Robert Fripp's Diary

Sunday 08 November 2009

Bredonborough Morning reading paused as

10.51

Bredonborough.

Morning reading paused as traffic is halted for local service groups to march past, in the pouring rain, en route to the Abbey for the annual Commemoration Service I…

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In London, Uncle Bill (aka Squadron Leader AG Fripp, RAF Retd.)
will be taking part in the parade at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, the primary service of Remembrance in this country, as he does each year. Fortunately, it is not raining in London.

In Ipswich, according to the Minx, it is also not raining.

11.31 In this Weekend FT’s Andrew Hill (Lombard) column…

We all suffer when banks abuse customers’ trust.

Lombard: when banks abuse customers’ trust
By Andrew Hill
Published: November 6 2009 20:41 | Last updated: November 6 2009 20:41
The credit crunch and ensuing financial crisis were inflamed by a breakdown of trust on a grand scale.

The Financial Services Authority fined UBS £8m for its failure to prevent employees carrying out unauthorised trades with customers’ money. Four as yet unnamed members of staff foisted more than $42.4m of losses (since reimbursed) on to unsuspecting customers until someone blew the whistle.

Two insights stand out starkly from the FSA’s final notice of the fine. The first is the long period over which these abuses took place: two years, during which at one point up to 50 unauthorised trades were being made daily. That this happened during the “golden years” for banks, in 2006 and 2007, is no coincidence. The FSA suggests one material factor leading to the failures – the second important insight – was the go-go, bonus-fuelled growth UBS’s international wealth management business was pursuing at the time. As the Swiss bank’s own painful postmortem of its ill-fated expansion into subprime securities revealed, aggressive growth…

I have commented before that the abuse of trust, revealed very publicly in the collapse of the banking & financial sector during the past 12-16 months, is pretty much a commonplace of my life as a professional player over the past 42 years. Now ordinary, innocent members of the public may have a sense of life in the music industry.

Andrew Hill’s comments…

1.    Unintentionally implied? For employees to have re-directed clients’ money is worse than for the principals to have done so?!!

2.    The financial mess was inflamed by a breakdown of trust on a grand scale.

3.    Two years is a long period for abuses to take place.

4.    The go-go, bonus-fuelled growth UBS’s international wealth management business was pursuing at the time.

5.    Ill-fated expansion into subprime securities...

If we recall the collapse of EG during 1988-1991:

1.    The abuse of trust was by the principals of the EG Group, Messrs. Alder & Fenwick; albeit the employees mostly did what they were told, including those nominally holding responsibility for my own interests.

2.    Mr. Alder was a chartered accountant, Secretary & Treasurer of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, adviser to the Palace. Surely this was a man you could trust? A Good Guy That You Can Trust (to quote Mr. Alder himself) in an industry renowned for its, well, abuse of trust.

3.    Two years is the period during which my record royalties were not paid, but redirected to the principals via Athol & Co, formerly EG Management, to support their collapsing affairs; ie the unpaid royalties were converted into forced & undeclared interest-free loans to the partners, while I paid interest on my own borrowing, arranged for me by Mr. Alder to cover the subsequent shortfall in my affairs.

4.    Mr. Alder’s attention increasingly moved from the music & record industry, a money-making machine 1968-1978, into property & security interests after 1978; funded by advances for publishing & records on the EG catalogue (which were not shared with artists). EG was awash with money (c. 1977 to quote a former Power Possessor at Island Records). Contributions to the partners’ pension fund in the early 1980s was at £100,000 per annum.

5.    The ill-fated expansion of Messrs. Alder & Fenwick was into the Lloyd’s insurance market, notably the Marine 475 syndicate.

Manuel Castells p3…

… power is based on the control of communication and information…

Control was the prime distinguishing feature of EG managerial policy. As one EG employee, with responsibility for KC, put it to me during Endless Grief: the first thing they taught us was, control the artist.

EG controlled information, and they also controlled the money supply of their managed artists. The Chieftains were one of the very few artists having a client account at EG (they were sub-managed within the office). I was a long-term artist, whose relationship had begun when one trusted the word of a gentleman. Mr. Alder even played this card, after I wrote to Coutts & Co. at Sloane Square (March / April 1991) to withdraw Mr. Alder’s authority to act on my behalf; eg to extend my own borrowing to cover his non-payment of due royalties). Mr. Alder declared to me: You made me look like a common criminal!

On the Nordoff-Robbins site, Monday, April 23rd, 2007

Sam Alder retires as Chairman of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy
Sam Alder, Chairman and founding member of the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Charity, has resigned from his position as Chairman of the Board of Governors at the advice of his doctors.
An accountant by trade, Sam spent much of his life in the music industry, managing bands including T Rex and Roxy Music. This work introduced him to the pioneering work of Nordoff-Robbins Music therapists and he became instrumental in establishing the charity, working firstly as Secretary, then Treasurer and latterly Chairman.

Pauline Etkin, Managing Director of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, said: “Sam Alder’s contribution over more than 30 years to Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy has been invaluable and wide. He has been a driving force in many aspects of the charity’s development and it is with great sadness that we see him depart. We all want to thank him for his support and wish him a happy retirement.”

In his various roles within the charity, Sam Alder helped to raise over £6m pounds, which allowed the building of a dedicated Music Therapy Centre, and the expanding of the range of the charity throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. This includes the establishment of therapy centres in Scotland and New York. He also initiated the establishment of the International Trust for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, which has enabled the protection of the intellectual properties of the work…
(my emphasis).

