Vox: A Northern Soul review

 

Wigan's cosmic cartographers' swan-song, as it turns out. They finally came to ground with a collection of unambiguosly lovely songs designed by, and for, the heart. If Richard Ashcroft could have been accused of burying whatever soul he possessed in his band's frazzled drapes, here he's bold and unafraid, weaving such awesome, doomed balladry as 'History' alongside more familiar calls to arms. That amended name gets it right just before the end - The Verve; the definite article (KC) 

• Vox, November 1995

Detour Magazine - The Verve

Richard Ashcroft--or "Mad Richard," as the British media have christened him-- squeezes a lime into a gin and tonic and puts words to the way he conceptualizes his band, the Verve. "I think it's really cerebral. The music, the ideas behind the music, it all comes from different parts of the mind, then somehow it comes together, working extremely well for us."

Elaborating, Richard discusses the band's third release, A Northern Soul. "We were all working on the record and then I went off to London for about three months to sort some things out with my girlfriend at the time. Things didn't go so well, and I got really fucked up for about two of those months, both physically and mentally. When I got back, the strangest thing was that they were playing music that was precisely the way I as feeling and so the two just went together quite easily."

The beauty of the Verve and A Northern Soul is the uncontrolled sound. The sincerity of Nick McCabe's desperate guitar melodies and the frustration of Simon Jones's and Pete Salisbury's driven rhythm arrangements, married with the devastating lyrics drawn from Richard's life, all come together in a hypnotic style that should guarantee they will not be lumped into the "add water and instant single" bands of late.

In this sincerity may lie the Verve's downfall. the music and lyrics convey a stark message. It is the cold, hard, unadulterated truth of a world becoming more and more dependent on he development of technology. As Richard says in "Life's an Ocean," someday we might be buying feelings out of a vending machine.

It may take patience and careful listening to feel the sincerity and raw honesty of the Verve, but Richard thinks that eventually people will come around to their way of thinking. "I think people haven't had the luxury of watching a band that's up there putting on the show for real, for a long time. So when people listen to us or come to see us, it might take a little bit for the reality of our playing to seep in. But once it does I'm sure people will recognize that we are the best band in the world."

Tough words to argue with. For now, it seems that the world is still learning to decipher the packaged-up-for-consumption acts from those whose vitality and awareness of the fragility of life produce music that either weighs heavily on your shoulders or kicks you right in the stomach. This is the beauty of the Verve, a stark picture of reality coupled with a sonic approach, that leaves you deaf and begging for more. If the future looks dim for society, it looks brilliant for the Verve.

• Source: Detour Magazine, October 1995, written by Lincoln S. Ellis

Exclaim! Magazine - The Verve

Under the blistering heat of the first day of August, The Verve's singer, Richard Ashcroft, and bassist, Simon Jones, are primping and posing for an assortment of local photographers. Crammed into a telephone booth outside Toronto's MuchMusic, Ashcroft and Jones are mugging for the cameras like the rock stars they are. "Hello, conscience?" Ashcroft speaks into the receiver. "It's me." Everyone laughs, and the spindly, pale Brits trundle off to do live TV.

In town to promote their second batch of recordings, A Northern Soul, The Verve's presence here is cause for celebration. Though the album was, at first, described by the British press as "trad and sensible," further inspection into the four Northern souls (Ashcroft, Jones, guitarist Nick McCabe and drummer Pete Salisbury) uncovers more glorious adjectives than "brilliant" would allow in any thesaurus. So when the soft-faced, thick-accented bassist, Simon Jones, explains - over a bowl of tomato soup at a nearby restaurant - how his band is set to take over the world, you have to believe him. Not because he's selling you a line, but because "trad and sensible" comes nowhere close to describing the brand of lilting, soaring rock melodies that The Verve offer.

Barely into their mid-twenties, the foursome from Wigan (a remote northern town) have undertaken several world tours, withstood a Lollapalooza sidestage experience, made a few videos, and been given a new lease on life. The recording for A Northern Soul set the band straight. Where The Verve's 1993 debut, A Storm in Heaven, ambled down its own path of stoned epics, the new album is a testament that the boys have grown up, if only a little.

"On our first album, we were just taking ounces and ounces of has," explains Jones into his soup. "All I remember about that part of me life is living in a fucking haze. Making this record, we smoked less pot and started living real life. Nick had a kid, I got married, and Richard came out of a six-year relationship.

"Richard went away on a sort of lost weekend when it all kicked off at home, and so we were writing all the music without him, and when he came back he was so blown away, 'cause all the lyrics he'd written fit so well with the music. I think we all grew up. I was 19 when we did the first record, I'm 23 now. We had a serious reality crisis."

Though Ashcroft's lyrics are indicative of a man in search of his self - in "So It Goes," he sings: "So it goes, you come in on your own in this life, you know you're gonna leave on your own" - A Northern Soul seems to rise like a phoenix. (Appropriately, the band would play later that night at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto.) This comes with thanks, in part, to Ashcroft's impassioned vocals. Ringing with sincerity and raw emotion, Ashcroft's voice flies the highest during the band's skin-tight live gigs.

