Better to burn out than to rust..
I’ve listened to Urban Hymns more than any other album in the entire universe. It’s the most perfectly blended and layered album that I’ve ever heard, to me it's a Decoration Day of brit pop. I also know that it doesn’t fit in with most of the music mentioned on 3DD, but this band shouldn’t be lumped in with the other brit pop or shoegaze bands. I wish you could all stop right now and listen to them void of context or story below because music is sometimes appreciated only in isolation. But if you can’t do that, by all means, please keep reading in spite of your hesitation. One more thing, I’m not a musician and I’m not great at describing music with music terms. I was specifically told “no technical music knowledge necessary” for this write up.
One reason why The Verve are so special because you can see their progression from creating one of the most beautiful shoegaze albums to one of the most poignant pop/rock albums of all time in a matter of only three albums, then splitting up at the height of their success. Their somewhat foreshadowed Last Waltz/Hometown gig was Wigan-Haigh Hall and was triumphant and devastating at the same time. Three albums, five years, two breakups (the third to come later), one mad man, one genius. Below is my account of the band and how they affected me, I didn’t include a ton of dates and other details that you can easily get from Wikipedia. I also didn’t include the reunion tour and album “Forth” that happened in 2007, or any of Richard’s solo albums or tours. I mainly wanted to focus on them at the pinnacle of their success.
The Players: The Verve, Oasis, Blur, Suede, Pulp, Cornershop, Spirtualized, The Charlatans, Ocean Colour Scene, Paul Weller, Supergrass, and a cameo at the end of the movement: Radiohead (I note the cameo because even though Radiohead was on the verge of breaking through at the same time The Verve hit with Urban Hymns, they were still just on the cusp of the scene, especially after the song "Creep" soared high but The Bends puttered out in comparison. The genius of The Bends was only seen after OK Computer blew up and people’s attention shifted from Creep. It was music slight of hand or something. There are those who will always argue that Radiohead sat atop this scene, but I can tell you that from living over there in 1997, they were not a huge part yet, at least in the north. And the north is where it was all happening.)
Late 90s brit pop affected my life a lot more than the grunge scene. Other than Soundgarden, I didn’t really relate to most of it. I tried to get into the flannel shirts and combat boots, headbanging, and the anti-establishment stuff. But the truth was, I wasn’t angry. That music sounded kinda ugly. FURTHERMORE, why were people rebelling against the 80s? I loved Reagan. He won the cold war, Rocky beat Drago, I had witnessed it! As Clams often reminds me, I loved Asia, I loved Toto. **Seems odd that I would run from the anti 80s/corporatization/synth pop/Reagan movement going on here, but I would flock to the anti 80s/corporatization/synth pop/Thatcher movement going on overseas. Makes zero sense to me today because now I like a lot of the grunge. I also still love Reagan and Thatcher.
There you were on the floor, cut up and alone, I’ll help you -Blue
Fall(ish) of 1993, sitting in a car in my best friend’s driveway after school, her brother rips out this tape and starts talking about this English band. Now, I totally trusted her brother, he had turned us onto Gish before SP broke. He was way ahead of anyone else in Kinsman, Ohio. None of us had too many CDs yet, and we lived about 40 miles from the mall, which contained the only music store. So he played some kind of mixed tape of Verve songs for us, which I later would find out were the singles “Gravity Grave” and “All in the mind” and songs from A Storm in Heaven. Other than the Phil Spector sound, I had never heard reverb before, let alone combined with strings, acoustic, and electric. How did they get that droning sound? This music just sounded foggy, which was beautiful. Then I heard one of the most haunting voices of all time, Richard Ashcroft. I begged my friend’s brother for the tape, which I held onto for dear life and still have. I need to preface this section by saying that I didn’t understand shoegaze, I had never taken drugs or heard music like this before ASIH. This is what I heard that day:
When I found out The Verve released a second album, at that point I was in college and buying some music, I found a kid in my dorm who also loved brit pop, and was starting to read “Q” (although, always a month behind), and NME, so I was well prepared for them. A Storm in Heaven had been a gateway album, but A Northern Soul’s songs were more focused, the melodies more polished, the arrangements were perfect. These were songs! Plus this album contains The Verve’s most beautiful song, their "I shall be released", a song called History: (played stripped down or full band, this song is a cosmic force)
at Glastonbury 2 years ago: read the comment below "this song saved my life" typical comment for this band:
If the running theme in A Storm in Heaven (or any shoegaze album) is pure escapism, The Verve had turned a corner with ANS. If they had escaped before, they were crawling back to face the fire. They had started to become comfortable in their own skin, leaving behind so much of the reverb. (I would compare it to the difference between My Morning Jacket’s The Tennessee Fire and At Dawn.) You can still hear it in a few of the songs like Brainstorm Interlude and Stormy Clouds. The most standout RAWK track, one that The Verve would open so many of their shows with later on, is "This is Music" and the lyrics to this song would gather more meaning in upcoming years.
