Joe Meek's Bold Techniques

© 2015 ElevenEleven Publishing

All Rights Reserved. No portion of the book may be reproduced, copied, transmitted, or stored in any mechanical or electronic form without the written permission of the publisher.

Second Edition V.3

ISBN 9780692368589

barrycleveland.com

[email protected]

Art Director—Jeremy Nunes

Cover Design—Paul Haggard

Contents

Sources and Acknowledgements

Introduction

A Few Words about Stereo and Echo

Chapter One: Joe’s Been a Gittin’ There

Chapter Two: IBC

Chapter Three: Lansdowne

Chapter Four: I Hear a New World

Chapter Five: Triumph

Chapter Six: 304 Holloway Road

Chapter Seven: Joe’s Equipment

Chapter Eight: Telstar

Chapter Nine: Beat by the Beat

Chapter Ten: Interview with Howard S. Berger and Susan Stahman

Appendix A: Discography

Appendix B: U.S. Discography

Index

I Hear A New World Audio Tracks

Sources and Acknowledgements

Information for this book was obtained from the following sources:

INTERVIEWS:

Dave Adams (Fall 2000)

Ritchie Blackmore (Summer 2000)

Ted Fletcher (Fall 2000)

Ken Harvey (Winter 2001)

Steve Howe (Summer 2000)

Adrian Kerridge (Fall 2000)

Peter Miller (Spring 2000)

Les Paul (Spring 2000)

TAPED INTERVIEWS PROVIDED COURTESY OF JOHN REPSCH:

Interview with Adrian Kerridge by John Repsch (1983/84)

Interview with Denis Preston and Adrian Kerridge by Chris Knight (1976) Preston was the first independent producer in England. He worked with Meek at IBC and Lansdowne studios from 1955 to 1959, and specialized in jazz and world-fusion music.

Interview with Tony Kent by Chris Knight and Jim Blake (1972) Meek’s secretary for a few months circa 1961.

Interview with Tony Kent by John Repsch (1983)

Interview with Harry Moss (1985) A disc-cutting engineer at EMI/Abbey Road who cut many of Meek’s early records.

Interview with Ray Prickett (1983) A Senior Engineer who worked alongside Meek at IBC.

RECORDINGS OF JOE MEEK:

Joe’s Story recorded by Joe Meek circa 1957. Originally intended to be edited into a one-hour program. Meek tells his story to that point in great detail.

Studio Tour recorded November 1962 for use by Audio Record Review magazine, but never published.

BOOKS:

The Legendary Joe Meek, the Telstar Man, First Edition (1989), John Repsch. Woodford House, London. An extensively researched general biography of Joe Meek covering his entire life and career. The original edition was published privately in the U.K. A revised second edition was published in 2001 by Cherry Red Publishing, U.K.

Halfway to Paradise, Britpop, 1955-1962 (1996) Spencer Leigh and John Firminger. Finbarr Books, Folkestone.

Play Like Elvis, How British Musicians Bought the American Dream (2000) Mo Foster. Sanctuary Publishing, London.

The Sound of the City, The Rise of Rock and Roll Revised & Expanded Edition (1970/1983) Charlie Gillett. Pantheon Books, New York.

All Music Guide to Rock (1997) Various editors. Miller Freeman Books, San Francisco.

Rock of Ages (1986) Ed Ward, Geoffrey Stokes, and Ken Tucker. Summit Books, New York.

Meeksville: The Recordings of Joe Meek (1960-1965) (1991) Pastime Publications, South Yorkshire.

REISSUE CD LINER NOTES (VARIOUS RECORD LABELS):

R. W. Dopson

A. D. Blackburn

RADIO:

Meek & Wild BBC Radio Kent. Produced by Andy Garland.

TELEVISION:

The Very Strange Story of Joe Meek BBC Television Arena.

ONLINE:

TelstarWeb—now defunct

The Joe Meek Society—joemeeksociety.org

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Alex Artaud

Michael Batory

Denis Blackham

John Cavanagh

Dennis Diken

Steve Fay

Brett Lowden

Julie Shorter

Mark Straton

Nigel Woodward

Howard S. Berger

Susan Stahman

Barry Fox at Tannoy

Andy Garland and Paul James at BBC Kent

Andy Linehan at the Sound Archive of the British Museum

Mark Newson and Craig Newton at the Joe Meek Society

Sarita Stewart at AKG Acoustics

Johan von Schoultz at Lyrec

George West for the information on Vortexion

Todd W. White at Altec

VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Shaun Brennan for making hundreds of Joe Meek’s recordings available, providing information on the artists, reviewing the manuscript, and keeping the jokes coming.

