Wednesday 18 February 2015

Joe Meek (the Telstar Man )

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.




                         telstar  (The Joe Meek Story)
                                                 (Above)









 The Tornados (left)

                                                         The Bench at 304 Holloway                                                                 Road (Plaque by Dennis H )

The Klemp Echolette (left)


His sound engineering was second to none , When you think that the  equipment was a bit crude and Mostly 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 wrong but one or two things were  right, Wrong ones , 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,But 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 thing was , There were also some other bits of equipment that was probably not available for the film , Apart from that the film is reasonably good !
Posted by paulburns ( formerley Christopher Paul Barnes )  

                  Me (bottom) at 14 years old


                                        Me at 19 years old 1969




You can read about more music / Musicians / Singers / Producers etc and much more on this blog, Or go to the Rockhouse Music Project page on facebook.com  .
Thanks for your support and for reading this blog .




         pbpaulburns2@gmail.com

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