no...the subject is the beatles, not tacky merchandise per-se

 

we expect it from certain quarters, im highlighting that the 'oh so precious beatles' are as guilty as hell!...lol.. or are they?... i dunno, i doubt if we will know the truth as to the bands input into it, or their say in it. we are summising, thats all.

 

 

 

Right the time has come to put an end to your erroneous statements with some cold hard facts:

 

"Brian was a nice guy, a good people's person .... but he thought he knew what he was doing and robbed us. He f***ing signed dreadful deals but made sure he looked after himself and his family" John Lennon 1980.

 

"For the most part Brian's business arrangements with us were very unfair, even by prevailing business standards. We only agreed to them because we did not know any better..... we had no legal advice, trusted him, and were screwed because Brian knew little more than we knew..." Paul McCartney 1995.

 

Taking my data from the quite brilliant 450+ page Mojo's The Beatles: 10 Years That Shook The World, that most critics rated that it did a far more complete summation of the impact of The Beales than their own Anthology book did:

 

"In October 1963 Epstein finally set up a licensing system with 2 rules: he had a right of veto & The Beatles themselves would not personally endorse any of them because all 4 had a personal distaste for this sort of thing and did not want to be seen to be like Elvis Presley or Cliff Richard.

 

Initially he tried to issue licences from his own NEMS for one off payments (rather than percentage points = shocking naive), but soon got swamped with the demand. But he soon passed responsibility to a business friend of his Nicky Byrne.

 

By Xmas 1963 the Beatles shops were awash with Beatles dolls, wallpaper, toy guitars, moptop wigs, etc - most bearing the NEMS logo, but a significant percentage unauthorised. "Brian tried to chase the early offenders through the courts .... but there were just too many of them."

 

British exploitation of The Beatles' fame was soon overshadowed by the rapaciousness of American businessmen. Nicky Byrne established an American subsidiary company Seltaeb (Beatles backwards), to handle the flood of offers on a financial scale far exceeding what he received in the UK office.

 

It was only in June 1964 that Epstein got his lawyer David Jacobs (not the DJ) carte blanche to negotiate a royalty split with Byrne, after concerns the band and he were being ripped off. The settled for a 10% of the cut.

 

In December 1964 another pop manager (Dave Clark of the Dave Clark Five) suggested to Epstein that he was getting robbed. Blaming Byrne and himself in that order, he renegotiated the Seltaeb deal to give a 46% of the income but losing the right to veto what was merchandised in their name.

 

But after the Beatles meeting with Elvis Presley (& Brian's with Col Tom Parker) in 1965 where he found out the deal he had signed was STILL WORSE than merchandise deals struck by Col Tom for Elvis, he launched the first of series of lawsuits against the company which was making money for him and The Beatles.

 

This led to major retailers cancelling orders rather than be embroiled in a legal saga; whilst others less legitimate manufactured illegally as Epstein & Byrne were suing each other. Due to cancelled orders NEMS was fined several million US dollars for failing to meet signed agreements; whilst the cost to the Beatles was most ruinous to themselves.

 

Rock historian Johnny Rogan noted in his managerial study that the whole merchandise fiasco cost the Beatles between $100 - $120 million (multiply by 10 for today's financial equivalent).

 

So Rob do you still think Brian Epstein was a good business manager; because I have not even mentioned the farce that he did with Northern Songs?

It rankles me though that Lennon could say in one breath 'Brian was a nice guy ... who didn't know what he was doing' and then go on to accuse him of 'robbing them' when to rob them surely he'd have to have known what he was doing. It rankles me more though when it was said over ten years after Epstein had tragically died so young. I'm not going to get into business dealings because none of us know personally what went on. I do know though, at the time of Epstein's death, as a youngster in Liverpool - I remember nearly all the adult members of my family were so angry and they felt that the members of the Beatles were to blame. John ought to have been mindful though that, according to George Martin, if it wasn't for Epstein's persistence and likeability himself ... he wouldn't have given the Beatles the last chance they had ... after everyone else had shut the door on them.

 

Sorry ... that was totally off track, but all the bad-mouthing about Epstein came about after the man's death and he has hardly had the chance to speak up for himself.

 

Norma

It rankles me though that Lennon could say in one breath 'Brian was a nice guy ... who didn't know what he was doing' and then go on to accuse him of 'robbing them' when to rob them surely he'd have to have known what he was doing. It rankles me more though when it was said over ten years after Epstein had tragically died so young. I'm not going to get into business dealings because none of us know personally what went on. I do know though, at the time of Epstein's death, as a youngster in Liverpool - I remember nearly all the adult members of my family were so angry and they felt that the members of the Beatles were to blame. John ought to have been mindful though that, according to George Martin, if it wasn't for Epstein's persistence and likeability himself ... he wouldn't have given the Beatles the last chance they had ... after everyone else had shut the door on them.

 

Norma

 

Yes, but that was John Lennon in a nutshell. Or have too many people fallen for the "Saint John" image carefully cultivated by Yoko Ono since his death.

 

John was the living definition of "Flawed genius", but Yoko has rewritten history to paint him as a modern day saint which is totally wrong.

 

For example he recorded this ferocious demo attacking organised religion that he wrote & recorded on November 29th 1980, just a few days before he was murdered. This sounds a hell of a lot different to the anodyne anaemic sounding tracks from his Double Fantasy comeback album. But for obvious reasons Yoko kept this buried for nearly two decades until it was leaked onto the internet.

 

John Lennon - Serve Yourself

 

Apparently it was his attempt at writing "a Scouse punk track" but it sounds more like Jim Royle meets Lily Savage. But I sure as hell prefer it to any of the sub McCartney tracks he released on Double Fantasy.

