"Making Time for The Creation" by Aaron J. Poehler copyright 1999

When the ads for the Disney-financed film Rushmore hit the airwaves last winter, millions of people got their heads turned by the catchy tune that spiked the commercials--a classic guitar riff-rocker, with attitude to spare and enough melody to put the nouveau-pop clique in its place, plus a chorus you can't get out of your head: "Why do we have to carry on/Always singing the same old song". Since the song bears the same production sound that graced the early Who singles (also represented on Rushmore's soundtrack), doubtless many assumed that it was an excavated Who gem, but in fact it was the long-awaited breakthrough of the almost-forgotten 60's psychedelic pop band the Creation.

Although their cultural impact in their own time was negligible, the Creation was never forgotten by a small cult of loyalists; like the much repeated quote about the Velvet Underground, it seems that while only a few people ever heard a Creation record, each one of them either formed a band, wrote a book, or organized a record label, and each one did their part to spread the word about the great lost British Invasion band. Creation/Who/Kinks producer Shel Talmy wistfully refers to the Creation as "the band that didn't make it that should have" and "certainly as good as the Who or the Kinks… or maybe even the Stones." Television Personalities leader Daniel Treacy festooned early record sleeves with pictures of old Creation records and quotes from the band members, and covered two of the band's songs ("Painter Man" and "Making Time") on his appropriately titled album They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles. Treacy's friend Alan McGee first named his band Biff Bang Pow after an early Creation single, then later on formed a record label which he named Creation Records after the beloved band of his youth--today, Creation Records is best known for releasing albums by acts such as Oasis, Teenage Fanclub, and Sugar, but one of their first releases was a flexidisc featuring the TV Personalities doing their own version of "Biff Bang Pow". The teenaged John Lydon tried in vain to get the not-yet-infamous Sex Pistols to play Creation songs like "Through My Eyes" properly, and drew inspiration from the sneering vocals and crushing power chords of "Making Time" for innumerable Pistols and Public Image Ltd. songs. Pete Frame, creator of the seminal Rock Family Trees book, simply exclaimed, "Oh what a dazzling group!!!", and wondered "what might have happened if they'd gone a bit higher [in the charts]".

The thread tying all these disparate elements together is the music of the Creation, music most often described by a quote from Creation guitarist Eddie Phillips: "Our music is red--with purple flashes!" What that means translated into audio terms is open for debate, but the sound of the Creation is instantly identifiable--startlingly unconventional guitar breaks, strikingly memorable melodies, lyrics understandable on first listen that turn out to have deeper meaning upon reexamination, and psychedelic British Invasion production touches that augment rather than obscure the strengths of the band. What's even more surprising is that where most bands start with a solid core lineup and then weaken as the original members fade away, the Creation's lineup changed constantly over the course of their brief career, and though each different lineup was often missing a key member of the band, each phase also produced work that stands up to anything else the band ever did!

This tendency for an unstable lineup can be traced back to the band that eventually ended up spawning the Creation, a Cheshunt-based group called Jimmy Virgo and the Blue Jacks. As the Blue Jacks quit one by one, eventually leaving only bassist John Dalton, new members were brought in until it was evident that the old name simply would not do anymore (for one thing, Jimmy Virgo was gone). The band was briefly rechristened Kenny Lee and the Mark Four after the new lead singer's stage name, but after Kenny disappeared for a few days and missed several gigs, he returned to find that he had lost his star status; he was allowed to rejoin the band, but they would go on as simply the Mark Four.

At this stage, the Mark Four's lineup was temporarily stabilized with Dalton, Kenny (Lee) Pickett, lead guitarist Eddie Phillips, drummer Jack Jones, and rhythm guitarist Mick Thompson; the reconstituted group managed to land a singles deal with Mercury Records in the wake of the Beatle boom and recorded a series of songs by American masters like Marvin Gaye, Larry Williams, and Johnny Otis. Regrettably, the cut chosen for the A-side of their first single was a perfunctory version of Bill Haley & the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock", which the band barely knew and had played only at the A&R man's insistence. Released in May 1964, the record unsurprisingly did nothing commercially; their second Mercury single, released in August of that year, followed suit, and Mercury declined to renew the Mark Four's contract.

