1. When Joe Meek’s studio shamanism became too loud, his landlady at 304 Holloway Road apparently used to bang on the ceiling below with a broom.
2. I’ve always liked to think that she would have tapped on the ceiling anyway, whether the music was too loud or not. I imagine she did not consider much of what he was up to “music”.
3. Joe Meek used to retaliate by positioning his speakers in the stairwell. This may well have been the start of The End.
4. In 1959 Joe Meek was working on a concept album about outer space entitled ‘I Hear a New World – an Outer Space Music Fantasy’. He was engaged on this project with a former skiffle group called Rod Freeman & the Blue Men. Only partly released in excised (exorcised?) form in March 1960, it would not be released in anything approaching its finished form until 1991.
5. Although I’m sure this late release can be put down to a variety of commercial and legal reasons, nevertheless it is fair to say that ‘I Hear a New World’ made far less of a splash in 1991 than it would have done had it been properly released in 1960.
6. This is because the world had moved on. Pop, punk, disco etcetera etcetera.
7. ‘I Hear a New World – an Outer Space Music Fantasy’ still represents a watershed in innovation on account of its remarkable use of electronic sound. I would argue for its genius.
8. Much of what Joe Meek pioneered had not only become commonplace (multiple over-dubbing on one- and two-track machines, close miking, direct input of bass guitars, the compressor, and effects like echo and reverb, as well as sampling) but had been surpassed. Harold Wilson’s “white heat of technology” had proved hotter. By the 1980s, one could accomplish with a Fairlight above and beyond not only Meek’s output but the output of even a few years previously. All in one box.
9. Nevertheless, it would be truly impossible to ever recreate Meek’s output. Though with a Fairlight an eighties musician could have sampled their toilet flushing and modified it to sound like a space rocket taking off, just as in Meek’s 1962 Number One Hit for The Tornadoes, ‘Telstar’ (I have always thought it sounded rather more like a toilet than a space rocket…).
10. Being the eighties though, they would have probably sampled a space rocket. Very loudly.
11. The fact remains that Meek was in every way a maverick. He genuinely was hearing a new world - the new world technology had afforded us only a glimpse of - and attempting to communicate this to an audience.
12. Not very successfully (see 5.).
13. This is not to say Meek was not successful (see 9.).
14. Out of 245 singles he worked on, 45 were major hits (top fifty or better).
15. As a general rule though, songs about people - love and death etcetera etcetera proved more popular than songs about outer space e.g. Number One Hits ‘Johnny Remember Me’ by John Leyton and ‘Have I the right?’ by The Honeycombs.
16. My father informs me that the latter inspired a brief dance craze at youth club discos in the Knott End / Preesall area in June 1964, involving circles being formed and much stamping of feet around the chorus.
17. Girls apparently liked The Honeycombs because they had a female drummer (alas this research is confined to the Knott End / Preesall area. For the time being…).
18. To return to 14., it is possible that Joe Meek would have had more hits had he been willing to work with The Beatles (“just another bunch of noise, copying other people’s music” he remarked), David Bowie or Rod Stewart. He worked with Tom Jones but didn’t have a hit. C’est la vie.
19. At least one of the above is considered pretty important by a lot of people, but I forget which…
20. All of the above is pretty important to me.
21. This is a blog about pop music.
22. Pop music interests me for many reasons, much of which are alluded to above.
23. I enjoy pop music for an indescribable number of reasons. I like the way it innovates, enervates, immolates, encapsulates, fornicates, remonstrates, dedicates, defecates… but perhaps most of all I like the way it simply gets us singing along, sometimes for a short amount of time, and sometimes for a very long time. In this blog, I want to consider pop music – what it was, what it is and what it might be, both for me and for other people. Sometimes I might write about other things, in paragraphs not necessarily numbered. Rules are there to be broken, but in this blog I might try to formulate some of my own…
2. I’ve always liked to think that she would have tapped on the ceiling anyway, whether the music was too loud or not. I imagine she did not consider much of what he was up to “music”.
