It's hard to put into words the impact that Joe Meek has had on the past fifty years of pop music in a brief blog post. I am going to do what I can but I also recommend you download the two out-of-print collections I have provided below, read the book The Legendary Joe Meek: The Telstar Man by John Repsch and that you watch the fantastic Arena documentary The Strange Story of Joe Meek, conveniently embedded below.
Joe was one of those cats who seemed to have no sense of the world around him, or if he did he openly thumbed his nose at it. Meek's output as a producer in the early to mid sixties offers a seemingly endless treasure trove of twisted pop gems. Tales of teenager heartache infused with elements of the occult (which Meek was VERY interested in) and recording techniques that, then and now, defy logical thought.
Meek had been recording and engineering sessions for artist of all genres throughout the 50's but his most important work wasn't until the dawn of the sixties. It was then he opened up his in home studio where he would do all his recording, his way throughout the decade. Working in his own home, in his own element outside the watch full eye of studio execs allowed Meek the freedom to take risk and record those risk on tape.
Above all Joe Meek just didn't give a fuck in the studio. His experimentation with effects, recording tricks, instrument deconstruction and noise had nothing to do with a hard fought internal struggle to break down pop conventions (Brian Wilson, Syd Barret) and everything to do with manifesting the music that bopped in his brain . His disregard and eventual disdain for the mainstream hit factory had surprising positive results. The kids loved it and bought it in droves, many of those hits can be found on the collection posted here.
The main stream hits that Meek released mirror most his American counterpart and contemporary Phil Spector. Both were pop visionaries at a time when pop music was about as lame as it has ever been. Both sought to turn the idea of what "the kids" would be listening to upside down, but in very different ways. Both share a dirty and amateur sound. No great singers or crystal clear vocals, all heart and spunk without the studio refinement. Spector had his Wall of Sound and honed in on the precise elements that composed that sound. With each ground breaking and chart topping single Spector worked to refine that Wall of Sound. Meek took a different approach by never getting caught up on one idea, technique or approach. Instead he would constantly be experimenting and recording, painting as many pictures as he could with sound.
The naiveté inherent through out Meek's recordings is endearing like no other. There is an emotional directness shared by his contemporaries Burt Bacharach and Hal David coupled with the anti-establishment sounds of Lee Hazelwood and Billy Strange. Meek takes this all one step further with his informed but innocent spirit resulting in post modern, yet personal avant art that acts like The Residents, Talking Heads and even Beat Happening would later explore.
Meek's popularity began to wain in the mid sixties due to a "lurid sex conviction" which shook up his personal life and drew him into depression and even deeper into his fascination and paranoia with the paranormal. Joe would do things like talk to cats, record in graveyards and commit a murder suicide on the anniversary of his idol Buddy Holly's death. All of these things, along with The Rolling Stones, left Meek with his last hit and last breath in 1967.
But I know what you are really here for is the free music! It's Hard to Believe It is the best one disc collection of the man's work. It is missing some key tracks including a personal favorite The Blue Rondo's Little Baby. Also included is the out-of-print Vampires Cowboys Spacemen & Spooks, a 2CD collection of Meek instrumentals for those of you who can't handle pop music.
Other releases that are in print and recommended, once you realize you can't get enough include I Hear a New World, the 1960 space pop oddity that has more in common with The Residents than anything going on with his contemporaries at the time. Much later in his career the desire to produce more hits and recover money he never received for past hits, forced Meek to jump on the "beat" bandwagon. It was in this time he recorded some more straight forward (but classically Meek) Nuggets style garage tunes. These can be found on the collection Joe Meek's: Freakbeat: 30 Freakbeat Mob & R&B. And if anyone can hook me up with a copy of Joe Meek: The Alchemist of Pop, which seems the only place to find the track Jack the Ripper on CD, that would be most appreciated.
TUE: Mumiy Troll/Run Run Run (The Loft) THR: Hormones/Sir Name and the Janes/Bulletproof Tiger (The Cavern) THR: Nails/Kill the Client/Big Fiction/Humanerror (The Nightmare)* FRI: Curvette/Violent Squid/Peopleodian/Kaboom (a Barn in Denton) FRI: Female Demand/Final Club (house show, Denton) FRI: Hentai Improvising Orchestra/Violent Squid/Tony Sims (1919 Hemphill) FRI: Autolux/Gold Panda (The Loft) FRI: Designer Drugs/Yeah Def (Granada) FRI: Maria Bamford (Sanders Theater in Fort Worth) SAT: "Cats & Dogs Denton Humane Society Benefit" Greg Ginn/Shiny Around the Edges/Dust Congress/Brent Best/Chris Flemmons/Dim Locator/Dear Human/RTB2/Spooky Folk/Record Hop/Video/New Science Projects/Delmore Pilcrow/Sabra Laval (Rubber Gloves) SAT: Something Fierce/Bare Wires/Static Mind (The Nightmare) SAT: Maria Bamford (Sanders Theater)
*I noticed on the Parade of Flesh website (yes I do visit John!) there is a memorial to the comedian Robert Schimmel who passed away in a car wreck last week. PoF list Schimmel as being best known for TV Funhouse when in reality TV Funhouse is the creation of SNL writer Robert SMIGEL, easy mistake I guess. Robert Smigel also played Adam Sandler's dentist brother in law in PT Anderson's Punch Drunk Love and is still alive.