Despite the loss of the Mercury deal, the band soldiered on, touring incessantly and rapidly developing from a typical (for the time) rock & roll cover band into a high-energy, R&B-based group with its own unique style. Phillips in particular was developing into an incredible guitar player, utilizing feedback, distortion, and most memorably playing his guitar with a violin bow.

Eddie explains: "I didn't like the sound of [my guitar] that much and I was always looking…to make it sound different. The first thing I tried was a hacksaw; I took the blade out of it and put a guitar string in it 'cause I thought the sound of a guitar string going across guitar strings might make an interesting sound. What in fact happened was that I didn't account for the bits at the end that come down below the blade…so I'm sawing away at this brand new [Gibson] 335 [guitar] and there's a guy down at the front pointin' at me guitar and laughin', and when I looked at this guitar I saw I'd worn three dirty great grooves almost through the wood at the front [groans]. I'd only had it for a month, y'know? So I thought, there's no turning back now and I started looking for another idea…and came across the violin bow."

Their forward progress was demonstrated in August 1965, when Decca released the band's third single: "Hurt Me(If You Will)" b/w "I'm Leaving", both written by the nascent Pickett/Phillips songwriting team. Although the band appeared to be getting closer to their goals, both rhythm guitarist Mick Thompson and bassist Dalton dropped out of the band at the end of the year; Thompson quit the music business altogether, while Dalton became a member of the Kinks a few years later when their original bassist became unreliable.

Unfazed, the Mark Four recruited Tony Cooke to fill Dalton's slot, while Eddie Phillips expanded his playing to fill the space where another guitar had previously been, and the quartet released a new single on Fontana Records in January 1966, again featuring two new Pickett/Phillips tunes and again a commercial nonperformer. It was becoming obvious that the band needed help, so in April 1966 the group singed a deal with manager Tony Stratton-Smith.

Stratton-Smith saw great potential in the band and immediately began putting his plan into effect: his first change was to bring in bassist Bob Garner (a journeyman who'd played with groups ranging from the Merseybeats to the Slaves and backing Lee Curtis and Tony Sheridan) to replace the apparently unacceptable Cooke. Stratton-Smith then shopped the band's tapes to Kinks/Who producer Shel Talmy, who signed them to his newly created Planet label after checking out a Mark Four performance for himself. By the next week, the band was in the studio recording with Talmy, but not as the Mark Four--concomitant with Stratton-Smith's image makeover for the group (which included wacky matching custom-made purple shirts with black epaulets) they had chosen a new name as well.

"I was going through a book of Russian poetry," recalled Kenny Pickett, "and saw a poem called 'The Creation', and I thought that looked good written down, especially for a band that was trying to be totally new."

The others apparently agreed rapidly, and soon all the pieces were in place: the band lineup had been settled upon, the name change was effected, the group had a new image to go with it, and they had two incredible songs for their debut single as the Creation: "Making Time" and "Try and Stop Me". Both sides stand among the best of mid-60's British music, combining the essential drive and grit of rock with the hummable melodies, harmonies, and hooks of pop; "Making Time" particularly is most often singled out as the pinnacle of the Creation's work, selected as one of the "100 Greatest Psychedelic Classics" by Jon Savage in MOJO Magazine (7/97). It's easy to see why, especially when Phillips' crudely beautiful bowed solo leaps from the speakers ("There was no overdubs," Eddie recalls, "I had to play the whole thing: pick up the violin bow halfway through the solo and do the chord change with it, and then chuck it away when I'd finished with it, and pick it up again to do the end bit--all live."), but the single only rose to #49 on the British charts after its June 1966 release as the first record on Talmy's Planet label. Pickett blames poor distribution for the lackluster sales of the Creation's Planet singles: "That label failed purely because his distribution company, Phillips--who he'd done most of his work for--didn't like him starting his own label… even though ["Making Time"] got all the plays possible and should have been a hit record, it wasn't. It just wasn't in the shops, so nobody could buy it."

