John Repsch - The Legendary Joe Meek

[Johnlprobert]

There's no stopping the lesbian theme is there? OK - I don't know anyone who likes 'Lust for a Vampire'. It's criminally dull and shamefully unsexy, with an annoying soundtrack and an even more annoying Mike Raven who keeps saying 'A heart attack' in Valentine Dyall's voice.

Could it be Hammer's worst film?

(Now this thread will NEVER get back on track)

[Craig Herbertson]

Come on chaps. I didn't bring this up for a change

The Vampire Lovers

Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Produced by Michael Style,
Written by Sheridan Le Fanu
Starring Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing
released in 1970 (UK)

and watched by little me at the ripe age of 17. Oh the joys of youth. Very few films to top it.

[andydecker]

I don't know anyone who likes 'Lust for a Vampire'. It's criminally dull and shamefully unsexy, with an annoying soundtrack

Yes on all counts Still I love it. I can´t explain it. It is a movie which should have been so much better and where everything went wrong. From Cushing bowing out to the last minute assignement of Sangster because the original director broke a leg.

Loved the Sangster anecdote who watched the final movie and wanted to crawl under the carpet when he heard that they dubbed those godawful song on the awful love scene. Without his knowledge Moviemaking

Yeah, it is a rotten movie.

But have you ever seen "Razorblade Smile"? ;D

[andydecker]

The Vampire Lovers

Best compilation of Hammer´s ladys ever. Pitt, Smith, O´Mara, Lindholm And a good horror movie too.

[Craig Herbertson]

As wikipedia says - only in the interest of critical discussion

[Craig Herbertson]

It was the lead up to this scene which was mana to the retiring youth. All the elements were there: Cushing - a crumbling mansion full of nubile girls and a female vampire

[franklinmarsh]

Yaroo, you chaps. Mr Dem will be along in a minute and he'll be in a filthy bate about this.

(ahem) Con O'Neill plays Joe Meek in Telstar and, according to the IMDB, he was born in Weston-Super-Mare!

[franklinmarsh]

Just watched Telstar. Necessarily bitty in spite of the getting on for two hours runing time, it's a film of two halves. The first is fun, with the Tornadoes on the rise, and getting to grips with Joe's eccentric recording techniques, star cameos, fun publicity stunts, and general amusing larks. The second half charts Joe's descent into paranoia and madness, and gradually gets grimmer and darker, and is pretty depressing. Both Meek and Heinz are portrayed as fairly horrible, annoying, egocentric characters but you do feel for Joe as everything around him spirals out of control. James Corden and Ralf Little are great, Kevin Spacey does a great job as an Englishman, and Con O'Neil makes Joe watchable for such a shit.
I've a thing for these Brit music biogs - the depressing element is present in Stoned and Sid & Nancy (although Alex Cox did try to lighten the load at the end of the latter.)
Not a film to cheer you up.

[dem]

Blimey, was wondering how this thread had spilled over to a second page ...

The film seems to have caused upset to those who knew Meek, most notably Patrick Pink who feels he has been grossly misrepresented, and the general consensus is that Moran has added embellishment where none was necessary. Another contentious point is the lack of a co-writer's credit (at the very least) for John Repsch who, I gather has issued a writ against Nick Moran, his co-writer James Hicks, and the film's producer, Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan, alleging copyright infringement.

But to get back on track; who remembers that Eurotika season on channel 4 in about 2000? I'm hopeless on cinema but there was that Jean Rollin one where the vampire came out of a grandfather clock and also a lipstick & lingerie lesbian vampires romping on the bed one, when that girl sunk her fangs in that other girls arse, which, must admit, struck me as interesting though I'm not usually one for arty films.

[dem]

Jun 13, 2012 9:44:03 GMT H_P_Saucecraft said:

Short reviews as pc is dead (having to use library for now)


Telstar: The Joe Meek Story

Covering the rise & tragic fall of music producer Joe Meek. I didn't know much about Meek before watching this, but it's a great film & Con O'Neill puts in a wonderful performance. There's some fun moments in here - "I can hear you two talking in there & I don't wannnt to" (said in thick westcountry accent).

