Review: 'Making Time: A Shel Talmy Production'

Producer Shel Talmy is a controversial figure in sixties pop. He got his first major gig by passing off records by The Beach Boys and Lou Rawls as his own productions (they weren’t). He foisted an old blues song called “Bald Headed Woman” on many of the artists he produced to collect royalties on a song he claimed to have written (he didn’t). He perpetuated a difficult-to-kill rumor that Jimmy Page played on The Kinks “You Really Got Me” (he didn’t), much to the infuriation of Dave Davies. He trapped The Who in a terrible contract that gave him a ridiculous chunk of their royalties, creating legal and financial troubles for the band for years (he did).

Talmy’s machinations were questionable to say the least, but there is no question that he cut some of the weightiest, greatest records released between 1964 and 1970. His signature Wall of Noise is evident in some of the best recordings by The Kinks, The Who, The Easybeats, and The Creation. However, there are also subtler colors and innovations in his work. He gave The Who the go-ahead to stir up so much aural chaos on “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” that most DJ’s thought the record suffered from some sort of awful technical glitch. He caught Eddie Phillips using his innovative guitar-bow technique on The Creation’s mighty “Making Time”. He etched the gentler acoustic sounds on Chad & Jeremy’s “A Summer Song” and beat The Beatles and Moody Blues to the punch by using the Mellotron on Manfred Mann’s “Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James” in 1966.

These are some of the unquestionable classics that appear on an essential and well-annotated new comp from Ace Records called Making Time: A Shel Talmy Production. This 25-song disc is not just a lesson in Talmy’s recording history, but more importantly, a simply smashing collection of sixties records familiar and obscure. The song selection is excellent with The Kinks represented by their finest early single (“Tired of Waiting for You”, personally selected by Ray Davies), rare alternate versions of common items such as Davy “Bowie” Jones’s “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving” and The Easybeats’ “Lisa”, and other superb tracks by the likes of Roy Harper, The Nashville Teens, The Pentangle, and Lee Hazelwood, as well as less famous artists such as The Mickey Finn, The Rokes, Lindsay Muir’s Untamed, and The Sneekers, who put a few more bucks in Talmy’s pocket with yet another rendition of “Bald Headed Woman”. Oh, Shel.

Review: The Creation's 'Action Painting'

They never managed to get a hit like a lot of the other bands that Shel Talmy produced, but some rock cultists— such as Talmy— insist that The Creation was every bit as good as The Kinks and The Who. You have to take a lot of what Talmy says with a Rock of Gibraltar-size grain of salt, but in this case, there’s some truth to his assertion. With mighty, colorful, crazy records such as “Making Time”, “Nightmares”, and “How Does It Feel to Feel”, The Creation easily made records as good as the ’66-era Kinks and Who.

Consequently, The Creation have been anthologized a few times, though the most thorough collections are kind of a mess. I’m specifically referring to Retroactive’s 1998 comps Making Time (Volume One) and Biff Bang Pow! (Volume Two). Both discs are loaded with great music, for sure, but they’re programmed in a nearly unlistenable manner. Different mixes of the same songs are sprinkled about in such a way that the listening experience becomes vexingly repetitive. 

Numero Group’s new collection Action Painting solves this problem with more considerate programming. All of the original mono mixes are gathered on Disc One with only one repeated song: “How Does It Feel to Feel” appears in both its original UK version and its superior US remake, which is tacked onto the end of the disc long after the other version has played. Disc Two begins with four decent cuts by The Creation’s initial incarnation as The Mark Four before moving on to new, Talmy-approved stereo mixes of most of the songs on disc one.

This approach is much more listenable than Retroactive’s, even though I would have given that buzzsaw US version of “How Does It Feel to Feel” pride of place early in the disc and arranged the tracks according to when they were recorded rather than when they were released so that “I Am the Walker” and “Ostrich Man”—two of The Creation’s finest—aren’t buried so far at the end of the disc. But these are minor quibbles. Really, Disc One of Action Painting is superb and basically all The Creation you’ll ever need to hear with nice, thick remastering by Talmy and Reuben Cohen.

The stereo mixes on Disc Two are more of a curiosity, though they do reveal some interesting, heretofore-buried sounds, such as some keening backing vocals on “How Does It Feel to Feel” and “Through My Eyes”. The tracks are allowed to play out completely without fades, which discloses interesting tidbits too. “Through My Eyes” has certainly never sounded more psychedelically demented than it does here.  Disc Two is also the only spot where The Creation’s covers of “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Hey Joe” appear on Action Painting, but these are fairly inessential tracks and you’ll never miss them if you decide to only keep Disc One in rotation. I certainly don’t miss having them in mono.

The hardback book/slipcase packaging is very attractive with a bevy of color photos, including repros of all The Creation’s picture sleeves , as well as some informative biographical and track-by-track essays. The too-tight pockets for the CDs could have been thought out a lot better, though. Nevertheless, Action Painting is a lovely package of some of the sixties’ most brutal music. It may even be definitive.

A Note on Dave Davies, Jimmy Page, Shel Talmy, and 'The Who FAQ'

Hello, Psychobabble readers. I just want to take a moment to clarify a detail in my new book, The Who FAQ. In my chapter on musicians who guest-starred on Who recordings, I mentioned a much repeated and false claim by producer Shel Talmy that Jimmy Page played rhythm guitar on The Kinks' "You Really Got Me". I indicated that this was merely Talmy's claim and never intended to present it as definitive fact. As the player of the unforgettable riff and astounding lead guitar on that classic song, Dave Davies feels great ownership over it and rightly so. There are few songs in the Rock & Roll pantheon with more iconic guitar playing. 

Nevertheless, I may not have made it sufficiently clear that this was not a fact and that it was merely Talmy's version of what really happened. My source was the producer's interview with Richie Unterberger in his book Urban Spacemen and Wayfaring Strangers. In fact, Jimmy Page himself denies playing on the song, which you can in this piece on soundonsound.com here, and in this same piece, Talmy says he does not remember whether or not Page played on the track, further revealing his own shaky grasp on the history of the creation of "You Really Got Me". Once again, the truth is that Page did not play any guitar on "You Really Got Me" whatsoever, nor did he have anything to do with the sound or tone of Dave's guitar. I hope that readers of The Who FAQ will understand that I never intended to indicate otherwise. Talmy's false memory will not appear in future editions of The Who FAQ, including the upcoming Kindle edition.

Obviously, Dave continues to be one of my top Rock & Roll heroes and The Kinks continue to be one of my very favorite bands.