 

..... but all the bad-mouthing about Epstein came about after the man's death and he has hardly had the chance to speak up for himself.

 

Well Beatles fans know the whole saga of Northern Songs which means that the Lennon & McCartney estates have no say over their use of their own compositions.

 

For example Paul McCartney has attacked Simon Cowell on numerous occasions for being "the musical equivalent of cancer" which is why he will not allow his post Beatles songs to be used on X-Factor (along with other songwriters like David Bowie, Kate Bush, Paul Weller, Bruce Springsteen, Morrissey/Marr, etc), which made it very amusing his support of Peter Kay's Britain's Got The Pop Factor to Beatles fans.

 

Therefore I think it is safe to say that Michael Jackson is hated by Beatles fans for allowing monstrosities like this to happen:

 

JLS - Beatles Medley

 

Leon Jackson - Can't Buy Me Love

 

But equally had Brian Epstein not sold his shares of Northern Songs to a Third Party instead of to Lennon & McCartney then this would never have been allowed to happen to cheapen the name, integrity and reputation of the Beatles.

Regardless how many tacky merchandise with Beatles name are in the world, one thing should not be forgotten: they evolved from cheese pop-songs to experimental sound, reinvented themselves and put their print on the music history for more decades. Their music remains fresh and inspirational. Even their cheesy songs are better as what in this times comes in top 10!

 

The mature Beatles has so much to give: great tunes, new sounds, great deep lyrics.

 

What remains is the music. :lol:

 

 

Right the time has come to put an end to your erroneous statements with some cold hard facts:

 

"Brian was a nice guy, a good people's person .... but he thought he knew what he was doing and robbed us. He f***ing signed dreadful deals but made sure he looked after himself and his family" John Lennon 1980.

 

"For the most part Brian's business arrangements with us were very unfair, even by prevailing business standards. We only agreed to them because we did not know any better..... we had no legal advice, trusted him, and were screwed because Brian knew little more than we knew..." Paul McCartney 1995.

 

Taking my data from the quite brilliant 450+ page Mojo's The Beatles: 10 Years That Shook The World, that most critics rated that it did a far more complete summation of the impact of The Beales than their own Anthology book did:

 

"In October 1963 Epstein finally set up a licensing system with 2 rules: he had a right of veto & The Beatles themselves would not personally endorse any of them because all 4 had a personal distaste for this sort of thing and did not want to be seen to be like Elvis Presley or Cliff Richard.

 

Initially he tried to issue licences from his own NEMS for one off payments (rather than percentage points = shocking naive), but soon got swamped with the demand. But he soon passed responsibility to a business friend of his Nicky Byrne.

 

By Xmas 1963 the Beatles shops were awash with Beatles dolls, wallpaper, toy guitars, moptop wigs, etc - most bearing the NEMS logo, but a significant percentage unauthorised. "Brian tried to chase the early offenders through the courts .... but there were just too many of them."

 

British exploitation of The Beatles' fame was soon overshadowed by the rapaciousness of American businessmen. Nicky Byrne established an American subsidiary company Seltaeb (Beatles backwards), to handle the flood of offers on a financial scale far exceeding what he received in the UK office.

 

It was only in June 1964 that Epstein got his lawyer David Jacobs (not the DJ) carte blanche to negotiate a royalty split with Byrne, after concerns the band and he were being ripped off. The settled for a 10% of the cut.

 

In December 1964 another pop manager (Dave Clark of the Dave Clark Five) suggested to Epstein that he was getting robbed. Blaming Byrne and himself in that order, he renegotiated the Seltaeb deal to give a 46% of the income but losing the right to veto what was merchandised in their name.

 

But after the Beatles meeting with Elvis Presley (& Brian's with Col Tom Parker) in 1965 where he found out the deal he had signed was STILL WORSE than merchandise deals struck by Col Tom for Elvis, he launched the first of series of lawsuits against the company which was making money for him and The Beatles.

 

This led to major retailers cancelling orders rather than be embroiled in a legal saga; whilst others less legitimate manufactured illegally as Epstein & Byrne were suing each other. Due to cancelled orders NEMS was fined several million US dollars for failing to meet signed agreements; whilst the cost to the Beatles was most ruinous to themselves.

 

Rock historian Johnny Rogan noted in his managerial study that the whole merchandise fiasco cost the Beatles between $100 - $120 million (multiply by 10 for today's financial equivalent).

 

So Rob do you still think Brian Epstein was a good business manager; because I have not even mentioned the farce that he did with Northern Songs?

 

i started this thread after seeing yet more tacky beatles tat on bargain hunt or some such programme which begged the question why? and who? .... you have gone some way in answering the question posed so thats fair enough.

 

i take onboard your points made about epsteins business acumen, indeed he wasnt the 'best', but id suggest he was far from the worst as he did accomplish the success of 'merseybeat', and that is also a fact you cannot deny.

 

as for ripping of the beatles... yep, thats nothing new though as has previously been said, music managers in the 60's DID rob their acts blind.. thats how it was, in fact in order to make any money many acts were pushed into the commercial sales market. manfred mann were a prime example, they HATED 'ragamuffin man' and all that late 60's pop but were contractually obliged to release singles into the commercial market. mann himself wanted to play jazz whilst others like paul jones were into blues.

 

but anyway, thanks for that info.

 

Regardless how many tacky merchandise with Beatles name are in the world, one thing should not be forgotten: they evolved from cheese pop-songs to experimental sound, reinvented themselves and put their print on the music history for more decades. Their music remains fresh and inspirational. Even their cheesy songs are better as what in this times comes in top 10!

 

The mature Beatles has so much to give: great tunes, new sounds, great deep lyrics.

 

What remains is the music. :lol:

 

indeed, that has not been forgotten. :)