"I take my hat off to him," says Jones, looking across the table at Ashcroft, "'cause I remember being a school boy of 14 years and me asking him, 'What yer gonna do when school is done?,' like you do to your mate, and he's like, 'Oh, I'm gonna be a singer in a band," and I'm going 'Yeah, yeah yeah.' We couldn't even fucking play a note, but he's always thought like that. I've just got a lot of respect for him."

Introspection, however, wasn't the only ingredient that accounted for the artistic success of A Northern Soul. Focus also did. After the spinning, wasted affair that was the Storm in Heaven recording sessions, Jones was dead set against working in that kind of fog. "[For Storm in Heaven] we had all of three songs written and walked in and made the rest of it up," he says. "I mean, we fucking deserve a medal, because it was the hardest thing I've ever done in me life, to go and do a record when you have three songs. So I was like, 'I'm not going through that again. We are writing these songs before we even step through the doors.' As an artist makes better paintings, we're getting better at making songs. We're just gifted. I don't wanna blow me own trumpet, but we're pretty damn gifted people."

Still, Jones finds a little time to ground himself in the reality of what's currently popular, and how the band is perceived.

"They don't understand, I'm telling yeh. The British press don't understand us. They never have since day one. The British press is so up their own ass with this three-minute pop thing at the moment, it's gonna ruin music. For 14 and 15-year-olds, that's all they know. Their attention span is so short. How the fuck are they gonna get their heads around a band like us? They're scared of rock music. The only reason Oasis has gotten away with it is 'cause they write rock/pop songs."

Finding time to come down from his tirade, Jones does admit (with no surprise) that his dream is for The Verve to be BIG. Very BIG. Already, this North American tour has proven that that goal is not so far away. Sold-out gigs and a core, flower-bearing following push The Verve that much closer to BIGNESS.

"I want it to go up to a level way beyond where it is now," Jones pontificates. "There's no point in doing it if I'm not going to be huge. I want to give it back to the people who listen to us. I've got a responsibility to them. I want to make great fucking music for them as much as I was making it for myself originally. It's exciting. It's not scary anymore. People are scared of British music becoming pompous or something, but I want to be U2. I want to be that big. I don't want to make cheesy music, but I want to be in a ROCK band."

And how would Jones deal with it if The Verve did become THAT HUGE? "Oh, I'll have a chip on me shoulder about that big," he says, spreading his arms wide, "but I'll be a better man."

• Source: Exclaim! Magazine, September 1995
• By: Mikala Folb

Press release: The Verve break-up

"History" - It's Official The Verve have split up, with vocalist Richard Ashcroft deciding to leave the group immediately after their triumphant T-in the Park performance on Sunday 6th of August.

It seems perverse timing - especially given that in their last ever interview the band are described as "the most important band in Britain, and potentially the most thrilling group of the '90s" - but then The Verve's career has always been characterized by choices made out of conviction rather than commercially. Ashcroft himself seems unwilling to explain his reasoning other than to say "it no longer felt right."

The Verve have recently been perceived as being on the verge of breaking through to real chart success. The second album, A Northern Soul, has sold more copies in one month than its predecessor, "A Storm in Heaven", has in two years. The group also had three and a half months of touring lined up for the Autumn, including both the British and American Oasis supports, plus their own European, Japanese and US tours.

It is known that Richard had returned from their recent sell-out tour of North America feeling strangely underwhelmed by the rapturous reception the band had received, and it is also believed that the famously fever-pitch recording of "A Northern Soul" (with Oasis producer Owen Morris) had taken its toll. 

What this now means is that the group's forthcoming single, the appropriately titled "History", will become their swansong. Already scheduled for September 18th release when the split was announced - and already named "the song of the Summer" by The Face magazine - the single will go ahead as planned, swathed in its strangely prophetic artwork.

Available on two CD formats, one sleeve features the group standing in front of a Times Square cinema bearing the legend "All Farewells Should Be Sudden," while a second NYC movie house states "Life Is Not A Rehearsal." Together these two slogans seem weirdly appropriate under the circumstances.

The formats of "History" will be:

1. History (Radio Edit); Back On My Feet Again; On Your Own (Acoustic Version); Monkey Magic (Brainstorm Mix).
2. History (Full Version); Grey Skies; Life's Not A Rehearsal.

"Monkey Magic" (Brainstorm Mix) and "Life's Not A Rehearsal" are reworkings of "Brainstorm Interlude" and "Life's An Ocean" from "A Northern Soul" as reconstructed by guitarist Nick McCabe.

"Grey Skies" and "Back On My Feet Again" are both brand new songs otherwise unavailable. There will also be a cassette featuring "History" (Radio Edit) and "Back On My Feet Again."

There are no known plans for the immediate future for any of the band members.

A Sudden Farewell from The Verve

The Verve have split after singer Richard Ashcroft quit the band. In a shock move last week, Ashcroft told manager John Best that he no longer wanted to continue with the band.

The Verve's latest album A Northern Soul was very well received critically and the band were felt to be on the brink of major commercial success, both in this country and in the US. As NME went to press, Ashcroft had made himself unavailable for comment and was camping somewhere in the West Country.

"I don't think there is any one reason why he left," Best told NME.

"Richard is very tempestuous and I think that has a lot to do with his sense of conviction. He can't fake it if he doesn't feel it."

