If you have a job in the knowledge industries, you may think working remotely is great – the freedom to think, the ease of finding inspiration, the luxury of not feeling constrained by a workplace and a clock.
You’re absolutely right, and the technology which allows us to work like this is mind blowing if you stop to think about it. Remote working has its downsides though. It may be no coincidence that mental health issues are on the rise globally.
It’s not new either, so if you want to learn from the great ‘creatives’ of the past, you could do worse than listen to Joe Meek. Meek was a true music recording pioneer. The first producer to be considered an artist in his own right and the first to think of the recording studio as a musical instrument. His list of accomplishments just goes on and on. He was a trailblazer of overdubbing, sampling and reverberation, and most of your favourite records owe a debt of gratitude to this absolute master of sound.
The other amazing thing about Joe Meek is that he did all of this in a recording studio in his London flat. This was the 1960s too, so not a computer in sight. If you look at pictures of Meek’s studio, they reveal a fascinating hotchpotch of analogue equipment, wires, creativity, and it’s fair to say, complete chaos.
Amongst the brilliance, hit records and critical acclaim, Meek’s mental health proved a big challenge. He was bi-polar, suffered from depression and wasn’t averse to a bit of 1960’s-style self-medication. Sinking lower and lower, he eventually committed suicide at the age of 37. Tragically, he shot his landlady first, before turning the shotgun on himself.
Meek’s brilliance as a creative record producer is now quite rightly acknowledged. The NME declared Meek the ‘Best producer of all time’ (above George Martin and Quincy Jones in second and third places respectively). The Music Producers’ Guild introduced the Joe Meek Award in 2012.
The brilliance of Meek’s work and the tragedy of his death shows that the danger of working remotely in the knowledge industries is not necessarily new.
