wounds to this day.

Don't take my word for it; I'll this part of the story with a direct quote from Glyn Johns, who was there the entire time. Johns really didn't know the band at all; it was the first time he was exposed to their workings. More about the actual music that came from this mess, but here is his observation of the time period, and the resulting cinema product;

There was some amazing stuff – their humor got to me as much as the music, and I didn't stop laughing for six weeks. John Lennon only had to walk in a room, and I'd just crack up. Their whole mood was wonderful, and that was the thing, and there was all this nonsense going on at the time about the problems surrounding the group, and the press being at them, and in fact, there they were, just doing it, having a wonderful time and being incredibly funny, and none of that's in the film.


Glyn Johns

An Eclectrick Centenial

Two guys are sitting in a bar. The first one says, "I'm a masochist. Beat me, please, I'm begging you!" The second one says, "No. I'm a sadist."

This is my 100th blog posting, a cause for celebration and much masturbation. Whoopie!!! When I set out on this journey back on June 7th with my first post, it was a work in progress. Certainly during the first 25 posts, it took a while for my format to develop. By now, I can write one of these in two to three hours, not counting research. If they're about my music videos, it can be even quicker. Curiously, current events and/or philosophy take the longest.

This post will be illustrated, for instance, with left-over phots from my vacation to Isla Mujeres. The sculpture park was incredible, and by using a visual between each paragraph, the blog becomes easier to swallow. Large chunks of verbiage don't work; you need something to comment on the action or re-enforce the factual content. This time, it's eye candy, but that goes a long way in today's world.

While I don't believe in 'art for art's sake', I do believe in 'art for the artist's sake'. It only makes sense for someone to start any creative process with the expectation of a reward, yet most of the time any financial reward is so removed from the initial moment that something else must be involved. That would be self-rsatisfaction, or an impulse to create. I certainly feel that; if I go too long without doing something artistic, I get restless. It will come out somewhere.

I was lucky enough to be part of the last generation of Americans who were able to receive an old-fashioned liberal education when that still meant something. You can still do it, but every advisor will be telling you that you are committing career suicide. I came of age right after the Vietnam War, when millions of young American men went to college, whether they really deserved to or wanted to, simply to avoid being drafted.

The results were a swelling of universities across the nation. They were willing to jam you into any program that might catch your fancy. I saw this with my brother, whose draft lottery number was high enough to make my father shell out tuition again and again despite my brother's drug abuse and mental problems. My ex brother-in-law, five years older, was actually good at the academic game, eventually getting a Ph.D. in English Literature. He wound up being a police officer after a couple of years of fruitless search for a suitable job.

By the time I came along, ten years after my brother-in-law, the academic world was starting to shrink. It was still the baby boom; by then drug culture had made a serious dent in the high school population. Plenty of 18 year olds were willing to drop out for a few years. I can honestly say that I managed to get through high school without ever once getting a career vocation counseling; they didn't exist, even for the best student at school. That would have been me.

When my father's job was relocated, I moved with my parents from the outskirts of Queens, New York, to York Pennsylvania. It was going from an urban environment to one not quite small town America. My education in Catholic school was light years ahead of the local kids; I could sleep walk through classes and ace everything, having seen it all before. The teachers thought that I was a genius. I wasn't, but it didn't hurt to be thought of that way.

It was also possible that a move away from the urban decay of the big city to a more rural environment might be good for my parents' relationship, my father in particular. It was the just the three of us, like becoming an only child when you were in your teens. Neither my brother nor sister had any ties to York, finding the place understandably boring. I had fun; starting a rock band, playing football, high school theatrics, trying to make films, dating girls. To this day, I am the only football letterman to ever be head librarian at that high school.

York was a funny place, though. There was a big secret, the worse racial riots of the entire 1960s, which is saying something, happening in 1969, covered up by the Nixon administration. They claimed it was to prevent Black Panther cells from Baltimore and Philadelphia, mere hours away, from invading the city. Too bad it was a riot by white Nation Guard troops. I always wondered why there were 25 square blocks of downtown without buildings. The entire story wouldn't be revealed until the year 2000. No wonder I read so much Lovecraft; the vibe was similar.

I was more-or-less forced to go to college against my will. I wanted to go, but I thought that a few years of manual labor would straighten out my head. I still think that for many young men that is a good idea. But it would have been considered a blot against the school's reputation to not have their top academic student proceed to higher education. With a little help from my parents, I was herded into Penn State for one abysmal semester.

It's not difficult to flunk out of college; it's just like falling off a log, only more fun. I did go back to school, but an art school, a three year technical school full of kids who weren't quite compatible with higher education. It was very affordable, enough that I could pay for it myself while living at home. The real struggle came from paying for the art material, which could easily spiral out of control. I found myself limiting what I would investigate due to funds.

