Alternative Pop Universe: What if Joe Meek had produced the Beatles?

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In 1962 Meek was wined and dined (and possibly propositioned) by an eager Brian Epstein in an attempt to interest him in signing up the Beatles. Meek listened to the demo tape and dismissed them as "just another noisy group covering other people's songs."

But suppose Meek had spotted something intangible going on in there and decided to take a chance? Revolver and Sgt Pepper recorded at 304 Holloway Road? What would have happened?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 13 September 2002 11:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Is the thing with Joe Meek that everything he produces sounds primarily of his production? so if the Beatles had been produced by him they would just have sounded like a Joe Meek band (for good or evil)?

that's my understanding of Joe Meek music anyway.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 13 September 2002 12:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Lennon takes a bullet fifteen years earlier. John Sinclair still in prison.

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 13 September 2002 12:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Practically it wouldn't have worked - too strong personalities for Meek. Also grounded in live sweat n toil which wasn't important to Meek vs making record with a soap star or an unknown bloke he fancied. (Which is a fantastic and much more interesting way to work!)

Musically it would have been great - I think Meek could have brought a lot to their flattish (until they properly went Stereo)sound up to and including Beatles For Sale, and I think they might have pushed Meek somewhere new - despite his genius, I'm not sure if he ever 'got' beatpop.

I guess the closest we're going to get to this is The Dowlands -'All My Loving'.

Of course Meek is far greater than The Beatles.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 13 September 2002 13:02 (twenty-three years ago)

I was thinking more of the extraordinary way in which Meek managed to leapfrog beatpop and go straight into freakbeat. "You're Holding Me Down" by the Buzz may well be the most out there and psychotic "pop" single ever made.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 13 September 2002 13:09 (twenty-three years ago)

**You're Holding Me Down" by the Buzz may well be the most out there and psychotic "pop" single ever made**

Yes - up there with Wimple Winch's 'Save My Soul' ("Get out my way Girl - you ain't NO GOOD!"), Jason Crest's 'Black Mass', (OK it might not be *beaty* enuff for freakbeat) and The Bumble Bee's 'Girl of My Kind'.

Meek was onto a kind of proto-freakbeat in 1964 with The Honeycombs 'I Can't Stop'. That approach would have done wonders for 'Hard Day's Night' and 'Beatles For Sale'.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 13 September 2002 13:43 (twenty-three years ago)

a general point... is there a definitive best-of or all-of Joe Meek?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 13 September 2002 13:48 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a spoof demo of the Beatles produced by Joe Meek around on the internet a few years ago. Can't find it now. Sorry

― bham, Friday, 13 September 2002 14:01 (twenty-three years ago)

DV: yes, a 2CD compilation "Joe Meek, The Alchemist Of Pop: Home Made Hits and Rarities 1959-66" has just come out, and you can read my detailed review of it on Church of Me (look in the archives for mid-late August).

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 13 September 2002 14:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, the relationship would've lasted until Lennon and McCartney dared to write their own songs - a control freak like Meek wouldn't have stood for any of that nonsense. And yes, DV - everything would have sounded like Joe Meek. The fact that The Beatles plucked things and hit things would've been a footnote. And George Harrison may well have been, erm, violated.

I got the 2CD set last week in HMV. Anyone with even a passing interest in production should consider it essential.

― Microkomputer (Microkomputer), Friday, 13 September 2002 14:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Fairground noises and submarine clanking would have been even more up-front.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Monday, 16 September 2002 06:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Shel Talmy and the Beatles would also be an interesting thought experiment, if only to hear whether the Beatles' talent would shine through the typically hamhanded Talmy crap production (the way it did for the Kinks and the Who). Or to hear what they would make of the bullshit faux-r&b songs Talmy foisted on the Kinks and the Who (Paul singing "Bald Headed Woman," anyone?).

― Tad (llamasfur), Monday, 16 September 2002 06:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm beginning to change my mind about Talmy's production. I used to think it was awful, but the early Who singles are pretty brutal (though this *might* be despite Talmy, rather than because of him) and the Kinks stuff on the first two albums sounds just fine too. Certainly it's no worse than George Martin managed up to and including Beatles for Sale, which are flat and muddy. The Kinks stayed with Talmy too long though.

His work with The Creation was pretty damned classic too.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Monday, 16 September 2002 07:51 (twenty-three years ago)

The Ray Coleman book on Brian Epstein doesn't mention the 1962 meeting with Meek. It does talk about a long discussion between them in May 1963 when BE was trying to sign Freedie Starr and The Midnighters (!) to a NEMS contract. Starr was co-managed by Meek.

BE also set up Northern gigs for Meek act Mike Berry and The Outlaws. Wierd triv point - The Outlaws bassist was none other than Chas Hodges of Chas and Dave fame! Gertcha!

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 19 September 2002 18:55 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

With my current more advanced knowledge of Joe Meek, my impression is that if he had worked with the Beatles they would have made a few really good singles and then disappeared into the void, like everyone else he worked with.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 11:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe a better question is how Meek would have fitted in musically in a later world than the one he lived in. That whole boffiny thing he had going would have done far better in the 1970s, I can't but think. Also, I reckon he would have done well from the shift to album oriented music, once he adjusted to it.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 11:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Meek could've been a synth-pop svengali if he'd survived until the early 80s -- imagine him w/ Soft Cell, Human League or crap "new wave" acts like the Fixx. Disco might've thrown him for a loop in the 70s, though. But Queen would've been up his alley, so to speak.

― lovebug starski, Tuesday, 4 May 2004 11:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Problem was, by the end of his 'career', he was under way too much pressure to handle it. Adding the beatles on the end would have caused him to expire before Epstein did.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 11:41 (twenty-one years ago)

OTM. It was sad (and perhaps inevitable)the way his sanity unravelled near the end. Until then he made his eccentricity a positive force.

― lovebug starski, Tuesday, 4 May 2004 12:03 (twenty-one years ago)

(I know (I guessed, and now I checked) joe meek did die before epstein (same year, Jan/Aug 1967), but you got the point I'm sure)

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 12:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Problem was, by the end of his 'career', he was under way too much pressure to handle it. Adding the beatles on the end would have caused him to expire before Epstein did.

yeah, but Epstein would have been offering him the Beatles fairly early in his career.

I now have the Meek compilation mentioned upthread... the bizarre thing is that Meek's later, less successful material is in general a lot better than the early stuff.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 14:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Having the privelege to listen to an EMP Pop conference CD-R tchotchke called "The Butchered Covers" (thank you, D**g**s), featuring the immediate aftermath of Beatles copy bands in the U.S.A. capitalizing on the Beatles' newfound success back in 1964, many of the Beatles copy bands sounded exactly like unrehearsed, dirty sounding versions of the Beatles with Joe Meek style production.

― donut bitch (donut), Tuesday, 4 May 2004 15:50 (twenty-one years ago)

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