In an effort to imitate McCartney's lifestyle, Lennon allowed their mutual friend and gallery owner Robert Fraser to shepherd him through London's avant-garde. On 7 November 1966*1, he was taken to the Indica Gallery, where a Japanese member of the experimental art group Fluxus was setting up her exhibition Unfinished Paintings. In a meeting that would assume mythological status, he spoke briefly with the artist, 33-year-old Yoko Ono, and established some form of rapport. Lennon wasn't the only enthusiastic visitor to the gallery: a few hours later film director Roman Polanski experienced Ono's work for the first time, exclaiming, 'This is the most beautiful apple I have ever seen,' and, 'That is the very essence of a needle,' when faced with exhibits comprising nothing more than an apple and a needle. Just over two weeks later Lennon and Ono met again at the opening of an exhibition by Claes Oldenburg at Fraser's own gallery, smiled and moved on. McCartney also met Ono that evening, and it was to his house that Fraser directed her when she sought a handwritten Beatles manuscript to include in a Festschrift for the composer John Cage. McCartney suggested she should contact Lennon instead, and the jaded Beatle and unsettlingly intense Ono struck up a distant, asexual friendship. †1
By spring 1967, when the Beatles were ensconced in EMI's north London studios, Yoko Ono had become a minor celebrity. Her FilmNo. 4, colloquially known as 'Bottoms', was refused a certificate by the British Board of Film Censors, sparking protests outside their office. The Times sounded surprised to discover that 'Miss Ono turned out to be an attractive young woman with long black hair and a soft, shy voice.' This proved to be the last occasion on which Ono won praise for her appearance in the British press. Eventually, in August, her 'film of many happy endings' received its world premiere in London and was exhibited at private clubs. Its Fluxus-inspired concept – a parade of anonymous backsides, accompanied by amused comments from the participants – attracted much humorous comment and a little forced outrage. Ono added to the later by writing a humorous essay for the underground magazine International Times, to which both Lennon and McCartney subscribed. After lampooning male genitalia, she declared, 'Men have an unusual talent for making a bore out of everything they touch.'
Lennon slowly opened a channel of communication with this placid but strangely provocative woman. In September she was invited to watch the group recording McCartney's 'Fool on the Hill'. Two days later she launched a conceptual event entitled Yoko Ono's 13 DaysDo-It-Yourself Dance Festival. Postcards tumbled through the letter boxes of subscribers (including Lennon) every morning, bearing cryptic messages such as 'Draw a large circle in the sky' and (on Lennon's birthday) 'Colour yourself. Wait for the spring to come. Let us know when it comes.' Lennon was alternately exhilarated and infuriated, but never bored.
In another echo of McCartney's patronage of the arts, Lennon acted as sponsor for an Ono art exhibition, Yoko Plus Me: Half-A-Wind, in London. Entirely by accident, of course, Lennon's name appeared in the publicity for the show, despite earlier assurances that he could remain anonymous. Out of habit more than lust, he made a token pass at Ono after the exhibition opened, but Ono politely turned him down. As yet, no hint of scandal attended his involvement in her career, and Lennon (and McCartney) soon sponsored a second art show, by his college friend Jonathan Hague.
By then, Robert Fraser had introduced Lennon to the man he would describe as 'my guru', a young Greek inventor called Alexis Mardas, or as Lennon dubbed him, 'Magic Alex'. Derek Taylor, tongue very slightly in cheek, later described him as 'the genius who had arrived in England knowing only the Duke of Edinburgh and Mick Jagger'. Often dismissed in subsequent accounts as 'a television repairman' of no technical ability, Mardas had been recognised as a scientific prodigy as a teenager, and given the opportunity to study at a special academy, from where he was encouraged to travel around Europe to broaden his education. Perfectly mannered and utterly persuasive, he had amassed an impressive but ill-fitting set of acquaintances that stretched from the Rolling Stones to the exiled Greek royal family, and hence to other crowned and deposed heads of Europe. A keen follower of scientific innovation, he concocted inventions that might have been designed to attract the attention of the pop aristocracy: force fields that could prevent car crashes and repel burglars, or a camera that could take X-ray pictures. George Harrison, who was bitterly cynical about Mardas's abilities in later years, had the grace to admit that some of his inventions were 'amazing'. Lennon was willing to follow anyone who could carry him out of the mundane, and encouraged the other Beatles to offer Mardas financial support.