Living at home was necessary; I was the youngest child and my parent's marriage had gone south. My sister, ten years older, had moved out when things were still good. My brother, five years older, was partly the cause and partly the result of my father's increasing erratic alcoholic behavior. Dear old Dad was from that generation that had grown up in the Great Depression, then went off to fight WWII. They had learned to repress all emotions - that is, until they got blackout drunk. Since my father would on occasion beat my mother, I stayed home and beat him in retaliation.

Mom was Irish Catholic and devout, so a divorce was out of the question. While she had worked outside of the house and was very thrifty with money, I believe that she thought that she couldn't and shouldn't survive on her own. She took her marriage vows seriously, even if they were a death sentence. It was my job to make sure that she was safe from my father's worse moments. They were infrequent, but I dealt with it, violence for violence. It was effective. Plus, the old man was starting to break down physically from years of too much booze and not enough food.

It wasn't like all I did was beat my father; I had him arrested a number of times and personally signed commitment papers on at least three separate occasions so that he would dry out in a hospital. By this time, I was also doing roadie work, concert security and bouncing at bars, so handling confrontational behavior was becoming second nature. In direct contrast, there was also art school as well as various jazz fusion bands on the side. There was a very active artistic life happening at the same time, as well as constant reading and discussions with a great group of friends.

After graduation, I actually managed to make a living off my design work, not exactly flush but doing better than most. The problem was that I had no notion of the business end, in particular the tax situation. Trying to be a small businessman in 1980 with no clue quickly landed me in trouble with the IRS. That greatly reduced my enthusiasm for freelance work, along with some truly mind boggling tales I could tell about having to collect money through intimidation. I was 23; my Mom could figure it out on her own. I was heading south.

York did teach me a few valuable lessons. It was the kind of place where, if you wanted real entertainment, you had to provide it yourself. Combined with art school, I learned how to invent the wheel on a daily basis. Nobody was an expert on anything, so you might as well do it yourself. But Three Mile Island, a scant 12 miles from my parents' house, and the ensuing evacuation made it seem like a good time to move elsewhere.

With both my brother and sister in the Research Triangle, I had a destination that I liked.  Moving to North Carolina was a good idea. I worked hard in the brutal southern summers for nearly a decade growing roses, got married to a wonderful lady, had a child, and went back to college when I was in my 30s. We thrived over time, and my daughter did as well. While I may huff and puff about leaving the state or even the country every once in a while, chances are we'll be here for the rest of our days together.

When I left college and became a video producer thirty years ago, it was just starting the process of changing from analog to digital. Make no mistake, analog required a serious skill set; just to do a video dissolve required hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment and a couple of highly trained engineers, not to mention the pre-planning. Digital, on the other hand, could be done completely seat-of-the-pants, as long as the computer was stable and the hard drives didn't crash. We take a lot for granted nowadays, but for the first fifteen to twenty years, computers melted frequently, the data on them disappearing forever.

I jumped on the digital bandwagon, and for a time I was hot shit. When equipment prices started to skyrocket, right before disk capacity exploded while hard drive costs plummeted, I entered state government. Over fifteen years ago, I was the first guy in the state to push DVD technology when they were still using horrible VHS. Ten years ago, I was fighting with IT for band width to put videos on the web. Again, in such a short time we forget how much technological change has dominated the landscape.

Today, we live in a modern world controlled by telephonic tyranny. The cell phone has gone from a convenience to a device that dominates everything including our finances, our job, and our sex life. God knows how much it spies on us, yet we keep feeding it data. How many more breaches of public trust do we need from Facebook to realize the threat that such entities pose today? Without our phones, most people wouldn't know how to function today.

Hitting sixty, I faced what I knew would eventually happen - crashing against the technological wall. One too many sets of new programs to learn, one too many new paradigms, one too many leaps into the future. Combine that with having gone through the work cycle too many times; suddenly I don't want to keep up any more. I became exactly like the guys I replaced a quarter century earlier.

No skin off my nose; I'm lucky enough to have a pension and health care, better off than most. Time for young Turks to come along and make their marks. Off to a new chapter in my life, and I'm actually in good enough shape to enjoy it. I'm still married to the same woman and my daughter is flying high on the West Coast. If I'm complaining, I should be slapped in the face.

This blog was part of the process, a place to ramble on about the topics that have stuck with me from my youth, plus a few surprises. Learning to write on a semi-deadline, making sure that I say what I want to express clearly, avoiding the trap of thinking every thought must be contained in either 140 or 280 characters. Work was involved, hundreds of hours dedicated to something without a penny of reward and a few limited audience. This is by my choice; my wife still can't understand why I don't get paid to do this.

The next hundred posts will be better, I promise. There are already a lot of topics lined up; I'm nowhere near running out of things to write about. While I've mostly avoided current events no matter how provoked, if things really get crazy, all bets are off. Seems to me that a titanic explosion is about to occur around Washington DC.

So here's to the future, with new topics and more adventures. Retirement is just like college; it's whatever you make of it. I don't plan on sitting on my ass watching the world go round. I also don't plan on manning the barricades and leading the revolution. Just a good seat on the bleachers, where you can clearly see all the action, is good enough for me.