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Statements from Apple Employees:
•Alistair Taylor: "...we should have a small kitchen
where we cooked and had our meals if we were entertaining anybody
instead of going out and spending 30 pounds at a restaurant...Most
of the extravagances were due to Peter Brown and Neil Aspinall sitting
down and having superb four-course lunches with classic wines in
the dining room at Apple.
•"Nobody around here deals in cash. We've got checkbooks,
credit arrangements, dozens of accounts, but there are no mountains
of used fivers lying around" (Taylor, A p. 147).
•Alistair Taylor: "The money was coming in so fast,
but there were no controls. I got laughed out of court when I tried
to control Derek. That's when I said we needed a "Beeching",
and the next thing I read was that John and Yoko had gone to see
Lord Beeching. They had taken it literally. It evolved from that
and, of course, we ended up with Allen Klein. So, the man whose
head is on the chopping block first is the guy who thought the idea
up. Klein fired me...
.
•Press Office Release: We in the Press Office, as undersigned,
are paying for an advertisement ourselves because we believe the
record Govinda by the devotees of the Radha Krishna Temple, produced
by George Harrison, to be the best record ever made! You too?
•One of the Scruffs was eventually hired by Apple as a receptionist
and John paid her a clothing allowance because he liked to see her
dressed in all in black or all in white. Another became a tea girl
at Apple (Flippo, p. 275).
•An employee at Apple: "Everybody in the business knows
what a joke it (Apple) is".
•Alistair Taylor: Somebody said to Paul, "What is it
like to sack someone like Alistair Taylor?" They quoted
my name, and he said, "Oh well it's just got to be done."
I feel they just chickened out. I thought Paul and I
were very close. Obviously we weren't! I just didn't work for them
for God's sake. I mean, I've been on
holiday with them. They confided in me. I could write a book that
would make Peter Brown's look like Enid
Blyton, and yet they did come to rely on other people doing everything,
including jobs like that. A very strange quartet!"
•Nigel Oliver: We used to take stacks of albums out of Apple.
All of the albums that were supposed to be
posted to America we never sent. I was the best office boy though;
people thought I was the one who could be trusted, I wore a suit
and I was making seven pound fifty (Granados, S. Those Were the
Days. p. 66).
•George Peckham: Eventually I had to sit down with George
and the others and tell them that people want to come and cut at
Apple and I asked if we could open up Apple to outside clients.
They agreed and the next thing you know Apple studios was up and
running. It was busy as h*** after that (Granados, S. Those Were
the Days. p. 37).
•After Brian died Apple started to expand into music publishing,
signing new artists, sponsoring inventors, and generally putting
into practice the principal of making business fun. Business at
NEMS wasn't fun at all, so a phone call from John a few days ago
was very welcome. "Hello, Alistair. You're looking a bit pissed
off at NEMS recently". "I am, really. All the infighting
is getting to me". "Well, would you like to come and be
General Manager of Apple?" I didn't need a second invitation.
I've given my notice to NEMS and I'll transfer to Apple as soon
as I can (Taylor, A. p. 108).
•Pete Bennett: Paul McCartney hated the strings on Let It
Be, and he didn't want Phil Spector producing the album. Paul complained
to us, but we put it out anyhow. It wasn't even Klein's doing...We
put it out because John Lennon wanted it out. You have to understand
that Lennon was Director of Apple Records. Lennon had the last say,
and for whatever reason, they made Lennon the president when they
set up Apple (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 130).
•Derek Taylor: At 8 O'clock one morning I got a phone call...it
was all four of them, rowdy and friendly and sober and calling,
I assume, on a whim. 'Come back to England and run Apple' one of
them said. What did that mean? 'Run Apple Records', said John. 'This
is George's idea. I've asked Mal but you can do it anyway with Mal'.
