The Creation Records Facebook page has cryptically posted this uncaptioned photo, originally Tweeted by Time Out Barcelona, and participants in a growing comment thread are speculating at its obvious meaning—could the groundbreaking UK shoegazers Ride be active again?
The banner appeared in Spain, leading to speculation that the band would at least appear at next year’s Primavera Sound festival. No performances have actually been announced, and the Creation web site and Ride’s own web site are both, as of this posting, silent on the matter. The band seems at one point to have been scheduled to reunite for the 2013 North by Northeast festival, but it doesn’t look like that happened: this where-they-are-now piece was published a month after that festival.
Formed in 1988, Ride early on released a string of three brilliant 1990 EPs, and their first two albums, Nowhere and Going Blank Again made them seem like something of a force of nature. I don’t vouch for the two LPs that followed, and the band fell apart in the mid ‘90s. But, since My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver, and Slowdive have all champed at the reunion bit (Slowdive in particular quite brilliantly, I seriously hope everyone got to see one of those shows, because holy shit), it would seem an opportune time for an attempt at reconstituting Ride. Founding member Andy Bell never-say-never’d in an interview two years ago:
Bearing in mind the obvious impact of Ride’s music today, I guess the final question has to be do you ever see the four of you getting back together and playing one more time?
Well, never say never. We’re good friends now. We get together once a year and just have a few pints and whatever. We’re all pretty busy with what we’re doing, but personally, it would be a shame if we never got to play those songs one more time.
While you’re crossing your fingers, enjoy this vintage footage of Ride playing at the 1992 Reading Festival.
Alan McGee has been in touch with Dangerous Minds to give an exclusive update on his new record label 359 Music.
Less than a month since he launched 359, Alan has received an incredible range of music demos from unsigned musicians and bands.
‘It’s been very good,’ says McGee, ‘I’ve had over 2,000 MP3s to listen to, and I have still about 600-hundred-odd to go. So, for anybody reading this, I will be getting back to you.
‘There’s a lot of good stuff and at least, 15 very good things I’ve found from people sending in their MP3s, which is pretty fucking incredible—considering I expected to find only about 1-or-2.
‘What’s really good is the range of the music. I expected to get 2,000 bands all trying to be like the Gallaghers, but that is not the case—it’s all over-the-shop.’
While the initial response was high, Alan noticed there were very few demos from female musicians. Therefore, he posted a further request specifically asking for more women to send in their music.
‘We put out the YouTube clip asking for more girls to send in music, because it was all blokes sending in stuff. After that post, we received about 300 girl bands out of the next 500 that were sent in and the standard of music was very high.
‘Overall, the music has been incredible. There’s a lot of stuff I hadn’t expected, especially from people who have been ignored by the system.
‘I suppose if anything, 359 is a launch pad for people. Whether they stay with us or not isn’t important—if they do, they do, if they don’t, they don’t. We are essentially a launch pad to give people a shot at it, a chance to show what they can do.
‘There is no label sound, which will become apparent after about a year-and-a-half-to-2-years. The last thing I wanted to do was create Creation Records Part 2.
‘359 is more for people who are into music. It’s more of an attitude, you know? It’s like a vibration that draws you in, do you know what I mean? Music is a vibration, it’s like why do we all love “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk? It’s because it vibrates within us and makes us feel good.
‘I’m not saying we’re going to have the next Daft Punk, but maybe one day. Musically the label is going to be all-over-the place, because it will be about creating moods, creating music that is good, and I think this will become apparent after we’ve released about 15-20 albums or so.’
359 is a partnership between Alan McGee and Iain McNay, the chairman of Cherry Red Records.
‘I think Iain is the best person to be doing this with. I mean Iain is just fucking cool. Any guy that can deal with me saying, “I’m never come to your office ever again. I’m never going to come to a marketing meeting. I am never going to go to a gig in London. And I am never going to go to an awards ceremony. As long as you can deal with me on that basis, then we’re partners.” And we are.