I stand accused
Just like you for being born without a silver spoon
Stood at the top of a hill
Over my town I was found
I've been on the shelf too long
Sitting at home on my bed too long
Got my things and now I'm gone
How's the world gonna take me?
People started to recognize Richard’s songwriting chops. Magazines starting calling him “Mad Richard”. Noel Gallagher, from this point forward, would always dedicate “Cast no shadow” to a man who never could in my eyes.
You come in on your own and you leave on your own, forget the lovers you know and the friends on the road -On Your Own
Post A Northern Soul: The first breakup: Ashcroft v. McCabe
There is a lot of speculation on Richard’s relationship with Nick McCabe (guitarist). It’s a cliché frontman v. guitarist argument that I don’t want to go into very deeply. This is all I know or can surmise: Richard is an egomaniac, like most genius songwriters. Nick, the guitar virtuoso sound scaper, partly to mostly responsible for ASIH’s critical success, wholeheartedly clashes with this. The two of them used to front the band. Now ...there's only room for one. Richard was Napoleon. (It may be similar to the way J. Mascis treated Lou Barlow, and I always felt bad for Lou for that). Richard is growing in fame, growing in drug use, during the Lollapalooza gig, he had to be rushed to the ER for dehydration and drug coma. The touring is wearing on everyone. Nick thinks he might just wanna be a regular guy, his girlfriend is pregnant now, maybe he should go back to Wigan. You get it.
Breakup to Makeup: The Living Bubba Magnum Opus
But thank goodness the breakup was short. I didn’t even know about it, no tweets back then! Richard would go on to open for Oasis in New York. Slowly he gets the band back together, one member at a time. Richard keeps writing. And writing. The comeback album. But can we get Nick on board with this? Let’s take what we have to him. It might work. Richard, Simon, and Pete (Simon Tong would later join on keys) decide to gang bang him with the idea for the new album. It took. Listen to these songs, we can DO something extraordinary with these.
At the same time Richard is plotting, I’m plotting my own defection from the states into brit pop, as I plan to study in Liverpool for my senior year of college, delving deeper into my anglophilia and knowing the groupie must follow where her band(s) lead her. However, when I made the arrangements the spring of 1997, I had not heard anything off the new album.
The Sonic Boom: The Butterfinger Blizzard can wait
Summer of 1997, I’m working at a Salvation Army inner city kids camp in Delaware, Ohio, on break from college. We get our one hour off for the day, and we head to the Dairy Queen! Jump in my friend’s car and KABOOM, what comes on the radio but Bittersweet Symphony. I asked my friend to turn it up and told everyone to hush. This was The Verve’s new single! OMFG. Did you hear that intro? What kind of rock song does that. You’re a slave to money then you die. Orchestral madness. This is a song you can’t dance to, you can’t really sing to it, you just live it, you become it. We changed the route and headed to Pat’s Records (not sure if it’s still there) and it was there I picked up what was to become my favorite album of all time. Every song better than the last, every note perfect, every lyric dripping with working class northern English victory. Here is The Living Bubba of the album, of the band really.
(had some youtube trouble, the only version that was postable has subtitles)
This is the coolest video of all time. I made my boyfriend buy those Clarks shoes and that Ben Sherman button down. We both practiced the swagger! This video and the song blew my mind. It was a big middle finger to anything that wasn't good, or pure. Anyone who walked with the crowd and didn't lead, anyone who'd grown up poor in northern England got a say. Richard had replaced the Gallagher brothers on top the empire after this song. (For those of you who are interested, Richard’s wife has a tiny role as the blonde, whose car he walks over. A little brit pop drama: Richard had stolen Kate Radley, Keyboardist for Spiritualized, from Jason Pierce, AKA Spaceman, frontman of Spirtualized, when they were touring together. They were secretly married and that turmoil would inspire Spiritualized’ magnum opus Ladies and Gentleman we are floating in space, and some of the songs from the follow up Let it come down. Kate would also inspire the love songs on Urban Hymns. Putting it another way, Kate Radley Ashcroft is the Pattie Boyd of the 90s Brit pop scene. She inspired three of the greatest albums of that period.)