The other members are extremely unhappy about the band's demise.

"In retrospect, I suppose you could see it coming," said Best. "The band split up in the sense that they all live in different towns. They all started out together in Wigan but gradually drifted apart."

The band were originally a tightly-knit unit but had experienced problems during the recording of A Northern Soul. At one point, Ashcroft disappeared for five days without telling anyone where he was going. The band's American tour compounded the problems.

"There won't be a band called The Verve any more and they won't be working together again," Best told NME. "But although he [Ashcroft] wasn't happy and had obviously been thinking about this, he's happy now. I wish it hadn't happened this way but he's only 23 and he'll do something amazing again."

The Verve's new single, "History," will be released as planned on September 18. The cover features a picture of the band in New York in front of a Cinema with the legend "All farewells should be sudden" outside.

Alternative Press - The Verve

Broken bones, broken relationships, and heat exhaustion can't dampen the spirit of the Verve. The follow-up to their classic A Storm In Heaven debut album should win them even more disciples.

"America freaks me out," confides Richard Ashcroft, the Verve's charismatic frontman, amidst the hubbub of a trendy Manhattan diner in the meat-packing district. "New York brings out the best in me. It brings out the devil in me."

After a plate of mussels and countless vodka and oranges served by a staff of multiracial transvestites, Richard, quiet bassist Simon Jones, and an entourage head cross-town to an East Village bar to meet Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Mar and to keep the good times rolling. Meanwhile, drummer Peter Salisbury and guitarist Nick McCabe are in LA., where the band will shoot a video directed by Jake Scott, Blade Runner hauteur Ridley's son.

At the bar, Richard commandeers the jukebox, selecting several American soul classics, some Dusty Springfield, some Gram Parsons. "We don't listen to anything but the cream of music," Richard states, stressing the importance of bands knowing musical history. Although animated and earnest when discussing the artists he respects-Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, John Lennon, Neil Young, Sly Stone, George Clinton and many more-Richard will often assume various amusing personas throughout the night. By about 3 a.m. Richard is dancing to T. Rex with a senior citizen wearing a "#1 Grand- father" T-shirt.

The next day, he reports groggily that things a bit homoerotic. Apparently the geezer had no idea he was cavorting with the singer of a band with designs on being the biggest in the world. The Verve have experienced some heavy shit over the last two years, stuff that would cripple less driven groups. Salisbury broke his foot, McCabe had his hand broken by a bouncer in Paris, Ashcroft collapsed from excessive heat and alcohol in Kansas City during 1994's Lollapalooza. Members got married, became parents, fell in love, orgied in suburban Detroit. And Richard's long-term relationship ended. The latter seems to have influenced much of the new LP A Northern Soul (Vernon Yard), although he says he's completely over it now.

"Each song is a northern soul going through different emotions," Richard says. His band hails from Wigan, located between Liverpool and Manchester in northwest England. "I hear this character all the way through the record; pretty pained, then elated, then arrogant. All facets of that personality are a northern soul. That's what I am."

The events of the last two years lend A Northern Soul "a far greater sense of reality," Richard admits at Vernon Yard HQ between bites of a cheese sandwich that "could give Homer Simpson a cardiac." "There's nothing like a few lessons in life to make whatever you do in art that much more substantial."

A Storm In Heaven featured lyrics rooted in mysticism and escapism. In contrast, the new album's songs bear a more personal stamp. "It was a very big escape from when we first formed the group," Richard recalls. "Now it's a kind of melting pot for overt emotions, which makes recording sometimes scary and a lot of times exhilarating. When someone's singing straight to the point about what's going on, if the guy means every word, people are gonna connect with it and it will become more accessible. I want the Verve to be the biggest band in the world because rock and roll will will be dangerous again if we are."

When the band emerged in 1992, they gave people a dose of psychedelia that could move mountains and emotions. Even when the Verve rocked they did so with exquisite grace. Songs like "Man Called Sun," "Gravity Grave," "Feel," "Butterfly," and "Slide Away" have been some of the most thrilling conduits to bliss this decade. Bathed in a mystical sheen not unlike Spiritualized's sacred psych, the Verve's music has a more visceral, organic feel than their British counterparts.

The Verve recently moved to Manchester but most of their existence has been spent in Wigan. Richard contends that their isolation has proved beneficial. "Practising in a dungeon in Wigan for this record that we just made, you're devoid of any kind of fashion or thought of 'This is what we should be doing.' I've got so much respect for a band that goes into a studio and plays the music they hear in their heads rather than what they read in a magazine."

Ashcroft decries formula in music, lambasting groups that mimic "MTV bollocks. We're ruled by chaos anyway," he pronounces, "so how can such a fine art be done to a formula?

• Source: Alternative Press, written by Dave Segal

Select: A Northern Soul review

Wigan Peerless - The Verve's engine-room propel "Mad" Richard towards new horizons. More thrust, man! 

The third best album of the year? To 'Mad' Richard , Ashcroft's ears, that's like damnation with faint praise, but then it was his mate Noel Gallagher who said it. Oasis' LP would be tops (obviously), then Paul Weller's, then 'A Northern Soul' by The Verve. Richard probably won't be punching Noel's lights out over it.