It was Mardas's good fortune to enter the Beatles' milieu at the very moment when they were seeking out methods of spending – 'investing' was the more hopeful term – extravagant amounts of money. Brian Epstein's inexperience as a manager perennially left him reacting to financial necessities, rather than anticipating them. He had explored a primitive tax-haven scheme in the Bahamas, but succeeded only in losing money there. Swiss bank accounts had been set up in the Beatles' names (though this was kept from the public, who preferred to think of their heroes as unassuming working-class lads at heart). But by late 1966 it was apparent to Harry Pinsker, the Beatles' chief contact at accountants Bryce Hamner, that immediate action was required if the musicians were not to face a potentially devastating tax bill from the British authoritises. 'I suggested to the boys,' the punctilious Pinsker explained, 'that they bought freehold property and went into retail trading.' Their reply, he recalled, was, 'We want to be like Marks and Spencer's.'
The Beatles had first been incorporated – as The Beatles Ltd – in 1963, when it became apparent to Epstein that their career might outlive the year. Within six months the company instigated its first lawsuit, against two manufacturers of unauthorised memorabilia based in Blackpool. The Beatles Ltd held the group's collective earnings, after Epstein's NEMS organisation had taken its 25 per cent. Without realising the implications, the Beatles had agreed a management deal with Epstein in October 1962 that not only guaranteed NEMS a quarter of their income for the next five years, but maintained that percentage on deals negotiated during that period. They had effectively signed away 25 per cent of their lifetime earnings from their recording contract with EMI – whether or not their relationship with Epstein survived. Other companies handled specific aspects of their career. Lennon and McCartney's songwriting interests were controlled by Northern Songs Ltd; their income from Northern passed into another holding company, from which Epstein claimed director's fees as well as his subsequent 25 per cent. The less substantial money accrued by Harrison's songwriting went into Harrisongs Ltd – run, like Northern Songs, by opportunistic publisher Dick James. Epstein formed Subafilms Ltd in early 1964 to handle the Beatles' movie projects. After Lennon published two books of cartoons and writings, he was encouraged to form a separate company to receive his royalties. And there were similar companies in the USA, not least Seltaeb Inc., the organisation that notoriously signed away the Beatles' rights to 90 per cent of the earnings from memorabilia sold in their name.
The intricacies of this financial web had long since exceeded Epstein's comprehension. Nor did it help that during late 1966 and early 1967 the Beatles' manager was undergoing a process of psychological disintegration, fuelled by his drug use, his chaotic sexual habits and his fear that by quitting live performance the group were slowly moving beyond his control. But Epstein did manage to negotiate a new recording deal in January 1967, whereby the Beatles promised to deliver 70 recordings in the next five years, and a guaranteed flow of albums until 1976 – either collectively or individually. (It is intriguing to note that the possibility of the Beatles splitting up was already built into this deal.) At the same time, he tightened his grasp on his 25 per cent, ensuring that his cut was now enshrined in the recording contract.
Incapable of running NEMS with the efficiency that had once been his trademark, Epstein had recruited a partner, producer and entrepreneur Robert Stigwood, who soon showed signs of wanting to assume total control. The Beatles learne
d nothing of this until late August 1967, when Epstein's death from an overdose of sleeping pills first focused their attention on the contracts that they had signed.
