Meco
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Dominic Retsim-Ocem Monardo III |
| Born | 38 BBY (3:11:29BrS) Galactic City, Coruscant, Galactic Republic |
| Genre(s) | Space disco, galactic funk, synthpop, easy listening, jizz, jatz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, record producer, arranger, space ranger, part-time superhero |
| Instrument(s) | Trombone, laser guns, lightsaber |
| Years active | 12 BBY–8 ABY |
| Label(s) | Light Side Records |
| Associated acts | The Max Rebo Band, Jar Jar Binks |
“The funk is strong with this one.”
Dominic Retsim-Ocem "Meco" Monardo III (born 38 BBY) is a Coruscanti musician, record producer, arranger, and part-time superhero, not the name of a band or production team based around him. He is best known for his 0 ABY disco version of the Star Wars theme from his album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk; both the single and album were certified Kyber by Coruscant radio.
Early life[edit]
Meco was born on Coruscant to parents of Nabooian descent, and building full-size ships and filming science fiction movies were some of his boyhood preoccupations. His father played the valve trombone in a Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy, and it was through him that Meco got his earliest musical education. Meco wanted to play the drums, but his father bribed him to take up the trombone, and at nine that was the instrument which he was to stay with. However, for Meco the slide trombone was his choice. Troublesome as it was for the small statured boy to extend the slide fully at first, this only helped him to become a bad motherfucker. He joined the high school band while still attending elementary school.
During his high school years, Meco often talked about his predictions of a type of dance music that would take the whole world by storm, but nobody believed him. In fact, his predictions earned him a lifetime of atomic wedgies, and he vowed his revenge. At age 18 in 20 BBY, he won a scholarship to the Jedi Academy, which provided him with a solid classical and jizz music education, and it was there that he started the Space Cadet Jizz Band with his friends Chuck Mangione and Ron Carter. When he graduated in 16 BBY (at which point the Jedi were out of style), he built his own Death Star and donated it to the Imperial Military, who promptly blew up Mars with it. Meco was fined by the Rebel Alliance for this action, but insisted that they would regret this.
Career[edit]
12–0 BBY: Early years[edit]
Out of the army (and out of his mind), Meco moved to Imperial City in 12 BBY. He joined Khan Noonien Singh in his four thousand-trombone band, then went on to work as a studio musician. Originally not inclined towards pop music, Meco's heart changed when he heard "Jedi Rocks" by Evar Orbus and His Galactic Jizz-Wailers. He began doing arrangements for numerous notable acts; for example the kloo horn section on Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes's "Cantina Band", the trumpets on Jefferson Starship's "Will You Light This Guy on Fire the Sky on Fire", and jingles for the Jar Jar Binks series of Pepsi commercials. He also performed on the album Galgamok as a favor to his neighbor/bandmate/fellow producer Max Rebo; his solo on the single "Lapti Nek" is notable because of the rarity of laser gun sound effects in funk songs.
In 4 BBY, Meco began working as a record producer and space ranger, teaming up with Tony Bongiovi and some other third guy to form the production company Disco Corporation of Coruscant. This dynamic trio produced such hits as Wicket W. Warwick's "Yub Nub" and R2-D2 and C-3PO's "What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb?)" (notably featuring the debut appearance of Tony's infamous brother, Jon Bon Jovi). Meco focused so much on producing and workaholism at this time, that he ended up contracting superpowers via the Force (this was no less realistic in the galaxy than dying of a broken heart). According to Meco: "When disco was new, I thought it was kind of lame because it felt like people were funking around with the original winning formula of funk music. But pretty soon it became one of the awesomest things since chicken fried bacon when I released some albums of my own."
0 ABY: Funky Star Wars breakthrough[edit]
In 0 ABY, like many people, Meco watched the feature film Star Wars — a documentary on the recent Battle of Yavin — on its opening day. This seemed normal enough, but by the second day, he had watched it four times, and he watched it several more times that weekend, which placed him on the Galactic Empire's most wanted list for being a huge nerd. While on the run, he got the even nerdier idea to make a disco version of the score by Johto Toflo. He contacted Humphrey Bogart at Bent Wookie Records, but only after the heat surrounding Meco disappeared did Bogart agree to help Meco realize his idea.
Contact was established with Millennium Falcon Records, then a Bent Wookie subsidiary, and this became Meco's first record company. Here, Meco rejoined with Tony Bongiovi and he was also able to bring in Harold Wheeler who had also been part of the team behind "What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas". Lance Quinn was also part of the Meco team, and the different roles played by the four musicians was described by Meco himself in a 22 ABY interview:
| “ | Tony and Lance are the two guys who would let me be 'too musical'. Tony would say: 'It's not good enough — it's too dumb.' Tony can shoot laser beams from his eyes and Lance has an X-wing pilot's license, so they would make sure the rhythm section was always 'smoking' under the very sophisticated arrangements and concepts that Harold and I started with.