Unsurprisingly for this band, considering their history, their reaction to the relative failure of the single was another personnel upheaval. Drummer Jack Jones was kicked out in order to bring in a friend of Bob Garner's named Dave Preston; Garner remembers, "[Preston] was a real heavy-handed drummer--solid--and Kenny imagined that was what was missing live, and in all fairness, it was. Jack was never a loud drummer and in those days miking up wasn't perfected or anything." Preston's stint with the Creation only lasted a few weeks, though (Pickett said, "He was always pissed", i.e. drunk), and Jones was recalled to duty. In retrospect, Garner admits that "probably we should have just looked for somebody else there and then, 'cause from that moment on Jack had a thorn in his side, and…tried his best to get revenge on Kenny, I think."

Despite the lack of band unity, the reassembled Creation showed no signs of flagging creatively: indeed, their second single channeled the artistic advances of the debut into even more commercial songs. "Painter Man"/"Biff Bang Pow" was released in October 1966, heralded by hilariously unforgettable advertising copy--"Dark from the Catacombs of Mind And Memory/Sinuously emergent––traumas rampant! The New Word, Sam/Etched indelibly––PSYCHEDELIC!"--but despite the marketing genius the single only rose as high as #36 in the UK charts. It did attract the attention of Who guitarist/auteur Pete Townshend, who actually asked Phillips to join the Who as second guitarist--when Eddie turned him down, Pete joined the Creation fan club instead.

Elsewhere in Europe, though, "Painter Man" really took hold, especially in Germany, where the record rose to #2 and the demand for the Creation's live shows became nearly insatiable. In tandem with the introduction of "Painter Man" into the band's repertoire, they had begun an infamous stage routine that involved Pickett spray-painting a canvas (an "action painting"), then either slashing it to pieces or setting it on fire for the show's climax. When the band played a circus ring in Munich, the shtick accidentally set the carpet ablaze, resulting in the band being 'banned for life' from Munich, though arguably the resultant publicity helped explain the band's higher German sales figures.

Though it appeared that the band were arguably making steps toward success, behind the scenes the acrimony was increasing. Talmy's Planet label folded ("I was getting well and truly screwed by my distributor…so I said "Screw you" and pulled the plug," Talmy recalls succinctly), there were questions about how effective their management was, and most problematic the ill-maintained relationships among the band members had flared up again, resulting in singer Pickett being ousted and bassist Bob Garner being 'promoted' to lead vocals. Kim Gardner (formerly of the Birds) was brought in to fill the bass spot, and found a circus of past and future Creation members waiting for him at this first practice with the band, as he recalled: "When I went to rehearsal, there was Eddie, Jack, and Bob, and the bass player that used to be in the Kinks, John Dalton. We had a complete cast."

Actually, a more than complete cast, as Bob remembers: "[Kenny] showed up at the first rehearsal. I'm almost sure that Ronnie Wood was there as well, as an onlooker, because he knew Kim, obviously. And Kenny walked in and stormed out--said a little bit and left."

Kim recalled the scene:"I said, 'Who's that?' and Eddie said, 'That's the singer.' (laughs) So I go like, 'I thought Bob was singing!' So I didn't really know what was going on."

The reconstituted band soldiered on, touring around Europe (including a stint as support act for a Rolling Stones tour of Germany and Austria) and performing as one of dozens of acts at the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream benefit (along with the Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, the Pretty Things, and the Move, among many others) before returning to the studio with Talmy. A deal was struck with Polygram to release the Creation's new work in the UK, and before too long the new lineup's first single was ready.

"If I Stay Too Long" was the A-side of the band's debut Polygram single in the UK, a soul-influenced torch song that despite being an excellent number and the debut of the Garner/Phillips songwriting team was also undeniably a break from the uptempo mod pop that had previously been the band's trademark. Its flipside, "Nightmares", was an older Pickett/Phillips track that the band had begun recording before the split, and therefore featured Garner on both bass and lead vocals. In Germany, "If I Stay Too Long" was replaced as the A-side by "Tom Tom", another new Garner/Phillips tune that was much more similar in tone to "Painter Man" (which was, of course, the band's breakthrough track in Germany).

