"BBC ARENA: THE STRANGE STORY OF JOE MEEK"

Year: 1991
Running time: 59 min.
Language: English
Director: Alan Lewens

Synopsis: The story of Joe Meek has only just started to surface in the wake of the 2008 fictionalised biopic 'Telstar' and yet the music he made in the late fifties and sixties changed the face of both popular music and the recording processes behind that music.

Even if you know very little about Joe Meek's life and death, most people of a certain age will be aware of the song from which the film biography took it's title. A paean to the American transatlantic broadcasting satellite launched into space in 1962. Recorded by The Tornados it was number one on both sides of the Atlantic in 1962 (it was also the subject of a lengthy legal battle due to a claim of plagiarism by a French composer and though the court eventually threw out the claim, Joe Meek never saw a penny of the royalties as it was settled after his death),

Highly introverted, subject to wild mood swings and paranoia, coupled with an addiction to uppers and downers, Meek killed his landlady and then committed suicide on 3 February 1967

The 1991 Arena documentary features talking-head footage from members of the Meek family and from artists and producers who worked with him.

There is something compelling about the story of Joe Meek, a sonic outsider who created some of the most unique and innovative music of the late fifties and sixties and yet hide to hide one of the most core elements of his personality, the fact that he way gay.
Fascinated by the occult and the emerging paradigm of flying saucers and extraterrestrial entities, Joe Meek lived on the edge of creativity and paranoia, battling his demons as a post-war generation grooved to the soundtracks he provided for their lives.