It was Epstein's altogether more sober brother Clive who guided the formation of a company that would carry out Harry Pinsker's advice and save the Beatles from having to pay almost £3 million to the British government in income tax. Instead of being four individuals sharing their income in The Beatles Ltd, they would become employees of a new corporation, The Beatles & Co. They would each own a 5 per cent stake in the firm, the remaining 80 per cent being held by The Beatles Ltd – renamed Apple Music Ltd in 1967, and Apple Corps Ltd ('It's a pun, you see,' McCartney said helpfully) in January 1968. The financial benefits were obvious. Their earnings were now subject to corporation tax rather than income tax (currently running at 94 per cent for such high earners as the Beatles), and they could claim back their personal living expenses from the company.
The first public acknowledgement of the new order came with a cryptic reference to Apple on the sleeve of Sgt Pepper. By then, the Beatles were beginning to realise that their company could become a plaything as well as a tax dodge. Alexis Mardas had been delicately telling Lennon about the technological breakthroughs that would be possible if only funding were available. He was added to the Beatles' payroll in August 1967, and by the end of the year he was installed as a director of Apple Electronics Ltd. Like a child at Christmas, Lennon was entranced by the wizardry of Mardas's inventions. Derek Taylor noted that Mardas 'remained the least challenged' of all the Beatles' aides in the years ahead; after all, he was Lennon's protégé and – not to be understated in the year of acid – he was officially 'Magic'. Of all the Beatles, McCartney had the least interest in prolonging the Mardas mythology, but even he, thirty years later, conceded, 'We weren't being stupid, but we were probably overreaching . . . We were thinking this could happen in five years, whereas it's taken a little longer.' By January 1968 Mardas had been commissioned to build new recording studios for both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and to purchase a factory to facilitate the mass production of his magical inventions.
Despite the close friendship he built with Harrison, Mardas was always Lennon's guru; the Beatle even acted as best man at his wedding. The next addition to the Beatles' circle fulfilled the guru's role for the entire group. Early in 1967 Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd had attended a London seminar in Transcendental Meditation, given by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Maharishi might have been invented to fill the spiritual chasm in the Beatles' lives: gentle and serene, a baby-like giggle never far from his lips, he exuded a beguiling mixture of wisdom and playfulness, supported by a devilish awareness of business opportunity. His devotion to the practice of meditation was total and sincere; so was his eagerness to reach out to the affluent young of the West. By studying the teachings of the Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgita, the Maharishi insisted, his disciples would attain a truly fulfilled life: 'When society accepts it, social well-being and security will result, and when the world hears it, world peace will be permanent.' Boyd was duly trained in the practice of meditation, and joyfully spread the word to her husband. The Maharishi returned to Britain in August 1967, and the Harrisons encouraged the other Beatles to attend his lecture. 'There was a collective consciousness within the Beatles,' Harrison recalled of this period. 'I assumed that whatever one of us felt, the others would not be far out of line.' The guru affected ignorance of their superstar status, and casually invited them to attend a course in Wales that weekend. It was there that they heard that Brian Epstein – the guru, if you like, of their early success – had died. It was, wrote Derek Taylor, 'the first crack in the marble of our wonderful temple of the mind wherein we would all dwell in perfect harmony'.
Having uttered some spiritual banalities fed to them by the Maharishi, who assured them that Epstein hadn't died, he'd just moved to another place*2, the Beatles returned to London. There the implications of their 1962 contract with Epstein were spelled out to them: they were not managed by Brian, but by his company NEMS, which would now be jointly controlled by Stigwood and Clive Epstein. The Beatles felt a degree of family loyalty towards the Epsteins, but no personal bond with Clive. They had no affection for Stigwood: as an independent record producer, he had rejected the Beatles in 1962. And another recent recruit to NEMS, Vic Lewis, was also tainted: in 1957 McCartney had attended a rock 'n' roll show by Bill Haley in Liverpool, and was disgusted to discover that the first half of the performance would be given by Lewis's dance band instead.
There was an immediate announcement that 'no one could possibly replace Brian' and 'things will go on as before', mutually contradictory statements that signalled trouble ahead. For a while the Beatles imagined that Clive Epstein might be able to supervise the launch of Apple without having power of veto over their actions, but that compromise could never have held. The naturally conservative Clive advised caution; the Beatles interpreted this as lack of faith. 'He didn't believe in us, I suppose,' Starkey complained. 'He thought we were four wild men and we were going to spend all his money and make him broke.'
