A Life in the Death of Joe Meek is an independent American documentary about the British record producer Joe Meek, made by Howard S. Berger and Susan Stahman.
Joe Meek was one of Britain's premier independent record producers of the late fifties and early sixties, renowned for his pioneering recording techniques and for the futuristic sound of the records he produced, but notorious for his eccentric personality. His biggest success was the production of The Tornados' 1962 worldwide #1 hit "Telstar". After a long struggle with debt, paranoia and depression, he killed his landlady and shot himself on 3 February 1967.
The documentary was shown as a work-in-progress on the opening night of the 2008 Sensoria Music & Film Festival in Sheffield, on 12 April 2008. Later in 2008 it was shown at the Cambridge Film Festival and the Raindance Film Festival in London.
The documentary contains over 60 interviews with Meek's family, close friends, associates, musicians and pop culture movers and shakers.
Read more about A Life In The Death Of Joe Meek: Interviewees
Famous quotes containing the words life, death, joe and/or meek:
“Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are still entangled with the desire for ownership.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Why does man freeze to death trying to reach the North Pole? Why does man drive himself to suffer the steam and heat of the Amazon? Why does he stagger his mind with the mathematics of the sky? Once the question mark has arisen in the human brain the answer must be found, if it takes a hundred years. A thousand years.”
—Walter Reisch (1903–1963)
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“I askèd a thief to steal me a peach
He turned up his eyes
I ask’d a lithe lady to lie her down
Holy & meek she cries—
As soon as I went
An angel came.
He wink’d at the thief
And smild at the dame—
And without one word said
Had a peach from the tree
And still as a maid
Enjoy’d the lady.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)