Joe Meek RGMAS

Robert George Meek, known as Joe to his family and then the world was born in Newent in Gloustershire on the 5th April 1929. On February 3rd 1967 Joe Meek, record producer, songwriter and RGM/Meeksville label boss with multi-million sales tragically took his own life by first shooting his friend and landlady to death and then without a word turning the gun on himself in front of his young assistant Patrick Pink. He was just 37 years of age and was being treated for depression and paranoia as well as a mountain of overwhelmingly terrible personal problems. He had come to London in 1953 after his National Service as a radar operator followed by a stint working for the Midlands Electricity Board and to seek his fortune in the big city. Joe had managed to aquire work as a 'Balance Engineer' at IBC Studios and was subsequently given the job as 'Chief Engineer' on the live 'People Are Funny' light entertainment show for Radio Luxemburg and worked on the sound for This Is Your Life and other early T.V programmes who used IBC. It all tragically ended on February 3rd 1967, sentimentally the eighth anniversary of the death of his hero and seance contactee Buddy Holly and there is reason to believe amongst his friends that this date was planned. Joe had been blackmailed, fitted up with an importuning charge by the Police for smiling at another man in the Gent's Lavatory near his studio at Madras Place and was the innocent victim of a copyright lawsuit which had left him near destitute. He had recently been found beaten up on the street and the notorious Kray twins had wanted to take over the management of his band The Tornados. As if that wasn't enough the Police were also planning to question him over the horrific murder of a young mentally challenged gay man who had been chopped up and put into two suitcases and whom Joe had briefly known on the gay scene although he was not in anyway involved. But the Police were going to interview all known homosexuals. This was just another unwelcome black cloud brewing on the horizon on top of all the others. Nothing was going right for Joe Meek. He was being sued by some of his former artistes for unpaid back-royalties and had argued and fallen out with Heinz, his golden boy, the object of his infatuation whom Joe had groomed for world stardom with mixed results. Ever since his death Joe Meek has rightly been acclaimed as the original and genuine sonic genius and sound innovator that he was. He produced John Leyton and the Tornados taking them both to number one. Also Houston Wells, the much missed Screaming Lord Sutch, the chart topping Honeycombs, Glenda Collins, The Packabeats, The Blue Rondos and the Syndicats and the Fabulous Flee Rekkers creating freakbeat in the process. Chas Hodges from Chas and Dave and Ritchie Blackmore from Deep Purple were his preferred in house guitarist and bassist and Ritchie lived in a rented apartment of Joe's not far from his studio. They both played in the Outlaws together. Other artistes who went up the stairs to Joe's studio at his three floor flat at 304 Holloway Road North London to record and to hopefully pass the audition were David Bowie, Tom Jones, who recorded with Joe over a period of time, Jonathon King and a young Rod Stewart who's audition sensationally ended with Joe storming into the studio with his fingers in his ears and blowing raspberries at the unfortunate Rod who was booted out of the studio and just to rub it in, lost his backing group the Moontrekkers to Joe's own RGM Label and into cult RGM history. Joe Brown used to hang out there. He even turned down the Beatles however so did almost all the other labels. The supremely confident and hard edged malchick suited boot boy Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham was terrified of Joe Meek and thought he was crazy with mad eyes. Jimmy Page used to drop in to hang out and ended up doing work there alongside Joe, even co-writing the 'A' side of The Blue Rondos classic cult number Little Baby(how this song failed to chart remains a complete mystery to anyone who has ever heard it!) and Steve Howe from Yes was a regular session player and band member of the Syndicats. It was inside knowledge in the music industry that Joe Meek's was where acts went to his studio above a leather goods shop on a busy and noisy main road and you could get an audition and a recording contract if he liked you. The place was always abuzz and Joe was always working. He had an office installed on the first floor with a secretary and an answering machine. Joe had set up his own studio in his own flat and was making plenty of money making records and all without the use of a 'professional studio'. His was home built and designed by himself. This was common enough across the