Joe Meek Sings!

Jay first introduced me to Joe Meek as an amazingly creative producer of British 50's rock bands but my admiration for him was confirmed when I found out that he wrote 'Telstar', which is a classic of epic proportions. To say the least, I was surprised when I heard this crazy album of Meek’s own 'musical' output, offered as a free download on Comfort Stand Records. According to the album notes:

Meek was fond of singing along to totally inappropriate backing tracks to other records. Sometimes he'd slow them down, sometimes he'd play them Chipmunk-fast, jamming wrong chord sequences and phrasings over the pre-fab backgrounds he fished out of the chaos at his home studio.

A lot of this comes across as an early incarnation of the outsider music of Jandek or Half Japanese, with their strangely compelling and totally unapologetic lack of musicianship, melody, or tune. I'm pretty afraid of most of the songs, but the album is definitely worth listening to. 'He's All Mine' is my favorite, and is also probably the most accessible song on the album, but 'Telstar' is also kind of creepily endearing with it's out of tune humming of the 'Telstar' guitar line over tracks from a completely different song.

Joe Meek - He's All Mine

Joe Meek - Telstar (over backing track 'Try Once More')