I didn't realise who some of the band members were in this, it was only through the epilogue giving their surnames it suddenly clicked (Chas Hodges, Ritchie Blackmore).

Well worth a look.

shit, sorry to hear about your computer. I finally caught Telstar over the weekend and liked it plenty, was especially pleased that it stayed faithfulish to Mr. Repsch's excellent biography. Also got me to thinking that there's at least one Meek protégé deserving of similar treatment, and that is:

Lord David Sutch with Peter Chippindale - Life As Sutch ((HarperCollins, 1991)

Photo: John Wallace

Blurb
Revealed, for the first time, the innermost secrets of Britain's most successful politician. Screaming Lord Sutch has enjoyed the unstinting support of the silent majority since the early Sixties; only in his exclusive and official autobiography will you learn how he single-handedly instigated the political demise of Margaret Thatcher, how his extraordinary performance at Bootle signalled the end of the SDP and how he rose to pop-star fame without being able to sing or play an instrument.

Growing up in Kilburn, North London, David Sutch took his inspiration from Winston Churchill, Commander Bill Boaks and Bill Haley. He first stood for Parliament in 1963 in John Profumo's ex-constituency and created the extraordinarily popular and seminal Official Monster Raving Loony Party. Since then he has never looked back. His story will undoubtedly take its place as the outstanding political memoir of the new decade.

Though he never saw much in terms of chart action - the nearest miss, a self-penned paeon to Jack the Ripper was way back in 1963 - David 'Screaming Lord' Sutch shameless publicity seeking, coupled with a vaudevillian shock horror stage act, ensured him the living legend status he craved long before his celebrated foray into the world of surreal party politics. Almost inevitably, we now know that David's inspired clowning masked a deeply tortured psyche. As coroner Dr. William Dolman, recording a verdict of suicide "while suffering from a depressive illness" put it "The public saw the cheery, outgoing character. Yet in the privacy of his room his true character and true sadness appeared".

Life As Sutch, published eight years before his body was discovered hanging from a skipping rope at his mother's house, is just about as easy a read as you can get. A chatty, frequently funny stream of anecdotes - the guy sure enjoyed some larks and seemed to have a knack for discovering and nurturing talent : Richie Blackmore, actor Paul Nicholas, Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople, Jeff Beck, and actress Carmen du Sautoy are all one-time members of his Raving Savages - but his refusal to take himself the least seriously means he doesn't really dwell on the dark bits. One minute Joe Meek is blowing his head off, the next Sutch has jumped to more comfortable, maverick territory like the Savages' outrageous stage antics or his infiltration of the Tory Party "to bring Maggie down from within" which led to panicked calls from fellow Raving Monster Looney committee members complaining their phones were being tapped by MI5.

Right up to the end, Sutch and the current version of the Savages would gig at The Railway Hotel in Harrow, an occasional hang out of mine though sadly, I never caught their show, nor did I never did manage to meet the great man.

Or did I ... ?

This would have been around February 1997, I guess. The Joe Meek Appreciation Society had arranged a bash at the Lord Nelson in Holloway Road, and the bride and I hit on this as a great opportunity to seek out not only Mr. Sutch, but David Vanian and Meek biographer John Repsh too, all of whom we wished to interview for a fanzine. Come the big night and I'm pinballing about the bar like some skeletal Roger Cook, mithering a pair of kindly Goths into forming a search party with the elusive Mr. Vanian as our quarry, when suddenly I catch a glimpse of a familiar figure over by the CD stall. Yeah, that's him alright ! The shapeless raincoat and absence of trade mark top hat can't fool this demasquer of mildly infamous rock icons. You are he who crawls from a Big Black Coffin and screams of a Monster in black tights!

"Excuse me, you're Screaming Lord Sutch, aren't you ?"

"No mate. [sheepish grin]. I don't think he's here tonight. He's had a spot of illness."

"Has anybody ever told you that you're the dead spit ..." fortunately for us both, I managed to check myself and save any further embarrassment, having figured that, if the fellow truly wasn't Sutch he'd have heard same a hundred times, and if he was, well, he obviously wanted his privacy. A few words to the effect that I was sorry for disturbing him, and I rejoined my wife who, ever the wise one, had opted for sitting the encounter out.