‘We could have gone with a Japanese major, with a 6-figure salary, but you know what, I’ve gone with Iain and it’s like, half the company, no wage, and I don’t think I could get a better deal. Can you imagine turning round to Warners Japan and saying, “I’m never going to come to a marketing meeting. I’m never going to come to your office. I’m never going to go to a gig in London, and I’m never going to go to an awards ceremony.” They would stop before I finished my first sentence!
‘Iain is the only person in the music business who can put up with my fucking demands on that! Everyone else would go, “Go fuck yourself!” But Iain can put up with that.’
‘The best thing I ever did was going away for 5-years. Where I live is completely spiritual. I can sit in my room, look at the Black Mountains, and I can just decide should I or should I not go and do this or go and do that? I find in London that everything is like a bum rush every single time. It’s just too much.
‘I think I’m averse to London. It eats your fucking soul. It’s not people’s fault, it’s just there’s no spirituality in London. There may be creativity, but there’s no spirituality. People are on the bread-line, and they’re just used up as a resource. People just end up using each other, you know, eating each other, it’s a kind of cannibalism. It freaks me out. All I ever want to do in London is get in and get the fuck out of it.
‘With the technology now, it means you can run everything from home. I’ve got a book coming out, I’ve got a record company, a publishing company and 2-films all coming out, and I’m running it from my fucking bedroom in Wales.
‘The bottom-line is: if I can do it on a Blackberry and a computer, any fucker can do it—because I’m not that bright. You’ve got to have the confidence, but once you go after it and do it, then you realize you can do it.’
Alan also mentioned that his first film as producer, Kubricks, written and directed by Dean Cavanagh will having a special screening in Leeds this month.
‘It’s just for friends and family, but we have a plan to show it in New York, and we have a distribution deal for Europe on the table, which we’re probably going to do.’
Legendary music impresario and Creation Records founder, Alan McGee has announced details of his new record label 359 Music, which will be a joint venture with respected indie Cherry Red
In a statement issued with co-founder of Cherry Red Iain McNay, McGee said he hoped 359 Music will provide “an outlet for new music artists that have been shut out by the system.”
McGee has also pledged to listen to all submissions personally.
The joint statement reads in full.
Alan McGee: ‘Recently I found myself reinvigorated by new music again after being 5 years away from music living in rural Wales, and from which there has been much talk about how I will return to music. As recently talked about in the press, my original plan was to do a deal with major label backing in Japan. But when it came down to it I realised that I didn’t want to come back to music through a major music label - that’s not what I want to be part of. That’s when I had a chat with Iain McNay from Cherry Red and we quite quickly put our heads together and developed between us a much better deal for 359 Music which will be a joint venture with Cherry Red.
The first ever person to ever approach me about music when I was 19 was Iain McNay from Cherry Red. That was 1980 and 33 years later Cherry Red still continues to send me publishing cheques for songs I wrote then. To me that just proves nothing but honesty and diligence. To me it makes sense and it excites me - it’s where it all started and where I will have my, more than likely, last record label.
My vision for 359 Music is a launch pad for new talent and some ignored older talent. We intend to release on average a dozen new bands per year every year - maybe more if I find a lot of new talent I like. Hopefully some of the artists will stick around and make numerous albums with 359 but some will go on to other things and that is just nature of the musical beast.
Due to technology the world is much smaller these days and 359 Music will be run from rural Wales by phone and computer and the day to day engine room will be run by the Cherry Red team in London. So basically the day to day logistics of 359 Music will be handled by Cherry Red Records and the A&R signing policy and creative decisions will be my domain.
There is no agenda of ‘let’s be the biggest like Creation Records’ - if in 5 years’ time people who I respect and who love music can turn round to me and say 359 Music has put out some great music then that to me will be success. There really needs to be an outlet for new music artists that have been shut out by the system and I hope 359 Music will be that outlet.
If you are an artist and want to be considered for 359 Music send an mp3 to INFOAT359MUSIC@AOL.COM and I will personally listen.