Here's Kate in Spiritualized:
Here's (yet another) song he wrote for Kate on his first solo album (Alone with Everybody): it's breathtaking..she plays piano. This song is called You on my mind in my sleep. I saw Richard and Kate perform it at the Double Door in Chicago, the Magic Bag in Detroit, and the 9:30 Club. It was Richard, Kate, Verve Drummer Pete S, and BJ Cole.
If all we lose is the skin
I'm pulling you under within
We're gonna make this life together
The symptoms are too deep
I got you on my mind in my sleep
you on my mind in my sleep
I wanted this to be my wedding song, but I loaned it to my brother for his wedding song. (He's now divorcing, and although I don't really blame the song, I guess I need a Plan B). Here he is at HAIGH HALL, the BIG SHOW. "Dedicated to my wife"...this was at the absolute top of the mountain for them.
The song Ben Harper once described “If I could have written any song, it would have been this.”
And finally, the lost treasure, the most special live song I’ve ever heard: Velvet Morning (referencing Richard’s one time heroin addiction). I still can't believe I was there. (this song starts out soft, don't turn your speakers up too soon, it's supposed to be low..)...from HAIGH HALL, Wigan, it would be one of their last..
WE TAKE ALL KINDS OF PILLS
TO GIVE US ALL KINDS OF THRILLS
BUT THE THRILL WE'VE NEVER KNOWN
IS THE THRILL THAT WILL GET YOU
WHEN YOU GET YOUR PICTURE
ON THE COVER OF THE ROLLING STONE
The Verve could never hold it together for any period of time. In-fighting, stage fright, drug use, personality clashes, egos, the typical perils of band breakups wore them down. I cringe when I see VH1’s One Hit Wonders because I know that they have a catalog of unbelievable music. Their fan base is split between factions of shoegaze and anti-Urban Hymns commercial success, and fans who think Richard’s songwriting in Urban Hymns hovers above any other critical or commercial success at that time, including OK Computer. But alas, like most great things, it came to an end too quickly. Even though their May 1998 hometown show in Haigh Hall, Wigan (DVD available) was a huge success, Beck was there to open, something was off. Maybe it was Nick’s feeble broken hand or the lack of band interaction. Things were ominous. In Drive-by Trucker language:
Sirens were blowing, clouds spat rain.... and as the things came threw, ...it sounded like a traaaaiiin..
Summer of 1998: Pressures of touring, writing, dealing with Richard’s increasing maniacal attitude, the magazines keep saying the band’s not long for this world. Realizing I might never see them again, I decide to trek back to the UK so that I might see them headline a festival. At the time, the V festivals were as big as Glastonbury, and with the V98 held in Leeds, I stood for 3 days in the rain (It never stops raining in the UK, I’m convinced that’s why so much of the early great music was made there). By this time, Nick wasn’t even playing with them anymore, BJ Cole would come on (and continue after to play with Richard during his solo career.) I remember the purple lighting for Velvet Morning like it was yesterday. I will never forget that show. Standing for days, shivering, front row, 80 thousand people, no voice left, out of money for food, we had a sleeping bag stolen, and watching my favorite band perform my favorite songs at the height of their success. The next day I spent in the Emergency Room as I had come down with Pneumonia. Never had penicillin tasted or enlarged tonsils felt so good.
Come on, let the spirit inside you, don’t wait to be found come along with our sound. Let the spirit move you, let the waves come up, they’ll fuse you. I never met no one to deny sound. –Come On
They say that brit pop died in 1998 with Be Here Now, and I guess "they" are pretty much right. Thank God it did, because it was then I bought my first Bob Dylan album, smoked my first joint, and started the next chapter of my music life. This inevitably let me to you all and for that, I'm forever grateful. Thanks for reading.
Drive-by Trucker fans guide to Verve songs
The Living Bubba: Bittersweet Symphony
Let there be rock: This is music
Zip City: Rolling People
Love like this: The Drugs don’t work
Ghost to Most: Space and Time
When the pin hits the shell: So Sister (B-side)
Outfit: History
Heathens: See you in the next one (Have a good time)
Decoration Day: Lucky Man
