ON 3 February 1967 Robert George 'Joe' Meek
ended one of the most extraordinary stories in popular music with a
shotgun - killing Violet Shenton, landlady of the world's most unlikely
hit factory, at the same time............
Read
in full on-line
THE JOE MEEK SOCIETY
(formerly Joe Meek Appreciation Society)
JOE MEEK DOCUMENTARY SCREENINGS IN UK NEWS
We received following news from Howard and Susan who made the documentary:
Hello friends,
Our Joe Meek documentary "A Life In The Death of Joe Meek" has been invited to screen at the Cambridge International and Raindance Film Festivals. Very exciting news for us!
The Cambridge screening is scheduled for Tuesday, September 23 at 8:30pm and the Raindance (London) screening will be on Saturday, October 4 at 5pm.
We are planning to attend both festivals.
We've still got a long road before distribution but hopefully these showings will shorten that path.
More details to come. Thanks so much for hanging in there on this long journey to Meeksville!
All the best,
Susan and Howard
THE SAVAGES ARE
REFORMING
They are doing a warm up gig on Saturday 6th September, the venue is the Scout Hut, Greyhound Hill Hendon NW4 from 8PM. There is a bar and musicians wishing to play can turn up on the night.
This is a memorial gig for Tony Dangerfield prior to
their “official” 1st gig at the Bull & Butcher in Whetstone on Saturday 15th November.
This gig will see not only The Savages but the newly reformed Clayson & the Argonauts sharing the bill.
The Savages line up consists of Anjie Antinori on guitar, Johnny Casanova Keyboards & vocals, Rick Brown on bass (Rick was bassist even before Tony Dangerfield) and
Jack Irving on drums & vocals.
They have made the special effort in keeping the line up as original as possible and
feel they have managed to do this.
MYSPACE LAUNCH
We are also now on Myspace - check out www.myspace.com/joemeeksociety
TEA CHEST TAPES NEWS!!
THE FAME BUREAU's IT'S MORE THAN ROCK 'N' ROLL AUCTION on SEP 4TH 2008 LONDON 5pm
Below is taken from their website:
"Joe Meek Archive
The entire collection of Joe Meek's personal master tape recordings, comprising of approximately 1850 tapes containing some of the the earliest, and in some cases, first recordings of major stars.
Each reel of tape contains a number of tracks and so total track recordings are approximately 5000. Joe Meek became one of the true pioneers of British recording history in the fifties and sixties by challenging the established recording industry with his experimental and eccentric techniques, some of which are now standard within the profession.
Born in 1929, he was fascinated by electronics and after serving in the Royal air force as a radar technician Meek set up a recording career as an engineer for Lansdowne Recording studios, recording the likes of Anne Shelton amongst others including many of the UK's top Jazz musicians, using his own distinctive techniques. Meek subsequently created his own studio in his flat above a leather shop in Holloway Road London. It was at this flat that nearly all the collection of tapes were made, much of it on equipment that Meek himself had invented.
He achieved much sought after acclaim in 1962 with an Ivor Novello award for his self composed hit 'Telstar' named as the best selling A-side of 1962. It also became the first UK single to go to number 1 in the US charts. Joe Meek set about building a stable of young performers and would sign the acts himself and then lease the recordings to the major record companies, an unorthodox method at the time but this was fuelled by Meek's paranoia that the record industry was both spying on him and stealing ideas from him. He soon ran into money problems and with a contested copyright action against 'Telstar' all royalties were put on hold. With the Tornados now disbanded an increasingly unstable Meek tried to put together a new band and drafted in Mitch Mitchell (later of Jimi Hendrix experience) to play the drums, Mitch's wild playing did not go down well with Meek and after repeated warnings Meek eventually picked up a shotgun, put it to Mitchell's head and said “ If you don’t do it properly I’ll blow your f****g head off’.
Meek's erratic behaviour and constant money worries sadly culminated in a fatal row over non payment of rent with his landlady, resulting in both their deaths on February 3rd 1967.
The recordings included in the sale contain such British stars as David Bowie as singer and sax player with the Konrads Gene Vincent, Denny Laine, Billy Fury Tom Jones, Jimmy Page Mike Berry, John Leyton Ritchie Blackmore, Jess Conrad, Mitch Mitchell and Screaming Lord Sutch. The tapes also contain many examples of Joe Meek composing songs and experimental sound techniques. Tape 418 has Meek composing songs for the film' Live it up'. The entire collection is a unique piece of British Recording History.