“So there you have it - 359 Music. I am extremely happy to be working again with my friend Iain McNay and to be again involved in the Cherry Red family after 33 years’”
Iain McNay: ‘Alan and I go back a long time, over 30 years in fact. Cherry Red celebrate their 35th birthday next month and we just continue to grow and grow. We released 623 albums (all on CD) last year, mostly catalogue but with an increasing number of new recordings. I only know of two other labels that have survived the late ‘70s Independent breakthrough intact in the UK; that’s Ace and Beggars. I like to think of the three of us as the ‘A,B and C’ of British Independent labels.
I have always admired Alan’s passion and belief in the music he loves. His maverick side will sit well with Cherry Red’s committed Independent stance. I have no doubt we will have a great adventure together. One thing is for certain, working with Alan McGee is never going to be boring…..’
Alan McGee is in his den, the large room he keeps as his office at his home in Wales. The room has memorabilia from his past life as Head of Creation Records, when he was manager of the most successful bands on the planet. On the walls and desk are photographs and posters, papers, drawings, his signature hat and glasses. On the floor discs (packaged away), shoes, surrounded by small towers and pyramids of books on the occult, Crowley, Spare, philosophy and music. McGee has lived in Wales since he quit the music business almost a decade ago, but instead of a quiet pastoral life, he is busier now than he has ever been.
‘There’s a lot of stuff going on, Paul,’ McGee says, counting off a list with his fingers. ‘There’s the film Kubricks with Dean, which you know about. I’m in the middle of suing the News of the World, and that’s going to come to court early June next year, with Hugh Grant and a few others. There’s the book, my autobiography which we might call “McGee”, but weirdly, Harry Mulligan, who I’m writing it with, wants to call it “You Cannae Push Yer Granny Aff A Bus”, which I think is funny. It’s the story of how you come from Glasgow, from Mount Florida, next to Hampden and end up in Rock ‘n’ Roll for nearly thirty years, from 23 to the age I am now.’
McGee hardly looks into to his forties, but he recently celebrated his 52nd birthday, a quiet event with his family and friends. At age when most people are thinking of winding down, McGee is about to make his return to the Music Industry with a new Record Label.
Last week the NME reported on McGee’s return to the music business. It was a small coup for the magazine to break the news, but that isn’t exactly how it happened, as McGee explains.
‘They pieced together this interview, bless them, and it was a great interview, except I didn’t do it. The NME just pieced it together.’
Rather than being pissed, McGee finds it funny.
‘The only way people knew that interview was in the magazine was someone did a JPEG on the internet and then everyone passed it around via Facebook. Nobody buys the NME. The problem is the journalists that work there think people read their magazine, but the ABCs are 23,500.
‘No one has any bigger say or lesser say than anyone else. And that’s how it should be.
‘The NME is not the only game in town. I love the NME, don’t get me wrong, I think they thought I was coming back and doing another big Creation thing, but you can’t create the past. Create the future don’t recreate the past.’
So, what brought McGee back to his first love and how is he going to create the future?
‘My Japanese friend Takashi Yano, he had dug me out of Wales, and he brought me on over to Japan to DJ some Primals, and that kind of stuff and I’d known him before, and we became really good friends, and then one day he just said, ‘Look I want you to do this Tokyo Rocks Festival.’ I’d never done a rock festival before, but because it was Takashi, I said, ‘Okay, I’ll do this with you.’ I sat down with him, and I found this is fucking enjoyable.’ McGee gives a joyous laugh. ‘I mean every fucker’s been trying to get me back into the music business, and I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no.’ And Takashi has come along and said do a Rock Festival, and we spent a few months kicking about with each other in the summer, checking out bands, and putting the bills together.’
Who’s on the bill?
‘I can’t tell you who they are, they’ll be announced, Paul, they’re names you’ll know, big names.’
The excitement McGee felt over curating Tokyo Rocks made him reassess what he wanted to do with his life.
‘I suddenly realized I’d got my itch back for music. It was kind of like being good at something and then forgetting you are good at it, do you know what I mean? I suddenly realized I was good at it, good at talking to the bands, talking to people, and I’d forgotten I was good at, and I am still good at it.
‘Music hadn’t been a part of my life. I’d been busy with bringing up my little girl and living in Wales, and just living my life, it wasn’t Rock ‘n; Roll, you know. But suddenly it all seemed to fall into place.