USA but almost totally unheard of in the stiff monopolised British music industry controlled by just five big companies who wanted it to stay that way until Joe blazingly went out on his own and turned it all around thus paving the way for the likes of Micky Most and Dick James to amass unspeakable fortunes doing what Joe did first. He produced amazingly fresh records and leased them to the majors who initially played along. He was a specialist at oddball and bizarre sounds that no-one had ever heard before outside of a studio. He really invented sampling or at least used it heavily in sound production and was confident enough to get away with it. The likes of Les Paul were successful in the U.S (Les Paul in his garage) by making records for the popular music market and indeed it was Les Paul who unknowingly allowed Joe to set up shop by covering a Joe Meek composition titled 'Put A Ring On Her Finger'(Joe however concentrated on straight up Rock and Roll and freakish bizarre sonic forays into the audio unknown)and the royalties from this track which he wrote and recorded for Tommy Steele while he was working as a sound engineer and producer at IBC studios helped pay for more equipment for his first home studio at 20 Arundal Gardens in Kensington. His initial big hit was on his own Triumph label where he recorded from his basement flat and which he shared with a weightlifter/chef named Lionel - 'Angela Jones by Michael Cox which scored a Top Ten hit in the home charts and the first 10,000 vinyl discs soon sold out. It should have reached number one but the record company who leased the track didn't press enough copies because either they couldn't or wouldn't and it slipped down the charts. Their official excuse was a strike at the pressing plant. It was however a massive hit in Sweden and Joe had found the formula for what the teenagers really liked. His friend Petula Clark of 'Downtown' fame used to visit Joe at his flat and did some recording there too amongst other stars of the day. But no matter. Joe, who always knew best, would just have to get a bigger apartment to work in and experiment to his heart's content and in 1960 he had a look at 304 Holloway Rd and hooked up with a business manager. With it's three floors at his disposal it looked the part so Joe got his sound assistant Dave Adams from the act Joy and Dave to soundproof the windows as Joe went about setting up the studio. Thus his own label RGM Sound, later Meeksville, was born. RGM stood for his initials and he liked the comparison to MGM the giant film studio of the day. And it was here that he recorded the haunting 'death disc' Johnny Remember Me sung by John Leyton and fittingly recorded during a raging thunderstorm. It shot to number one and has since become a classic in it's own right. John Leyton was managed by Robert Stigwood and John, an actor, was appearing in a T.V show called Harpers West One about a busy department store. Stigwood had talked the producers into allowing his boy to sing a song in the series thus giving his career a higher profile and earning some good money too. They agreed to give it a try so Stigwood went directly to a very receptive Joe Meek who in turn requseted Geoff Goddard to provide the song writing for Robert's 'boy'. Geoff had visited Joe on the Friday to see if there was any work going and joe asked him to come up with something 'suitable' for John to sing for Monday's session. Geoff woke up on the Sunday morning without a tune for the next day's session so as a spiritualist he allowed to let himself 'go' and began to write as he recorded on a portable tape machine in his front room in Reading...'when the mists are rising and the rain is falling and the wind is blowing cold across the moor'...very Wuthering Heights but not quite twenty minutes later the song was completed and to be entitled....Johnny Remember Me! It was recorded at 304 with the exceptional Lissa Grey singing the haunting title in the bathroom for some natural earthy echo and the many musicians dotted about the second floor of 304 or anywhere else Joe told them to be. An orchestra were crammed into 304 as Charles Blackwell arranged. And just to show that it was no fluke either, Geoff wrote 'Wild Wind' as a follow up for John Leyton and Joe gave it his trademark fast 'Western/Cowboy' treatment and it shot to number 2 in the home charts. RGM and Joe Meek had become a success with John Leyton. If Geoff Goddard could come up with a hit tune in twenty minutes so could Joe Meek even though he was actually tone deaf. Joe Meek was always into outer space and new technology so it went that on July 10th 1962 he, along with millions of others stayed up late with friends for a night in at 304 watching the television for the first transatlantic transmission