Joe Meek

[mtgguitar]

I just watched the BBC documentary (In 4 parts, on Youtube) of Joe Meek's life and death. He was a music producer and songwriter in the 1960's in London.

He changed the way pop records were made but his strange personality led to violence. He was raised as a girl for the first four years of his life because mum wanted a daughter.

WIKI: "He passed up the chance to work with David Bowie, the Beatles (the latter he once described as "just another bunch of noise, copying other people's music") and Rod Stewart."

It's a good story, AND, you can see Steve Marriott playing drums on one of the segments.

 

[Rich]

I'll have to keep my eye out for that documentary. He's a pretty legendary engineer who pioneered the use of compression - there's even a line of studio gear named after him.

 

[mtgguitar]

I'll have to keep my eye out for that documentary. He's a pretty legendary engineer who pioneered the use of compression - there's even a line of studio gear named after him.

Fascinating story:


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei1UCOUXM14"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei1UCOUXM14[/ame]

 

[EasyAce]

A strange and sad story about a man whose production innovations outlive most of the actual music he helped to make---if you don't count:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0jUvufQgQo]The Tornados, "Telstar"[/ame]

Joe Meek may have helped change the way pop records could be made, but most of the ones he did make were absolute horrors. You appreciate his use of the studio and of how he could and did blend odd and often clashing sounds into something that sounded sensible enough, even as you deplore that such a visionary applied those gifts to music that could only be called, 98 percent of the time, atrocious. If he'd done nothing but "Telstar," maybe his best work (p.s. Meek---who otherwise couldn't sing or play to save his ass---actually played on "Telstar": it was him, of all people, playing the now-ancient clavioline that provided the song's signature melody sound), Meek would be remembered and learned from.

(Bizarre postscript: Meek and the Tornados faced a copyright infringement litigation over "Telstar" that kept both Meek and the Tornados from seeing royalties for their biggest hit, plus Meek had also let the band be signed to an airtight contract employing them as the backing group for early British rock star Billy Fury---which kept the Tornados from touring internationally around their biggest hit. The copyright suit was settled in Meek's and the Tornados' favour . . . in 1968, a year after the Tornados disbanded after hitless years following "Telstar," and a year after Meek shot his landlady and then himself to death.)

 

[mtgguitar]

A strange and sad story about a man whose production innovations outlive most of the actual music he helped to make---if you don't count:

Joe Meek may have helped change the way pop records could be made, but most of the ones he did make were absolute horrors. You appreciate his use of the studio and of how he could and did blend odd and often clashing sounds into something that sounded sensible enough, even as you deplore that such a visionary applied those gifts to music that could only be called, 98 percent of the time, atrocious. If he'd done nothing but "Telstar," maybe his best work (p.s. Meek---who otherwise couldn't sing or play to save his ass---actually played on "Telstar": it was him, of all people, playing the now-ancient clavioline that provided the song's signature melody sound), Meek would be remembered and learned from.

(Bizarre postscript: Meek and the Tornados faced a copyright infringement litigation over "Telstar" that kept both Meek and the Tornados from seeing royalties for their biggest hit, plus Meek had also let the band be signed to an airtight contract employing them as the backing group for early British rock star Billy Fury---which kept the Tornados from touring internationally around their biggest hit. The copyright suit was settled in Meek's and the Tornados' favour . . . in 1968, a year after the Tornados disbanded after hitless years following "Telstar," and a year after Meek shot his landlady and then himself to death.)

He was slowly going insane. He had a very bad temper and misused his musicians. I'm watching the biopic "Telstar: The Joe Meek Story."

Here is Steve Mariott playing drums behind a talentless singer who Meek had a crush on. His name was Heinz, the audience threw beans at him.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVZy5uJ27w"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVZy5uJ27w[/ame]

 

[mtgguitar]

There is a new documentary about Meek in the works, Jimmy Page is a backer.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v934Fn2F3vs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v934Fn2F3vs[/ame]