'Bullocks to yer', said Paul. 'He asked Peter Asher'. 'You can come
and drive the big green jobs anyway', said George...The best thing
would be to come and talk about it . Taylor agreed and within days
of the conversation, he was already making plans to move his family
back to England (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 31)
•Apple Promotions Manager Pete Bennett: George Harrison
was pleading with me to do something for
Badfinger, so I broke Come And Get It on WLS in Chicago by buying
air time, one minute commercial
spots, and playing Come And Get It. It was like a paid advertisement,
but the radio station didn't make us
say it was. After we started playing the spots, people started calling
in and the program director started
playing it, so that's how we broke Badfinger in America (Granados,
S. Those Were the Days. p. 128).
• John Kosh, 23 year-old London artist and designer of the
Get Back album cover and book: I wasn't exactly staff, but I had
an office. I started out on the ground floor in Ron Kass' old office,
then I ended up on the third floor with Derek Taylor. They didn't
have an art studio; we just had an office. Looking back on it, Apple's
fees were ridiculously low, but you didn't need much money in those
days. We would sometimes get paid in substances, though I don't
know how it was channeled. None of the suits and ties ever got an
idea of what was going on. But wherever we went, we went first class.
Apple sent me to New York for six months and I lived off the fat
of the land-all paid by Apple. (Granados, S. Those Were the Days.
p. 103).
•Tony Bramwell: I was hired to work for Apple Films. I was
at Apple records for about a year before we
started up Apple Records. The problem with Apple films was that
United Artists, who had the rights to finance and distribute Apple
Films, didn't think it was such a great idea...so that was a bit
of a disaster. We actually bought the rights to Lord of the Rings
which The Beatles would have starred in...we were actually in pre-production
(Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 31)
•Neil Aspinall: A lot of people put themselves forward to
run it...but there didn't seem to be any unanimous
choice. So I said to them, foolishly I guess, "Look, I'll do
it until you find somebody that you want to do it (Granados, M.
Those Were the Days. p. 12)
•Derek Taylor: I slipped into it [the position as Press
Officer for Apple] having been appointed personal
assistant to Brian Epstein. I got the job because old colleagues
on the press started to ring me up saying, "Come on, we know
you're in there". And I'd say, "I'm not the Press Officer.
He's in the other room". So they'd say, "You can't give
us that..." George Harrison: Also the Press Officer we had
was useless. I think we all benefited when Derek got that position
because he knew their needs having been a press man. We trusted
his ability not to sacrifice us to them. I think it worked quite
well (Giuliano Lost Int. p. 158).
•Neil Aspinall: We didn't have a single piece of paper.
No contracts. The lawyer, the accountants and Brian, whoever, had
that. Maybe The Beatles had been given copies of various contracts,
I don't know. I didn't know what the contract was with EMI, or with
the film people or the publishers or anything at all. So it was
a case of building up a filing system, find out what was going on
while were were trying to continue doing something (Granados, M.
Those Were the Days. p. 19).
•Once the smoke had cleared, it was obvious that Klein had
negotiated an exceptionally lucrative deal for himself. Peter Brown
admits that he had no idea of why The Beatles would offer Klein
such generous compensation: "They had no idea how to negotiate.
I don't know where their heads were" (Granados, S. Those Were
the Days. p. 89).
•Ken Mansfield: Capitol President Stanely Gortikov called
me one day and told me that the Beatles, mainly Paul McCartney and
Ron Kass, has asked for me to head up Apple Records in America.
'You don't have to tell us where you are or what you're doing and
you don't have to clear your expenditures. You only have one responsibility-to
keep it together with The Beatles...The only thing that happened
was that my stationary changed to US Manager of Apple Records. But
Capitol paid my salary. I became the personal liaison. Everything
had to go through me. (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 45).
•Ken Mansfield had very high hopes for The Iveys in America.
"I believed in Maybe Tomorrow so much that I had 450,000 copies
pressed up. We came out full blast, had radio play and acceptance
from the stations, but we ended up probably selling 200,000 copies
(Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 55).
