Tuesday 20 March 2012

Joe Meek The Telstar Man

Back in 1966, I have bloged this bit before, I was at 304 Holloway Road N7, Above a shop called Shenton's in a recording studio called RGM sound
where the legendary Joe Meek recorded all his hits, I was there to try to become a recording engineer, Joe Meek was a man who was very good with sounds, Strangely, He could not sing in tune,But he knew a good sound when he heard it!
He produced bands like the Tornado's, the Honeycombs, the Checkmates, the Blue Rondo's, and a number of solo artists such as Heinz Bert , Dave Berry, John Leyton just to mention a few.







His sound engineering was second to none , When you think that the  equipment was a bit crude and only in mono, He was a genius when it came to writing and producing music ! Only 2 months before his tragic death, We were discussing about making a comic record in reply to twinkle song Terry, That is as far as the conversation went as he died before I had the time to think about it! In the pictures you can see some of the equipment that was used in his studio, Joe Meek will always be remembered ! Joe Meek died  3 Feb 1967, For the short time that I knew him , I was impressed with his work! Since I wrote this entry, I have watched the film ( Telstar - The story of Joe Meek ), Well they got a lot of the facts right but one or two things were not quiet right, Examples are, The Echo unit in the film was a Binson,When in actual fact the echo unit that he actually used was a Klempt Echolette, I know this as he gave the unit to me in payment for doing bits of this and that in the studio, Unfortunately I did not keep it ,I wish I had as it would be worth a fortune now! Another thing is that the main mic on the film was an AEG mic,Buy in fact he used a more robust studio mic with spring loaded stand attachment a bit like the ones that are still used today! The other thing was in the film Mr Pink was called Patric, His actual name was William Pink. There were also some other bits of equipment that was probably not available for the film , Apart from that the film is reasonably good !

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