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So......Way back in the greedy 80s, Michael and Paul McCartney were good friends. They used to record together, and it was a horrible thing to hear, since they had a way of intensifying each others’ worst characteristics. But it was a long time ago and nowadays nobody listens to either of them, so that’s OK. It was a fine friendship, but unfortunately something came between them...the rights to Paul’s Beatle songs came up for sale again. (Paul had signed some bad contracts early on, and they weren’t his songs any more.)
Wouldn’t you know it, friend Michael went behind the back of Beatle Paul, outbid him, and ended up with the ownership. Zounds! Michael did that to Paul?? He sure did. I just report ’em, I don’t get to make ’em up. Paul’s favorite hobby after smoking dope is collecting songs--the way other people would collect stamps--so it’s rather cruelly ironic that he wound up having to pay royalties to MJ every time he performed “Yesterday,” and could only sit on the sidelines as Beatle songs were used for various TV commercials.
For my own part, I found it pretty damn annoying to see Michael parading around for awhile in a Sgt. Pepper uniform. (I swear I’m not making this up. It was in People. Instant dartboard.) Paul never had the guts to say anything to Michael about that little act of cultural imperialism--back when he and John were still fab, it had always been John-boy who got to do the dissing, but John had been dead for years already and Paul had never quite gotten the knack. We’d never so desperately needed Lennon to be alive for us again as we did at that moment--he could have redeemed himself for one or two dozen consecutive crappy albums with just a single one-liner, had it been good enough to shame Michael away from his assault on Pepperland. But alas, it could never be. And if Paul wasn’t going to tell him, who would?
Something had to be done, before Michael came out with a club remix of “Baby You’re a Rich Man.” But who among us was worthy? How exactly does one go about “communicating” with a specimen such as Michael Jackson anyway? When one’s best friends are chimpanzees and boa constrictors and children, it tends to eliminate anyone competent to tell you when you look like a dweeb. [Erratum: the chimp and some of the kids are competent, but Michael won’t listen.] Even Paul (much to Michael’s puzzlement and chagrin) got so disgusted he wouldn’t talk to Michael at all anymore. So that task fell to...Das Damen.
Who the hell were they? Who knew or cared? Not I, li’l amigo. But they put out this EP called The Marshmellow Conspiracy, which was a fine example of psychedelic trash metal, and would’ve probably sank like a stone but nevertheless remained in print, were it not for The Stunt. They recorded a cover of the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour.” Which nowadays would be foolhardy mainly for artistic reasons--but they took it to a whole new level: they retitled it “Song For Michael Jackson to $ell” and they credited it to themselves, refusing to pay royalties. The version itself was a noisy desecration, toward the end even interpolating the “Tragical History Tour” chorus from the Rutles...slap me a devout five, Mister Music Man! I mean--later for Tracy Chapman: these guys reinvented protest music! And screw David Bowie, these guys truly were “Heroes” even if just for one day. I mean...ghod bless ’em...flippin’ the bird at Michael Jackson!!! Yowza. Nowadays it can be done with impunity (in fact in some quarters it’s one of the few socially acceptable ways to vent certain bigotries that are inapplicable to the likes of, say, O. J. Simpson) but back then, not only was it politically incorrect, in the biz it was suicide, pure ’n’ simple.
Das Damen did indeed pay the price. Michael got on the beeper to his gofers, who notified his lawyers, who notified the music industry at large that this shitty little EP was to be recalled like a bad Ford. The call went out to every warehouse in the world, supposedly, and the legend has it that the offending artifacts were piled into a dump truck or three and deposited on The King of Pop’s front lawn, where he held a bonfire (and presumably a weenie roast) which I would imagine stank up half of Orange County and whatever else was downwind, which may have been environmentally incorrect but was certainly kind of cool and (particularly given the nationwide glut of Julio Iglesias albums and AOL disks) the sort of thing that--given much-needed legislation to rezone all gated communities for just such purposes--would bear frequent repetition, now that I think about it. I’m just glad that I wasn’t the peon who had to scrape the charred vinyl off the grass the next day.
Anyway, say a word for Das Damen...such Gestures don’t come cheap. Sweet nothin’; they ain’t got nothin’ at all. It was years before I saw one of their CDs in the store again--even in the more “alternative” outlets. (I did manage to acquire a dozen sealed Marshmellow cassettes for about a buck apiece, but that’s another tale. I may need to live off them someday soon!) Whatever might have happened with their career, didn’t. They staggered for awhile, like wounded flies, finally disbanding. Last I’d heard, they’d found work as Arthur Lee’s backing group, which is an extremely cool thing to be doing and I know I certainly wouldn’t mind the gig, but it’s not exactly a career move. And even less of one now that Arthur’s in jail. *sigh*
You’d think Paul would have offered them work, but noooooo...., ghod forbid he should ever make an interesting album again. You’d think this sordid tale would at least have inspired a song of some kind--he could even have called it “How Do You Peep” to boost the ledger of that ever-perilous Pauline Quota of Cutesies. All he’d need is a ska beat to make it trendy, and a piccolo solo to keep it candyass. About the closest he’s come to a lyric lately (I’ve been waiting in vain ever since for it to turn up in the Reader’s Digest page of “Quotable Quotes”) is that throwaway line in “Flaming Pie” about how his brains are so scrambled he doesn’t know when and if they’ll ever function properly again. Which in the end is just more curliques, of course, one more one-liner tossed off his shoulder when he isn’t too busy writing oratorios.
Paul’s OK, though, he’s cool, he’s over it, he’s a survivor. And as for the King of Pop...as we all know, simply being Michael Jackson is punishment enough.
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