from Telstar, the communications satellite launched to bring in the age of satellite broadcasting bringing the world closer together. It was a good relaxing evening and gave him the idea for a tune he kept humming quietly to himself until he hummed it to Geoff who started working on interpreting Joe's tone deaf 'aaahing' to piano. A demo was knocked up and Joe gave a copy to his act the Tornados to work on the instrumentation between sets as backing band to Billy Fury on tour at Great Yarmouth. And on the fifth anniversary of the historical Sputnik launch the magical TELSTAR, incidently also recorded during a thunderstorm with Geoff Goddard, hit the number one spot in the U.K charts on a five week run at that position and against all odds repeated the feat in the USA charts that Christmas of 1962, an astonishing achievement and also the first by a British band Joe Meek's own 'boys' the Tornados who then carried on meeting their touring commitments backing Billy Fury, Larry Parnes''boy' because they were still under contract to do so. The strange keyboard sound is a Clavioline, an early monophonic portable keyboard from France. Joe had bought one and wanted to use it. It was also featured up front as the lead instrument on the huge hit 'Runaway' by Del Shannon and to great effect. Geoff played it on Telstar along with the piano with drawing pins tacked onto the heads for more fidelity and also did the Aaahs as the only voice on the track. Roger La Vern from the Tornados told me that he also played on it and this is probably correct as there was a lot of bouncing of tracks in it's production. When the Tornados returned a few days later they couldn't believe it was them playing on it as Joe had been manically multi-layering and adding strange magical touches in their absence. It sounded like nothing they'd ever, ever heard and,all except for Heinz, they were seasoned musicians! Heinz thought it was 'crap' but Geoff Goddard described it as being 'just tremendous'. Joe was inside ecstatic and thrilled by the result but reserved because he had to sell it to the majors. He predicted it would get to number four in the charts. Decca won the bid but the engineer who had to cut it complained to Joe that something was wrong with the beginning, which was water flushing backwards, maybe an actual toilet, and sounds sampled from his 'I Hear A New World' experiment. He got a blast of abuse in reply and some quality advice concerning a new career move outside of the music industry. Telstar was classic Joe Meek. It summed him up in three minutes and forty eight seconds exactly. When you heard Telstar you always thought of Joe Meek. Joe Meek had hit pay-dirt. Joe Meek was now well known. Back in Newent his home town Joe Meek the 'indoors' boy was celebrated as a successful son of the town who'd made it big time in the big smoke. Joe Meek had truly arrived and there was nothing anybody could do about it except Joe Meek. Joe Meek was vindicated. And Joe Meek was very, very happy. Ironically for Joe, it's release date fell in the same month as the Beatles first chart entry 'Love Me Do' which remained outside of the Top Ten. But this was now. Telstar was when the industry and then the press really took notice of Joe. It was a number one hit all over the world and became Mrs.Thatcher's favourite song along with 'How Much Is That Doggy In The Window' which wasn't recorded by Joe Meek. He had become the top independent music producer in the UK with world-wide sales. And he gave the other few independent producers ideas - if Joe can do it, I can too. This was his true legacy - as an independent. Joe had sensationally started the ball rolling at 304 and this is the truest of many monuments to Joe Meek. For the astonishing success of Telstar Joe was rewarded by his peers with the prestigious Ivor Novello Award presented by David Jacobs who had spent much time on the radio claiming to be bored with the song, a sweet taste for Joe. Now all sorts of doors were open to Joe Meek the successful record producer and famous person. He was part of the gay music management scene which would meet at the Dutch house De Hemms in Soho and trade their boys for shows or like very talented Joe Brown, for recording sessions. They even traded for sexual favours but there is no record of Joe taking advantage of these offers. The rest as they say, is history and after a manic year of being the boss of his own successful record production company it all went downhill and tragically wrong, ending in the deaths of two people and the end of RGM and Meeksville. And for his former artistes a legal headache which is still not entirely resolved today. To this day Clem Cattini the Tornados' drummer unselfishly helps artistes recover monies owed to them. The Tornados