‘At first, we thought of calling it Creation, but then you know, I was never that sold on the name Creation anyway. But what became apparent, when we started talking about starting a new label, the thing is you have to find a new way of doing it.
‘The reason we didn’t call it Creation is because, this label is going to be so different with what we’re going to do. Creation was a moment and a time. Maybe the attitude is similar in certain ways, but this is a model that has to work today, and has to work for everybody. Creation worked for everybody and this has to work for everybody, but you can’t use that 1990’s business model for 2013.
‘It sounds a bit crazy, but what we’ve got to do is re-invent the wheel.
‘We want a new way of doing things, we want to work in a kind of partnership with people, which works for everyone involved.
‘I mean we all have different ideas. I’ve got definite ideas what I want to do. There are a lot of new bands I like and that really interest me. I love Pete McLeod, Gun Club Cemetery, this guy Chris Pattemore, who comes form Hay-on-Wye.
‘I’m really interested in doing new stuff, but I’d also like to get a couple of established acts, and not the ones everyone expects who worked with Creation.
‘So, what I’m saying is, yes, we want to have a new label, and yes, we are having meetings with lawyers and people, but this is something we’re working on, that’s moving a long at its own pace. It’s evolving, and to get it right, to get so it works for everyone involved, we can’t force it, we can’t make happen fast, we have to get it right.’
McGee knows setting up a new business structure that works fairly for all is not going to be easy.
‘The music business has changed, it’s not just about record sales alone. The world’s changed. Think back to 1990s, and you and me were probably just getting our heads around computers, and look at us today. Everything is available at your fingertips today. And a music label must work with that, you know.
‘Everything has changed and that’s exciting. I’ve never been afraid of change, I can embrace change, and I’m up for making this new label something really different, and original. But we have to find a way to do it that is compatible for everyone. Find a way to do it that we’re into, that the bands and musicians are into. I think we can do it, I think we can find a way for new bands and established bands.’
There’s a great passion and urgency when McGee speaks. He sees the growth of bland, soulless music destroying what was once a healthy indigenous music culture, running in tandem with the failure of British politics to bring about any real social or political change. The country is still in the hands of a tiny, privileged minority. And as for the wealth of music only a few bands, clubs and DJs are keeping that passion alive.
‘There’s a real malaise of dumbing things right down. People don’t have a choice. It’s a bit like the political system in this country, there’s no fucking choice. There’s no real alternative, no real possibility of change. And something has to be done about that, you know.
‘There are a few people who are flying the flag that actually make you believe that music matters. There’s still a few of the small bands, like you’ve got your Pete McLeods, your believers, your Gun Club Cemetery, your Chris Pattemores, and your Chris Grants up in Liverpool, these are your believers, and I’ll always go with the believers. Fuck the cynics. Fuck the Guardian. Fuck them. I’d rather go with people who believe that music matters and that we can make a difference.
‘You know, that have spunk in their bollocks. Everybody is so wet, so passive, so scared, that you can’t say this you can’t say that, and that’s where it all went wrong.
‘Look I’m a 52-year-old bloke and it would be too snide and too lazy for me to pick on any of these bands, but there is so much music out there that is so fucking passive, it’s like what you play to sedate people. Maybe that’s me showing my age, but I was in Italy, in Bologna, at the weekend, and I saw Noel [Gallagher] and this is not because he’s my friend, but his band played and there were 4,000 people, 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, all singing Oasis songs back at Noel in between tracks. Music still means something. Even rock and roll can still mean something. And that passion for music gives me hope.
‘Win or lose, at least you’ve gone your own route.’
So, where is Alan’s new unnamed record label going to be based.
‘I bought this chapel in Wales, it’s an amazing chapel. The only things that are for sale in Wales are pubs and chapels. Because nobody goes to church and nobody can afford to go to the pub.
‘I bought the chapel in Talgarth and that is going to be the base for whatever we do. It’s going to be in Talgarth, South Wales.
‘But first let’s get the movies, the book and Tokyo Rocks all finished.’