Estimate GBP250,000-300,000 USD500,000-600,000"
+++++++
The Society will be submitting a bid for the tapes but given the very limited funds in the Society’s accounts and given the estimated price on The Fame Bureau’s website, which is £250-300k, the Society is unlikely to be the successful bidder, but we can only try to secure them, given that this is a once in 40 years event. As worldwide bids are being encouraged, the Society fears that there is a possibility that, once sold, the tapes could leave the UK and believes strongly that as Joe was British and, as far as it is aware, all the artists whose music is on the tapes, other than Gene Vincent, are also British, the rightful place for these tapes is in the UK. The Society has already alerted the British Library’s sound archive of the proposed sale and provided the details of the place, time and date of the auction.
ROBB HUXLEY'S STORY CONTINUES
- Latest update July
2008
The New Tornados - part 5 and the end of the band but new beginnings in
Israel
A LIFE IN THE DEATH OF JOE MEEK
You
can check out a new teaser for the doc on Palm Door's myspace page (www.myspace.com/meekmovie)
and Utube and on the NXNE (www.nxne.com)
page for the screening.
The documentary by Palm Door was given it's English premiere on April 14th.
You can read some reviews on these sites:
www.myspace.com/robbieladuke2
www.myspace.com/meekmovie
www.myspace.com/robertgeorgemeek
Triumphs are a UK based Joe Meek Tribute
Band and are available for bookings.
The line-up is as follows:
Ray Liffen, vocals, lead and rhythm guitar. who is a member of the Joe Meek Society,
Trevor Faull, keys, and Instrumentals guru, who just loves Joe’s music,
Rob Murley, bass, formerly with Screaming Lord Sutch’s Savages and Heinz’s backing band,
Rob Bradford, vocals, another member of the Society and also the latter’s Archivist
and finally,
Ken Ledran, drums, who is the Chairrnan of the Society.
The band plays only Joe Meek music. The repertoire covers the whole of
Joe’s recording career, starting from when Joe first became a recording
engineer at EMI, Pye and Philips’ records, his time at Arundel Gardens
and also the period when he founded his own record label, Triumph, by
which time he was residing at 304 Holloway Road and then covers his
music right through to the period when he became an independent record
producer until his death in 1967..
The band is available for gigs. Previous gigs include
acting as the support band for the Tornados at the first ever Joe Meek
Festival which took place at Newent, Gloucestershire in October 2007.
In its exclusive Joe Meek set, the band also includes
a number of excellent tracks which have never been released and which
have remained unheard by the general public for the last 40 years.
Visit their website www.thetriumphs.co.uk for more info and to book the band
THE JOE MEEK STORY - AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN RESPCH
Cherry Red TV presents an interview with society member John
Click
here - for Part 1
Click here - for Part 2
JOHN LEYTON
Photo above of rare
sheet music
John's September newsletter
appears on his Official
site
* A Rockin' Good Night pics.
* Joe Meek updates & connection.
* CD/DVD News.
* Fans page update.
VIRTUAL MUSEUM
Check out our new
Virtual Museum with pictures and sound and video clips
Recently we added pictures of
the 2007 Newent Festival and a photo of the street named after Heinz.
WILL THE MEEK INHERIT AT
LAST - article by Colin Ricketts
BYRON ELWELL- SPACE
BABES
Byron now has a website
www.chestnutbankproductions.co.uk
Where you can read about his Joe Meek inspired instrumentals and see details of his cds.
THE MOONTREKKERS LAST GIG
Ray Liffen attended
what was possibly the last Moontrekkers gig in July 2007. He has
kindly given us permission to show a video clip. This features an interview
with the band and a performance of Night Of The Vampire.
Click here to open the clip
which should play in your default media player.
©2007 Ray Liffen
THE LATEST EDITION OF
THUNDERBOLT
Now mailed out (June 2008)
You can now join 0n-line and get this
magazine four times a year -
we have added the facility to subscribe through Pay Pal
Click here for more information
Peter Knight of
Moontrekkers demonstrates the famous clavioline that featured on Telstar and
Night Of The Vampire
click here
© 2007/8 Ray Liffen & Bob Frost
With thanks to Ray Liffen, Bob Frost,
Peter Knight Clem Cattini
CAMPAIGN TO HAVE JOE MEEK INDUCTED INTO THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME
Ron Wilson has just started a campaign to
have Joe Meek
inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
This is the link for his campaign - please
support it...
http://www.myspace.
Robb (ex-Whirlwinds/Saxons/New Tornados) has recorded this CD of 'lost' songs
from 304 Holloway Road - each track has a narrative where Robb tells the story
behind it.