http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/04/joe.meek.master.tapes
What's on Joe Meek's master tapes?
Two thousand of Joe Meek's master tapes are going on sale today. According to those who have heard them, they include recordings of David Bowie's first band
Chris Cottingham. guardian.co.uk, September 04 2008 11:27
An important chapter of British pop-music history goes on sale today. Two thousand master tapes recorded by celebrated 60s producer Joe Meek are being auctioned at the Idea Generation Gallery in London. They are expected to fetch £300,000.
In the early 60s, Meek had a string of UK No 1s, including Telstar, which was the first song by a British artist to top the US charts. Frequently compared to influential American studio whizz Phil Spector, Meek pioneered numerous recording techniques in his flat-cum-studio at 304 Holloway Road in North London.
Meek committed suicide in 1967 and the tapes passed on to Cliff Cooper, who worked with the producer when playing bass with the Millionaires. Totaling over 4,000 hours of music, they contain previously unheard songs by Billy Fury, Tom Jones and David Bowie's first band, the Konrads, as well as forgotten 60s stars as the Honeycombs, John Leyton and Heinz, all of whom had UK No 1s with Meek.
According to Alan Blackburn, former president of the Joe Meek Appreciation Society who catalogued the tapes in the mid-80s, they contain great insight into how Meek worked. "There are eight years of a man's life on those tapes," he says. "They're invaluable, really."
Q&A: ALAN BLACKBURN
Guardian/Music: What's on the tapes?
Blackburn: "Lots of unreleased stuff by the top names that Joe had at the time. There's a session from the Konrads, which was David Bowie's first band, playing an old Charlie & Ines Fox number called Mocking Bird. I think that's Bowie's first studio recording. There are lots of examples of the classic Joe Meek sound — angelic choirs and violins — that have never been released. For example, there's a song called Stairway to the Stars by Michael Cox. There are extended versions of Telstar, too. At a guess there's 10 albums worth of material good enough to be released."
Does Joe Meek's personality come through?
"He had a quite temper and you can hear him giving some of the bands a telling off. There's a point where one of his bands, the Wild Boys, are having an argument. He shouts, 'The only musician out of the bloody lot of you is [future Deep Purple guitarist] Ritchie Blackmore'. Also, he couldn't write or play music, so when he was composing he would just la-la along to a backing track. You can hear him composing Telstar that way. He's out of tune most of the time."
How long did it take you to transcribe the tapes?
"About 18 months. I started in 1983. I was a milkman. I'd finish work at 10am, then work on the tapes until 7pm. It took until early 1985."
Was it difficult making sense of them?
"A lot of the tapes don't have any writing on them, or it's some secret code of Joe's. For example, there's a song called Coma Prima, but Joe has just written 'neda'. And because he was short of tape in the early days he would record over old tapes or reverse them. Listening back, you get one song, then all of a sudden it goes into another song, or, worse, another song going backwards."
How do you feel about the tapes being sold?
"A little bit sad. Joe was the innovator of the studio in the front room. He recorded all those hit records in that flat in Holloway Road. It's amazing when you think about it."
Q&A: CLIFF COOPER
Guardian/Music: How did you come to own the tapes?
Cooper: "When Joe died, I wanted to buy his recording studio. I approached the solicitor handling his estate. He said the recording equipment had been sold, but that he still had all of Joe Meek's tapes. He said that he should really have them destroyed, but, and these are his exact words, 'It's his entire life's work and I can't bring myself to do it'. He said he could sell me the physical tape, not the copyright of any music they contained, for £300, but that I couldn't sell them on or split them up. They came in 67 tea chests, all full of quarter-inch tapes."
What did you do with them?
"I stored them in the basement of my flat in west London. My biggest concern was that the tapes may deteriorate, so I checked them regularly. They look a bit rough, but they haven't lost any sound quality at all."
Why are you selling them?
Joe's solicitor asked me to look after the tapes, which I've done. But I'm in my 60s and I need to pass them on to someone else. Whoever buys them will have to sign to say they won't break up the collection. I hope they stay in England. I hope they get released in some form, not locked in a cupboard and forgotten about. That would be very sad.
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