Amandla is the musical project of Ween drummer Claude Coleman Jr. The guy makes some pleasing neo-soul with psychedelic flourishes that help shape the music instead of serving as novelty kitsch. Think an un-ironic Freedom of 76'.
Best show in Dallas on a very crowded night. This will be the Dallas debut for Frank favorites Cuckoo Byrds, hope the regulars are ready. Fiskadro come from Houston and feature ex-Indian Jewelery member Travis Kerschen. The sound is reminiscent of early PiL or a lounge-ier Liquid Liquid. Fiskadoro's Hypnotic and dubby sound should be a nice come down after the frenetic jitter of Marriage Material.
This month's installment of the proto/glam/shoegaze extravaganza helmed by the able crates of DJ Gabriel and Telegram Sam seems to have a Brian Eno theme according to the online postings. Sounds good to me. I once saw a Brian Eno cover night in Austin sometime in the early oughts which consisted mainly of dudes that looked like they were slinging gear for Eno in the early 70s. There was only about ten people there but one of those was none other than Britt Daniel from Austin's own Spoon. I was a never a big Spoon fan but the dude new alot about Eno and his autograph scored me some major significant other points.
Kiki is pretty hi profile electronic artist out of Germany and on the b-pitch label. Probably the show of the night for electroisseurs but not worth noting to the rest of the population.
This is a CD release for Dallas based 3 piece Missile who are either very tongue in cheek or very eager to star in a sequel to Scorpio Rising. Too bad the straight ahead garage rock sound doesn't match the campy facade. The high production values of the Myspace tells me these guys mean business.
Peopleodian | Dear Human | Baruch The Scribe | Western Giants (Rubber Gloves) So we've already discussed a lot of these local groups in recent months, particularly the awfulness of Baruch the Scribe and the surprisingly intriguing sounds of Peopleodian, an interesting project with one of the worst names ever. Dear Human play an effective brand of instrumental math rock that isn't and probably won't ever be my thing, but fans of the genre will likely appreciate much of it.
Titus Andronicus | Soft Environmental Collapse | Bizzaro Kids (Sons of Herman Hall) What I do with a band like Titus Andronicus? Or is it that I know exactly what to do, since we've been through this so many times before. Their first recordings consisted of pretty passable melodic rock; sloppy and impassioned without sounding too stupid. Casual follow-up listens would reveal, along with the bias-flaring occurrence of their subsequent signing to a larger label, what often occurs with so many bands of this ilk: They started acting more serious, had a "concept" for their new record, and started trying to rewrite some normo rock classic like Music From Big Pink or Rum, Sodomy, And The Lash or The Queen Is Dead, but through the band's own collective modern filter. So many once-exciting bands trade in their youthful flame and eventually settle for trying to make a record that's beyond them, and recording it as a band they are not. So many bands have done this over the years; the once-solid Dr. Dog as a recent example comes to mind, as does the aesthetic arc of Paul Westerberg's entire output and eventual descent into adult contemporary music. In Westerberg's defense, he just kind of peaked early. For some bands, it's better for your career to ditch the rough demo-sounding stuff, as it will maybe even ensure that you are played in dark-wood bars and suburban Irish-inspired pubs for years to come. It doesn't however always hold one's interest the way that those earlier recordings will.
Even more dubious is the band's choice of basing their new record around a Civil War-theme. Yikes. These things are all fine on their own; concept records, pub rock, The Civil War. But mix them altogether and you have a somewhat pretentious mess.
A well-respected venue head I know suggested yesterday, that it would be better to find people that are actually into the specific genre of the shows that are written up, and maybe this is a good example. Though the person was referring to punk rock and punk-pop leaning bands, it might be better to ask a "Senior Analyst Of Melodic Bar Rock" to cover this show. But I actually dispute that method. We definitely like punk and melodic bar rock, but only if it's well-done. That's a no-brainer, right?
Earlier today, I actually heard a Trey Johnson song that I liked more than anything on this band's new record. Does that mean I'm "maturing" or getting lamer? It had a guitar lick that almost sounded like Curtis Mayfield. Not bad.
