How Soon is Now?: The Madmen and Mavericks who made Independent Music 1975-2005

by King, Richard

  The biggest, if not the only, fan of the Manics within the wider Creation circle was Andrew Weatherall, whom Barrett had met DJing in the upstairs room at Shoom and at Future, where Weatherall had played a filters-off mix of anything he thought would suit the mood. ‘Me and Andrew pretty much hit it off straight away,’ says Barrett. ‘We just hung out a lot and one thing led to another. I took the Scream guys out down to Future … Future was a good club. Andrew Innes liked it there and they all met Weatherall, and boom, boom.’

  One evening in late 1990 Barrett, Kelly, McGee and Bobby Gillespie went to see St Etienne and Manic Street Preachers play in Birmingham. Backstage the entourage were introduced to the concert’s promoter, Tim Abbott. A quick-witted and gregarious raconteur, Abbott reminded St Etienne’s Bob Stanley of David Essex, and the Creation/Heavenly party accepted an invitation to repair back to Abbott’s house for an extended aftershow.

  ‘I had Martin Kelly and Jeff round at our house in Birmingham,’ says Abbott. ‘Did my bond with Bobby Gillespie, “Let’s drink some goat’s blood,” and Alan and Bobby went through my record collection. Me and Alan got on to this big, deep chat about black and white music, linear dance grooves versus structured verse chorus verse, and he said, “Well, what do you do?” and I said, “I’m a marketing consultant. I work for blue-chip companies. I promote a house club. I’m a bon viveur,” and he says, “Great, man, what’s consultancy?” And I said, “Oh, you know, I’m a fucking hired gun, you know, I’ll come into a company …” like, necking Es, and he said, “Well, come down.”’

  Whatever his levels of intoxication or stimulation, McGee was also becoming immersed in the role of rock ’n’ roll mogul. Creation was totally reliant on his ability to fast-talk the American major labels into giving him advances on the US rights for future releases; while his Glaswegian burr was rendered occasionally incomprehensible by the jetlag and the drugs, his arm-waving body language meant McGee was starting to be taken seriously by the American labels, who recognised one of their own in his hunger for success and reward. While hustling and negotiating in America, McGee had also learnt to talk the language of the industry. ‘I remember that night in Birmingham,’ says Barrett, ‘sitting there, pilled out of my mind, and he’d be like, “Barrett, market share’s fucking better than it was a week ago.”’

  To Tim Abbott, who was well versed in the manager-class language of market share, presentational skills and targets, the identity of the effusive red-haired companion of Bobby Gillespie rifling through his records was a mystery. ‘I hadn’t got a clue who he was,’ he says. ‘I knew who Bob was, ’cause of Psychocandy. I said, “What do you do, then?” He went, “I’ve got a record company,” and I said, “Well – what do you turn over?” and he said, “Just under a million pounds,” and I said, “Well, that’s not bad. It’s great you’re doing what you love. How many do you employ?” and he said, “Well, fifteen sometimes,” and I went, “That’s far too high, but anyway, great, I’ll come down,” and I put on my day-wear and went down to Westgate Street. The big Turkish dude Oz was there on the door, thinking I’d come to buy some gear.’

  Stepping into what he assumed might be a record company run along the lines of a service-sector small business, Abbott was astonished to see the warren of offices staffed by an indeterminate group of employees and hangers-on. Abbott was escorted down into the bunker, where he found Green and McGee ensconced in their own nerve centre, a space where Green’s nerves in particular had been tested by My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and its protracted recording and release. ‘I got in there,’ says Abbott, ‘and Alan’s there – like, “Alreet man, alreet.” It was like … fucking hell!’

  The gestation of Loveless had been a long, painfully drawn-out process of aborted sessions, a never-ending series of mid-range studios and worsening relations between the band and label, particularly Shields and McGee. It had been a morale-draining period at Westgate Street, especially for a company that had grown used, in its penury, to running on the cheerleading euphoria of McGee. Green and James Kyllo had monitored the recording’s spiralling budget as a trail of invoices from abandoned recording sessions passed across their desks. ‘Week after week we’d be having to find a new studio somewhere that they hadn’t rejected, or [where they’d] found an inaudible frequency or something,’ says Kyllo. ‘They’d stay in a new studio for a while and nothing would happen.’

