Bulbous Creation

A Kansas-based rock band whose music was a downbeat mixture of psychedelia and hard rock, Bulbous Creation would have to wait until many years after they broke up to receive any recognition outside their home town. Bulbous Creation were formed by bassist Jim "Bugs" Wine and guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Paul Parkinson, both of whom grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas, a town about ten miles from Kansas City. Parkinson took up guitar in his early teens and played in a handful of ad-hoc groups during his high-school days, most featuring his good friend Wine on bass. In 1966 Wine went into the military, and he settled in Kansas City, Kansas upon his return three years later. Wine was keen on starting a band, and a newspaper ad brought him together with a talented guitarist, Alan Lewis, and a capable drummer, Chuck Horstmann. However, the band needed a boost with its songwriting, and after Wine ran into his old friend Parkinson, he was soon invited to join the group and contribute lyrics and vocals. (A fifth member, keyboard player Lynne Wenner, occasionally joined the group on-stage.) Lewis was keen on naming the new band Bulbous, which didn't sit well with his bandmates, but when someone suggested tagging Creation onto the moniker, the group agreed on the new name. Bulbous Creation played original material almost exclusively, which made it difficult for them to book shows in Kansas City clubs, and the group was largely an underground phenomenon. In 1971 Bulbous Creation invested in a single day of recording time at Cavern Sound in Independence, Missouri, and recorded eight songs, enough for a full-length album. However, before the band could raise the money to press LPs, Parkinson left the group, preferring to perform his songs as a solo act. Horstmann also left, and Wine and Lewis reworked the combo into a band called Creation, featuring Roger Sewell on guitar, drummer Tommy Ward, and singer Wayne Austin. The Bulbous Creation album sat unreleased until 1995, when collector and archivist Rich Haupt ran across a copy of the session and gave it an unauthorized release on his Rockadelic Records label. The low-key release built a cult reputation for Bulbous Creation's lean but powerful, doomy music and expressive lyrics. Cancer claimed the life of Alan Lewis in 1998, and in 2001 Paul Parkinson succumbed to leukemia. In 2014 the Bulbous Creation album, titled You Won't Remember Dying, finally received a belated official release from the respected reissue label the Numero Group; the label also included a cut from the album on Local Customs: Cavern Sound, a collection of rare tracks recorded at Cavern Sound and mostly released on the studio's custom labels. ~ Mark Deming