Whether due to the changed A-side or not, the German release was another minor hit, while the UK single sank without a trace. The group's live work in Britain had virtually disappeared, while German audiences still couldn't get enough. "We basically lived in Germany eight months of the year," remembered Kim Gardner, "I used to have to come back to England to spend money. I used to have a suitcase full of it--I couldn't spend it all." The live shows continued to be a spectacle to behold, even if you could only see them regularly in Germany: in addition to their infamous aerosol painting routine, they had added a stroboscope, a film projector, and a colored "liquid light" projector with the help of Shel Talmy, who both invested his own money for the light show equipment and had the connections to get the then-custom-made technology.

Reflecting their Germanic popularity, German label Hit-Ton released We Are Paintermen--the only Creation album to come out during their existence--circa September 1967. Unfortunately, although the album contained all their singles as the Creation along with excellent previously unreleased songs such as "Through My Eyes" and "Can I Join Your Band", it was padded with weak cover versions of songs like "Cool Jerk", "Like A Rolling Stone", and "Hey Joe", and reportedly suffered poor sound quality.

Though the album apparently failed to chart, it was quickly followed there by another single, this one containing one of their most striking songs, "How Does It Feel To Feel". Written on the basis of an improvisation out of the end of Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" and given a beautiful production job by Talmy, the song is the jewel of the Garner/Phillips lineup, easily on a par with "Making Time" and "Painter Man". Unfortunately, the song wasn't released in the UK for another year (though the feedback-heavy US mix put out in November 1967 was even better than the original); instead, the band's next UK single was a similar-sounding psychedelic number with Beatles-influenced production (i.e. "Eleanor Rigby"-reminiscent strings tacked onto the beginning of the song) called "Life Is Just Beginning", put out in October 1967.

Ironically, just as "Life Is Just Beginning" was hitting the shops, that version of the Creation was just ending. Eddie Phillips, whose innovative guitar playing was undeniably the core of the band's work to date, decided to pack it in.

Eddie explained the thinking behind his decision: "I figured we'd done our bit and if it wasn't going to happen, it wasn't going to happen. The band came out and did some nice things, but I couldn't see it going on and on, gradually getting demoralized. My first marriage was going on the rocks, and I thought I might try and pull it back, if I could. It didn't work anyway, but I thought I should try. I think even if I hadn't had problems with my marriage I probably would have left [the band] anyway. It's a shame when you get close but not close enough."

The remaining members of the band quickly brought in Tony Ollard, a friend of one of their roadies, to attempt to fill Eddie's slot (an impossible task even for a world-class guitarist, simply becuase of the uniqueness of Phillips' style) on a tour of Switzerland, but obviously the new lineup didn't spark the way the others had. Ollard never recorded with the group, and Garner left the band as well at the conclusion of the tour: "I just went back to Warrington, joined a band called Smiley and just carried on from there. It's not fair to put everything on Eddie, but…musically the sound of [the band] was Eddie. The three of us could still stand up there and do it, but what's the point?--it's gone."

With the departure of both their signature guitarist and lead singer, the Creation ground to a halt as 1967 came to a close. Hit-Ton had issued a single of the We Are Paintermen cover of "Cool Jerk", backed with "Life Is Just Beginning", and January 1968 saw the belated UK release of "How Does It Feel To Feel" backed with "Tom Tom", so the listening public was likely unaware of the split. The European market for the Creation in particular continued to be strong; eventually the opportunities it posed (and likely, memories of the "suitcases full of money") were enough to convince Jack Jones to patch over old wounds and get back in touch with Kenny Pickett.

Pickett was convinced to rejoin the band, Kim Gardner was held over from the Creation Mk. II on bass, and Eddie Phillips was contacted in an attempt to reunite the original creative core of the band. Eddie was reportedly reluctant to jeopardize his new employment with London Transport and his wobbly married life by jumping back into music, though, so Kim Gardner gave his old friend Ronnie Wood a call.