Kim Lowden for her tireless efforts, which included providing audio and video materials, facilitating contacts, answering scores of questions, and reviewing the manuscript.

John O’ Kill for providing considerable technical and historical insights, his writings on Meek’s equipment and the history of British recording, photographs, and professional encouragement.

John Repsch for generously providing taped interviews, photographs, contact information, and numerous other materials that were invaluable to the creation and presentation of this book.

This book could never have taken its present form without the assistance of these four outstanding individuals.

Introduction

Photo courtesy of David Peters

I was working at Mix magazine in late 1999, when the publisher of MixBooks asked if I would be interested in writing something for publication the following year. A friend had loaned me a CD called It’s Hard to Believe It: The Amazing World of Joe Meek, and I pointed to it and half jokingly said, I could write about this guy. I hadn’t even listened to the CD at that point, and knew next to nothing about Meek, but when the publisher asked me to put together a proposal I nodded and said I would do some preliminary research. I listened to the CD and poked around online a bit, but didn’t do much else beyond that—so when he enquired about the proposal a few weeks later I nervously asked when he needed it. He explained that he was submitting the plan later that day, and gave me two hours. All I needed to do, he said, was write a brief overview and provide a list of proposed chapters.

MixBooks mostly publishes educational books dealing with recording-related topics such as music production, mixing, mastering, studio gear, and the like, so we decided that I would put together various tips for working outside the box in the studio and use anecdotal stories from Meek’s career to illustrate the points. After hastily doing a bit more research I concluded that a number of people who had been involved with Meek were contactable, and simply listed their names as the chapter headings, with the idea that I would interview them to gather material. That’s why the title of the first edition was Creative Music Production, Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques.

I signed the contract the following day.

After the initial euphoria of getting a book deal dissipated—and it didn’t take long—it fully dawned on me that I now had to actually write the darned thing. My first course of action was to obtain John Repsch’s The Legendary Joe Meek, a then out-of-print book that was difficult to locate in the U.S. (a second edition was subsequently published). I eventually managed to purchase a used copy from an English bookseller, and then spent several weeks poring over it, taking copious notes. Repsch had done his homework, and Legendary was chockablock with details about Meek’s entire life. But the book had scant information on the particular topic that I was most interested in: Meek’s studio equipment and how he used it.

Shortly thereafter, I contacted Mr. Repsch and told him what I was attempting to do. He responded by sending me packages containing hours of recorded interviews with key engineers, producers, and other people that had worked directly or indirectly with Meek, along with all sorts of additional documents. Those archival dispatches were time capsules containing keys to Meek’s mysterious past, and I examined their contents with the focused attentiveness of a forensic scientist.

I also purchased every Meek recording I could get my hands on, eventually acquiring about 25 compilation CDs. Online, I discovered a Joe Meek Yahoo Group, through which I met Shaun Brennan and Kim Lowden, who proved to be invaluable consultants and facilitators, and who made a wealth of materials available to me, including more than 1,000 recordings. Among those recordings were Joe’s Story, an exhaustive account by Meek of his career and recording activities circa 1957, and Studio Tour, containing Meek’s detailed description of his recording equipment and production process, recorded in November 1962, and intended for use by Audio Record Review magazine (though a story was never published).

At the same time, I began interviewing everyone I could locate who had been directly associated with Meek, starting with Peter Miller, a San Francisco resident who had recorded with him in 1963 and 1964 while playing guitar with Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, and gone on to become a successful solo artist and recording engineer. Miller had been greatly influenced by Meek, and was quite helpful. I also spoke with Les Paul, who had a hit with Meek’s "Put a Ring on My Finger, but was unaware of who Meek was, or the fascinating similarities between their careers.

By that point it had become clear that the original concept for the book would have to be abandoned. Meek wasn’t just a curious footnote in British recording history. He was a giant, whose approach to recording and recording technology was years and in some cases decades ahead of his time. Meek was the story—and that story had never been fully told.