Would that Mr. Alder had taken a corresponding interest in protecting the intellectual properties of his artists; rather than, for example, telling me that it was necessary to assign EG my copyrights so that they could collect my royalties, protect my interests & defend the copyrights around the world (Sherborne House on 22 February 1976).

On January 13th. 2009, our attention of DGM HQ was directed towards the 40th. Anniversary of the birth of King Crimson in the basement of the Fulham Palace Café. On that day, another event took place in London: City University awarded Mr. Alder an honorary Doctor of Arts for services to philanthropy and music…

Mr Samuel Alder is Senior Partner of Alder Dodsworth & Co, Chartered Accountants and runs the family estate which includes a dairy farm. After graduating from the University of Durham, Mr Alder qualified as a Chartered Accountant and started his career at Whinney Murray, now Ernst & Young. He ran the E.G. Group of music companies in partnership for twenty five years and was a founder investor of several commercial radio stations as well as the music industry’s main international charity Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy. For a number of years Mr Alder was the charity’s Hon. Treasurer and Chairman, as well as a Trustee of the BRIT Trust, and the Hon. Treasurer and later Vice Chairman of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Special Projects Group. He holds the positions of Chairman of the Isle of Man Creamery, Chairman of the Isle of Man Arts Council, Chairman of the Board of Governors of King William’s College, Chairman of the Association of Governing Bodies of Independent Schools and is a member of the board of the Independent Schools Council and also of the Independent Schools Inspectorate.

The Nordoff-Robbins site has this…

Sam Alder, a founding member of the original 1976 Nordoff-Robbins Fundraising Committee who served as Chairman of the Board of Governors from 1997 to 2007, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts by City University London at a ceremony on 13 January 2009. The honour was made for services to philanthropy and music, and in particular for his proactive work for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy over three decades. Pauline Etkin, CEO of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, who nominated Sam Alder for the degree said:

"Sam Alder possesses a rare combination of talents. With a background in classical music, he qualified in the City as a Chartered Accountant with a major firm and then went on to become a principal in a music management and publishing company where he managed the careers of musicians such as T Rex, King Crimson, Toyah Willcox and Roxy Music. This combination of skills and gifts made him an ideal Treasurer in 1976 for the newly-formed Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Charity Fundraising Committee. This company of exuberant young people worked to raise funds within the music industry for a pioneering new way of using music to help children and adults with many forms of disability or illness, helping them to communicate and achieve an improved quality of life.

"In no small measure the amazing success of the charity over the years has been thanks to Sam’s many gifts. Under his wise guidance the charity grew steadily from year to year, to become the nationally operative organisation that it is today with an annual turnover of nearly £3 million, providing music therapy services across the UK, as well as two Master’s degree training programmes and a PhD programme, all validated by City University. In 1990 Sam was instrumental in raising six million pounds, which allowed the building of a dedicated Music Therapy Centre, and the expansion of music therapy throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. This included the establishment of therapy centres in Scotland and New York. He also initiated the establishment of the International Trust for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, which has enabled the protection of the intellectual properties of the work.

"Sam is a remarkable man who combines many abilities which he has used freely for the good of all."

It would be interesting to ask artists formerly managed by Mr. Alder, notably Bryan Ferry & Toyah, in addition to their professional advisers, for comments on Mr. Alder’s many abilities which he has used freely for the good of all. Regrettably, Bryan & Toyah & others are restrained from commenting favourably on their relationships with Mr. Alder because they are bound by EG gagging clauses. As is most likely apparent to any reader of the Diary, I am not. This permits me to provide bear witness to some of Mr. Alder’s many abilities which he has used.

Quoteable Quotes:
SG Alder Esq.: I’m an honest, God-fearing family man (handwritten letter 1991).

SG Alder Esq.: We’re sorry for what happened (letter 1991; Mr. Alder didn’t say what happened).

Bill Bruford: Who manages the manager?
(The Autobiography 2009).

Albert Low: Conflict & Creativity At Work (2008) p.121 ... because (the president) is the dynamic center of the company, the way that he carries out his function will also determine the ethos of the company... he will determine its fundamental and distinctive character, its value system – the spiritual, ethical, moral and legal context within which the field operates; and also the social system – the way that employees will interact with each other.

P149 As (Elliot) Jacques pointed out… we have an innate sense of fairness, and when that sense is violated we suffer… cognitive dissonance that can range all the way from the sense of unease to a sense of outrage.

P169… the prevailing ethos in the corporate world is that greed is good.

Pauline Etkin, CEO of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy (2009): Sam is a remarkable man who combines many abilities which he has used freely for the good of all.

Guitar Craft Aphorism: There is merit, and blessing, and reward for those who undertake necessary work; attenuated to the degree that this work is undertaken in the anticipation of merit, and blessing, and reward.

I have seen in the industry, in various characters at various times, a trajectory from ambition to greed to exploitation to arrogance to hubris to collapse. But, it doesn’t matter much where we begin; it matters very much who we become.

12.35 Meanwhile, the service groups marched back from the Abbey I…

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The emerging public consensus in this country is tending towards support for the services, in inverse proportion to support for their presence in Afghanistan.

18.53 An afternoon practicing with e-flurrying & computing.

Afternoon views I…