We seek to write the perfect sentence. The one that opens the paragraph, like a key in a door, to places undiscovered. It was how to begin this story on Duglas T Stewart, the lead singer and mainstay of BMX Bandits, whether with a fact or a quote, or oblique reference that would set the scene to unfurl his tale.
Duglas has written his fair share of perfect sentences - in dozens of songs over his twenty-five-year career with BMX Bandits. From the first singles in 1986, the debut album C86 in 1989, through to Bee Stings in 2007, Duglas has been at the center of an incredible family of talented musicians who have together created some of the most beautiful, toe-tapping and joyous music of the past 3 decades.
In the early 1990s, when Nirvana was top of the tree, Kurt Cobain said:
’If I could be in any other band, it would be BMX Bandits.’
It was a tip of the hat to a man who is responsible for singing, writing and producing songs of the kind of beauty and fragility Cobain aspired to.
Not just Cobain, but Brian Wilson and Kim Fowley are also fans, with Fowley explaining his own definition of what it means to be a BMX Bandit:
’It means a nuclear submarine floating through chocolate syrup skies of spinach, raining raisins on a Chihuahua covered infinity of plaid waistcoats, with sunglasses and slow motion. It sort of means, pathos equals suburban integrity of loneliness punctuated by really nice melodies.’
But let’s not take Kim’s word for it, we decided to ask Duglas to tell Dangerous Minds his own version of his life and love as a BMX Bandit.
DM: What was your motivation to become a musician?
Duglas T. Stewart: ‘Initially it was two things. I heard Jonathan Richman in 1977 and it sounded so human and full of warmth and humor and beauty. It also seemed to fly in the face in the punk ethos of DESTROY. It really made a connection with me and I thought I’d like to try to do something that hopefully might make others feel like I did listening to Jonathan. Listening to his music gave me a sense of belonging. I felt less alone.
‘The other thing was I met Frances McKee, later of The Vaselines, and I thought she was incredible. I loved everything about her from her mischievous sense of humor to her slightly overlapping front teeth. She said to me one day she thought it would be fun being in a group, and so I thought I would start a group and she could be in it and that way I could spend more time with her and have a vehicle for expressing how she made me feel.
‘Also I had a lot of self belief so I knew if I started a group it would be way better and more interesting than any other local groups at that time.
With Alan McGee it’s difficult not to be inspired to go out and do something great, something daring, like he did with Creation Records and Poptones and all the bands whose music defines the past 3 decades. His infectious energy glows and inspires, it fills you with his rich enthusiasms for life.
Just now McGee seems to be everywhere: he is making a film called Kubricks with the artist Dean Cavanagh; he’s writing his memoirs; he’s curating a music festival in Japan for 2013; he’s working on an art exhibition with musician Alex Lowe of Gun Club Cemetery; he’s thinking about returning to making records because most of today’s music is “awful”; and he’s also studying Aleister Crowley and Magick.
‘For the last 5 years, I have been studying Crowley / Osman Spare and the Chaos Magickians. I got into Crowley because everybody told me not to go there so, of course, I did and ended up at Chaos Magick.
‘I 100% love Aleister Crowley. The Book of the Law is my Bible. I love him. Anybody that is still demonised by the media seventy years later had to be on it and he was. He was the ultimate libertarian.
‘I believe in the power of will. If I want something to happen it does. It always has and that was before I read Pete J Carroll. I really wanted Creation Records to become massive and to get the biggest band in the world and I did.
‘I wanted to become rich and I did, which sounds crass but I come from Glasgow we had fuck all, so having money interested me and still does.
‘If I really want something it comes to me. That was before I learned you can do it with technique, we all can read the right books and be very accurate in what I want to achieve.
This might sound like arrogance, but it’s not. It’s just said in a matter-of-fact way, without any sense of ego.
‘I am almost a hermit in Wales, then I go and DJ or give a talk or work with Takashi, my Japanese friend on Tokyo Rocks and I become the old Alan/Rock ‘n’ Roll Alan, which I also enjoy.’
Most recently he bought a church.