  The myths associated with Loveless, that Shields had had a Brian Wilson-style breakdown, that the record’s recording costs were over a quarter of a million pounds, and that they all but rendered Creation insolvent, made great copy. Upon its release the record was rightly heralded as an extraordinary and ground-breaking achievement, and the sense of the against-the-odds perfectionism of Shields added to the drama. The reality was more straightforward. While the studio bills for Loveless certainly added to Creation’s problems, the label was already bordering on insolvency, but nevertheless the sales of Loveless were healthy. ‘If you look at the amount spent over what it actually sold, we probably made a profit in the end,’ says Kyllo, ‘but in terms of what we had and what we were able to do, it was very draining for everybody.’

  Aside from the constant anxiety about the scale of the record’s costs and the interminable delays, a significant factor counted in Shields’s favour. However much bad blood there would be after its release, and whatever the intemperate language used to describe Loveless later, nevertheless, when the tapes were finally delivered, they were treated with reverence at Westgate Street. ‘We kept going with what they wanted,’ says Kyllo. ‘What else could we do? We knew we needed that record and we did think at the time, and Alan certainly did, that Kevin was a genius.’

  As well as Ride, there were other bands signed to Creation who shared the view that Shields was the innovative and visionary auteur of his generation. Both Slowdive and the Telescopes had released records on the label that had partially filled the demand for My Bloody Valentine in their absence. ‘I don’t know if any of those groups broke even,’ says Kyllo, ‘but they were a very worthwhile second string, and we felt that we were surfing the zeitgeist and we were putting out the best records of the time.’

  However much Creation felt it was at the heart of the culture its finances remained desperate. In the hangdog environs of Hackney, and in the middle of a recession, McGee at least felt at home. ‘The bank on Mare Street got robbed so many times,’ says McGee. ‘I’d come off a tour and needed to put some cash in and taken the Abbott with me for protection. These guys in a car rolled down the window and went, “Don’t fucking bank there, we’re robbing it Monday!” and they weren’t taking the fucking piss – every week that bank got robbed. They had to shut it down.’

  It was a miracle that Creation continued to escape the same fate. An endless stream of creditors were ringing the offices for settlement on long overdue invoices or sending written confirmation that matters were now in the hands of their solicitors. ‘We were trying to keep some accounts going just by paying the very bare minimum of what we owed,’ says Kyllo. Tim Abbott had carried out an evaluation of Creation in his own inimitable style, which had included a hands-on audit of the various drug dealers that visited Westgate Street for comparison and appraisal. As Abbott and McGee became deeper and druggier friends, Abbott was impressed by McGee’s day-to-day ability to focus on keeping the company afloat but he had yet to uncover a long-term strategy. ‘Alan’s commitment to work rate was quite amazing,’ says Abbott, ‘but as for the future it was just, chuck enough in the air and assume it would always be OK. There was no planning whatsoever.’

  In an attempt to reposition Creation in a more inclusive context within the rest of the industry, Abbott concentrated on developing a relationship with Creation’s distribution company, Pinnacle. ‘On my first consultancy with Alan I said, “Tell me about your sales team,” and he went, “They’re cunts,” and I said, “Oh, that’s empowering, then.”’

  Creation had high hopes for Giant Steps the forthcoming albu
m by the Boo Radleys. The record, a deliberate mix of studio-as-instrument experimentation and pop-song craft, was trailed by a hook-laden single, ‘Lazarus’, which Creation had thought would breach the Top Forty. Abbott devised a campaign for Giant Steps, including Creation’s first marketing plan, which saw the band scrubbed up in suits and a lengthy series of advertising that ran long past the record’s release date. Pinnacle were informed that Giant Steps was the label’s priority and they were to be given all the necessary tools, including a re-release of ‘Lazarus’, to ensure that Giant Steps was a crossover success.

  ‘I said to Alan, “I’m taking you down to Pinnacle,”’ says Abbott. ‘“I’m going to brush you off right, and you’re going to shake everybody’s hands and I’m going to say, ‘This is the great god, Alan McGee of indie records,’ and they’re going to meet you and realise that you’re human.” He said, “D’you think that will work?” and it’s like, if it was fucking hairbrushes we were selling, and you were the king of the bristles … so all of a sudden, it changed his whole perception.’

