Interview and Audience Q&A with Alan McGee
Interview/Q&A host: Daniel Sharpe
17:30 Roof terrace session with live acoustic sets from Axon Bower and Craig Smith
19:30 Interview/Q&A doors open
20:00 Interview with Alan McGee
20:45 Interval
21:00 Audience Q&A with Alan McGee
21:45 Meet and greet/signing
22:15 Live music from Monty Taft, The Tarantulips, and dribbler. Alan McGee DJ set
02:00 Close
Alan McGee is on tour across the UK for a series of interviews and Q&As presented exclusively by booking agents Toura Toura.
The iconic label Creation Records signed some most significant British bands, including The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, and Oasis. As the label’s co-founder along with Dick Green and Joe Foster, McGee was at the centre of an indie rock revolution. McGee, a Glasgow train driver, left his job in 1980 and moved to London to start the record label. The odyssey that followed involved music sales in the millions and redefined rock ‘n’ roll culture for a generation.
From signing Oasis after a chance crossing of paths at King Tuts, to being a key figure in Labour’s media campaign in the 1997 general election, to subsequent label ventures of spirited independence, and after some kind of lost years spent, he has said, mostly in bed, Alan McGee remains a revered and to some extent enigmatic impressario of indie music.
After Creation Records was wound down in 1999, Alan McGee launched Poptones issuing releases by Cosmic Rough Riders, King Biscuit Time, The Hives, and other great indie artists of the ’00s.
McGee with Simon Fletcher restarted Creation Management in 2014. The company’s roster includes Shaun Ryder, Happy Mondays, Wilko Johnson, Cast, and The Jesus and Mary Chain.
A 7″ record label, Creation23, co-founded with Simon Fletcher, was launched in 2018 and is doing brisk business with releases by The Illicits, The Clockworks, and The K’s.
Bubblebrain Records’ James Dolan had a chat with Ian Heath of the Jersey Evening Post about the show. ‘This isn’t going to be about making a profit – we are keeping the ticket prices as low as we can. We’ll have the three local bands on for a 25-minute set each and then Alan will go on and do his DJ set. Basically, it’s an opportunity for these bands to be watched by Alan McGee, which is a rare opportunity for any band. We want to try and raise the profile of Jersey and try to open up a doorway between here and the mainland’s music industry. I think there are some really hard-working, humble bands over here and the rest of the world just doesn’t know about it.’
We haven’t been as intrigued by what a local music event holds in store for quite a while. McGee signed Oasis and oversaw their imperial phase including the group’s acrimonious (first) split at the start of their 1996 North American tour. There is so much more to the Creation Records story than Oasis, of course, and we’re looking forward to learning new things about the man at the centre of seismic shifts in British culture.
Prominent Birmingham promoter and presenter of Freak Scene on Brum Radio, Dave Travis conducted an interview with Alan McGee at Wolverhampton Literature Festival. Reflecting on life post-rehab, the record label owner said he no longer felt as important as Shakespeare, he was ‘just a guy’. He thinks comparisons with Tony Wilson, the Factory Records supremo who arguably minted the template for independent music business that McGee followed, are flattering but undue. He credits Oasis with saving Creation Records from bankruptcy.
Next month, Jersey music fans and connoisseurs will get a chance to question Alan McGee in person, as he discusses his work at the forefront of indie music, his current projects, and the forthcoming movie of his life. What might they ask him?