General Statements:
•Apple's management team consisted of Alistair Taylor: "a
glorified accountant with some management
experience", Neil Aspinall: "who had never finished his
accountant training and was a road manager", and
Peter Brown: "who, like me, had been a shop assistant in Liverpool
selling records"..."running a multi-million dollar company
(quotes from Alistair Taylor).
•In the end Jeremy Banks was the only employee to be declared
redundant and he was fired in November 1968. During his six months
at Apple, Banks did coordinate some successful publicity photo opportunities
and he set up several deals which gave Apple a royalty for all Beatles
photos that were provided to the press. However, he was also notorious
for spending most of his time at Apple pursuing freelance work and
consuming a potent mixture or champagne and diet pills. To help
out the press office after Bank's departure, Derek Taylor hired
Mavis Smith to be his assistant (Granados, S. Those Were the Days.
p. 63).
•Concerning the move to Savile Row in 1969: Apple added
another office boy to their staff-18 year-old
Nigel Oliver (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 65).
•One Apple Boutique employee that the Beatles were particularly
keen to keep on Apple's payroll was the
enigmatic Caleb. Not wanting to lose the services of a good mystic,
the Beatles brought him over to Saville
Row, with the aid of his i ching coins, he proceeded to contribute
to the decision-making process at Apple. He remained at Saville
Row for several months, until one of his coin tosses suggested that
it was time for him to move on (Granados, S. Those Were the Days.
p. 49).
•They (The Fool) had know for some time that The Beatles
were looking to diversify, and Simon and Marijke had previously
run a boutique in Amsterdam know as The Trend. The Beatles were
receptive to their ideas, and it was agreed that they would be employed
to create designs exclusively for the boutique which, along side
garments, would also sell an assortment of Eastern knick-knacks,
furniture, posters, and underground books (O'Del, Denis. At the
Apple's Core, p. 75).
•From Clayson p. 129 on Ringo: Whenever he was in the mood,
he'd lean forward on the hard-backed Regency chair in his office
and play company director. For awhile he shrugged aside the disgusting
realities of the half-eaten steak sandwich in a litter bin; the
receptionist rolling a joint of the best Afghan hash; the typist
who counted paperclips and span out a single letter (in the house
style of no exclamation marks!) all morning. Then she popped out,
not returning until the next day. A great light dawned. "We
had like a thousand people that weren't needed-but they all enjoyed
it; they're all getting paid for sitting around. We had a guy there
just to read the tarot cards, the I-Ching. It was craziness (Melody
Maker).
•Derek Taylor discussed being given the job of "Office
Eccentric" with Paul McCartney. Quite to Taylor's surprise
McCartney agreed with his quixotic request and instructed Taylor
to have an appropriate sign made for his office door. Sadly, like
so many of the ideas that were bounced around Apple's Wigmore Street
office during that time, nothing more ever became of the idea of
an "Office Eccentric" (Granados, S. Those Were the Days.
p. 31)
•The Beatles decided to go into business with him (Magic
Alex), financing a company called Fifty Shapes Ltd. Later when the
Beatles decided to make Apple an all-inclusive entertainment organization,
Fifty Shapes Ltd. renamed Apple Electronics and brought into the
Apple fold (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 20).
•The Beatles had lured several Abbey Road Studios employees
to come over to establish Apple Studios. One of the first was former
Abbey Road engineer Malcolm Davies, who was hired to run the cutting
room in the Apple basement for the Beatles exclusive use (Granados,
S. Those Were the Days. p. 36).
•Some employees charged clothes and food for their own use
to Apple.
•To represent Apple at Capitol's Hollywood office, Capitol's
Director of Independent Labels, Ken Mansfield, was hired to be North
American Manager of Apple Records (Granados, S. Those Were the Days.
p. 45).
•To assist Davies in the cutting room, Liverpool musician
George Peckham was hired to train as an Apple Studios cutting room
engineer (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 36).