  There was another significant change at the Creation offices: the more hard-edged peaks of cocaine had replaced the euphoric highs of Ecstasy. While the drug provided a backed-into-a-corner focus for McGee, it also meant his mood swings, already amplified by the relentless stress of perpetual near bankruptcy, were becoming more volatile. ‘Coming out of the house scene, everybody switched to cocaine,’ says Abbott. ‘Alan, as he was on E, became very much an obsessive on it. I think he got a bit blurred on it. It became a way for him to deal with his impatience.’

  In a sign that Creation had at least decided to become a little more professional, Dave Barker had taken over what had been the Ecstasy party room and set up an office. His A&R brief was to be himself, which often largely consisted of him playing excellent records while fielding calls from whichever of his many Glaswegian friends had started a band that week.

  ‘There was a few parties went on,’ says Barker, ‘but people weren’t off their nut all day long. They fuckin’ worked hard. Occasionally the tannoy would crank up, “Everybody get down the old bunker, we’re gonna have a party.” And you’d go down there and Alan’s got all these bottles of champagne, there’s lines of Charlie chopped out and fuckin’ Es and stuff, and everyone’s getting into it.’

  Barker’s links with Teenage Fanclub and Eugenius ensured Creation had high cultural capital in the States, where few British bands were considered part of the prevailing musical trends. In turn McGee had signed Sugar, Bob Mould’s perfectly timed return to power-trio dynamics, which gave Creation a great cachet – and healthy sales – in the post-Nevermind landscape. ‘The Fanclub/Nirvana link with Sub Pop and everything meant we were deemed as extremely cool in the States,’ says Abbott. ‘The likes of Slowdive and all that were gone, dead.’

  McGee and Abbott were spending as much time as possible in LA, where they became a two-man party crew, regularly holding all-night sessions in their hotel suites before emerging into the sunlight at lunchtime. Once the day’s business meetings had been attended to, they would move on to the Viper Room on Sunset and start all over again. For one such West Coast visit, McGee planned a trip with Green, who was seldom seen anywhere other than at his desk, where, day in, day out, he bravely tried to manage the realities of Creation’s cash flow.

  ‘The Fanclub are playing in Los Angeles, this thing at Fairfax High School,’ says Barker. ‘Alan’s going over, and I said, “Well, Dick should fuckin’ come as well.” Dick never used to go anywhere much. I said, “Dick, come on, fuckin, let’s have a party, you know.” So, anyway, we go for the weekend. Swervedriver were playing the next night. So this was like a mad weekend – we’re staying at this Chateau Marmont. Alan slept on the floor, ’cause he was off his nut on a fuckin’ E or something. But we went to see the Fanclub and Kurt and Courtney were there and they come on the tour bus. The next night we go to see Swervedriver and they’re playing with Soundgarden and someone had said Slash from Guns N’ Roses was in the Soundgarden room. I was pissed, so I went up to Soundgarden’s manager, who I knew, and said, “Is that right, Slash is in?” She says, “Yeah yeah.” I said, “Listen, I’m with McGee and all that, it’s gonna be a crack …. can I just go in and say hi to Slash? I won’t be an arsehole.”’

  Walking into the Soundgarden dressing room, where he found a leather-trousered and top-hatted Slash tuning up for the encore, Barker introduced himself with a quick ‘Slash – Barker’ and shot the breeze with the accommodating guitarist who was taken with Barker’s avuncular manner.

  ‘I go back out and I say to McGee, “Oh, I just met Slash,”’ says Barker. ‘McGee’s all, “No fuckin’ way!”, all this business. We get back to London – somehow he was with me when I met Slash! “Me and Barker, hanging out with Slash in Hollywood.” This is Alan for you, you know. It’s so Alan, but at the same time it’s good. It’s so funny, “Yeah, me and Barker hanging out with Slash, yeah, he was stripped to the waist.” He’s doing the whole story.’

  Teenage Fanclub were in Hollywood promoting Bandwagonesque, their second album, that had been released by Geffen in the States and, following Nevermind, had exceeded all sales expectations. ‘I had no idea about Bandwagonesque,’ says McGee ‘not a fucking clue. I think I signed them for twenty grand or something, and I think I was half in the money with Gary Gersh. It was forty grand to record it with Don Fleming. I honestly thought I was putting out a 15 to 20,000-selling indie album.’

