The Creation compressed mod rhythm, rhythm-and-blues force and Pop Art presentation into a short run of singles produced by Shel Talmy. Kenny Pickett and guitarist Eddie Phillips wrote the 1966 breakthrough records "Making Time" and "Painter Man"; the latter reached number 36 in Britain, while the group found a larger audience in continental Europe.
Phillips' use of a violin bow on electric guitar was both a sound source and a stage image, producing sustained scrapes and feedback rather than a conventional lead line. During "Painter Man", Pickett created action paintings onstage. These were not decorations around the music: the visual performance, Talmy's compressed production and the band's concise songwriting belonged to the same Pop Art idea.
Illustrative bowed-guitar photograph. Eddie Phillips used the technique on The Creation's records and stages; the pictured musician is not a member of the band.Photo: Andrew Rusk / Wikimedia Commons · Licensed under CC BY 2.0. Converted to WebP for this page.
Formation & History
The story begins in Cheshunt with the Blue Jacks and then the Mark Four. In 1966, Phillips, Pickett and drummer Jack Jones recruited bassist Bob Garner, signed with manager Tony Stratton Smith and adopted the Creation name. Talmy released "Making Time" on his Planet label in June. "Painter Man" followed in October and became their only UK Top 40 single, spending two weeks in the chart and peaking at number 36.
Personnel changed quickly. Garner moved from bass to lead vocals after Pickett left; Kim Gardner then joined on bass. Phillips departed late in 1967, and a final lineup brought Pickett back alongside guitarist Ron Wood. The group ended in 1968 without having released a contemporary LP in Britain. Later reunions produced new recordings in the 1980s and brought Phillips, Pickett, Garner and Jones together for the sessions issued as Power Surge in 1996.
Sound & Style
Talmy's productions keep the drums and bass forward while Phillips alternates clipped chord work, feedback and sharply voiced lead figures. "Making Time" introduces the bowed guitar inside a stop-start arrangement; "Painter Man" uses it as a tearing countervoice to the chorus. Group responses and Pickett's urgent delivery keep the experiments tied to the format of a two-and-a-half-minute single.
The later singles broaden the palette without becoming long-form psychedelia. "If I Stay Too Long" slows the pulse around an anxious melody; "Life Is Just Beginning" layers vocal harmonies and brighter guitar; the two released versions of "How Does It Feel to Feel" use different vocals and mixes. The continuity is economy: texture changes the song immediately, then the arrangement moves on.
Essential Albums
1967
We Are Paintermen
Hit-Ton · Original 1967 release
We Are Paintermen was issued by Hit-Ton in West Germany and by Sonet in Denmark in 1967; the original band never received a contemporary British LP. It collects the first three singles with additional recordings, so its sequence moves between Pickett- and Garner-led lineups. "Making Time", "Try and Stop Me", "Painter Man" and "Biff Bang Pow" preserve the concentrated early attack, while covers including "Hey Joe" and "Like a Rolling Stone" reflect the stage repertoire used to complete the album.
Key tracks: Making Time · Try and Stop Me · Painter Man · Biff Bang Pow
How Does It Feel to Feel? is not a 1982 studio album but an archival route through the 1966–68 singles and stray tracks. That distinction makes it valuable: "If I Stay Too Long", "Life Is Just Beginning", "Through My Eyes" and the title song show how the group changed after the tracks gathered on We Are Paintermen. Modern collections are more complete, but this Edsel release was an important early reconstruction of a catalogue originally scattered across territories and lineups.
Key tracks: How Does It Feel to Feel? · Life Is Just Beginning · Through My Eyes · If I Stay Too Long
Power Surge is a reunion record, made when Pickett, Phillips, Garner and Jones worked together again in the 1990s and released by Creation Records in 1996. It does not recreate Talmy's single sound: the guitars are heavier, the production is contemporary and the songs have more space. Its historical interest lies in hearing the classic personnel write and record a full new programme rather than in treating it as an extension of the 1967 LP.
The title "How Does It Feel to Feel" refers to more than one artefact. The 1967 UK and US singles use different vocal performances and mixes, and the wording later became the title of retrospective collections. Comparing the two single versions is a practical way to hear how production and delivery can change the same composition without altering its basic structure.
For the most complete view of the original sessions, Numero Group's Action Painting gathers the 1966–68 recordings, stereo mixes, instrumentals and four earlier Mark Four tracks. It restores the chronology obscured by We Are Paintermen and later compilations, while making clear how much of the Creation's reputation rests on singles rather than a planned British album sequence.
The Creation show that formal experiment did not require long songs or an album concept. Phillips' feedback and bow work, Pickett's action painting and Talmy's dense production all operate inside concise singles. That combination offered later mod revival, punk, power pop and indie musicians a model in which image, noise and economy reinforce one another.
The afterlife is unusually visible. Alan McGee named Creation Records after the band and his own group Biff Bang Pow! after one of their songs; the Jam referenced "Making Time", and later reissues rebuilt a catalogue that had been fragmented by geography and personnel changes. Their stature rests not on a long chart career, but on how much later culture found in a small, sharply defined body of work.
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