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- Looking for Mr Moonlight
While listening to Philip Norman discussing his new biography of Brian Epstein last night, during a recording of the Books Podcast at the Owl bookshop in Kentish Town, I started thinking not about the author’s revelations — for instance that the Kray twins had once expressed an interest taking over the Beatles’ management — but about the suggestion that Epstein had erected and maintained a protective wall around the group. On the way home I thought about it some more, and it began to seem clear that Epstein’s real impact was of a far greater, although less easily definable, kind. He may have been a deficient manager in certain important respects, accepting a poor (although industry-standard) recording contract with EMI in 1962 and failing to renegotiate it at the height of Beatlemania, and then royally screwing up the US merchandising rights to Beatle product (wigs, plastic guitars, etc), for which he gave away 90 per cent of the gross. When the producers of A Hard Day’s Night, preparing to offer the group 25 per cent of the film’s receipts, asked him what he wanted, he tentatively suggested seven and a half per cent, which they accepted with alacrity. But he did give the Beatles something in exchange for his own 10 per cent of their earnings (rising to 15 per cent once they were each making £120 a week). And that something was class. Not that they didn’t have it, individually and collectively. Their varied but always inquisitive intellects and their shared sense of humour (sardonic, surrealistic, but also warm) were among the aspects of the group that appealed to him, along with their attractive appearance and the irresistible energy of their stage performance. But it was perhaps partly because he came to them as an outsider, with no experience of what he was about to undertake, that he was able to add, without thinking about it, a veneer of sophistication to the presentation that they made to a surprised world between the release of “Love Me Do” in October 1962 and the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. For all Epstein’s commercial missteps, what he never did was cheapen them. He didn’t reduce them to mere members of a stable of acts, like that run by Larry Parnes. He didn’t derail their musical progress by prioritising a series of duff Hollywood movies,… [TheTopNews] Read More.3 hours ago - Pulp to be celebrated in major new documentary feature
Global film distributor, production company, and streaming service MUBI has announced its latest original production, Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?. [TheTopNews] Read More.4 hours ago - Sir Roger Daltrey and Sir Idris Elba honoured at ASCAP London celebrationThe American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has gathered in London to celebrate the stellar achievements of its UK songwriting [TheTopNews] Read More.5 hours ago
- Taylor Swift crowned Wembley Stadium’s most photographed artistTaylor Swift has been officially crowned the most photographed artist at Wembley Stadium. New data from memory curation app Popsa analyzed [TheTopNews] Read More.5 hours ago
- Harry Styles orchestrates a masterclass at Meltdown FestivalHarry Styles delivered a remarkable one-night-only performance at London's Southbank Centre, joining forces with the Jules Buckley Orchestra and the House Gospel Choir. [TheTopNews] Read More.6 hours ago
- Kaiser Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson cast as Teen Angel in new Grease immersive pro...Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson has been cast as Teen Angel in the returning London run of Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical, opening in July. [TheTopNews] Read More.6 hours ago
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