‘I bought this chapel in Wales, as all the pubs and churches are for sale, so I bought it for 33K, has its own graveyard, it’s pretty posh, so that should be fun. I live on a ley line in Hay-on-Wye, everything that happens here is charged. The chapel is more for doing stuff that local people can interact with long term. I know Primal Scream want to do playbacks there etc. so, it’s going to be fun.’
Last month he was producing his first feature film Kubricks, written and directed by Dean Cavanagh, starring Joanna Pickering, Matt Berry, Gavin Bain, Anton Newcombe and, of course, McGee.
Dean and Alan became friends around 2008, after working on the hit on-line comedy series Svengali, which has now been made into a movie.
‘We formed Escalier 39 as a film company to shoot some DIY films. We talk a lot on the phone and have a lot of the same political and spiritual views on things so the film company seemed obvious to us. It’s an experiment really, to see if we can make films together.’
He pauses when asked what his role is in Kubricks.
‘Good question. Maybe as agent provacateur.’
Kubricks was shot over an ‘exhausting’ 5 days and is currently being edited. It’s tag-line is ‘Everything Is Synchronicity…Even Chaos!’ and is a new map to the world Kenneth Anger once filmed (‘I love Kenneth Anger…he’s an amazing dude’) of Magick and Art. Though McGee puts it more bluntly:
‘I could say meta-physics, but the truth is we don’t really know, which is why we did it.’
Kubricks will released next year, which brings us to McGee’s next project, his return to music after his “retirement” five years ago, which led him to believe he had given muisc up completely. But the cancer of mediocrity spread by Simon Cowell and the piss-poor quality of current chart music has led McGee to rethink things, especially after an offer to organize music festivals in Japan.
‘Recently I have been helping curate stadium festivals in Tokyo for 2013, and I am enjoying it. So maybe I am moving back towards music. I don’t know, to be honest.
‘I do like films and books more than working with music but I find music easy to do, I sort of understand the music process and always have done.
‘I think music is awful at this point and it’s deliberate. Music is such a strong thing, with the message and the vibration and they want it now to be shit so it loses its impact on people. They are great bands around but they just are basically marginalised till they give in.’
Next up, is an exhibition with Alex Lowe, and another film with Cavanagh set in the recently acquired church..
‘Dean is already writing a script about the chapel, but to be honest we both have too many ideas.’
Upside Down: The Creation Records Story is a roller coaster of film, which tells the incredible tale of one of the most important independent record labels of the past fifty years - Creation Records.
This excellent film reveals how the gallus Glaswegian Alan McGee started the label with a £1,000 bank loan in the 1980s, and went on shape music in the 1980s and 1990s, as he made Creation home to such talents as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Medicine, The Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits, Super Furry Animals, The Boo Radleys, Saint Etienne, Momus, My Bloody Valentine, 3 Colours Red and Oasis - who were signed for £40,000.
McGee originally thought Liam Gallagher was the band’s drug dealer, as he told the Sun:
“I was up in Glasgow seeing my dad and I wasn’t sure I’d even go to the gig. I got there early by mistake. Oasis were on first, before most people arrived. There was this amazing young version of Paul Weller sat there in a light blue Adidas tracksuit. I assumed he was the drug dealer and that Bonehead, the guitarist, was the singer.
“It was only when they went on stage I realised it was the lead singer Liam Gallagher. I knew I had to sign them.
“Noel and I talked after the show and just said ‘done’ and he turned out to be a man of his word.
“I was lucky to be there. We didn’t send out scouts. Most of my signings were because I happened to see new bands. That couldn’t happen any more. If a new band as much as farts it’s all over the internet.”
Upside Down: The Creation Records Story brilliantly captures the creativity that came out of the chaos of the legendary McGee’s drug-fueled reign as President of Pop.
“I was on one continuous bender from 1987 until 1994. Until Oasis came along the Creation staff were more rock and roll than the bands we signed. Then Oasis came along and things got even crazier.
“I was permanently off my head on cocaine, ecstasy, acid and speed. We’d be awake for three days.
“We went one further than having dealers hanging around. We just employed them instead.
“But they were different times. If you behaved now like we used to people would phone the police.”
Upside Down: The Creation Records Story is now available on DVD, with a short cinema release, details here.
