Biff Bang Pow!

Biff Bang Pow! helped establish the sound and style of Creation Records during their inception, not least because they were formed by Alan McGee and Dick Green, two of the label's founders. Early recordings showed the band happily ensconced where garage rock, psychedelic pop, early punk, and mod all intersected. Powered by boundless energy and a seemingly endless supply of catchy tunes, singles like "Fifty Years of Fun" and "Love's Going Out of Fashion" are C-86-era classics, and The Girl Who Runs the Beat Hotel perfectly typifies the Creation aesthetic of jangle pop. As McGee grew as a songwriter, the group's work got sadder and the records sounded richer and more carefully arranged, as shown on 1987's Oblivion. Further albums explored Neil Young-style rock (1988's Love Is Forever) and heartbreaking acoustic ballads (1991's Me) before the demands of the label intervened and ended their short but influential career. As one of the few punks in Glasgow, Alan McGee was a member of a number of bands around the city. While he was playing bass in the group Newspeak, their guitarist Andrew Innes convinced a reluctant McGee that the best way to get any measure of success was to relocate to London. Once there, the duo switched names to the Laughing Apple, McGee took on vocal duty, and their tense and poppy brand of post-punk began to find favor around town. Using money loaned to them by the anti-nukes group the CND, they recorded a four-song EP that gained plaudits from the weekly music magazine Sounds. With new drummer Ken Popple in tow, they recorded a second single, "Participate"/"Wouldn't You?," for release on their own Autonomy label in 1981. Innes fell ill and was replaced by Popple's friend Dick Green. This lineup recorded a Joy Division-inspired single, "Precious Feeling"/"Celebration." Soon after its 1982 release, the band had a run of bad luck -- McGee's bass was stolen and their van crashed -- and decided to split. After a short time, McGee invited Green to start a new band inspired by psychedelia and Dexy's Midnight Runners. Named Biff Bang Pow! after a track by one of McGee's favorite bands, '60s mods the Creation, the driving force was to play live shows and eventually go on tour. McGee's main focus was his club night the Living Room and his label Creation, both of which were instant successes, though the latter was a much longer-lived institution. Biff Bang Pow! from the start featured a rotating lineup with Green, Popple, and Innes, as well as the latter's bandmate in Revolving Paint Dream, vocalist Christine Wanless. The first recording released by the group was the 1984 single "Fifty Years of Fun," a sprightly song that married the jangle of the Byrds with the spiky power of Buzzcocks. The band were supported in the studio by producer Joe Foster, a member of the Television Personalities and another one of Creation's founders. It proved a fine partnership and resulted in two albums -- 1985's Pass the Paintbrush, Honey and 1987's The Girl Who Ran the Beat Hotel -- that combined echo-laden garage rock, mod, and guitar pop sounds with McGee's increasingly well-delivered, often painfully melancholy songs. By this time, the label and McGee's career as a manager -- he helmed the early career of the Jesus and Mary Chain -- took precedence over BBP!, but the group still issued a second album in 1987, Oblivion, this time without Foster at the controls. Despite sounding more assured and like a real band than ever, it still remained a hobby more than anything for those involved, especially since Innes' other group Primal Scream was taking up most of his time. They did manage to tour occasionally, establishing footholds in France and Germany more than in their home country, where they were sometimes seen (incorrectly) as McGee's vanity project. By the end of the year, bassist Phil King of Felt had joined the ranks and appeared on the Neil Young-inspired album Love Is Forever, which came out in 1988 and featured far more guitar solos than in the past. Around this time, there was a lot of upheaval around McGee, with a failed attempt at starting a new label and the heady early days of acid house drawing his focus elsewhere. The next BBP! album was actually titled The Acid House Album, but instead of being made up of trippy beats and synths, it was a collection of previously released tracks and outtakes. When the band did come back with new music, their approach had changed. Inspired by ecstasy and Nick Drake, 1990's Songs for the Sad Eyed Girl was mostly a solo Alan McGee album built around acoustic guitar and plaintive vocals. Another record with a similar feel, Me, was issued in 1991, then a very busy McGee ghosted his own band. There were compilations that followed in the next few years -- 1992's L'amour, Demure, Stenhousemuir (A Compilation 1984-1991) was a quick best-of, the same year's Debasement Tapes was a collection of rare tracks -- and Creation's foray into the American market was marked with Bertula Pop, a set of songs released on Tristar Music. Creation ceased operation in 2000 with no further music released by Biff Bang Pow! and McGee maintained that he was done with performing. He went on to form Poptones and other labels, while Green founded the long-running Wichita Records. Two further Biff Bang Pow! collections -- 2003's Waterbomb and 2022's career-encompassing A Better Life: Complete Creations 1994-1991 -- gave cover for possible reunion performances, but they didn't occur. The band's legacy was cemented in place, though, as one of the underrated stars of the early days of indie pop.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo