Formed in 1966, The Creation were the innovative wild men of rock onstage.
Guitarist Eddie Phillips pummelled his guitar with a violin bow way before Jimmy Page took up the practice, and Pete Townshend was so impressed he asked to form a band with him.
Singer Kenny Pickett, meanwhile, belted out songs with titles like Biff Bang Pow and pioneered graffiti art with his spray-painting antics (Pickett also went on to pen Clive Dunn’s one-hit-wonder Grandad).
The Creation hit big in Germany but failed to ever really make it in Britain. The group had two modest chart entries in the UK before imploding – Making Time and Painter Man.
Their ever-changing line-up didn’t help. Neither did manager Tony Stratton-Smith who paid the group out of the back of a van then borrowed their wages back.
The band dissolved in 1968, with Pickett becoming a roadie and Phillips a bus conductor.
Having never recorded an album in their heydey, Phillips and Pickett unwisely decided to rectify the situation in the mid-80s.
The result never surfaced until Cherry Red released the sessions in 2004 as a “great lost album” called Psychedelic Rose. It would have been far better if it had never been found . . .
Slick and cliché-ridden – including a bastardised remake of their classic single Making Time – the record is a sad testament to the original band, who could have rivalled The Who or The Small Faces in their day.
Kenny Pickett
Vocals
Eddie Phillips
Guitar
Ron Wood
Guitar
Bob Garner
Bass
Kim Gardner
Bass
Jack Jones
Drums