The next round of interviewees included Adrian Kerridge, an engineer and close friend of Meek’s who worked extensively with him at IBC and Lansdowne studios between 1955 and 1959; guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who worked regularly with Meek between 1962 and 1965 and was a member of the Outlaws and several other groups; guitarist Steve Howe, who recorded with Meek circa 1964 as a member of the Syndicats; vocalist Ted Fletcher, who was a session singer for Meek between 1963 and 1965 and a member of the Cameos; and vocalist and keyboardist Dave Adams, who worked with Meek throughout his career starting in 1958, was a member of several Meek-produced groups, and constructed Meek’s studio at 304 Holloway Road. I also eventually spoke with singer and saxophonist Ken Harvey, who recorded with Meek from 1959 to 1962 as a member of the Blue Men and the Stonehenge Men, and who took part in the recording of Meek’s 1959 stereo album about life on the Moon, I Hear a New World.

British recording historian and audio engineer John O’ Kill provided considerable additional technical insights and materials, and Andy Linehan of the Sound Archive of the British Museum offered his assessment of hundreds of reels of Meek recordings that he was hoping to acquire at the time. (Sadly, both of these men passed away in 2010.)

New information poured in almost daily, often connecting previously unconnected dots, and making it necessary to rethink whole aspects of Meek’s career—but that information also highlighted the limitations of my research, and the difficulty of separating who and what Joe Meek actually was from the myriad myths and stories surrounding him. Many of the people who knew him personally and were firsthand witnesses to his life and work were unreachable, and the majority of his most significant friends and associates had passed away. Furthermore, even the accounts of those who were closest to him were often contradictory—sometimes wildly so.

By most accounts Meek was a difficult person to really get to know, which may at least partially account for the confusion. Many of his actions were covert, and he could change quickly and often inexplicably according to mood and circumstance. He was an enigmatic figure who presented and continues to present the subtle smile of the Sphinx—or perhaps more accurately the Cheshire Cat—to those who would attempt to fathom his personal mysteries.

While this book does attempt to tell Meek’s story—including providing a brief account of his highly influential formative years—it does so mainly from the perspective of his work within the recording and music industries. The primary focus is on the 12 years of his professional career, from 1955 until 1967, and always with an eye on his production techniques, the equipment he used, and how his work affected the world around him.

That said, Meek didn’t just engineer and produce records. He also wrote lyrics and music (though he was tone deaf and didn’t play any instruments), signed artists (in some cases also acting as their personal manager), and negotiated licensing agreements with major record companies. He even briefly operated his own independent record label—one of the first in England. Meek was also an electrical technician and something of an inventor. He serviced, modified, and in some cases built his own equipment.

In many ways Meek’s career foreshadowed the future of both audio recording and the record industry. In fact, these days, when the vast majority of artists record, mix, and even master their music in a home studio, then contract with large companies (iTunes, Amazon, Napster, etc.) to sell that music, and also handle their own marketing, those artists should be able to see more than a little of themselves in Joe Meek. For from one perspective Meek was the prototypical DIY renegade, struggling to eke out an existence on his own amidst a world dominated by huge corporations—which is naturally why he is often viewed as a kind of patron saint of music industry rebels and outsiders.

Yet from another perspective, Meek was not really an outsider in quite the way that he is often portrayed. He began his professional career working on commercial sessions for major artists at the major labels—many of them Top 10 hits—and nearly all of his independent records were licensed to majors for release. He proudly proclaimed his dedication to producing records for the commercial market, that is, for teenagers. He repeatedly signed answer to artists, presumably to capitalize on current trends. He repackaged the same chords, melodies and sounds that had been successful once, obviously hoping the lightening would strike again. And he usually based his decision to produce and manage an artist more on looks than on talent or vocal abilities.

Meek couldn’t abide working under what he considered to be the artistically and personally restrictive conditions present in major British recording studios in the late 1950s, however, and he eventually opted to establish himself as an independent. His recordings, while intended to sell records, were commercial in a sense that was peculiar to him—and in many cases simply peculiar. He compressed practically every sound; routinely pushed his input and tape levels into the red; drenched nearly everything in reverb, echo, and delay; recorded bass big enough to cause needles to jump the record grooves; sometimes added homemade sound effects; and frequently sped up masters to mask imperfections and give his records more personality.

