The Truth Behind The Alex Lloyd ‘Amazing’ Saga (According To A Mysteriously Knowledgeable Defamer Australia Commenter)
Are you, like very few people, strangely captivated by the copyright saga currently surrounding Alex Lloyd’s massive hit ‘Amazing’? Yesterday Clem talked about how truck driver/musician Mark O’Keefe, the fellow who is suing Lloyd, has his updated recollection of how things went down and revealed he now believes he wrote the song with Lloyd up to two years later than he originally stated when he launched legal action.
A mysterious commenter named Sam contacted us and gave us a very, very lengthy version of events from “someone who was actually there”.
It’s just someone’s opinion, and there’s no way for us to verify it (thank GOD for the legal system, eh? Imagine if Defamer Australia was left in charge of running things!) but it may prove to be an interesting read.
Please get your facts right before you crucify a brilliant songwriter and singer. Mark was not a truck driver at the time, he had only started driving a truck in the last couple of years to support his family. Maybe if Alex had of come clean with the copyright, he would not have needed to. Mark O’keefe has always been, and still is, a professional musician. You make him sound like a truck driver leaning on the bar getting drunk. Mark O’keefe wrote the song “Amazing” and this was witnessed by many people at the Bridge hotel in 1991. At the time in question Mark O’keefe and his band “What’s Next” were performing to a packed hotel. When the band had finished to a standing ovation, Mark was approached by Alex Lloyd, then (Slim La Beef) or (Slim) from his Band “Slim La Beef and the Spare Ribs” as he was known.
What’s Next was not just your average mediocre pub band either, and had many guest artists, including Stevie Wright (Easybeats) Paul Day (Iron Maiden) and Laurie Marlow (Heaven), to name a few.
Back then there were about a dozen local bands doing the Balmain circuit which “What’s Next” and “The Beefs” were part of; they all knew each other well. Alex was astounded, that of all the local blues bands, his included, Mark O’keefe and his band “What’s Next” were playing over thirty original songs at the time, and they were good. After congratulating Mark on a great night, Alex asked him, “how did you write all those great songs”. Mark then spent a couple of hours in deep conversation with Alex, including discussing the art of song writing, before Slim again asked the question, “but how do you write a song?”, to which Mark replied, “I’ll show you, we will write one now”. After a while there were words written on coasters all over their table, with no input from Slim whatsoever, and then it was time to go home.
As Slim had not yet contributed to the song, and as a bit of a lesson, it was agreed that Slim should take the coasters home with him and finish off the lyrics, so that he could have his input into the song and return it to Mark for further input and approval, which never eventuated, and Alex avoided Mark thereafter, whereby the two of them lost touch with each other.
As for Mark changing his story, as far as I know, this is not the case. Mark has always affirmed that he knew Alex from around 1989 onwards, and had other indepth discussions with Alex apart from the night in question. Alex was a local kid, who everybody knew, who spent many a day busking around Balmain, and Mark knew he had a great future ahead of him due to his brilliant vocal ability. Otherwise, Mark would not have put in so much of his own creative energy into helping him on the night in question.
People go their own ways and by the time Alex Lloyd, alias (Slim La Beef) released “Amazing”, Mark was moving to New Zealand, so he and his wife could look after his sick mother-in-law. Can you imagine what it feels like for an average person, with average income, to go up against a giant like Sony Music. That was Marks dilemma, and with that in mind, I think anyone could understand the delay in taking action.
Mark felt ripped off and betrayed and this has been brewing in Mark for long time and he has finally built up the courage to have a go and bring the truth to the surface, so please don’t crucify a brilliant song writer and singer, that I hope will continue to write wonderful and beautiful writings. By the way, Mark has 30 years of musical experience behind him to back up his case. How are you going to back up yours? By jumping through the nearest time portal and transporting yourself back to 1955 when Velcro was first patented? Your not very good at research are you??? I believe I have made my point. From someone who was actually there!
And there you have… something. We anxiously await the court’s verdict.
- Next Post: A Tale Of Two Swimmers (Or Possibly Three) »
- « Previous Post: Aaron Sorkin-Like Presence Invades Facebook In The Name Of Research
Comments
Slim La Beef? Bahahahahahhaahahahahahah!!!!
It is very difficult to take this dude seriously with his constant references to Slim La Beef (and the Spare Ribs).
But I am actually curious as to where Clem is going to find a time travel machine in order to prove that she created Velcro. I wonder if this guy has an opinion on how many albums Dido has sold?
Being a musician (unpublished) and having an interest in copyright law (unqualified) myself, this will be an interesting story to follow …
After reading this post, i quickly googled and found other related articles reporting on this case. Having studied the various reports and looking at the artist history (which i was already familiar with to a degree, from being an avid triple j listener) it seems somewhat hard to believe that anyone who legitimately wrote, co-wrote or collaborated on a song that topped the sales and airplay charts, won an APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association) award, had been commercially licensed and went to number 1 in another country, would wait seven long years to stake their piece of the pie?? Or does it??
