RELEASED 17.6.2013
Some things in life just aren't FAIR. In fact, it could well be argued or that the concept of fairness is a an altruistic human one, and one which has no relevance to the reality of the universe. No matter how cosmic we like to pretend to be, one has to admit in the end that the music business is really nothing less than a microcosm of the universe; because the music business just isn't fair! The Creation were one of those bands who really should have been massive. They were one of those bands for which the adjective 'seminal' at least as used and misused by rock journalists was really invented. People who saw them live at the time describe them as being as vital an act as The Who or Led Zeppelin. In fact it was their guitarist Eddie Phillips who first carried out one of Jimmy Page's signature moves; playing an electric guitar with a violin bow. He was also a stunningly good songwriter, although - in the sort of irony which soon becomes familiar whenever one takes even the slightest look at The Creation's career - his best known song Painter Man is known to most people because of a particularly cruddy cover version by Bony M. Just as they had done to the Biblical King David, they took Phillips' best known song, and made it into a third rate nursery rhyme. The Creation were one of the first of the 'Mod' bands to take that peculiar sideways step into psychedelia. But one suspects that because they still looked relatively `normal`, the regulars at the UFO Club, who really should have been taking them to their bosom, rejected them as a pop band. And the real irony was that they were no such thing. The word 'pop' implies that they were popular, and despite promising sales in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, their British sales were fairly dismal. They described their music as being "red with purple flashes" which is as good a way as any to describe this most psychotropic of musical ensembles. There nearest reference point is The Who, but Pete Townsend always eschewed psychedelia after playing a few tentative games with it on The Who Sell Out. If you can imagine what would have happened to The Who if, instead of writing Tommy, Pete had continued taking a lot of pills and tripping about swinging London. This implies that The Creation were about the drugs. The truth is, I have no idea whether they took drugs or not. In fact, I don't care. What I do know is that they left behind a stunning body of work; and that it is no coincidence that bands such as Oasis and Primal Scream's music is full of the sonic echoes of what The Creation did decades before. Like I said, they should have been massive, and life just isn't fair! JON DOWNES Tracks: 1. Creation , 2. Power Surge , 3. Someone's Gonna Bleed , 4. Shock Horror , 5. That's How I Found Love , 6. Killing Song , 7. Nobody Wants to Know , 8. City Life , 9. English Language , 10. Free Men Live Forever , 11. Ghost Division , 12. O+N .