3. Joe Meek used to retaliate by positioning his speakers in the stairwell. This may well have been the start of The End.
4. In 1959 Joe Meek was working on a concept album about outer space entitled ‘I Hear a New World – an Outer Space Music Fantasy’. He was engaged on this project with a former skiffle group called Rod Freeman & the Blue Men. Only partly released in excised (exorcised?) form in March 1960, it would not be released in anything approaching its finished form until 1991.
5. Although I’m sure this late release can be put down to a variety of commercial and legal reasons, nevertheless it is fair to say that ‘I Hear a New World’ made far less of a splash in 1991 than it would have done had it been properly released in 1960.
6. This is because the world had moved on. Pop, punk, disco etcetera etcetera.
7. ‘I Hear a New World – an Outer Space Music Fantasy’ still represents a watershed in innovation on account of its remarkable use of electronic sound. I would argue for its genius.
8. Much of what Joe Meek pioneered had not only become commonplace (multiple over-dubbing on one- and two-track machines, close miking, direct input of bass guitars, the compressor, and effects like echo and reverb, as well as sampling) but had been surpassed. Harold Wilson’s “white heat of technology” had proved hotter. By the 1980s, one could accomplish with a Fairlight above and beyond not only Meek’s output but the output of even a few years previously. All in one box.
9. Nevertheless, it would be truly impossible to ever recreate Meek’s output. Though with a Fairlight an eighties musician could have sampled their toilet flushing and modified it to sound like a space rocket taking off, just as in Meek’s 1962 Number One Hit for The Tornadoes, ‘Telstar’ (I have always thought it sounded rather more like a toilet than a space rocket…).
10. Being the eighties though, they would have probably sampled a space rocket. Very loudly.
11. The fact remains that Meek was in every way a maverick. He genuinely was hearing a new world - the new world technology had afforded us only a glimpse of - and attempting to communicate this to an audience.
12. Not very successfully (see 5.).
13. This is not to say Meek was not successful (see 9.).
14. Out of 245 singles he worked on, 45 were major hits (top fifty or better).
15. As a general rule though, songs about people - love and death etcetera etcetera proved more popular than songs about outer space e.g. Number One Hits ‘Johnny Remember Me’ by John Leyton and ‘Have I the right?’ by The Honeycombs.
16. My father informs me that the latter inspired a brief dance craze at youth club discos in the Knott End / Preesall area in June 1964, involving circles being formed and much stamping of feet around the chorus.
17. Girls apparently liked The Honeycombs because they had a female drummer (alas this research is confined to the Knott End / Preesall area. For the time being…).
18. To return to 14., it is possible that Joe Meek would have had more hits had he been willing to work with The Beatles (“just another bunch of noise, copying other people’s music” he remarked), David Bowie or Rod Stewart. He worked with Tom Jones but didn’t have a hit. C’est la vie.
19. At least one of the above is considered pretty important by a lot of people, but I forget which…
20. All of the above is pretty important to me.
21. This is a blog about pop music.
22. Pop music interests me for many reasons, much of which are alluded to above.
23. I enjoy pop music for an indescribable number of reasons. I like the way it innovates, enervates, immolates, encapsulates, fornicates, remonstrates, dedicates, defecates… but perhaps most of all I like the way it simply gets us singing along, sometimes for a short amount of time, and sometimes for a very long time. In this blog, I want to consider pop music – what it was, what it is and what it might be, both for me and for other people. Sometimes I might write about other things, in paragraphs not necessarily numbered. Rules are there to be broken, but in this blog I might try to formulate some of my own…
1 comment:
I didn't get the joke, although I note that _you_ now have a _landlady_ who is something of a studio shaman. I hope she doesn't shoot you.
Also, I have made the first comment on the first post on your first blog. I am a maker of third-order history.
Now bring on the Brel, please.
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