"What did he have to say ?"

"Nothing much. He says he isn't him"

The bride wasn't buying that any more than I had, and even to this day, we still recall with fondness the night we maybe rubbed shoulders with his All Black and Hairyness.

May he rest in peace.

[franklinmarsh]

You can never have enough Sutch comments. I was fortunate enough to see the great man twice - supporting The Stray Cats at the Lyceum, where bemused rockabillies looked on as the good Lord fought a copper with an ever lengthening sword during Jack The Ripper, and at a Raving Monster Loony bash at the Marquee in Wardour Street, where he was brought on stage in a blue coffin by bizarre pall bearers including a hunchbacked monk. The casket was placed stagefront and three sharp raps were heard. Then the band (featuring at least one original Savage) belted out You Keep A-Knockin'But You Can't Come In. The whole shebang ended with Mags Thatcher (not the real one) being guillotined. Who said politics were boring?

[franklinmarsh]

Rather bizarrely turned up a CD copy of the soundtrack to Telstar in a chariddy shop recently - all tunes by the original artists, and it's a belter - The Tornadoes, John Leyton, The Honeycombs, The Night Trekkers, Gene Vincent, Sutch - and - Arthur Askey - The Bee Song. A recent telly ad contains a shite cover version of this but, as with Sutch above, I actually saw Big-Hearted Arthur perform this live circa 1973 at an end-of-the-pier show in Eastbourne, sandwiched in between The Bachelors (arguably the last of the heavy metal power trios - or was that Motorhead?) and top alternative comedian Norman Collier (then unknown - this was pre-New Faces superstardom). The same shop also yielded The Mammoth Book Of Sex'N'Drugs'N'Rock'N'Roll - rather disappointingly a collection of music journalism although it does contain an interview with Cynthia Plastercaster (Crikey!), John Repsch on the death of Joe Meek and a great piece by Mick Farren on Gene Vincent. Synchronicity.

[dem]

Rummaging through my drawers recently (inadvisable), I came up with a mini-treasure trove of Meek/ Sutch ephemera, including a flyer for what I'm pretty sure was Sutch's last gig on his home turf.

Alan Blackburn (ed.) - Thunderbolt: Joe Meek Appreciation Society Magazine #7 (1992)

Jan Olofsson - Gunilla Thorne
Keith Hunt - From Timber Cutter To Disc Cutter: Danny 'Wham' Rivers
Ken Brown - Inside Looking Out
John O'Kill - Technical Joe Meek
Telstar - The Launch
Alan Blackburn - Joy And Dave
Readers' Top- 10's
Thunderbolt Charts: Top-10 Faves/Least Faves
Mike Guy - Lissy Gray interview.
Rob Bradford - CD Reviews (The Outlaws Dreams Of The West, Joe Meek & The Blue Men I Hear A New World)
Mark Newson - Geoff Goddard
Readers' Letters
Geoff Leonard - Joe Meek: The John Barry Connection
John Repsch - Tony Dangerfield Interview
Mike Stax - RGM Instrumentals
Tony Grinham - Warley Lea Farm
Book Reviews (Chas Before Dave, Life As Sutch)

"The only MEEK MAG in the world!" - although between issues the JMAS al;so distributed an invaluable newsletter. Tony Grinhams reminiscences on the Telstar man's ghost-hunting expedition to Warley Lea Farm - see John Repsch: The Legendary Joe Meek - was my point of entry (there is little doubt that Joe's interest in the dark arts was genuine, even if he sometimes fell in with mumbo jumbo merchants).

Flyer for what was probably Sutch's final appearance in his native Harrow at The Railway Hotel (since mysteriously burnt down.

[helrunar]

Brilliant thread. 

I actually enjoy Lust for a Vampire for what it is. 

Love the (fabricated, I presume) anecdote of Rod Stewart having a psycho meltdown inside a coffin. Just reaffirming my love for the Vault... of.... EEEEEEEvillll....

Hel.

[dem]

Found this among a folder of press cuttings. The funeral of a Meek protégé and fellow tortured soul, Screaming Lord Sutch. Think Pulphack may recognise the boquet-carrying mourner in main photo.

Mirror, 29 June 1999