•In January 1968, he (Terry Doran) hired Mike Berry-a former
assistant at Sparta Music Publishing-to help scout new talent and
secure cover versions of Apple Publishing copyrights (Granados,
M. Those Were the Days. p. 18).
•Dubbed "Magic" Alex by John, Mardas convinced
him that all kinds of fantastical ideas and patents were possible
if he were given the financial backing (O'Del, Denis. At the Apple's
Core, p. 74).
•Peter Brown was given permission to hire an assistant in
April 1969, he hired a 20 year-old Londoner named Bill Oakes (Granados,
S. Those Were the Days. p. 82).
•The flower arranger came in once a week. Corsages and long-stem
roses were going to persons unknown.
•Derek Taylor came to Apple to work before they even knew
what he would do there (Giuliano).
•Apple selected a 33 year-old American named Ron Kass to
be President of Apple Records. Prior to be hired by Apple, Kass
had been in charge of UK operations for Liberty Records (Granados,
M. Those Were the Days. p. 27).
•They named 45 year-old Dennis O'Dell as Director of Apple
Films. O'Dell had previously worked with The Beatles on A Hard Day's
Night and he was highly regarded in the film industry and the Beatles
circle (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 27).
•Disillusioned by the whole experience, Fire spent the remainder
of the year getting out of contracts with
their managers, Decca and Apple, and they eventually went on to
release an album on another record label (Granados, M. Those Were
the Days. p. 19).
•While (Mike) Berry's attempt to supplement his Apple salary
with songwriting royalties was ethically
questionable and certainly not in the spirit of Apple (although
he did assign the publishing rights of Around the Gum Tree to Apple)
the bubble gum style of Around the Gum did have some commercial
merit and ended up being a regional hit when it was recorded by
a group called The Real McCoy later that year (Granados, M. Those
Were the Days. p. 19).
•Ronan O'Hahilly, former boss of Radio One joins Apple as
Business Advisor. August 68.
•Paul: The idea of Apple is that even if you are a clerk
in an Apple office or in anything to do with Apple, we really do
try to turn you on. There is a definite effort to turn people on
in this building. The people who don't want it, who don't like it,
will go back to being hired clerks because they'd rather do that.
But if you want to come here in order to be a sort of turned-on
clerk, that's great. I think occasionally too much of it goes on
and you don't get much work done because everyone's so busy turning
each other on. But it is nicer. I mean it really is a different
atmosphere in this place from any building I've ever been in.
•There were questions about the whereabouts of the colored
TV and carpet that vanished from John's office, which typist was
phoning Canberra every afternoon, why had so-and-so given himself
a 60 pound raise and why is he only seen on payday? (Clayson p.
145).
•Alistair Taylor: Alex has designed a tiny throwaway radio
supposed to sell for a few pence and made out of a few pieces of
plastic. I heard a prototype that would fit in your pocket and looked
as if it were made out of the leftovers from a child's construction
kit, but it worked just fine. Quite an inventor! (Taylor, A. p.
115).
•Tony Bramwell received a note from John telling him not
to do pre-publicity for 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' because of
the potential problems with radio stations over the 'Christ' lyric
in the song.
•Meanwhile Apple, the group's self-sacrificial gesture to
hippie correctness, set up "to encourage unknown literary,
graphic and performing artists," was merrily leading them to
the brink of chaos and bankruptcy in the days before Aspinall assumed
sole control. In the vacuum left by Epstein, the group claimed to
be managing themselves; in fact, day-to-day arrangements of their
affairs fell to Aspinall. Lennon once offered him the job of manager,
but amid the general confusion he turned it down (The Sunday Times:
The Culture: Section 10: 12 November, 1995, pages 4-5).
Credit/Debit Figures:
•There was no scale of wages at Apple. The House Hippie
(office assistant) received £10 per week. He
subsidized this wage by lying about taxi rides taken and keeping
the reimbursement from Apple. He did
eventually write a letter asking for the equivalent of 70 U.S. dollars.