Meek was also responsible for many firsts, at least in England. He was one of the first mobile DJs. He was the first engineer to put microphones directly in front of, close to, and sometimes inside sound sources, including bass drums. He was the first to intentionally overload preamplifier inputs and to print crunchy signals to tape. He was the first to use compressors and limiters aggressively in creative rather than corrective applications. He was one of the first to experiment professionally with sound-on-sound overdubbing. He was the first to flange sounds using two synchronized and modulated tape recorders (1957). And he built one of the first spring reverb units (also in 1957).

Of course, in order to understand the significance of Meek’s achievements it is necessary to place them in context. Much of what he did that seemed entirely radical at the time has been so thoroughly absorbed by the recording and music communities that it is now commonplace and barely noticeable. Looking back, many of Meek’s production and musical ideas seem quaint and even naïve, and it is difficult to understand how they could have triggered such an intense backlash from nearly every quarter of the British record industry. Then again, unless you were living in England at the time, you likely have little understanding of that industry.

Before the Beatles and the other British Invasion bands landed on U.S. shores in the early ’60s, there was very little crossover between English and American pop music. In the late ’40s and early ’50s much of the music that was recorded in England had its roots in pre-World War II British music hall, which was similar to American vaudeville music from the same period. Crooning, comedy, song ’n’ dance sort of stuff went over well in the post-war feel good period. The mid-’50s saw the emergence of trad jazz, which was basically a re-working of New Orleans-style Dixieland, and skiffle, which was similar, but also incorporated elements of blues, folk, and country music. Almost all of this music was related in some way to American music, but it had a decidedly British twist.

By 1955, when Meek began working professionally, Bill Haley had officially ushered in the Golden Age of rock and roll, and American radio was beginning to resonate to the sounds of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Bo Diddley, with the King warming up in the wings. Elvis’ train powered to the top of the charts early the following year, laying tracks for Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, and Buddy Holly to follow. All of these artists would eventually become popular in England, and the hipper musicians such as Lennon and McCartney were already listening to their discs.

Most British pop fans, however, were not rockin’ around the clock in the mid-’50s. The big stars in England were primarily old-timers and mainstream balladeers, such as Gary Miller, Shirley Bassey, and Edmund Hockridge, all of whom Meek recorded while he was working at top recording studios in London. There were attempts at copying rock and roll, but the vast majority resulted in music that Americans would not have identified as such. In much the same way that safe American singers such as Pat Boone recorded cleaned-up cover versions of records by black artists, British singers sought to appeal to popular tastes with emasculated rip-offs of American songs. By 1959, as Meek was preparing to depart the tight confines of the British studio world in search of independence, the British charts were largely dominated by lifeless covers of American hits, and records by squeaky-clean teen idols such as Adam Faith and Cliff Richard.

And speaking of squeaky clean, during the ’50s and into the ’60s, British recording studios resembled electronics laboratories, and engineers were scientists dressed in white lab coats. Every aspect of recording was carried out with the intention of producing the cleanest possible product, and there were specific procedures, strictly adhered to, for nearly everything. Engineers did what they were told to do, the way they were told to do it. They didn’t make suggestions, much less insist on having them carried out, and recording and music were only functionally related. It’s not that the engineers were unintelligent or incompetent—quite the opposite—but everything was tightly organized and highly regimented. Creative decisions were left to the record company producers and A&R (artists and repertoire) men, who wore suits and ties. A creative soul with lots of innovative ideas such as Meek was naturally an annoyingly round peg in a very square hole.

But Meek’s creative ideas were not the only thing that set him apart from most of his peers. Another was his homosexuality. These days most people, at least in the music and recording industries, think no less of a man or woman because of their sexual preference—but that was far from the case in England in the ’50s and ’60s. At that time homosexual acts were theoretically punishable by up to life in prison, though fortunately the law was not often enforced. According to eyewitness accounts, Meek routinely experienced discrimination and humiliation as a studio employee.

Meek also suffered from mental illness. He experienced extreme mood swings, sometimes accompanied by violent outbursts of anger, which is symptomatic of bipolar disorder. But he also exhibited symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. According to the Mayo Clinic, common symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia include auditory hallucinations (such as hearing voices), delusions (such as believing a co-worker wants to poison you), anxiety, anger, emotional distance, violence, argumentativeness, a self-important or condescending manner, and suicidal thoughts and behavior. These are all characteristics reported by those who knew Meek personally. Unfortunately, attitudes regarding mental illness were no more enlightened in the mid ’60s than attitudes regarding homosexuality, and modern drugs were unavailable. Consequently Meek never received adequate treatment—treatment that might very well have saved his life.