The NEMS management deal expired in late September 1967, and the Beatles let it lapse. Instead, the four men decided that they would manage themselves and cast about for a suitable accomplice. It was at this point that Neil Aspinall, the trainee accountant who had become their road manager and personal assistant in 1961, broke one of life's cardinal rules, 'Never volunteer.' 'I said to them, foolishly, I guess, "Look, I'll do it until you find somebody that you want to do it."' Aspinall could appear sullen in the company of the Beatles, but his wit was as quick and scathing as theirs, and he enjoyed a particularly warm relationship with Lennon, while being trusted implicitly by all four. 'Neil was indivisible,' as Derek Taylor recalled. Aspinall rapidly discovered that the Beatles knew nothing about their financial and business obligations: '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 know that when Apple started I didn't have a single piece of paper. 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 the filing system, finding out what was going on.' It was only now, for instance, that they discovered NEMS was entitled to 25 per cent of the Beatles' income from record sales in perpetuity.
It was a moment for taking stock. Instead, the Beatles impulsively launched their business empire. A maze of new companies was established in London: Apple Electronics, boasting a scientific laboratory in Boston Place; Apple Music Publishing, run by former car salesman Terry Doran in Baker Street; Apple Retailing, which established a boutique below the publishing office; Apple Tailoring, funding the creations of designer John Crittle; and, after a few uncomfortable weeks squatting at NEMS, a corporate office for Apple Corps Ltd in Wigmore Street. Neil Aspinall's fellow road manager Mal Evans rapidly found himself called into service: 'We had a meeting to set up Apple, and we were all sitting round this big table eating sandwiches and drinking. Paul turns round to me and says, "What are you doing these days, Mal, while we're not working?" "Not too much, Paul." He says, "Well, now you're president of Apple Records." Thank you very much!'
All four Beatles were insistent that Apple should be run by their friends, regardless of their talents or experience. Fortunately, some of their choices had the group's best interests at heart. An early recruit was journalist and PR man Derek Taylor. He had ghost-written a newspaper column for George Harrison and an autobiography for Brian Epstein, and survived several turbulent months in 1964 as the group's press officer. Impossibly charming and possessed of a dry wit, Taylor had escaped his Fleet Street roots and moved to California, where the hardened hack of pre-Beatles days became the acid-fired doyen of Hollywood pop publicists.
I was a wild 1960s counterculture figure in California, and George felt that they couldn't run Apple without me. We had always been friendly and
now that – in the phrase of the day – we were on the same trip, he had to have me there. There might not have been an Apple as we knew it if I hadn't come back, and it might not have been as mad. I had a phone call from all four Beatles, asking me to join, but it was probably George's idea. He said, 'We want you to come back and run Apple.' John said, 'I've asked Neil to run it.' And Paul said he'd asked Peter Asher. It never occurred to me to say, 'Well, if all these different people have already been asked to run it, why are you asking me?' It was that acid summer: it was a time of complete trust. I know now that we were foolish. We didn't come to any terrible harm, but when I look back at how we trusted everything would work out all right, it was folly. LSD did that to you.
The film is about the predicament of people [who] are trapped inside an image and a wealth machine which simply cannot express what they really feel.
Review of Magical Mystery Tour, Guardian 1967
On Boxing Day 1967 the Beatles' first self-produced, self-written, self-directed movie was premiered by BBC-TV. Shot in sumptuous colour, it was unfortunately screened in black-and-white. Magical Mystery Tour blended surreal imagery, avant-garde photographic techniques and jokes borrowed from English end-of-the-pier variety shows. Keith Dewhurst in the Guardian applauded its 'poetry beyond professionalism' and concluded that 'it redeemed in retrospect days of shallow rubbish', but his was a lonely voice. So vitriolic was the general reaction of the press that McCartney felt he had to apologise for having failed to meet the public's expectations.
You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles Page 4