Future Rolling Stone superstar Ron Wood had been in the Birds with Gardner and was presently in between stints with the Jeff Beck Group (then featuring Rod Stewart). Though Wood was nowhere near the technician or innovator that Eddie Phillips was, the new band had a common ground and collaborated on songwriting more than the previous versions of the band--some of their numbers being credited to all four via the pseudonym "Garwood Picjohn", an amalgam of parts of the members' names. Most importantly for the Creation, they were able to get along well enough during their brief existence.

Though the 'Garwood Picjohn' lineup played together for just a few months, they played lucrative tours in Spain, Germany, and Holland in that time. In between tours, they found time to go into the studio with Talmy and record enough material for a few more singles. Since the touring was the main reason for the assemblage of the new Creation, though, they split up for good at the end of their touring commitments in April 1968, the same month that the first recorded evidence of the new band appeared.

"Midway Down" b/w "The Girls Are Naked" was the last single released in both the UK and Germany, thus serving as something of a swan song for the group. Ironically, while the Creation's debut single had sighed cynically, "Why do have to carry on?", their farewell sounded more like a good-time rock & roll party. While the band was markedly more conventional without Phillips, the bar-band background all the members shared led them towards uptempo party-atmosphered material that they played straighforwardly and convincingly. The remainder of their recordings were parceled out on two posthumous German singles later in '68: the first was a less-exciting pairing of two Larry Williams R&B covers, "Bony Moronie" (an old Pickett/Phillips lineup recording) b/w "Mercy Mercy Mercy" (recorded by the "Garwood Picjohn" lineup), but the final Creation single presented the last lineup of the band at their best on two original songs. "For All That I Am" somehow managed to recall the psychedelic soul sound of the Garner/Phillips lineup without either of those men being involved--plus it featured featured some of the best riffs RonWood laid down while with the band. Its flipside, "Uncle Bert", was a raucous singalong from the party side of the band, and together the two showed (once again) what might have been, if only the lineup had stayed together longer. Pickett summed it up when he said that "the last band was a good band, but it just wasn't the Creation as people knew the Creation to be."

None of the ex-Creation members evinced any desire to reassemble the band, though, and for the most part it was left where it fell--a forgotten relic of a period that might have been only a couple of years ago, but still belonged irrevocably to the past. Ron Wood returned to the Jeff Beck Group, and eventually progressed to the Faces and then the Stones. Kenny Pickett went on the road with Led Zeppelin as a roadie--somewhat ironically, Jimmy Page picked up on Eddie Phillips' violin-bow guitar technique and applied it to much more lucrative effect. Kim Gardner formed Ashton, Gardner, and Dyke which was a fairly successful group for several years; today he owns a pub on Hollywood's famed Sunset Boulevard. Jack Jones rejoined original Mark Four members John Dalton and Mick Thompson to form a pub band appropriately named Passtime.

Even though ex-members of the band would periodically work together again in short-lived combinations such as Pickett and Phillips' Kennedy Express as well as the (perhaps inevitable) sporadic attempted Creation and Mark Four reunions, for years little ever came of it but a solitary single released on Jet Records in 1987. The original Creation recordings were repackaged in different configurations many times in different countries (never in the US, though), most notably on a 1982 UK Demon/Edsel compilation titled How Does It Feel To Feel, which rounded up nearly all of the band's tracks alongside a few worthy outtakes.

Finally, in the mid-nineties, after years of speculation, the original foursome of Pickett, Phillips, Jones, and Garner managed to bury the hatchet long enough to play some gigs (recordings from which produced a live album entitled Lay the Ghost) and even began working on some new material. The possibility for renewing the band's creative collaboration seemed within grasp and impossible to resist, so they committed to moving ahead.