For a band who emerged looking like a bunch of fragile young poets, 'The' Verve (it'll sit right one day) seem to have acquired a good line in Class-A British rock'n'roll thuggery, finally graduating in advanced hotel-wrecking, even coming on a bit handy when confronted by a Parisian security team five times their size.

Some may even say that Wigan's premier space-cakes, have just Oasis-ed up their act, especially as, for this second LP, they've hooked up with 'Definitely Maybe''s makeover wizard Owen Morris.

The truth of the matter is that the two bands share a markedly similar vision, borne of hopeless afternoons in Lancashire, doomed romantic liaisons and fantasies of somehow escaping it all. The Verve even have a track with the same title - and sentiment - as Gallagher's 'Slide Away'. It opened their debut album, 'A Storm In Heaven', in 1993.

Musically, mind, The Verve are on another planet altogether. Like early U2, Bunnymen or Waterboys, they're after a Big Music that knows no horizons. It often seems like theatre, with Ashcroft as the leading player, howling ! off-mike, pulling wacko faces and flapping his arms like a loony, but that's just down to the sheer dynamic aspirations of the band behind him. One minute, they're launching him to the top of a mountain in a force-ten gale, the next laying him down on a deserted beach in summer, with waves lapping at his feet.

Until now, Richard has had a rather submerged vocal presence. On 'A Northern Soul', he - and the band as a whole - hit full voice, as he weaves a series of narratives and dialogues that, in the process, lure you into the thrall of their drama. "Come on and listen along with me, I think you need a little company" entices the big bro-type, character on the opening 'A New Decade'. And on 'This Is Music', "I've been on the shelf too long/Sitting at home on my bed too long/Now it's time to hear my song/How's the world gonna take me?.. Come inside. " Let the ceremony begin, kind of thing.

Richard's sheer motivation and intensity is astonishing. On the awesome 'History', The Verve make their most elaborate use of strings to date, and yet there's hardly a moment on it when he's not singing. "I've gotta tell you my tale, "he urges. Several times. By and large, the tales are pretty bleak. 'History' is about a Northern lad who runs away to London and loses what little he had. 'So It Goes' offers the desperate insight that "You come in on your own in this life/Youknow, you're gonna leave on your own", while 'No Knock On My Door' and the exquisitely folksy 'On Your Own' plumb Morrissey-esque depths of low-rent gloom. The title track, meanwhile, is about someone having a bad trip alone in their bedsit. Drugs aren't the answer, folks.

The transcendence comes, for Richard as much as anyone else, in the music. When the band hit on their maximum-thrust-Scotty space-rock roar, they're unstoppable. They're still far from concise - 'This Is Music' and 'On Your Own' were probably the singles because they were the only tracks beneath the five minute mark - but the album's rammed with groovy pyrotechnics and melodic dazzle. Guitarist Nick McCabe especially shines, proving himself the master of both flamboyant, flipped-out electricity (check the Hendrixy 'Brainstorm Interlude' - phwor!) as well as blissful moments a la Tim Buckley ('Drive You Home').

After Ashcroft's opening entreaties and the urban nightmare scenarios that follow, the final tracks resolve into an elemental calm and a closing instrumental, 'Reprise', which might almost have you believing you've pegged out and claimed a free ride to heaven. That'll be a bit too proggy for some tastes, but the way the whole lot hangs together as a complete journey puts 'A Northern Soul' ahead of most albums you'll heart his year. Third best or whatever, it'll still be blazing at your synapses for many months to come.

• Select, by Andrew Perry, picture by Neil Cooper, August 1995, Soundbite: "Wiggin' Out Casino re-opens to great acclaim."
• Kudos: Jeff Birgbauer

Fan Review: 9:30 Club 1995

9:30 Club
Washington, DC, USA
July 28, 1995

The Verve live at the old 9:30 Club
Washington, DC
7/28/95

I had been looking forward to this show for two years and the band did not disappoint. The 9:30 Club, at this time, was in the middle of downtown DC and was a little hole-in-the-wall kind of place that only held about 400 people. We got there early, before they opened the doors to the main room. When they finally did open the doors, I was able to walk right up to the front of the stage, right between where Richard and Simon would soon take their places.

Hum opened and played well, though nobody really seemed to care. Finally, the lights went down, smoke started to fill the stage, and "Rock On" blasted through the PA. The band took the stage and immediately cranked into A New Decade. Just before Nick's guitar exploded into the song, Richard held up a dollar bill and screamed "It's all for fucking money!" This is the setlist as best I can remember it, though it may not be in the right order.

A New Decade
Slide Away
This Is Music
The Rolling People
Come On
Man Called Sun
Life's an Ocean
She's a Superstar
Gravity Grave & Echo Bass
-------
Drugs Don't Work (Richard solo acoustic)
On Your Own
The Sun, the Sea

The whole vibe was completely different than the Storm in Heaven tour. Instead of staring off into space, Richard and Simon were constantly looking the audience directly in the eyes and screaming "Come on!" and other such things. The show was much more upbeat and confrontational than the previous show I had seen. The sound was amazing, but there seemed to be some tension between Nick and Richard.

