Listen: Is There Life On Earth? / Kennedy Express
Is
I stumbled on Kennedy Express in some London collectors shop, I think it was 50p. How could the staff not have noticed both the writers and producers were Kenny Pickett and Eddie Phillips of The Creation? Aren’t you paid to know these things?
Better yet, how did I not know The Creation were essentially recording under another name? Bigger fuck up.
Okay, so ‘Is There Life On Earth?’ was released in 1980, when the band were traveling the has-been patch before legend. Not sure if The Creation were ever really has-beens though. Never mind, the discovery was the shop’s loss and my gain.
It was pretty 80′s sounding stuff but the Phillips/Pickett hooks were still obvious. This was around the time when ‘Teacher Teacher’, a song they’d written for Rockpile, became a worldwide hit. Proof there is a God.
Presumably Don Arden, who owned Jet, decided to give the guys a release. Clearly he continued to be an investor, given some seven years later, when Eddie Phillips reformed The Creation, he released ‘A Spirit Called Love’, also on Jet. That was during a brief period when both Mick Avory and John Dalton from The Kinks made up the band’s rhythm section.
Considered disposable pop by those in the know apparently. ‘Is There Life On Earth?’ doesn’t even appear in the RECORD COLLECTOR PRICE GUIDE. Possibly only for we hardcore Creation specialists. I can live with that too.
Again, their loss, my gain.