featured his bleached blond golden boy Heinz (not very well on bass)who Joe groomed for stardom and who lived with Joe upstairs at 304. Geoff Goddard was an active spiritualist and member of the psychic community. Joe Meek was responsible for the world's first concept album, recorded at 20 Arundel Gardens and, pioneering that old apprentice sound engineer's trick at Landsdowne Studios, he sneaked in at night to use some state of the art studio time. The result of these undercover excursions to Landsdowne and his own home efforts was his acclaimed electronic offering 'I HEAR A NEW WORLD' recorded for the short lived Triumph label. He intended it to be an experimental L.P designed to test the audio quality of the then new stereo sound equipment. He used a local skiffle group The West Five as the band. No one knows for sure how he mastered the stereo sound but it is safe to say that he was multi-layering tape and spent a great deal of time experimenting with instruments and kit whilst burning the midnight oil. Using the equipment of the day alongside his own personal electronic inventions Joe Meek created an album of early electro merit of which the studio itself became part of the band. When he was a boy he'd visit shops for obsolete equipment which he'd tear apart for his own inventions and mixed it with the then state of the art recording appliances to enhance his work in a shed in the garden of his Newent house. In his teens he even built a television but had to sit and look at a dot as there wasn't a transmitter then near Newent which was in the countryside. He hooked up an elaborate speaker system for the cherry pickers in his family's orchard and played them music or to scare away the birds. This endless experimenting and curiosity was especially true later on when he set himself up at 304. Only 99 vinyl pressings of the 'I Hear A New World' E.P featuring four of the tracks were ever released. Part two featuring the other 4 tracks of the recordings was never manufactured however the sleeves were and now fetch a high price.'I Hear a New World' has now been re-released in it's entirety to critical acclaim by contemporary sound engineers and musicians greatly impressed by Joe's engineering skills of the day. It was originally credited to musicians Rod Freeman and the Blue Men who were really The West Five and who provided all the instruments. Joe was an alchemist in the truest sense of the word. His commitment to new sounds mixed with the new fledgling Rock and Roll craze found a bizarre home at 304 Holloway Rd and he never ever ceased experimenting, always true to his dictum that 'IF IT SOUNDS GOOD THEN IT IS!' He is responsible for over use of sound compression on records, sampling, tape loops, introducing an early form of multi-tracking by using several tape machines at once, utilizing the recording of everyday household items as treated effects, speeded up vocals(sometimes to three semi-tones)and drums, and he constructed his own reverb echo unit using a garden gate spring bolted to a plank of wood. He'd create the phase effect by holding down one of two identical tapes running in synch. He originally mixed in mono but moved to stereo later when the industry caught up with technology he himself was so often responsible for. He pioneered close mic recording and microphone placement and was very particular about getting the right beat sound out of the drums, and was the first ever,in the UK at least,to put the mic inside the bass drum wrapped in heavy cloth. Early on in his career at IBC Studios the Official Recording Manual recommendation on where to place mics was thrown away and completely ignored. Suit and tie were compulsory but Joe decided that the technical manual wasn't and preferred his own ways and means eventually scoring a huge impact on his work on Cumberland Gap by Lonnie Donegan and astonishingly with Humphrey Lyttleton's 'Bad Penny Blues' with a breakthrough sound hit which led IBC Studios to allow Joe more freedom and he didn't let them down. Years later on the Honeycombs' Have I The Right, yet another number one for Joe, he had the entire band stamp on the floor near the stairs in time with the bass drum inventing a sort of 'British Stomp' used later on to great effect by the Dave Clark Five who Joe claimed 'had stolen my bass drum sound'. Honey Langtree their female drummer was excused from this as she was wearing high heels. The studio itself was on the second floor where a medium sized living room had once been and covered in miles of wires and tape spools. Only Joe and sometimes his sound assistant Dave Adams from his RGM act Joy and Dave could navigate around it. He used a single Tannoy monitor for playback and mastering but later on used stereo to great effect. A Quad amplifier