Joe Meek play in the West End

Telstar is a West End play about the life of Joe Meek, the first independent record producer, who could reasonably be called the British Phil Spector. It's written by Nick Moran, who discovered Joe Meek when he saw the plaque on his old studio: "I stumbled across the plaque with a friend of mine in a taxi. He said, 'Oh yeah, there was this mad old poof who used to take loads of drugs and had all these young boys up there and ended up having the biggest-selling record ever and then killed himself. He used to worship the devil.'" He thought is sounded like a good idea for a play. Reviews have been pretty good, and it's running until 10th September - Details.


Comments:
Haw. The name "Moran" just makes me think of this classic image so commonly found in fark.com Photoshop contests. A true "Fark cliché!"
 
Fark gets the refuse cliches after the rest of the internet is finished with them.
 
Oh yeah? Well...well...your MOTHER is a cliché!
 
I'm really glad that someone's finally dramatized the fascinating life of Joe Meek, more people need to learn about him and what innovations he brought to music. Considering the fact that he was tone deaf and couldn't play any instruments (check out the album that supplemented the book "Songs In The Key Of Z" to hear his sung rendition of the hit "Telstar", it's unbearable) it's incredible what he accomplished, or rather what he got his musicians to accomplish for him.

There used to be a really good biography of him hosted on the Joe Meek Appreciation Society website but I guess they took it down, http://www.comfortstand.com/catalog/037/ has some cursory information about him and his importance to the recording industry, not to mention a downloadable album full of demos and other rare recordings of his.

I think a particular quote of his befits the spirit of Music Thing particularly well: "If it sounds right, it is right."
 
there's a nice book, titled _joe meek's bold production techniques_, readily available at the usual places. it comes with a copy of his fab _i hear a new world_ album.
 
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