There was really only one label for the reconstituted group, of course--Creation Records. Once the deal was finalized, the irony of the Creation being on Creation Records was too tempting to resist, so the revived band's debut single was "Creation", by the Creation, issued on Creation Records in July 1994. The single led to an invitation from the record company to record a full album, but (as if you didn't see it coming) the sessions led to the band dissolving once again amidst accusations and acrimony. The album would be put out in 1996 as Power Surge, but the band was finished for good; Shel Talmy characterizes the circumstances surrounding the album's recording and release as "a fucked situation…they basically fucked Eddie Phillips."

This time there wouldn't another attempt at reconciliation, as Kenny Pickett unexpectedly died of a heart attack on January 10, 1997, bringing the dysfunctional story of the Creation to a sudden end. His ex-bandmates were greatly saddened by his passing despite their differences; Eddie Phillips, who spent plenty of time at odds with Pickett, commented that "Unfortunately it ended up a bit sour for me and me and Ken…but I think it was probably more love than hate, actually. It's a shame though that it takes a thing like this to make that apparent." Bob Garner summed it up succinctly, saying "The only caption I can think of is: it's the end of Creation--the end of the Creation."

Ironically, of course, the Creation's widespread shot at commercial acceptance was right around the corner, with the much-belated American release of the classic Creation material on two CDs entitled The Complete Collection: Volume 1-Making Time and Volume 2-Biff Bang Pow! , put out in 1998 as the flagship releases of the newly-formed Retroactive Records. Unfortunately, instead of issuing an unassailable compilation of the best of the Creation's 66-68 era, the prime material was split up between the two separately-sold discs, each of which was filled out by alternate mixes and bonus tracks of dubious value to anyone but the most fervent Creation collector (none of the Mark Four recordings--certainly more relevant to the band's development than reprocessed stereo mixes--are included). This had the effect of making the band appear weaker than it really is due to needless repetition of tracks in decreasingly worthwhile versions, as well as leaving a bad taste of blatant exploitation.

Yet, with this band, somehow this is as appropriate as any outcome--wouldn't it have been more surprising if everything went right for the Creation all of a sudden? Despite the poor sequencing on the Retroactive collections, the fact remains that the Creation's best work is finally being heard by an significant American audience, and "Making Time" is well on its way to achieving the classic, universally-known stature it always deserved. Perhaps, if there is any discernable moral at all to take away from the Creation's story, the lesson is that eventually, the music will out. Bad decisions, broken relationships, terrible timing, business betrayals--none of those things matter. All that matters is the music, and the music survived even when the band didn't. When those songs fill the air, soaring tunes and cutting riffs erase the knowledge of the group's acrimonious history, and if you can resist singing along, then you're a stronger person than I am.

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Resources:

The best source for the Creation's music is, of course, the recently issued Retroactive collections, Volume 1: Making Time and Volume 2: Biff Bang Pow! Unfortunately, the haphazard sequencing means that purchase of both discs (and selective ignoring of useless alternate mixes) is necessary to a full understanding of the Creation's music, but the domestic price should still be cheaper than importing any of the non-US Creation collections. Your local record store should carry the discs, but if not, Retroactive can be contacted at www.retro-a.com or 14 W. 23rd St, NY NY 10010. As an alternate choice, the Edsel UK disc How Does It Feel To Feel remains the best single-disc overview of the band's music (though it's likely to be both harder to find and pricier than the Retroactive discs), and if "Making Time" is all you want, then the Rushmore soundtrack should be available at any Wal-Mart or mall record store in the free world.

As with my previous EYE article on the Monks, Mike Stax and his excellent fanzine Ugly Things were invaluable resources in the creation (sorry, couldn't resist) of this article. Ugly Things #15 contains enough information on the Creation to sate even the most detail-obsessed collector, including a discography (complete except for the Retroactive collections), interviews with all the key members of the band (including the last interview with Kenny Pickett before hius death) as well as producer Shel Talmy, and dozens of otherwise unavailable photos. Stax is undoubtedly the leading authority on the Creation (he wrote the liner notes for the Retroactive collections), and until a Creation book gets written, Ugly Things #15 remains the ultimate source for Creation information. Write: Ugly Things, 3707 Fifth Ave. #145, San Diego, CA 92103.

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