music money and vietnam, or thriller?

so michael jackson is still dead... his memorial service was 'awe-inspiring' and caused me to shed a tear. had you fooled, i just watched the highlights and it looked like boredom over 9 hours or so.

also recently dead; allen klein. who is he you say? you are right to ask this question as he was a very important background player. allen klein was in fact one time manager of the beatles and the rolling stones-so only the biggest pop band  and biggest blues/rock'n'roll band that there have ever been [respectively].

so why was he important? because he fucked over the rolling stones and the beatles, mick jagger suggested to macca that he would be good and was then part of the reason the band broke up. [i think that jagger did this on purpose :P] but yes, klein owned abkco records which did at one point own the stones back catalogue before 1971, and i think that this is still the case.

but he didn't work for the rolling stones, and once released from his contract sued the band and won, resulting in the acquiring of the rights to their music. though it seems minor, he got rich off the back of the band-and sued the verve for their use of 'the last time', thus giving sole credit for the song to jagger/richards. the rolling stones did not sue the band, management did.

but klein was described as the price of an education by keith richards, as they seemed to get screwed over so much. joe strummer also cited richards when discussing contracts, as aparently richards prescribed reading glasses to bands-as contract details are often in the tiniest print.

since the stones, bands such as the clash, radiohead and also factory records have protected their own interest. the clash's manager bernie rhodes set up a company called nineden records who bought the rights to the clash's tracks-which the band have said was so so important as otherwise they'd have been completely fucked.

 [the clash, 1976-1983, were in debt to the record label from conception until 1982 due to their drive to be true artists-and release what they wanted taking massive losses on their sandinista album-for which they received no money at the time. it was only after they were strongly told to play the u.s. festival in 1982, for which they got paid $500,000, that they would finally see them out of debt]

but factory records had a 50/50 split between artist and management/label and this was so important-you can't have one without the other. and now radiohead's manager brian message is/has/will be launching polyphonic records which will allow bands to retain their own copyright-splitting profits the same way factory did. well done to him.

so klein provided a dramatic swing in the change for band management and all that stuff, the almost as important backroom drama. but nothing is made of his death, a shame as he seems like an interesting guy, if a bit of a knob.

death number two. robert s mcnamara. again, who is he? he was a former ceo of ford, introduced the seatbelt across the ford range and later had it made manditory, youngest lecturer at harvard university at the time, leader of the world bank and between 1961 and 1968 was the u.s. secretary of defence [spelt in british english, as we invented the language].

for anyone who has seen the fog of war [or is james cleary] needs to read no more as a way of receiving an education on the man. for those who haven't, you should watch the documentary on him by errol morris. i can't review the film strongly enough-its the finest documentary that i have seen [that isn't on a subject i know about, and so i'd have bias].

basically mcnamara [from here on in just rsm] led the u.s. into the vietnam war, and has since come to realise that he may have been a tad heavy handed and not have been justified. his life lessons learnt from the war are the main subject of the film. but he gives a reason for his decisions to do with the war, and his anti-communist feelings. this man helped put his home country into a war that was poo and very fucked up, pitting ideology versus ideology-something not seen before or since [complete lie].

i'm sort of running out of steam of what to say, because partly there are builders right outside my bedroom window who woke me at 8am, i smell as i've yet to leave bed and other factors such as mild boredom setting in. just watch the fog of war-its a brilliant film, despite the forest of mirrors as the sight and sound review said.

but please, take heed and take an interest in these two men.

allen klein and robert mcnamara ftw! mj, just...

keep it rockin'