Manafonistas

on life, music etc beyond mainstream

2015 24 Jul

Plutonics

von: Henning Bolte Filed under: Blog | TB | Tags: , | 4 Comments

Popmusik und Planeten, eine alte Liebe. Joe Meeks Telstar von 1962 stand am Anfang des neuen Space/spacy Sound. Und Meer war der erste Elektroniker der Popmusik. Er setzte ein Clavioline im Studio ein. Telstar wird als erstes mit der Fassung von The Ventures assoziiert, aber das wirkliche Ding ist die Fassung von The Tornados. Joe Meek starb 1967 tragisch. Sein Tod und das Gezerre in der Musikindustrie jener Tage ist ein Kapitel für sich.
 
 
Telstar THE TORNADOS
 
Telstar THE VENTURES
 
Telstar Bill Frisell
 
 
Die Musik jener Zeit war voll von Space-Sachen. Von Meek bis Sun Ra, von Subotnik bis Ellington.
 
Wer mehr direkt ins All hineinhören will, kommt bei der NASA voll zum Zuge, kann dort schwelgen und stundenlang mit dem Kopfhörer Major Tom makieren.
 
 
NASA SOUNDS-1     NASA SOUNDS-2     NASA SOUNDS-3   
 
 
 
Apropos Subotnik …
 

To celebrate the August VOD/DVD release of I DREAM OF WIRES, the definitive and acclaimed electronic music documentary about the rise, fall and rebirth of the modular synthesizer, Monoduo films and Mobile Kino present a very special screening and electronic music event in Berlin. On Tuesday July 28, I DREAM OF WIRES will celebrate it’s release premiere in Berlin, followed by a live performance by the legendary Morton Subotnick. Taking place at Babylon Kino Berlin, Morton Subotnick, accompanied by his frequent collaborator, video artist Lillevan, presents FROM SILVER APPLES OF THE MOON TO A SKY OF CLOUDLESS SULFUR REVISITED: VI, marking Subotnick’s first live appearance in Germany since 2011. The event will also feature a talk which will be moderated by Alec Empire from Atari Teenage Riot …

WEITER 

This entry was posted on Freitag, 24. Juli 2015 and is filed under "Blog". You can follow any responses to this entry with RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Comments

  1. Henning Bolte:

    Freitag, 24. Juli 2015 um 22:52

    Das Video von den TORNADOS ist leider inzwischen blockiert.

    Telstar is a 1962 instrumental record performed by The Tornados. It was the first single by a British band to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and was also a number one hit in the UK. The record was named after the AT&T communications satellite Telstar, which went into orbit in July 1962. The song was released five weeks later on 17 August 1962. It was written and produced by Joe Meek, and featured a clavioline, a keyboard instrument with a distinctive electronic sound.

    This novelty record was intended to evoke the dawn of the space age, complete with sound effects that were meant to sound „space-like“. A popular story at the time of the record’s release was that the weird distortions and background noise came from sending the signal up to the Telstar satellite and re-recording it back on Earth. It is more likely that the effects were created in Meek’s recording studio, which was a small flat above a shop in London. It has been claimed that the sounds intended to symbolize radio signals were produced by Meek running a pen around the rim of an ashtray, and that the „rocket blastoff“ at the start of the record was actually a flushing toilet, with the recordings made to sound exotic by playing the tape in reverse at various speeds. The record was an immediate hit after its release on August 17, 1962, remaining in the UK pop charts for 25 weeks, five of them at number one, and in the American charts for 16 weeks.

    A French composer, Jean Ledrut, accused Joe Meek of plagiarism, claiming that the tune of „Telstar“ had been copied from La Marche d’Austerlitz, a piece from a score that Ledrut had written for the 1960 film Austerlitz. This led to a lawsuit that prevented Meek from receiving royalties from the record during his lifetime, and the issue was not resolved in Meek’s favour until a year after his death in 1967. It is unlikely that Meek was aware of Austerlitz, as it had been released only in France at the time.

    „Telstar“ won an Ivor Novello Award and is estimated to have sold at least five million copies worldwide.

  2. Jan:

    Samstag, 25. Juli 2015 um 19:46

    Und wer mehr über Joe Meek wissen möchte, klickt auf http://www.joemeekpage.info – die Website trägt mein persönliches Gütesiegel.
    ;-)

  3. Jan:

    Samstag, 25. Juli 2015 um 19:49

    And by the way, the sound collage at the beginning and the end of „Telstar“ don’t use a flushing toilet. But obviously there are many people who are unable to imagine Joe Meek any other way.

  4. Henning Bolte:

    Samstag, 25. Juli 2015 um 23:31

    Herrlich, Jan! Danke für das Linken! Fundgrube.

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