.jpg)
Upside Down
November 2009ZANI – The Story Of Creation Records
Making a documentary about the subject of music has to be handled with care, as much of the magic that happens in music is lost, and we are left perhaps, with a disjointed account of events, and maybe an exchange of resentment between former band members and managers, which after a while become too draining to watch. However there are some great documentaries like the story of Motown, Standing in The Shadows of Motown which helped the label’s backing band The Funk Brothers get the recognition and respect they have deserved after all those in the years in the wilderness. Woodstock is a great rock and roll documentary, as it captures the free love culture and music with passion and care, and acts as a great homage to the past. Behind each act is a record label, and the story of the label is always a fascinating one. Be it Sun Records to Factory Records, what goes on behind the scenes makes mesmerizing viewing as well archive footage of the artists. It is usually a story of rag to riches, defying all odds, conquering the world and making great music, as this is certainly the case with Creation Records. Founded in 1983 by Joe Foster, Dick Green and Alan McGee, Creation moved from being a small indie label in the UK to a major player right up to it’s demise in 2000. During their seventeen years, Creation Records gave the world bands like Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Oasis and many more. With a documentary about Creation Records about to be released by the end of the year, Alan McGee gave ZANI his insight about the film and Creation Records.
ZANI – Have you seen any trailers from Creation documentary?
Alan McGee - I have seen two trailers, the first one was just bits and pieces thrown together, but it looks really good, which I have put up on my FaceBook page. I really trust Danny O’Connor and Steve Lamacq. That is why I let the film happened.
I never trusted the Live Forever people, the ones who were doing the Brit Pop film. I got a bad vibe of the people who were doing it, and I was right, because it was a shit film.
ZANI - I remember that one.
Alan McGee – I didn’t trust them as people, and I was right to, because the film was rubbish. It was a bit like stockbrokers making a rock and roll film
ZANI – I was going to say Anthropology students.
Alan McGee – Yea Anthropology, we will go with that.
ZANI – The most ivory tower opinionated people around, are students of Anthropology. They never allow anything to have a spiritual meaning, but none of them call write a track like Live Forever or Tomorrow Never Knows.
Alan McGee – Very true. The guy who made Live Forever, was going about the award he got for making the Munich documentary, and I was thinking what the fuck has that got to do with making rock and roll dude, I had a meeting with him. I don’t think he had even heard of The Rolling Stones, he was just a twit.
ZANI – Do you think it is hard to make a documentary about Rock and Roll, because it is hard to get across that passion and spiritually that exists in music?
Alan McGee – Yeah it is hard to do. With regard to making a Rock and Roll documentary I would rather go with enthusiastic lunatics, then a professional BAFTA, Academy Award winning director. Danny O’Connor is mental but in a brilliant way. He is pure Creation, and that is why he had to make the film. He wouldn’t lick my arse, and at the same time he wouldn’t stitch me up. And that is all you can ask of anybody, be fair.
Paolo Hewitt’s book on Creation Records was good and he certainly captured the spirit of it. David Cavanagh’s book, not Dean Cavanagh, was just like the account’s tale. That really put me off doing anything again on Creation Records. Then Steve Lamacq and Danny O’Connell talked me into doing a Radio Two interview on doing Creation, I really didn’t want to do it. But it turned out so good, in the spirit of Creation Records actually was. Then when Danny asked if he could make the film, I never wanted a film to be honest, but they never got the program wrong. I think the film is going to be great.
I know the bits I have done in the film are funny, supposedly Noel is really funny and Bobby Gillespie completely intellectualizes the label, which I couldn’t probably do it. I can’t intellectualizes Creation because I was too involved in it. But Bobby was spiritually involved in the label, as an artist, he can observe it. He actually gets it bang to rights.
I dedicate the film to two people, Dan Tracey of The TV Personalities. I wouldn’t have started Creation without his inspiration, he was mentoring me and he didn’t know he was mentoring me. He was showing me how to do it. Then the other person I couldn’t have done Creation without is Bobby Gillespie, as on the level of having a spiritual brother.
ZANI - The film is called Upside Down, a track by Jesus and The Mary Chain. I thought was an in-joke and the film wasn’t going to be called that?
Alan McGee – No it is going to be called Upside Down. The thing with the song Upside Down, it is one of the most insane records that I have ever heard. It is so violent, not the way you want to go out and punch somebody.
The Mary Chain had some much hatred/ fuck up-ness going on in their heads. They had been waiting twenty five years to get that record out, and they did it. That energy is anger, and anger is an energy. That record is brutal, and Mary Chain inspired so many bands like Ride, House Of Love and the Valentines.
Even The Stone Roses, I know this from knowing Ian Brown and John Squire. Maybe not musically but attitude wise. I have got a painting by John Squire, called The Jesus and The Mary Chain.
ZANI – What about the other artists from Creation Records, are they being equally represented in the film?
Alan McGee – I don’t know, because it isn’t my film. But I think Bobby, Noel and me, are probably the triangle that the film is based on. But the other people into the film are cool in it, like Joe Foster, Pat Fish The Jazz Butcher and I am looking forward to see what Guy Chadwick from The House Of Love has to say.
ZANI – Why in particular Guy Chadwick ?
Alan McGee – He was one of the most extreme Rock and Roll mentalists I have ever met, he comes from an Upper class family. He was loving hanging out with us lot, the bottom line he was more mental then any of us lot, until we got to the pinnacle of abuse in the mid nineties. Chadwick would have won the title for the first ten years on the trot for abuse.
ZANI – Has he gone teetotal now?
Alan McGee - I haven’t seen Guy for fifteen years now, but we didn’t fall out, just drifted apart. We were supposed to do a Guardian interview on how we meet, but it never happened. But I presume as he is still alive, that he has come back from the edge.
ZANI - What rock and roll documentaries you have watched have kept the passion of rock and roll?
Alan McGee – Dig, it’s an ingenious film. Dig is genius, because Anton Newcombe is genius. But if you put camera on Noel and Liam Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie and Creation Records for seven years, they are geniuses as well. If you put a camera on a character for seven years, it is going to be mental. And that is what they done with Anton, who is a outrageous character, as in a great character you are going to get genius footage.
ZANI – Dig is a brilliant film, what I got out of Dig was to be more creative and fuck what anybody says.
Alan McGee – Dig makes more sense now than it did in 2004. Anton Newcombe combines spiritually, rock and roll, politics and drugs-to be honest he is bang on.
ZANI – So Upside Down won’t be like a BBC Four documentary with people reminiscing and with a few anecdotes thrown in?
Alan McGee – Danny O’Connor has pinned it, got it spot on.
ZANI – What about cinema release?
Alan McGee – I expect it to do two days in the cinema and five hundred thousand DVD’s. With Oasis splitting up the time is right for the story of the real Creation to come out, not the accountants story.
ZANI – Once this film is out, will you be able to lay the ghost of Creation to rest? I mean it will always be with you, because it is what made you.
Alan McGee – I think so, apart from the book I am going to write about Creation. It is over. At the end of day, I am Forty Nine and Creation Records was only seventeen years of my life. I stopped it in 2000, I can understand people who want to do the same thing their entire life. You know what I do, I write, I swim, hanging out with my kids, acting in Svengali and a bit of Dj-ing. My interests have changed.
ZANI - Final question, what do you think people will get out of Upside Down?
Alan McGee – I hope they see the true essence of freedom. Do what you want to do, and be what you want to be, as long you’re not hurting anybody. It was allowing the artist to be the artists-that is what Creation was all about.
© Words Matteo Sedazzari/ ZANI Ltd