powered the sessions and much of his equipment was custom modified by himself. It has been said that Joe Meek missed out with the new British Beat Boom following on in the wake of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones for being considered too unhip and novelty but this is completely unfair. Even more outrageously correct is the fact that Joe had indeed been at the forefront of the experimental music which exploded just months after his death in the form of Psychedelia re-discovered by the pop princes of the day. He'd been doing it for years and it begs the question of what he would have created if he hadn't died. He was there at the beginning with his British US Number One in 1962 paving the way for the rest of the British Invasion. In March 1967 and just a month after Joe's death, when working on their next album The Beatles recorded additional overdubs for ‘Lovely Rita’, including harmony vocals, effects, and the percussive sound of a piece of toilet paper being blown through a haircomb - experimental and pure Joe Meek. Joe Meek had been sometimes hailed as the British PHIL SPECTOR however this too is untrue. Their production techniques, apart from multi-tracking, were entirely different, Spector not detering from his Wall of Sound and the use of the famous top quality Gold Star Studios with major session musos on tap and the full backing of the industry, and Joe having to rely on the equipment at hand in a tiny studio with the choir on the stairs and singers in the bathroom for more echo. When Spector once visited England and telephoned Joe for a meeting he recieved a volley of verbal abuse back down the phone with accusations of Spector stealing Joe's ideas however they reportedly made up later. Ironically they both shot dead women on February the 3rd 2006, Phil Spector alledgedly as his case has still not been resolved. His work with The Syndicats,The Flee Rekkers and Screaming Lord Sutch unknowingly for him later on in the Eighties led to his being hailed as the creator of Freak Beat in the UK after his tragic death. On the release of Decca's Joe Meek story double L.P in 1977 the punks got a taste of Joe for the first time and considered him one of their own for his stand against the majors and his raw sounds on songs like 'Just Like Eddie' by Heinz even though for most of 1977 they were at war with the Teddy Boys. Captain Sensible from The Damned namechecks Joe Meek and has even gone as far as recording a Meek type tune. The Godfather of Goth (yet another!) is one more title bestowed upon him. Joe covered a lot of styles in his time at 304. Just days before his demise Joe was trying to decide whether or not to take up a lucrative offer from the head of EMI Sir Joseph Lockwood who had just lost the Beatle's producer George Martin from Parlophone and who desperately needed a producer of Joe's talents to replace him. We will never know what the result would have been but it is fair to say that he was against the idea. After all, 304 had been good to Joe and he had great memories of more successful times there and anyway he was too self obsessed to work back in an industry where he would have to answer to anyone else. He was just too individual for that and anyone else would have just got in his way. He remained depressed over his sexuality which everyone now knew about but never mentioned it aloud when he was near. And the new wave of British pop overtook his old acts and brought in the new and the 1950's Rock and Rollers who were left in it's wake were now playing to tiny audiences or working men's clubs to make a living. Those who depended solely on record sales for an income were either forced to change careers or simply just went back home, the dream over with only memories in place of missed fortunes. But Joe Meek fought back bravely and in 1964 his answer to all this was the Honeycombs massive number one hit 'Have I The Right' - pure Joe Meek and which proved that Joe Meek could still make great records and for a while all was normal again at 304. It was a glorious summer however but that was to be his last number one. A big hit for The Cryin' Shames' 'Please Stay' in 1966 was his final respectable chart entry however the black cloud returned. The gay classic 'Do You Come Here Often' the B side to the Tornados' 'Is That A Ship I Hear' was their last release, the original members all having left three years earlier. But still he kept on recording new acts and old driven through the night using amphetemines to keep him awake and downers to help him to sleep. A truly wonderful Joe Meek composition 'I Really Believe It' for his favourite 'Joe Meek Girl' Glenda Collins was recorded in 1966 but like all of Glenda's great releases sadly failed to chart. It dealt with nuclear war and the starving poor and why were we spending fortunes on war and sending rockets that hit the moon which shows that Joe had a heart and on a personal note is my favourite Joe Meek track. He constantly worried... 