It is not known to the author whether
he ever received it (Dilello).
•Photographers held Apple in high regard as Apple was supposed
to pay some of the highest fees in the
business. A photographer could earn up to £500 per photo (Dilello).
•Considering that [Derek] Taylor was one of the premier publicists
in the music industry, the salary that
Apple gave him £115 a week-was rather average, even by 1968
standards.(Granados, S. Those Were
the Days. p. 31).
•Despite the widely-held public perception that anyone associated
with the Beatles or Apple were earning fabulous salaries, only Peter
Brown and Ron Kass received any special compensation. "The
most I ever made was £30 per week", laughs Bill Oakes."They
were cheap bastards...Peter Brown had a marvelous deal...He made
around £100 a week, but he had everything paid for...his mews
apartment, his restaurant bills, his groceries, Jimmy, the Apple
doorman, used to get Peter Brown's groceries (Granados, S. Those
Were the Days. p. 32).
•Apple had a deal with a London agency that gave the agency
65% of all the photos sold.
•The phone bill was £4,000 for a quarter. Non-employees
were also using the phone.
•Ironically, several months after Richard DiLello's optimistic
proclamation to Rolling Stone that the Apple staff would have jobs
for as long as they wanted, Allen Klein closed down the Apple Press
Office in July and fired DiLello and secretary Carol Paddon after
they both made comments on the depressed state of Apple's affairs
in an interview in an English magazine (Granados, S. Those Were
the Days. p. 134).
•The house hippie (office assistant) resigned during the
wake of Allen Klein's firings. But he found out you get three times
more money if they fire you, so he asked for his resignation back.
He got it.
•He (Magic Alex) would be paid a good wage (According to
Barry Miles in Many Years From Now around £40 a week and 10
percent of any profits from his inventions) (O'Del, Denis. At the
Apple's Core, p. 75).
•Neil Aspinall and Pete Shotton took a business trip to
New York for Apple business. They would meet with the Beatles' U.S.
lawyer, Nat Weiss to discuss launching a branch of Apple in Macy's
and Sgt. Pepper discotheques.
•Two "models" joined Aspinall and Shotton in their
hotel for their last night in N.Y. Neil and Pete had an early flight
the next morning, so they told the girls to sleep in and order breakfast
at Apple's expense. Room service and telephone charges for that
morning alone were for over $1,000. Items included steak, strawberries,
champagne, and a case or two of liquor to take home.
•A memo from Allen Klein to Alistair Taylor said that if
someone is working over lunch please notify the kitchen by 12:15.
This would cut down on expenses. This policy also affected those
employees who did not have a lunch expense account.
•John commenting on Neil Aspinall: I was the one that protected
him many times from Paul. Paul had no love for Neil and vice-versa.
And all of a sudden he's a Paul man. Because they clung to Paul-Derek
included-because they all thought Paul was the one who was going
to hold it all together. So they had a choice of which side to come
down on, and they chose Paul, and the past, and I cut'em off. You
see they get under the delusion that they are the Beatles. They
begin to think that they are the Beatles, that they are the source
of power (McCabe/Schonfeld p. 72. For the Record).
•In 1970 Apple accounts were released which showed that
accountants wrote off three motor vehicles because the accountants
didn't know if the cars actually existed or who owned them. This
accounting information only covered to the end of 1967.
•Derek Taylor asked for permission to buy a £150 light
show for the press office. It would make people happier and they
would like to see it, he thought.
•Hundreds of pounds of records were being handed out to
anyone who asked for them. Staff, friend of staff, disc jockeys,
music columnists and legitimate people were getting two copies.
Cost was 22s every time one was handed out (Dilello).
•The liquor bill was £600 per month and the food bill
was close to that (Dilello).
•DJ's, producers, journalists were going to The Speakeasy
on Apple's accounts (Dilello).
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