Given these two significant obstacles to contend with, Meek’s many accomplishments appear all the more remarkable. Of course, it is possible to argue, as some have, that the struggle to overcome these handicaps helped drive him to such creative heights—but that is like telling someone forced to suffer poverty and perform grueling labor that their conditions build character. The fact is that at times Meek experienced guilt and shame as a result of his homosexuality—particularly the fear that his mother would find out about it—and his paranoia and uncontrollable fits of anger continually disrupted, and in many cases destroyed, his personal and business relationships. One is hard pressed to explain how he benefited from either of these things.

Despite the many challenges that working with Meek entailed, however, most of the people who knew him personally recall their time together with genuine affection. Meek was a very charismatic person who touched others deeply and brought inspiration and motivation into their lives, and when his light went out many of them felt the darkness acutely. Meek was a nice guy who loved to laugh and have fun, and who cared deeply for the few people who were truly close to him. And as his good friend Adrian Kerridge once remarked quite wistfully, Joe was a great dreamer.

The Music Producers Guild created the Joe Meek Award for Innovation in Production in 2009, with Brian Eno being the first recipient. MPG chairman Mike Howlett said the award, is paying homage to this remarkable producer’s pioneering spirit, which continues to manifest itself in the equally pioneering techniques employed by today’s top producers.

Joe Meek bested George Martin and everyone else in an article published by England’s NME (New Musical Express) in 2012 titled The 50 Greatest Producers Ever.

I hope that this third version of the second edition leads even more people to discover and fully appreciate Joe Meek’s extraordinary life and career than the first. Clarifications and corrections have been made throughout the book, the accompanying audio has been remastered utilizing the latest sound restoration tools, and there’s a new chapter containing an in-depth interview with Howard S. Berger and Susan Stahman, the filmmakers behind the upcoming A Life in the Death of Joe Meek. The film (not to be confused with 2008’s fanciful Telstar: The Joe Meek Story) is an exhaustive documentary drawing on more than 100 interviews with Meek’s family, friends, and associated recording artists, among them guitarist Jimmy Page, who credits Meek with influencing his production style.

And finally, my own version of Meek’s Telstar may be found on my Hologramatron album, released on Moonjune Records.

Onward & Upward!

Barry Cleveland

February 3, 2015

barrycleveland.com

[email protected]

A Few Words about Stereo and Echo

To understand Joe Meek’s recordings it is necessary to listen to them. This may seem obvious, but understanding does not necessarily follow from hearing. One approach is to attempt to imagine how he thought about the recordings as they were being made. For example, with the very notable exception of I Hear a New World all of Meek’s major recordings were mixed to mono. Unless you were born before the ’60s, mono simply means that the same sounds are coming out of both the right and left speakers, with no stereo separation. But Meek mixed on one speaker ¹, and during his entire career most people listened on one speaker as well. Meek’s records were targeted largely to teens, the vast majority of whom listened through inexpensive phonographs and even less----expensive transistor radios. Consequently, if you want to hear the recordings the way that they were intended to be heard you should listen to them on a single speaker.

But what kind of speaker is best? We know that regardless of the fact that most people listened to his music on inexpensive systems, Meek mixed using a Tannoy Red driven by a Quad preamplifier and a Quad power amplifier, all of which were state of the art at the time. The best way to glean his intent is therefore to listen to his recordings played on the highest quality speaker available to you, preferably a studio reference monitor, and preferably in an acoustically neutral listening environment. An acoustically treated control room in a professional studio is ideal, but a good system in a relatively non-reflective room should be fine.

Beyond the question of listening environment is the question of the actual recordings. Unless you are a serious Meek collector with thousands of dollars worth of rare vinyl records you will probably be listening mostly to CD re-issues. Some of these appear to be straight transfers from the records, with varying amounts of restoration done to them—old tapes and acetates almost always need some help—while others have obviously been enhanced so that they will sound better on stereo playback systems. A simple test to sort out which are which is to run them through a stereo mixer and switch the output to mono. If the image shifts at all the recordings have been processed in some way.

I listened to hundreds of Meek’s recordings in my personal studio. Some of the recordings were on commercial CD compilations, and the others were out-of-print records transferred to CD by private parties. The CDs were played on