'if only the witheld royalties from Telstar were available'.. but they were being held up by a French court and sitting in a bank collecting interest because of a petty plagarism contest by an obscure French composer Jean Ledrut who claimed Joe stole the melody from his own very obscure foreign recording even though it was apparently released after he had written Telstar. It was obviously a lie and about £7000 was paid to the composer towards his legal fees later on by RGM but Joe needed the money at once to pay his artistes and studio expenses. Patrick Pink, Joe's teenage assisant and last artiste to record with him (today known as Robbie Duke) had to sneak in food from his mother's fridge just so Joe could get a proper meal. He was flat broke. He missed the £50 advances he used to get that same day in cash when a label agreed to release one of his acts which wasn't that often anymore and deepened his depression. Joe's family won the Telstar case just weeks after his death. The money was a fortune and would have solved all of his problems. It helped drive him to suicide and this is agreed by all Meek observers, aquaintances and friends.... TELSTAR remains the world's biggest selling instrumental record with an estimated 10,000,000 copies sold to date. Somewhere in the world at any one time it is being played. Roger La Vern played the outrageous clavioline on Telstar and Geoff Goddard played the piano. Geoff wrote Just Like Eddie - a hit for Heinz as a tribute song to Eddie Cochran. He was a regular seance partner with Joe and both being gay could talk openly in safety. He brought to Joe knowledge of the spiritual world and Joe who was receptive and read the occult encouraged him. He recorded in cemeteries hoping to capture the sounds of the supernatural and taped what is alledged to be a speaking cat in a graveyard. Geoff, the dedicated spiritualist and psychic passed away on the 15th May 2000 after working as a cleaner at Reading University since 1972 following his retirement from the music business. He worked at the University because he 'liked meeting people' and this wonderful man is the glue to the early success of Joe Meek. They finally fell out over who wrote the Honeycombs' hit Have I The Right and after taking the case to court they sadly never spoke to each other again. Geoff was advised to drop the case by his lawyer as Joe was unforthcoming as a witness and the song credits the Honeycombs' two managers. Geoff left in disgust. ******* A film about the tragic life and career of Joe is currently in post production due for released in 2008 starring Con O'Neill as Joe and KEVIN SPACEY as his Business Manager the aptly named Major Banks. It is being directed by the actor Nick Moran. Justin Hawkins from THE DARKNESS plays Screaming Lord Sutch and Carl Barat from THE LIBERTINES plays Gene Vincent. Watch out for some of Joe's original artistes in cameo roles. ******* Also now on release at selected Festivals is the wonderful and 'worth the wait' PalmDoor Production's Documentary. For further information please message this page or go to their excellent myspace page by clicking them in our Top Friends section. ******* This page welcomes all Joe Meek RGMAS members and Friends, our fraternal Joe Meek Society members and Friends and all Joe Meek fans everywhere. The Joe Meek RGMAS is the original and first ever appreciation society dedicated to joe and created on the evening of his death with a pledge to collecting all of Joe's back catalogue of every R.G.M release and recordings and is almost complete. With a loyal membership now growing steadily the RGMAS hold regular monthly meetings to discuss Meek issues and has evolved into a friendly group of Joe Meek and music fans dedicated to the promotion of his work. Some of Joe's friends from the 1960's attend meetings which are humorous and celebratory of JOE's life. The Joe Meek RGMAS proudly recognises the work Joe Meek accomplished with Geoff Goddard who is remembered by the RGMAS with beloved affection. With a worldwide membership we issue a bi-monthly newsletter and a quarterly special issue for a very reasonable £7.50 UK per annum. We work hard to keep costs down to make it affordable for anyone to become a member. For overseas prices please message this page. At the RGMAS we try to ensure that Joe's work on his own R.G.M and Meeksville and Triumph labels live on and the world doesn't forget this genius of early sonic experimentation and pioneer of sound recording. Rest In Peace Joe. 'We Really Believe It'.Stuart Freed, updated March 2008. Joe Meek RGMAS.