The Resurrection of Lost Media Archive's Joe Meek Demo Preservation Project and info about the Upcoming Meek Documentary!

Looks like my old Joe Meek Demo Preservation project and an article I wrote about him is now available at Free Music Archive.

I was first introduced to Joe Meek around 1999 when I was a musical guest on the "Crazy Jay" Show in California, which basically was created out of his bedroom.  I don't remember on this occasion we were doing a show of if I had just brought him a bunch of stuff to trade from my old radio program "Oddity Rock Radio" @ KWCR in Utah, but I was rifling though one of this drawers and pulled out this Meek CD (shown above).  Jay said, "You can have that, it's really weird."

I was impressed by the quote on the case by Andy Partridge of XTC: "“Meek spoke to the dead and heard music from other planets, making #1 hit records in his kitchen.”

I loved it!  For the next couple years this CD was in constant rotation and airplay.

One night while listening to (then Otis F. Odder's) "Friendly Persuasion Radio Show", Otis played a demo of Joe Meek's "Telstar", and I was like "Where in the world did you find this?"  Otis seemed shocked and said something like "Oh my gosh, you don't know?" and sent me a link to Irwin Chusid's "Song's in the Key of Z" it's book and accompanied CD.

Already being a fan of Irwin's "Incorrect Music" radio show on WFMU, I instantly devoured this book, took endless notes and made a long list of outsider artists on the last page, that I felt should be included in a sequel.  Eventually I had the honor of a 3 hour phone interview with Irwin on "Oddity Rock Radio."

Anyway, I might mention a lot of this in the article on Free Music Archive, but I became obsessed.  Even enough to track down Joe Meek's demo's from England and the "Joe Meek Society."   I had to pay a pretty penny for them, which I was a little upset about, but knowing that these were in the public domain, I thought "Fine, I paid for them so that must give me some rights."   So I approached Otis Fodder and his Comfort Stand Label to help me bring these to public light, to archive and preserve them.

Otis in turn was able to get Frank Young involved (Famous for being the curator of the Dave's Record Collection segment on The Tonight Show) who had recently exposed a large collection of Meek rarities for "Cool and Strange Music Magazine" who also filled in a few of the gaps.

Meek is someone I could ramble about for a very very long time.  Had I pursued sources even further, I probably could've also tracked down Meek's seance, EVP and ghost field recording, which I had a couple leads on.  I think I was a little too frustrated at the time with what it took to track down the demos.  Someone should still pursue this!

What makes me the happiest of all about this, is that my prediction was correct, a film has finally been made about this musical misfit, inventor and recording genius!  Although, I pictured it as a dramatized movie, a documentary should suffice very nicely :)

I've always felt that actor Bill Castle looked exactly like Joe Meek, especially in the 1965 Amicus film "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors."  Had a dramatized film of Meek's life been produced right after his suicide, Castle would've been my perfect choice to play the role.

I'm not sure of the current status of this film, or whether is has even screened anywhere yet, but I for one am extremely excited and am overjoyed with this new development of Meek awareness.

Visit the films homepage here: http://joemeekdoc.com/

-B.C. Sterrett