She's a Superstar and Gravity Grave remain to this day as the most amazing performances I've ever witnessed. The Sun, the Sea was the perfect finale to this incredible show, with Richard singing "There's a storm in heaven! There's a storm in Washington!" The Verve definitely lived up to the hype this night. I remember getting into my car after the show, and A Northern Soul was in the tape player. After what I had just witnessed, it sounded like a toy version. The Verve was definitely a live band.

• By Stephen Galloway

Fan Review: The Metro 1995

The Metro
Chicago, Illinois, USA
July 23, 1995

The "Conquering America" Tour
With Support by HUM

It was summer again and almost a year to the day since my last Verve gig. I was living in Bloomington, Indiana and had never been to Chicago before. All I knew was The Verve were playing there, so I had to get there somehow. I bought my friend a ticket to the show as a birthday gift so I'd have someone to drag up to Chicago with me. Once in the city, we got extremely lost, but managed to find our way to The Metro about six hours early. I even found a parking space in front of the venue.

A Northern Soul had just been released, but I hadn't commandeered a copy yet. So I navigated my way to Reckless Records and acquired the CD. I didn't have a chance to hear it before the show, so I had no idea what to expect.

The Metro has a balcony, which offers a perfect view of the entire stage about 10 feet above the band. I parked myself in the center of the balcony, right up against the railing. By the time Verve came on, it was late. The room was smoky and dripping with a combination of body heat and anticipation. Richard had on his traditional skin-tight red jeans. He took his shoes off immediately and stashed them behind an amp. Most of A Northern Soul was performed that night, minus History. The highs and lows drifted through the room carrying all of us through the sets ebb and flow. It was a beautiful night. There was one moment I'll always remember. In between songs, it was very quiet and a revolving spotlight stopped right in my face. The rest of the room was pretty dark. Richard looked up and seemed to be staring right at me. He has a rather intimidating glare. When my eyes met his, I froze. I wasn't sure what to do, so I gave a stupid smile and a little wave. He gave me a stern nod. Then, someone yelled “She's A Superstar” as a request, and the band willingly launched right into it.

When the set ended and the band left the stage, Richard came back out with an acoustic guitar and took a seat on a stool. The rest of the band stayed backstage. With a lone spotlight on him, he played a rough version of The Drugs Don't Work, unaccompanied. The song was amazing and unlike any of their others. I didn't know that Richard even played guitar before that moment. Shortly after that show, the History single was released. I remember racing to the store to buy it, praying The Drugs Don't Work would appear as a B-side or demo. No such luck. A few weeks after History came out, Verve announced their break-up (the first one, anyway). When I heard the news, the first thing I remember thinking was how horrible it was that I'd never get to hear The Drugs Don't Work again. Thank goodness they gave the band one more try and gave me my song.

• By Jonathan Cohen

Bar Humbug

This week: Richard Ashcroft, Norman Blake, David McAlmont and Peter Cunnah

Phew! It's back. Yes it's that time again where we find four pop stars, get them together at the same time on the same day in the same pub, ply them with copious amounts of alcohol and ask them tricky questions about issues of the day, oh yes, and Hugh Grant. Master of Ceremonies: Mark Sutherland. Bar Props: Peter Walsh.

Richard Ashcroft, lead singer and chief ‘eccentric’ with The Verve is, as they say, buzzing. "Fookin’ hell, what a brilliant day!" he booms as he does the Liam Gallagher strut through the pub doors.

And the man they call - and not without good reason - ‘Mad’ Richard does, indeed, have a point. In a perfect world, all Friday afternoons would be something like this. The sun is blazing down in a manner more Ibiza than Islington. We are in the pub with the four most amiable pop stars in Britain, here to discuss the ‘burning’ issues of the day. And the booze is flowing with alarming alacrity. The weekend, in a very real sense, starts here.

As Richard hurls off his jacket and orders the first of many large gin and tonics he is introduced to his fellow panelists  Looking unnervingly healthy opposite him is Peter Cunnah of top popsters D:Ream. He too is in the finest of fettles having chalked up yet another Top Ten hit and recently moved house. His preferred tipple today is Bloody Marys, complete with a rectum endangering quantity of tabasco.

Next to him sits the glamorous figure of David McAlmont, one half of McAlmont and Butler and sole owner of a very horrible pair of plastic sandals. He's taken a break from the studio to attend and is determined to enjoy himself. Largely by downing innumerable pints of Guinness. Respect.

Our good-natured foursome is completed by an unfamiliar face. Who is that clean-shaven fellow with the impish grin mumbling apologies for lateness? Why, it's Norman Blake of Teenage Fan club, newly beard-free, soon to depart for Canada and consequently of an extremely sunny disposition. He too is on the G&T’s. Lots of them.

So the gang's all here. So they're all up for $64,000 questions. So let's get going, stupid...

Your starter for ten. John Major recently re-elected leader of the Conservative Party, which means we're stuck with him as Prime Minister. Has he emerged stronger or weaker from the contest? Is it good or bad new for the Labour Party and the forthcoming General Election?

Peter: "If they can't govern themselves I don't see how they can govern the country. John Major has just proved, yet again, how ineffectual a leader he is."

Norman: "The only thing I like about it is that now Heseltine doesn't have a chance of being leader. I was worried he'd get in and make them electable.’

Richard: "Nah, his hair's too unmanageable."

