Joe Foster

b. 9 August 1960, Bloomsbury, London, England. Foster was one of the less celebrated leading lights behind the Creation Records success story. His origins, like those of another Creation veteran, Ed Ball, can be traced back to the early 80s avant garde pop of the Television Personalities. He also produced the TVP’s classic album, The Painted Word, before joining Alan McGee in the embryonic Biff Bang Pow! In 1983 he formed Creation with Alan McGee and Dick Green, going on to become the label’s house producer. In this capacity he produced many of the early singles and albums that distinguished the label, including material by the Loft, Primal Scream, Jesus And Mary Chain and Biff Bang Pow! By 1987 Foster had begun a relationship with My Bloody Valentine, recording singles with them for the Kaleidoscope Sound label, before bringing them, and another artist on that label, Dave Kusworth, to Creation. Two albums with Kusworth, plus two Felt collections, were produced in 1988, before he moved to Holland to produce various projects for the Megadisc label. On his return to England he would use this experience to help young bands tour the low countries, and he also returned to live sound engineering (having initially taken this role with the fledgling Jesus And Mary Chain). In 1991 Foster set up a small demo studio with Sonic Boom (ex-Spacemen 3) to record the artist’s new material and that of other local bands. The following year he returned to Creation to set up a subsidiary division, the Rev-Ola label, in order to license and remaster material from the 50s to 80s (including the excellent reissues from the Millennium and Sagittarius). He continued to run the label while producing albums by 18 Wheeler and the Creation, the 60s psyche band who originally inspired the parent label’s choice of title. After the break-up of Creation Records, Foster moved on to join the newly formed Poptones label. When Poptones hit second round financing problems in November 2001, Foster was unceremoniously dumped. He bounced back in 2002, joining forces with Cherry Red Records’ Iain McNay in revitalising the Rev-Ola label.