Hearing A New World: The Joe Meek Story

NOTE: This piece originally featured in Mojo magazine in a truncated 8,000 word edit. this is the full near-12,000 word original piece. This is such a great, dark and funny yarn of wayward genius and eccentricity that even a bad writer (say...no, I'll leave it) couldn't spoil it. It was a labour of love of mine that I'd bugged people about for years. Richard Benson when editor of The Face, had originally asked me to put it together. By the time I'd tracked down all the relevant decaying old lunatics, he'd left and the new lot chickened out of publishing it. Shame on them. It eventually appeared in Mojo due to the personal enthusiasm of Andrew Male there. Since the piece was written, the great Geoff Goddard, Meek's crazy collaborator and author of the unimpeachable 'Johnny Remember Me' , who I spoke to for this article, has died. In so much as you can do it in such a context, this piece is for him and all the other unsung "cats" who, in cheap suits and HP'ed up to the eyeballs in order to pay for their cheap instruments, helped Joe steer pop into crankier waters. At the end of the article is an imaginary tape which, if compiled, might assist in a better understanding of the magic of Meek.