David: "If Redwood had got in there'd have been riots. Even more riots than there are already."

P: "Tony Blair still looks the stronger leader to me. Major’s the grey face of Britain.

D: "He's still around though. You can't get rid of him."

N: "Yeah, he's a grey man but he's got balls. Grey balls! But I think Labour will win the next election now."

P: "Had a more heavyweight Tory stood, it would have really torn the whole thing apart."

R: "But Private Eye knows so much..."
(the conversation proceeds along wildly libellous lines for some time)

D: "A lot of people would like to shag Michael Portillo though, and that's quite significant. I like the idea of having a good-looking man in charge."

R: (Getting a bit worked up) "We should just get these fuckers out, man! It'll take a riot. But let's do it. They're scum, always have been."

D: "Always will be."

N: "Gary Numan should be here really, to put the other point of view.

Sadly Gary couldn't make it. Neither, strangely, could Hugh Grant. But then he's the proverbial man with everything - good looks, money, movie career, gorgeous girlfriend - who has just, erm, blown it after getting caught by the fuzz while a £ 15 hooker allegedly performed lewd acts in his motor. Whyohwhy and, indeed, ohwhy?

D: "That was fabulous the best news story all year!"

P: "I think there's more to it than meets the eye. I think he's been caught for a reason."
(Various libellous conspiracy theories fill the air.)

N: "I think it might actually be really good for him."

R: "Nah, he's just seen a prostitute and gone for it. There's no conspiracy, he just got the itch."

P: "But conspiracy theories are so much more fun!"

D: "Hugh Grant was trying to revive that classy English gentleman image but the ‘gentlemen’ in this country are true bastards so I'm glad he's been brought down. Especially with a black prostitute. It's just so salacious!"

He claims it was all just a "moment of madness".

P: "Well you do go a bit mad when you're in the limelight. You start doing stuff that's dodgy for yourself and your career, just for an escapist moment."

D: "What have you done Peter?"
(Peter blushes furiously and goes quiet)

R: "Anyone with a brain in LA is going to freak out ‘cos it's the most hypocritical city in the world. He was probably just a bit lonely, but now he's completely messed up."

D: "No, he's well away now! In a twisted way people like that."

R: "By Hollywood standards it's pretty tame anyway. The shit that goes on there is incredible. At least there were no hamsters involved. I’d be more shocked if he made a decent film."

And what should the "lovely" Liz Hurley do now?

P: "Dress up in the same outfit to try and excite him!"

N: (Seriously) "If it was me I’d dump the guy. I’d say fuck you."

D: "If she genuinely loves him, she should dump him. But if it's just a business thing, she's done so well out of it she should carry on."

P: "Exactly. Who was Liz Hurley before?"

D: "If the Conservatives haven't all lost their jobs after all they've got up to, I don't see why Hugh Grant should. It's a very British kind of hypocrisy. In public it's all stiff upper lips, in private it's lips round a stiffy."

Clever wording, cheers. Now, another Brit malaise: our complete-and-utter uselessness at sport. Humbled by Brazil at football, humiliated by the West Indies at cricket, steamrolled by Jonah Lomu at Rugby... we even had to kidnap Canadian Greg Rusedski to make the third round at Wimbledon. Why is this fundamental cornerstone of our society in such rapid decline? And is there anything we can do about it?

N: "Actually, I think Scottish football is rubbish, but I really like the English league. And next session with Bergkamp and Gullit over here, it'll be even better. The national team's not bad - they'll do well in the European championships.

P: "There's a lot more money in the game now. But obviously there's not enough investment or nurturing at youth level."

R: "Yeah, when I was a kid we played matches on a big pitch from age eight. My knees were smashed to pieces by the time I was 16! But in Holland, they're playing on small, five-a-side pitches and learning how to pass."

Is sport important for the nation's spiritual well-being?

N: "Yeah. Brazil’s whole economy grew after they won the World Cup. It's that important."

D: "We like a good whine though - like when England lost the rugby and Will Carling said Jonah Lomu was ‘a freak’ so it wasn't fair. That's the typical English attitude. Money has a lot to do with it, as well."

R: "Exactly. You'll never get a Wimbledon winner from Wigan, ‘cos there aren't any fucking tennis courts there. Nicking that Canadian bloke says it all."

P: "Trouble is though, pick a truly British bloke and you get Eddie the Eagle."

D: "But if a non-French player wins the French Open, they don't get all heat up."

R: "You're right. We've got very big delusions of grandeur in this country."

D: "Yeah, Britain likes to see itself as a world leader and can't deal with the fact that it isn't any more."

R: "We're only taken seriously as a world force ‘cos we store America's nuclear weapons for them. We're a fucking joke really. And I've had enough! There's gonna be pie riots! Meat and potato over everyone's face."

Er, yes. Now, another national obsession: the Lottery. Have you noticed, the only people who ever hit the jackpot seem to hit serious problems afterwards? Could this be conclusive proof of the injustice of human existence?

P: "It's a tax on greed anyway, and if people are stupid enough to play it, they deserve to lose their money."

R: "My mum and nan are mad for it. They're skint and if there's a chance of winning a million, they're in for it. The odds are ridiculous, but they fall for it every time. I've seen my nan put an X on a coupon every week for 20 years and she hasn't spotted the ball yet. If I won £ 18 million, I’d be dead in a week."