Let’s have a look at some history: The defendant (Lloyd) first released original recordings with his band ‘Mother Hubbard’ who had a major recording contract with Festival Records. Somewhere between 1997 and 1998 Lloyd signed a solo deal with EMI Music and his debut album ‘Black The Sun’ was released in 1999 (platinum sales), the follow up album ‘Watching Angels Mend’ in 2001 (double platinum) the third album ‘Distant Light’ in 2003 (platinum sales). He then went on to sign a deal with Sony Music who released his fourth album ‘Alex Lloyd’ in 2005 (platinum sales).
Alex Wasiliev (Lloyd is his performing name) is credited for writing, or co-writing (yes other writers have been credited where tracks have been co-written) all of his published work. Why would Lloyd have left off the co-write credit for one track ? There was no possible way he could have predicted how successful the song would be. A co-incidence that the song in question appears to be (not a known fact, this is my estimation based on possible income generated from commercial licensing) his biggest income generator ?
Anyone with access to the internet can look up an artist’s history (they all talk about where they grew up, played their first gig etc) and place themselves in the picture. Now I can only make my judgment based on what I’ve researched (yep, all the above history is courtesy of the internet) and various media reports, not knowing either of the individuals (Alex Lloyd or Mark O’Keefe) personally.
My summary of the situation:
Mr Lloyd has proved his worth as a published singer/songwriter/ with a solid track record of success, both before and after the release of the song in question.
Mr O’Keefe on the other hand, it appears is yet to establish himself (or google wasn’t working when i tried to look up his history?) as a published or unpublished singer/songwriter of any sort. He is trying to substantiate his claim based on his vague (I use this word because his story has changed from his original claim) recollection of writing the song in question with Lloyd.
In Closing:
Mr O’Keefe, I’m sure you are a very nice man but I find your claim hard to believe. If you read this, can you please reply and answer this question for me?
Why have you waited seven years to sue this guy ? Please don’t tell me it’s because you moved to New Zealand to look after your sick mother in-law, the song went to #1 over there after it was a success here, wouldn’t that have made you more motivated to seek justice?
Mr Lloyd, while i believe you to be telling the truth, are you sure you don’t want to give this guy the credit for the opening line of the song in question, ‘when all you want to do is rock, but you don’t want to bear the shock no more’ ?? Not your finest moment.
D :)
To Dazz,
I am not a musician, or a lawyer so really i dont have much to offer.
But one thing i have is being a defendant for a double parking offence, and I was self representing myself.
My case was just simple case which i was wrongfully accused of double park and that case took many months to arrange and end with a favourable verdicts. A total of 7-8 months was taken.
I am not supporting anybody in this instance due to my limited knowledge on it, but from my own court experiences self representing takes time to research and energy (particularly you have a life) and this is a critical case because the other party could easily counter-sue for defarmation.
So against company like Sony, it may really have taken him that many years to gather strong evidences to support his claim.
Most importantly, it doesn’t matter if it takes 7-20+ years, as long as you have strong objective evidences, you can still sue them after 30 years!!
In fact one thing i learn from my experiences is that there is something called ‘Oral evidences’ IMO its call BULLSHIT!!
Based on your internet research, was there any strong objective evidences which suggested Alex Lloyd have violated the copyright ACT?
Okay, get this! I was just watching Brides of Christ (1991) on DVD this arvo and there was a scene set at a high-school dance with a band murdering ’60s classics such as “Save The Last Dance”. I thought to myself, “Ha, that fatty boombah singer looks like Alex Lloyd,” but then I noticed in the end credits that the band in that scene was “The Beef”.
IT WAS TOTALLY HIM!
I love it when people talk about themselves in the third person. Hilarious!
Dear Gerson (et al)
Your statement that “Most importantly, it doesn’t matter if it takes 7-20+ years, as long as you have strong objective evidences, you can still sue them after 30 years!!” just does not holdup in all circumstances.
This is not the first case of this kind that has appeared in our courts (eg, recently Men at Work and “Kookaburra”). However, before you blast off into unknown realms you would do well to understand the law of intellectual property that may well determine this case. A major flaw in Mr O’Keefe’s case will fall under the “Doctrine of Laches”. This is a well established cornerstone of this area of the law. Simply put – if a person is aware of a situation where somebody else may be infringing their “ownership” (whether or not that ownership has been officially recognized under copyright or IP law), then the aggrieved party may forfeit any or all rights to that property. In other words – Mr O’Keefe’s failure to enforce his belief that he has some ownership of the song while he was aware of its success and that it had become well known to the public, may mean he has forfeited some / all of any rights he may have had. This does not apply if someone is unaware of an infringement (eg, those claiming some ownership of Men at Work’s “Downunder”) – however it seems in this case Mr O’Keefe has acknowledged that he was aware of the song’s existense for many years and believed he had co-written the song. he may fall foul of this established legal doctrine. The kicker in this however is that under IP and property law, failure to acknowledge all relevent “inventors” may render the original assigning of ownership invalid. In other words, if Mr lloyd and Mr O’Keefe jointly came up with the song, but Mr lloyd did not acknowledge Mr O’Keefe’s joint contribution when he registered the song, then it could be argued that in fact the registration is invalid and that nobody owns the song.