THE BOWMAN COMETH

AN ODE TO EDDIE PHILLIPS OF THE CREATION.

- ALAN DI PERNA

1989, I SAT WITH LEGENDARY BRITISH INVASION precord producer Shel Talmy in his Hollywood Hills home. We were talking about all the iconic acts he’d worked within the mid to late Sixties, from the Who and the Kinks to David Bowie. The conversation invariably turned to another great band from that era — one, sadly, not as well known today — the Creation, and their explosive, wildly innovative guitarist, Eddie Phillips.

“Had that band stayed together,” Talmy declared, “I’m convinced Eddie Phillips would be in the same category as Eric Clapton and all those people.”

The Creation were always the quintessential cult band, not to mention one of rock’s great guitar bands. The iconic Eighties-Nineties dream pop/ Brit pop label Creation Records — home to My Bloody Valentine, Oasis, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Swervedriver and other game-changing guitar groups — was named in their honor. Devoted fans include everyone from John Lydon to film director Wes Anderson, who put the Creation song “Making Time” in his 1998 feature film, Rushmore.

The hipsters all know, but the mainstream never quite understood. Even in their mid- to late-Sixties heyday, the Creation barely hovered below the top 10 in their own land, the U.K. As an American teenager in the Sixties, I only discovered them because Pete Townshend would sometimes namecheck them in interviews with the rock press. They were virtually unknown in America.