"The Emotional, Cosmic & Occult World of Joe Meek" - V.A. (Mississippi Records)

 

There are many compilations of Joe Meek's recordings or productions, especially in the CD format. Still, on vinyl, this album is my favorite of the lot. It's not extensive but put together with great taste and intelligence. I suspect that this is a bootleg, so I'm not sure if the editing of this compilation was one because they had no choice, or by design, an excellent representation of Joe Meek's music. 

"The Emotional, Cosmic & Occult World of Joe Meek" (great title, by the way) covers a lot of ground within its 12 cuts. The most well-known 'hit' song here is John Leyton's classic "Johnny Remember Me." The others are obscure to everyone except for the hardcore Meek fan. The album opens up with The Blue Rondos' "Little Baby," in which Ricky Nelson meets Roy Orbison and is a great song/recording. The drums' thump-thump sound is here, which is very much a Meek trademark, but also the echo on the vocalist's voice, which sounds like it is coming from a world beyond us. It's eerie, beautiful, and sexy. 

Speaking of thump-thump drums, we have The Outlaws' "Crazy Drums," a fantastic percussion workout edited by Meek and played by Meek's guitar great Ritchie Blackmore. The Moontrrekkers' "Night of the Vampire" has a galloping beat with horror sound effects. One of the remarkable instrumentals that seem so right and is the definition of perfection at work. Meek worked a lot with Glenda Collins, and here we have a great tune, "It's Hard To Believe It," that confronts the optimism of the space age in the early 1960s. There are also two songs from the Meek masterpiece "I Hear A New World," The Blue Men's "The Bublight" and "Valley of the Saros." On one level, it is kitsch, but Meek took space travel, aliens, and the after-life very seriously. For one who wants to put one foot forward into the Joe Meek world, I strongly recommend "The Emotional, Cosmic & Occult World of Joe Meek."

Music I Listened to on Vinyl Today (June 9, 2016)

The Outlaws/Joe Meek's "Dream of the West" Vinyl album

One of the great joys of going to Tokyo is to go on the vinyl hunt, which for me is almost a Situationist walk around the city.   The maps I bring with me to Tokyo is usually useless, because a lot of the streets don't have names.  Also Tokyo is very much like a maze.  It makes sense the longer you are there, but when you first get to town, it like "oh god, where, what, and why?"

I went to Reco Fan in Shibuya and found some great records. For whatever reason it seems (at least this trip to the store) an outlet for Joe Meek recordings on vinyl.  It is here where I found my beloved vinyl copy of the Outlaws "Dream of the West" album.  

Islington bound Meek takes his imagination out to the wild west and came up with this beauty of an album.  His usual back-up band for Mike Berry recordings, Meek wrote all the songs on this album under the name of "Robert Duke."  And on top of that he wrote the liner notes as well.  Giving almost pulpy narratives on each track.  I think the beauty of "Dream of the West" is that its not real, but comes from movie Westerns that Meek absorbed from his childhood and beyond.  All the classic iconic images and sounds are on this album, but re-imagined by Joe Meek. 

The Outlaws with Ritchie Blackmore and of course Joe Meek

There is something so beautiful in this recording - it seems like another time that can't be a particular time. Joe Meek's production does that to me. In the essence there is nothing there but the mystery.