P: "Winning takes away the thing that made you get up in the morning. No wonder they all go mad: that's all there is left to do. I won't buy a ticket."

D: "I don't play either. I feel sorry for the winners, especially that bloke who got hounded out of the country. I wouldn't want to win."

N: "I would, I play and if I won, I wouldn't jack in the Fan club, I’d just buy some players for my football team."

R: "I've changed my mind. I think the lottery's fucking great."

(At this point, Richard declares he's off to the phone and slips out of the pub. The debate continues until he reappears - with a Lottery Instants scratch card for everyone. Will Peter’s principled stand crumble at the prospect of winning 50 grand?)

P: "I don't think I should actually."

R: "I've won a quid! Any luck you lot?"

N: "Nah, I've lost."

D: "Me too."

R: "Come on, Pete! I want to see that 50p rubbing away!"

(But Pete will not be moved. Instead he returns the card to Richard)

P: "God, how gutted will I be if he wins now."

N: "Nah, it's a loser. Still, I won. So I must be the biggest wanker here then!"

Ahem. Back in the real world, Greenpeace won a major victory recently when it prevented Shell from dumping the Brent Spar oil rig at sea. Is the tide finally turning in favour of environmental responsibility? And would you lash yourself to a doomed rig in the name of saving the fishies?

P: "I thought it was brilliant. Greenpeace are very good at getting things in the news, but for every abuse they stop, there are three we don't even know about."

R: "There's nothing wrong with going for a swim and coming out covered in oil. I love it! I’d dump more oil! Nuclear waste, everything. I want my kids to have three legs and one eye. Nah, those guys on the rig were mental."

N: "Yeah, you have to admire their dedication. I wouldn't do it."

R: "I would! I got dropped onto a polar ice-cap on a spacehopper to save some seals."

P: (Not realizing Richard is having one of his turns) Really?"

R: "Yeah. I bounced along this ice-cap with a big flag. Did you not see it on the news? But I don't want to talk about it. It was all for charity."

D: "They only backed down because business was threatened. All people care about is surviving these days, the environment is a long way behind."

N: "Yeah, this was easy to get involved in. You just say, ‘Yeah, boycott Shell’ - and get in your car and drive to another petrol station. When really you should be smashing your car up."

R: "Yeah, science has to come up with wind power or something."

P: "But that'd be bad too. It could really affect the weather patterns."

R: "Bloody hell, have you read a lot of encyclopaedias or what? This dream bloke's right on, man."

Anyway, sod the future of the planet, let's talk about the big issue. Has the Stone Roses 11th-tour withdrawal from Glastonbury buried then and their myth once and for all? Do they still matter? Or are they just taking the piss nowadays?

R: "The Stone Roses are very aware that this business is fucked and corrupt so they won't play the game. It was almost commercial suicide to pull the gig but I've got full-on respect for them."

N: "They actually perpetuated their myth by pulling. Everyone's talking about them again - would that be the case if they'd played?"

R: "I genuinely believe they work on chaos: they've had a lot of good luck and now they're having some bad luck. That's life. But their legend is bigger than them now and it's harder to live up to. People expect too much from groups."

Surely expecting one gig every five years isn't "too much"?

R: "Well, yeah, that's fair enough."

P: "Them not turning up wasn't the worst thing about Glastonbury though - that was probably the toilets."

R: "I thought the toilets were great. I'm into shit, that's my bag. Those toilets were the zenith of my needs!"

N: "Er, anyway, Glastonbury wasn't about one band, it's about personal experience, meeting new people and talking utter bullshit for three days."

D: "I didn't go ‘cos of Pride, but it looked like Pulp made great replacements."

R: "Nah, with 60,000 people in a field, most of them in an altered state, you need head music. Pulp were too clean. I think Jarvis is a funny man, but I wanted to hear music by people who'd been in the state of mind the crowd were in and were able to reflect it. In fact fuck The Stone Roses, basically I wanted to see us on stage on Saturday night!"

Maybe next year, eh? Perhaps 30-foot high statues of Mad Richard will be floating down the Thames by then. Because, yes, Michael Jackson is back and he's not getting any saner. Has the King Of Pop lost it completely or is his current campaign a genius of re-invention?

D: "It's an immaculate campaign."

N: "The video is great, I have to give him that. Really groundbreaking."

P: "My friend was telling me her kid saw him on telly and said, ‘Mummy, I thought Michael Jackson was a robot!’ She'd seen the statue and thought that's all he was!"

D: "His songs don't really matter anymore. What matters is that after everything he went through, he can still build a huge statue of himself. It's almost totalitarian: he's asserting he's still the King Of Pop and he can do whatever the hell he likes."

D: "I was slagging off Jacko the other day and someone said, ‘What if he asked you to do a duet?’. As long as we do ‘Ebony and Ivory’ I'm up for it!"

R: "Did you see him on the cover of Hello? He looked terrible!"

D: "Mmm. The only thing in Jacko’s defence is he's been a megastar for so long, money is the answer to everything for him. He doesn't know any different."

