From Telstar hero to killer
QUESTION How did producer Joe Meek create the eerie sounds that make up the first and last 14 seconds of Telstar?
Joe MeeK created the brilliant beginning and end of Telstar by recording the sound of a flushing toilet!
Robert George ‘Joe’ Meek was born in Gloucestershire in 1929. A compulsive electronic tinkerer, after National Service as a radar technician, he became a junior engineer at Lansdowne House recording studios in London.
In 1960, he established RGM Sounds Ltd at 304 Holloway Road, North London. It was an address that would witness music, mayhem, madness and murder.
In 1962, the world’s first communications satellite, Telstar, was launched. It was Joe’s eureka moment. He claimed he subconsciously composed the melody.
A monophonic — a single melodic line without harmonies or melody — keyboard underpins the production, with accompanying drum, bass, rhythm and lead guitars, piano, Lowrey electronic organ and spectral vocals.
The eerie sounds, drenched in reverb, echo and multi-dubbing, were augmented by the flushing of a toilet, played backwards and speeded up.
His house band, The outlaws, were re-launched as The Tornados and the instrumental track was leased to Decca Records. It sold five million copies, making it the world’s biggest hit in 1962.
Six months after its release, French composer Jean Ledrut filed a plagiarism suit. It was alleged Telstar featured a four-note motif that had been lifted from the background score he had written for the 1960 film Austerlitz. Meek’s royalty payments were blocked.
even without the court case, Meek had become an emotional wreck because of his preoccupation with the occult, seances in which he tried to connect with his idol Buddy Holly, unrequited love for a member of his band, barbiturates abuse and paranoia. Despite further hits, on February 3, 1967, the eighth anniversary of Holly’s death, Meek killed his landlady, Violet Shenton and turned the shotgun on himself. The plagiarism suit was quashed three weeks later.
David Morgan, Laleham, Middx.
QUESTION What is the origin of the @ symbol?
THouGH part of every email address, the @ symbol dates from the 14th century.
The earliest example is found in the 1345 Bulgarian translation of the 12th century Manasses Chronicle, which gives a synopsis of the world’s history. Here, @ appears to be shorthand for ‘amen’. Another early example is a letter written by Florentine merchant Francesco Lapi on May 4, 1536. He used @ to denote a unit of measure — an amphora (clay jar) of wine, equivalent to 1/13th of a barrel.
Merchants began using it to signify ‘at the rate of’, as in ‘12 oranges @ £1’. For this reason it made its way onto the typewriter keyboard in the 19th century.
It was u.S. computer engineer Ray Tomlinson who chose the @ symbol to separate the address elements in a computer message.
In 1971, he was working in Massachusetts for Arpanet, a network of computers that was the precursor to the internet. He needed a system to send an electronic message and reasoned users would be helped by making the address a person’s name as well as that of a computer.
The symbol separating these two elements could not be widely used in programs and operating systems as this could cause confusion. He settled on @, poised above ‘P’ on his Model 33 teletype. The first message was sent between computers in Tomlinson’s office.
Later, when asked what was this historic message, he said he’d forgotten, but thought it was ‘ something like QWeRTYuIoP’ — the top line of letters from a Qwerty keyboard.
B. Courtney, Cambridge.
QUESTION One way to learn someone’s age is to ask what they call the English Football League Cup. What other agecalculating systems do people use?
FuRTHeR to earlier answers, another way is asking their exam qualifications and grades.
Holders of a School Certificate would be at least 83 — in the final year of its award, 1950, candidates had to be 16 or over on December 1.
GCe o and A-levels replaced the School Certificate and Higher School Certificate in 1951. In addition, there were S-levels for the ablest pupils competing for state scholarships. Percentage marks gave way to numerical grades (1-6 pass, 7-9 fail) in the Sixties. However, grades did not appear on certificates until 1963 for A-levels and 1975 for o-levels, when they adopted the A to e letters system.
Distinctions were awarded at A-level from 1953 to 1962 and on S-level papers (which also had merit grades) from 1963.
S- levels were renamed Advanced extension Awards in 2002 (now available only in maths due to the introduction of the A* at A-level in 2010).
In 1965, average pupils were able to sit CSe exams with a certificated 1-5 grading system (1 being equivalent to an o-level).
o-levels and CSes were superseded by GCSes in 1988, which added an A* grade to its original A- G scale in 1994 and is now changing to a numerical 9-1 system (with 9 being the highest grade).
AS-levels were first awarded in 1989. Many schools also offered vocational qualifications, such as the GNVQ from 1993 to 2007.
using the exam system to calculate age, the fact I achieved one S-level (merit in maths), two A-levels (grades A and B), three GCSes (B and two Cs) and an intermediate GNVQ (worth four C grade GCSes) suggests I am between my mid30s and mid-40s.
The school was piloting the GNVQ award to sixth formers in 1993, meaning I would be in my early to mid-40s.
Chris Bird, Cheltenham, Glos.
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