Classic_Pop_Issue_30_July_2017

CREATION LABELLED WITH LOVE

75

T

he 80s and 90s were

a golden age for

independent record

labels – Postcard,

Factory, 4AD, Mute,

Rough Trade, ZTT – but of all

of them, arguably the one that

most successfully straddled the

two decades was Creation.

It was an auteur project

from start to fi nish – it was

founded by Alan McGee

(with a little – well, a lot of

• help from Dick Green and
  Joe Foster) – and, in a way,
  it was his record collection,
  his crazed dreams and
  obsessions, writ large.
  It soared and crashed
  as McGee rose and fell
  himself. It both refl ected the
  developments of the period
  and effected changes,
  including as it did in its
  relentless release schedule
  some of the landmark records
  of its time – of any time –
  culminating in the epochal
  1991 triptych of Primal
  Scream’s Screamadelica,
  Teenage Fanclub’s
  Bandwagonesque and My
  Bloody Valentine’s Loveless;
  three albums that defi ne indie
  ambition forever.
  It began as a cult concern,
  the meeting place for all
  manner of eccentric waifs and
  strays – The Legend!, Momus,
  Lawrence (Hayward) of Felt


• but even at its most esoteric

and extreme, Creation

struck a chord, bending the

populace to its will through

the wayward but appealing

pop of The Jesus And Mary

Chain, The House Of Love,

Ride, Sugar, Boo Radleys and

Super Furry Animals.

At various points, it was

the de facto home of C86

“cutie”/jangling guitar

music (The Jasmine Minks,

The Bodines, The Weather

Prophets), the label that

gave us shoegaze

(Slowdive, The Telescopes,

Swervedriver), the birthplace

of acid house/indie–dance

and, somehow, the HQ of the

biggest band in Britain, if not

the world (Oasis).

“It was a random collection

of misfi ts, drug addicts and

sociopaths,” Pat Fish of The

Jazz Butcher proclaimed at

the start of the documentary,

Upside Down: The Creation

Records Story. For Bobby

Gillespie, the Primals mainstay

to whom the fi lm was

dedicated, Creation was full

of “outsiders, chancers and

lunatics”. McGee admitted:

“I do seem to attract, or am

attracted to, nutjobs.” As

for Joe Foster, summing up

this revolutionary imprint, he

said: “It started as our grand

delusion, and eventually

became the mainstream sound

of a generation.”

Creation literally began

in a – or rather, The – Living

Room populated by a few

dozen likeminds and grew

and grew until, within 10

years, its fl agship band would

inspire half a million believers

to congregate in a fi eld in

Knebworth, Hertfordshire.

According to Glaswegian

McGee, the pivotal moment

in the creation of Creation

came with his decision, in

1980, to come to London

and attend an indie night in

Victoria where he saw The

Television Personalities, the

fi rst band to blow his mind

since The Clash. He recalls

seeing sometime member

Foster onstage, sawing a

Rickenbacker guitar in half.

McGee was suffi ciently moved

to traipse to record store

Rough Trade the next day

and buy all their records.

“I thought, I can do that,”

McGee said of Dan Treacy’s

maverick mob. “That’s when

Creation Records became a

reality – without them, there

would be no Creation.”

McGee began promoting

gigs in 1981, when he was

Q

You must have been

in the studio doing

Bandwagonesque

while Primal Scream and

My Bloody Valentine were

recording Screamadelica

and Loveless?

I guess. We weren’t necessarily

Creation’s No.1 priority, though.

We got what we needed but

it was the Primals and the

Valentines occupying their

consciousness, so they just let us

get on with it. That was the good

thing about Alan and Dick, we

said what we wanted to do and

they just paid for it.

Q

Were you the classicist

rock band next to the

Primals’ zeitgeist–

defi ning indie dancers and

MBV’s sonic explorers?

Well, the way you’ve laid that

out is a classic journalistic

perspective, but I’m not sure if

the bands would have perceived

themselves that way. We never

had any neatly stitched-up

self-image. We weren’t thinking

of being classicists, just more

confi dent and not scared to be

melodic and harmonic.

Q

Were the Fannies the

naughty kids before

Oasis arrived?

I think McGee was frustrated

that we wouldn’t play up in front

of the press. We’d more likely

become more sensible. We never

wanted to self-mythologise.

We’d spent years reading the

music papers and bands trying

to create a mythology and it

seemed a bit pathetic. It was

great working with Alex Chilton,

who was a lovely guy and had a

mythology about him, but to us

he was a total gentleman.

Q

Was there a sense

of you passing on

the baton to the

Gallaghers?

I wouldn’t say that. Noel plainly

saw what he wanted to do, and

he did it – did it very well. They

all seemed like very nice guys.

I just can’t say I was a fan. I’d

rather listen to Tim Buckley – the

antithesis of Oasis.

TEENAGE FANCLUB

IF ANY BAND WAS GOING TO BREAK

CREATION IN THE STATES, IT WAS THE

FANNIES. SINGER-GUITARIST RAYMOND

MCGINLEY REMEMBERS THE LABEL’S HEYDAY.

Even at its most esoteric and extreme, Creation

struck a chord, bending the populace to its will

through the wayward but appealing pop of The

Jesus And Mary Chain, The House Of Love, Ride,

Sugar, Boo Radleys and Super Furry Animals

21. He launched The Living
    Room at The Adams Arms
    in Central London and it
    became the club for indie
    cognoscenti searching for a
    new scruffy little underground
    to counterbalance the
    glossy, glamorous pop and
    new romantic happening
    overground. In 1983, McGee
    quit his day job at British Rail
    to launch Creation with Foster

and associate Dick Green.

Their fi rst releases – by music

writer Jerry Thackray aka

Everett True alias The Legend!,

The Revolving Paint Dream,

The Jasmine Minks and

McGee, Green and Foster’s

own part-time combo Biff

Bang Pow! – were variously

peculiar, psych-infl ected and

scratchily melodic, i.e. of

niche interest. But there were

© Getty Images

Teenage Fanclub emerged

from the Glasgow C86 scene

CP30.labelled_creation.print.indd 75 07/06/2017 17:05