Also worth noting is another disc from Guillotine, the 1966 pop music crime film Dateline Diamonds, featuring a performance by the Small Faces, with a cast that includes DJ Kenny Everett, the Carry On gang’s Patsy Rowlands and a young Kiki Dee. It’s also been popping up in department store bargain bins, so keep an eye out for it if you haven’t nabbed it already.

I was amazed that there seems to be so little information available about these films anywhere but I’d like to read the Lance Comfort book that Howard mentioned above and maybe it explores these films in more depth?

Zoom forward 20+ years: I spent a week in London in 1988 and on my last day there, I saw a tiny little notice in a newspaper… The “original” Nashville Teens were booked into a pub, the Elephant and Castle, that very evening. I hurried over. There were about 30 or 40 people in the room. I stood at the bar drinking, waiting for the show to come on. Then, the guys on either side of me put their beers down and climbed onstage! The Teens gave a great set.

Thanks for the great info, as usual. I need to see these movies.

I had no idea that the guys at Destructible Man were responsible for the new Joe Meek film. I first learned about the film last year over at Cinedelica.com (a British film site I occasionally write for) thanks to a clip that was posted there. The site’s owner is a longtime Meek fan so Meek’s name gets bandied about a bit over there. I was only vaguely familiar with Meek before that but the clip got me really curious about him so I started delving into his music and life more and I find him very fascinating. I’m really looking forward to seeing your film in the future.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts!

You are correct in assessing that the relationship between Joe Meek and Heinz was seemingly a bit more complicated than mere obsession. It is explored in more detail in first hand account by friends and colleagues in my own documentary A LIFE IN THE DEATH OF JOE MEEK
(www.myspace.com/meekmovie)which is now making the film festival rounds.

Nice to see Joe being mentioned here with the credit so often denied his input to post-WW2 pop culture restored and the sensitive phrasing in regard to his exit from this planet. Joe’s story will forever remain an enigmatic one - yet profound in its metaphoric ironies. For example, his biggest hit was Telstar by The Tornados (of which you mentioned that Heinz was bassist for) - inspired by the first telecommunications satellite. But what actually was Telstar — it worked for something like 10 seconds before fizzing out, but it provided a successful prototype for the iPhones that sit in our pockets today. Similar too, is MySpace or Facebook, forums for which recording artists(and those in other media as well)can control their own commerce and publicity and retain their DIY status. Joe was doing that all alone in the UK in the 1960’s — and faced great disdain and jealosy from his many of his peers. Joe is really quite an unexpected modern-day “everyman” when examined today in such metaphoric terms.

Films like LIVE IT UP! are great samplers — very much patterned after films like Frank Tashlin’s THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT! — films that, in their respective countries and in their own time, finally responded and communicated to an audience that were continuously being condescended to up to the era of the mid-’50’s/’60’s — namely the youth market. A fascinating time that is easy to take for granted now, but thanks to sites like CINEBEATS, our own current existence is always put into a focused tangible context through thoughtful examination and appreciation of such, once deemed disposable, commercial pop cinema.

Both Lance and Joe would be deeply honored, I’m sure.

Guy - Glad you enjoyed it! I may have seen that episode of Danger Man since it sounds vaguely familiar but I don’t remember it. Now I REALLY want to see it so thanks for mentioning it. I like Patsy Noble a lot and I have a copy of her record “Hits & Rarities” but it doesn’t contain the song “He Who Rides a Tiger.”

Have you seen the episode of Danger man (”Not-So Jolly Roger”)featuring Patsy Noble? It’s set on a pirate radio station (John Drake is undercover as a DJ!), and features a great song by her, called “He Who Rides a Tiger”.