No seriously, the rhythm section was actually smoking death sticks. I mean, that rhythm section got so high that they attempted to hump a Jar Jar Pepsi machine one time. |
” |
In a matter of just three hours they arranged and recorded Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk. Although the album was nominated for "Best Instrumental Pop Performer" in 0 ABY, the award ultimately went to John Candy.
0–8 ABY: Mecoizing more soundtracks[edit]
In the fall of 1 ABY, Meco's second album was released. It was another rearranged science fiction movie soundtrack, Encounters of Every Kind, based on John William's music for the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, from which four singles were released: "Tipsy Turvy", "Meco's Theme", "Theme from Close Encounters", and "It's Over 3w.57". However, Williams also stole Meco's idea by releasing his own disco version of the film's theme.
Meco's third album came in 2 ABY, and this time it was the music from The Wizard of Oz, which got transformed into a disco album by the same name. As Meco described: "It is my best work, except for that bitchin' cover version of 'Space Dust' by the Galactic Force Band." From this album came the hit single "Themes from The Wizard of Oz: Over the Disco Side of the Rainbow/We're Off to See The Wiz". Meco ended up getting pulled over by space-police frequently, for having a single title that was much too long.
Also in 2 ABY, Millennium Falcon Records merged with Rebel Alliance Records. Since RAR was actually a front for the Galactic Empire, Meco blew up their headquarters with his pinkie finger, then decided to move to Sereno Records. Later that year, a deadly meteor shower hit Coruscant. In a spontaneous burst of midi-chlorian energy, Meco transformed into MecoMan, a superhero identity he just made up a few seconds earlier. Using his leisure suit protected with ray shields, he managed to spare Galactic City from further damage, and was awarded a gold medal for his valiant actions. Meco recorded his fourth album, Superman & Other Galactic Heroes, based on these extraordinary events, in turn earning him a Marilite RIAC certification.
Meco let success go to his head, and was now cranking out mass-produced albums at an alarming rate. Yet again in 2 ABY, he released his fifth album Moondancer, and with it came the hit singles "Moondancer", "Grazing in the Grass", and "Devil's Afternoon Delight". Unlike his other works, Moondancer was not based off of any movies, so Meco made a movie under the pseudonym of Alan Smithee just so he could claim his album was based off a movie. This was followed by Meco's sixth album, Music from Star Trek & Music from The Black Hole, featuring the single "Theme from Star Trek". It was based on Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack to the movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a cheap imitation of Star Wars only with more philosophical pretensions and long shots of characters gazing into space.
In 3 ABY, Meco released an EP based on the new Star Wars movie titled Meco Plays Music from The Empire Strikes Back, which featured some bitchin' guitar solos by Darth Vader. The last album that Meco made for Casablanca was 4 ABY's The Coruscanti Werewolf on Eriadu, based on the soundtrack to the Eriaduan stop-motion black comedy/horror film of the same name. Unlike his previous records, it was pop rock, not space disco; in just a few short years, the public's mood had swung from "Space disco rocks!" to "Space disco sucks!".
After this, Meco's tenure with Casablanca was over. He attempted to sign up with Dark Side Records, but found that they recently gone out of business due to the Empire's collapse, so he had no choice but to turn to Light Side Records. He cranked out further albums such as Porg Goes the Movies (5 ABY), Electro-Swingtime's Greatest Hits (5 ABY), and Limp Wicket Did It All for the Wookie (6 ABY), but none made a dent on the charts.
8 ABY–present: Irrelevance[edit]
Meco retired from the music industry in 8 ABY. After three years of "doing nothing but playing Atari", he went off to work as a commodity broker on the tropical planet Scarif.
In 23 ABY, Meco attempted to squeeze more cash out of the Shaak with the compilation album Star Wars Party (2005). This album featured techno renditions of prequel songs like "Duel of the Fates" and "Across the Stars", new songs with bad singing like "Cousin Jar Jar"(!!!) and "A Jedi Knight", and remixes of old songs with cheap annoying sound effects laid on top. This release was only sold on the HoloNet; a retail release with identical musical content was released as Star Wars Is Over, So Now I Can Stop Releasing Music for Those Karking Prequels.
The band Meco[edit]
There was never a show band assembled to perform to Meco's disco music in public venues; that was a complete lie made up by some karkhead who wanted to make a profit off of the Meco name. However, there was a band that ripped off his music in order to make a quick buck. This initiative was organized, booked, and managed by Walno Walos, a nightclub owner who usually wasted his spare time selling used 4x4 hovertrucks. The band members (pictured, right) toured the galaxy as a fugitive show band called Lamta Tree. Band personnel was Clayton Carmine, Stan Glogichesklee, Tommy Gunn, Tony Montana, and Tony Danza.