  The commercial success in America of Bandwagonesque, following on quickly from the reception of Screamadelica and Loveless, enhanced McGee and his label’s reputation. The American industry, all too aware of the state of Creation’s finances, was starting to take a serious interest in whatever McGee might next have to offer. The lunchtime LA meetings were being reciprocated in the more workaday surroundings of Hackney.

  ‘Danny Goldberg and somebody else came over for this meeting,’ says Abbott. ‘They were stopping at the Dorchester and they didn’t take a car for some reason. Danny had been in the Wall Street Journal literally a few days before with this “Nirvana shipped 100 million dollars’ worth – rock ’n’ roll’s back”. They get on the Tube then walk up through Bethnal Green which was like the Bronx then – crack smokers out in daylight – they turn up. “Fuck … man … where is this place? We’ve been accosted four times.” We’re in the bunker and this lad, Tony, our carpenter-cum-odd-job man, fucking started this bandsaw up while we were having this meeting … lchhhhhhhhhhhhhh and McGee’s going, “Fucking Tony, we’re having a fucking meeting, man.” Of course, these guys are used to sitting in gilded-cage boardrooms which you can’t see the end of the table of, and loving it, going, “This is indie music – they’re putting shelves up.”’

  While McGee was, for the moment, loath to enter into negotiation with any British labels, he delighted at being wined and dined on the West Coast and took a series of exploratory meetings with the great and the good of Los Angeles. Geffen, by then and remarkably for a major, was perceived as one of the hottest record companies and its owner David Geffen assumed he and Alan McGee would be a natural, maverick fit.

  ‘At the beginning of ’92 I was at the Ivy restaurant in LA,’ says McGee, ‘and David Geffen goes, “How much?” My lawyer John Kennedy had always said, “Just think of a figure and double it,” and I went, “Six million,” and he went, “Dollars or pounds?” and I went, “Pounds,” and Geffen started fucking convulsing, I thought, people choke on their food and die – fuck, I’m actually going to kill him! He kind of half spat it out. I nearly fucking cancelled David Geffen, that would’ve been one of my only real punk rock moments!’

  However much McGee enjoyed the playful theatre of power lunches in LA, his diet of cocaine and Jack Daniel’s meant that any negotiations often disintegrated into blurred hostility. ‘I couldn’t give a fuck,’ says McGee. ‘I was like, “Stick your millions up your arse, either give me them or don’t give me them, fuck you.” The disrespect level was quit
e high with Creation. I’m not proud of that, ’cause some really nice people get told to fuck off sometimes, but that was just the nature of the beast at the time.’

  Back in the offices Green and Kyllo were holding a more subdued but equally necessary series of conversations about how best to manage Creation’s future. ‘The financial pressures got bigger and we knew some kind of big step was going to have to take place,’ says Kyllo, ‘but we never knew what it was going to be.’ One idea that came up was a joining of forces between Creation, Mute and the Beggars Group, whose combined market share might give them a competitive advantage. Sire were also considering a long-term licensing deal.

  ‘Seymour was one of those people, like Bill Drummond, who would come in every now and then,’ says Kyllo, ‘but the meeting always became very social.’*

  McGee had had a minor falling-out with Stein around the Jesus and Mary Chain when Stein had introduced McGee to Lou Reed in a manner that had made McGee flinch. As Stein started enquiring about the availability of the American rights to My Bloody Valentine, McGee had failed to return his calls. In a display that speaks volumes about his staying power, Stein rang McGee over fifty times. McGee would take the calls only to inform Stein that he was turning his offers down. In the end McGee finally accepted a generous offer from Stein, both parties having revealed an understanding of the power play that defines a real hustler, and subsequently impressing one another.

  For Green and Kyllo, who were running Creation’s back room and permanently reliant on McGee’s ability to return from the States with a major-label cash injection, The President’s passive-aggressive working methods would often yield results. ‘Alan had that ability of making those kind of moguls feel good about what they’re doing, in ways that other people hadn’t figured out,’ says Kyllo. ‘It’s partly by playing games and partly it’s a lot of psychology and, I don’t know how conscious Alan was of the psychology he was using, but it worked.’