20 Arundel Gardens is a 2 bedroom terraced house of which in 1957 Joe Meek rented the ground floor flat . According to sources, had you have visited at the time you could have been forgiven for thinking you had stumbled on the lair of a mad scientist! Reel to Reel tape machines, Echo units and microphones filled every square inch of the tiny one bedroom flat with a sea of cables carpeting the floors. With Joe's mindset fixed on the thought that he had reached as far as he could at IBC and Lansdowne, he decided to utilise his first floor flat at 20 Arundel gardens as a base for manufacturing pop hits. These discs were eagerly passed around publishers for release and a few later became hits - Lance Fortune " Be Mine " , Jimmy Miller " Sizzlin Hot "
Meek's rental at Arundel was apparently cut short when he held a record release party for his September 1957 produced track " Sizzling Hot" by Jimmy Miller ( Jimmy kept in touch with meek and often attended Joe's 304 seance evenings). The event got a little out of hand as a reported 150 guests attended. Meek apparently was given marching orders soon afterwards. This story is in fact untrue as Meek's was still present and renting when TRIUMPH was officially contract signed on the 31st March 1960.
Dave Adams noted the elusive "Black Box" to have first been present at Arundel Gardens, perhaps borrowed by Meek after its uses on his sessions during the day at Lansdowne. Adams recalled the Box having been through various transformations and springs, " The only time i saw inside of it i was just a kid who didn't know my AC from my DC, but the spring itself was wired at both ends"
Adrian Kerridge notes Joe to have carried these " Black Boxes" around in cases taped-up. Adrian explained there were in fact several Black Box units, one of which originated from an old G.E.C 3kw fan heater used to heat up the offices at Lansdowne. This G.E.C fan was noted in the auction catalogue in 1968 where all of Joe's belongings from 304 Holloway Road were sold off. Joe got hold of a broken one and made a spring reverb unit using transducers.
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