Joe Meek - s/d

So after being a vaguely casual fan I've taken a more dedicated plunge this year -- though I'll probably stop where I'm at, since trying to track down everything is a pointless wormhole and a half and inevitable duplication crops up. Still, I think I've done well in getting these:

The big Portrait of a Genius: The RGM Legacy box.

The not-much-overlap The Alchemist of Pop 2 CD comp.

The Let's Go (Joe Meek's Girls) comp on RPM back in the 1990s.

The They Were Wrong! Joe's Boys Volume One 2 CD collection (I gather no further volumes because Castle shut down/was absorbed soon after)

The Vampires, Cowboys, Spacemen & Spooks - The Very Best Of Joe Meek's Instrumentals 2 CD collection.

And the Joe Meek Freakbeat (You're Holding Me Down) comp.

Somewhere in my binders I know I also have the RPM issue of I Hear a New World kicking around.

Kinda curious now if there's a particular good book and/or documentary on him, I gather one of the latter is mentioned above in the thread but maybe more since?

The documentary with this in it, you mean?

But the tape recording of Joe conducting a conversation with a cat in a graveyard remains one of the funniest things ever:

Cat: "Miaow. Help me, miaow"
Joe: "Hello"
Cat: "Help me, help me, help"
Joe: "Do you want help? Are you trying to talk to us?"
Cat: "Help"

Sounds like!

the Portrait Of A Genius box is excellent. I particularly like Powercut by the Cameos which Meek apparently pitched up into a different key after recording to get this wayward, frantic sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcuMHXxNV7Q

I do appreciate how these sets -- collectively more than anything else -- underscore the mix of a chancer trying out anything with the technical skill to make it happen. I try not to hear them as demo reels though sometimes there's that effect, but they're always more than just that -- he didn't want to do things that were unheard.

thanks for those links, Ned - recently heard the bootleg LP that Mississippi put out and started down the wormhole (again)

His production for Glenda Collins is top notch

BTW that documentary Tom D mentions is here

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs9zAgLmBvnn9EqSfFWJEeOPiaNEWUUNK

Great watch, but also really weird in terms of thinking how strange and distant it seems already, and you get more than a whiff of Thatcherism-era disapproval of Joe's preferences.

Idly turning on Talking Pictures to see what creaky British movie they were showing I happened to catch the the end of Live It Up!, with Gene Vincent, Heinz, the Outlaws etc - and Stephen Marriott as a drummer and also, though I didn't spot him, John (Mitch) Mitchell not as a drummer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_It_Up!_(film)

i saw about 10 minutes and let's just say it didn't hold my attention

If you don't have the Kenny Gaham and his Satellites' Moondog and Suncat Suites get it, Johnny Trunk reissued it several years ago.
Other than that, I didn't usually find the deeper excavation of his work rewarding. The first things that came out were really the best.

I read Barry Cleveland's book many years ago and was kinda disappointed. It wasn't nearly as technical as I expected, and much heavier on biographical filler.