The Creation Records Story

At the beginning of 2000 Alan McGee of Creation Records stunned the music business when he announced that he was leaving the label. This is the behind-the-scenes story of Creation and of one man's vision.

'The greatest book ever written on British independent music' Guardian 'One of the best British music books of the last ten years' Mojo Founded by Alan McGee in 1983, Creation Records achieved notoriety as the home of Primal Scream, the Jesus and Mary Chain and other anti-Establishment acts. During the Britpop boom of the mid-90s, the astonishing success of Oasis brought Creation fame on the world stage. In 1999, however, McGee announced his shock departure as his label's influence over a generation of British music came to a confusing and disappointing end. Containing interviews with Creation musicians, employees, supporters and detractors, this is the inside story of Creation Records - and of British music since the 1980s.

'Essential reading for anyone interested in the heady, vulgar, marvellous miasma of British music and culture in the nineties' – Irving Welsh 'A true believer in the power of music and more importantly a believer in the people that make music. He gave me and many more like me a chance to change my life' – Noel Gallagher Alan McGee's Creation Stories is a star-studded, outrageous, funny and anarchic account of the record label he set up and the bands that defined an era, including Primal Scream and Oasis. A charismatic Glaswegian who partied just as hard as any of the acts on his notoriously hedonistic label, Alan McGee became an infamous character in the world of music in the nineties. In Creation Stories he tells his story in depth for the first time, from leaving school at sixteen to setting up the Living Room club in London which showcased many emerging indie bands, from managing the Jesus and Mary Chain to co-founding Creation when he was only twenty-three. His label brought us acts like My Bloody Valentine, House of Love, Ride and, of course, Primal Scream. Embracing acid house, Alan decamped to Manchester and hung out at the Hacienda. His drug-induced breakdown, when it came, was dramatic. But as he climbed back to sobriety, he oversaw Oasis's rise to become one of the biggest bands in the world. Alan himself becoming one of the figureheads of Britpop. Having sold the label to Sony to stave off bankruptcy, he became disenchanted with the increasingly corporate ethos and left in 1999. Since then he's continued to be an influential figure in the music industry, managing the Libertines and setting up a new label, 359 Music, with Cherry Red. 'Studded with diamond anecdotes . . . From mixing sound for My Bloody Valentine on mushrooms, via driving motorists off the road by commissioning billboard posters of Kevin Rowland flashing his pants, to escorting Carl Barat to A&E with one eyeball hanging out of its socket, the book bursts with tall-but-true tales.' – NME

Alan McGee's legendary Creation record label brought us Oasis, Primal Scream, Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, House of Love, Teenage Fanclub and many of the other most exciting and innovative bands of the eighties and nineties. But it also eventually brought McGee to a breakdown so complete that it took him two years to recover. Alan McGee started Creation in 1983 with a loan of ?1,000. McGee considered himself a loser when it came to school, girls and good looks, but he had two things on his side: punk attitude and an uncanny ability to detect musical genius. Within two years, McGee had launched The Jesus and Mary Chain, sold hundreds of thousands of records and created an indie empire that was a byword for headstrong independence. By 1992, McGee was a millionaire, living an unrestrained hedonistic lifestyle. In 1993 he discovered Oasis, and within a year of partying with the band he entered rehab following a near-death experience in Los Angeles. Paolo Hewitt, the bestselling biographer of Oasis, received full co-operation from Alan McGee and all the key Creation personnel for this candid, often funny, sometimes shocking oral history. It captures in vivid colour one of the richest chapters in British rock history. Creation and its roster are going to live forever.

Their songs have been covered by acts as diverse as Ride, Boney M, and the Sex Pistols; they impressed Pete Townsend so much that he asked their guitarist to join the already successful Who; said guitarist pioneered the use of a bow on guitar strings--a trick later plagiarized by Jimmy Page; and they have been cited as an influence by the likes of Paul Weller and John Lydon. Yet The Creation never had a hit single or even made an album in their two-year recording career, from 1966-68. But nevertheless, they are cherished by generations of fans. This is their untold story.

_________ ‘Hepworth’s knowledge and understanding of rock history is prodigious ... [a] hugely entertaining study of the LP’s golden age’ The Times _________ The era of the LP began in 1967, with ‘Sgt Pepper’; The Beatles didn’t just collect together a bunch of songs, they Made An Album. Henceforth, everybody else wanted to Make An Album. The end came only fifteen years later, coinciding with the release of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. By then the Walkman had taken music out of the home and into the streets and the record business had begun trying to reverse-engineer the creative process in order to make big money. Nobody would play music or listen to it in quite the same way ever again. It was a short but transformative time. Musicians became ‘artists’ and we, the people, patrons of the arts. The LP itself had been a mark of sophistication, a measure of wealth, an instrument of education, a poster saying things you dare not say yourself, a means of attracting the opposite sex, and, for many, the single most desirable object in their lives. This is the story of that time; it takes us from recording studios where musicians were doing things that had never been done before to the sparsely furnished apartments where their efforts would be received like visitations from a higher power. This is the story of how LPs saved our lives.

If one seeks to understand Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) history, one must consider the history of Haudenosaunee land. For countless generations prior to European contact, land and territory informed Haudenosaunee thought and philosophy, and was a primary determinant of Haudenosaunee identity. In The Clay We Are Made Of, Susan M. Hill presents a revolutionary retelling of the history of the Grand River Haudenosaunee from their Creation Story through European contact to contemporary land claims negotiations. She incorporates Indigenous theory, Fourth world post-colonialism, and Amerindian autohistory, along with Haudenosaunee languages, oral records, and wampum strings to provide the most comprehensive account of the Haudenosaunee’s relationship to their land. Hill outlines the basic principles and historical knowledge contained within four key epics passed down through Haudenosaunee cultural history. She highlights the political role of women in land negotiations and dispels their misrepresentation in the scholarly canon. She guides the reader through treaty relationships with Dutch, French, and British settler nations, including the Kaswentha/Two-Row Wampum (the precursor to all future Haudenosaunee-European treaties), the Covenant Chain, the Nanfan Treaty, and the Haldimand Proclamation, and concludes with a discussion of the current problematic relationships between the Grand River Haudenosaunee, the Crown, and the Canadian government.

For 125 years, Columbia Records has remained one of the most vibrant and storied names in prerecorded sound, nurturing the careers of legends such as Bessie Smith, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, and many more. Written by distinguished historian Sean Wilentz, 360 Sound tells the story of the label's rich history as it interweaves threads of technical and social change with the creation of some of the greatest albums ever made. Featuring over 300 rare and revealing images from the Columbia archives, this lavishly illustrated celebration is a must-have for any serious music fan.