N: "I don't think he's as popular since the allegations, but he's not as good either. You realize that if he and Lisa-Marie have a kid, that kid's granddad will be Elvis - and his dad will be Michael Jackson. That's just nuts! The poor kid doesn't have a chance!"

R: "Yeah, he'll be 30 stone with no nose, dancing with a monkey in Las Vegas!"

As long as he's not naked. Because everyone from Richard and Judy to Elastica have recently born witness to the return of streaking. Whatever possesses people to cavort naked in front of large crowds?

R: "Times must be getting a bit conservative again, if streakers are back. I still remember Erica Roe."

D: "Nakedness is very liberating and I admire the courage of people who do it in front of a large crowd. I don't understand the motivation but to have the bottle to do it is quite something."

R: "Yeah, especially with the size of that guy's dick at Glastonbury. I tell you if I had a cock like that I wouldn't be running on stage naked. I actually had a chat with him earlier in the day and he seemed like a nice chap. Then I got home and his cock was on telly!"

N: "I’d have more respect if they streaked in winter. That would be much more radical."

Have any of you taken the plunge?

R: "Yeah, I have. About five minutes ago. I didn't go for a piss, I was streaking! Come on, let's all have a go!"

BY NOW, the panel is a little worse for wear. For a moment, it seems Richard's suggestion might receive serious consideration. Four well-respected pop stars stand on the cusp of a Hugh Grantesque "moment of madness".

Somebody stop them...

Fortunately, the phone rings. It's Richard’s band, wanting to know why he's not at his own sound check. Thoughts of mass celebrity nudity rapidly disperse as everyone remembers they, too, really should be elsewhere.

Peter, still looking disgustingly healthy, proffers robust handshakes and is whisked off to the airport for a flight to exotic Bradford. David rearranges his dreadlocks, murmurs, "I've had far too much to drink" and staggers into the taxi that will speed him back to Bernard.

Norman stops for one last drink and one last chat about football, then strolls unsteadily away in the vague direction of Euston and the Glasgow sleeper.

And Mad Richard? Well, as he himself points out as he struts from the pub, he's won the Lottery, made some new pals, established himself as an elegant spokesman for the Man On the Wigan Omnibus - and saddled NME with his drinks bill. There is a method in his madness after all.

The Guitar Magazine - Loco motives: in the studio with The Verve and Owen Morris

Verve's fifth member (sixth if you count Liam Gallagher - handclaps on ‘History’) for the making of ‘A Northern Soul’ was producer Owen Morris. Virtually unknown until he manned the desk for Oasis's ‘Definitely Maybe’, he helped The Verve achieve their biggest and most natural sound to date.

'The Verve thing started with me going to see them play in their little Wigan rehearsal room, and they just blew me head off,' he recalls. 'And originally the plan was to record the album there. So when we got them to Loco studios in Newport my task was to capture, basically, the sound of them just playing together and not to bland it out by trying to be too clever. Usually, the version you're hearing is the first playback, just the monitor mix on the DAT with no overdubs - not even vocals, which were 90 percent from the run-throughs.'

As with ‘Definitely Maybe’, the room ambience is strikingly real, though in the case of ‘A Northern Soul’ there's an even greater sense of depth. Splitting his guitar into a Marshall stack for a deep, unaffected growl and an old AC30 ('The best I've ever tried,' he says) to handle his flightier, FX-laden touches, McCabe creates a remarkable two-tier sound. Only the title track diverges from that amplification recipe, where the Eddie Hazel-esque wah-wah part was rendered on an unknown 30 quid head overloaded into the desk. 'I bought it in a pram shop in Wigan,' he laughs, 'I was a bit loath to use it at first - I mean, it's really vile, ain't it?!'

'Mike-wise,' reveals Owen Morris, 'We placed a Shure SM57 and a Neumann U47 very close, and then a pair of Geffels - really, bright, open sounding mikes - about six, seven feet away. And then we'd mush those all together with a load of compression... In things like ‘Drive You Home’, where you hear the guitar sound moving between the speakers that's purely the amps changing, and the compressed sound picking up different bits of the room.

One interesting thing is that The Verve didn't use headphones, so they were all using stage wedges with their different monitor mixes. So however much we tried to separate hem there's a certain amount of bleed from the wedges into the mikes.'

'It was just like doing a gig,' grins Simon Jones. 'We didn't have to worry about anything but getting off our heads and playing music.'

One victim of The Verve's recent success has been Nick McCabe's beloved Gibson ES335: only just repaired, the glued-together neck took exception to a hot night in Las Vegas and simply flopped off. The replacement is a Les Paul - again the first he's liked -though there's some Strat on the album and a Tokai Talbo delivering the storming ultrablues of ‘Let The Damage Begin’, the B-side of the album's first single, ‘This Is Music’. 'It's this early '80s guitar with a cast aluminium body. It's hideous. And when I wrote the riff it only had three strings on it. And it was totally out of tune!'

Acoustics used included Nick's Takamine 12-string and Richard's Gibson J-200, while Simon Jones put his Fender Jazz bass through an Ampeg SVT II, DI'd, compressed and filtered at mixdown via a Mini Moog to remove some of the higher frequencies.

'We made a big cock up about four weeks into the sessions,' admits Owen Morris. 'We changed the strings on Simon's bass and we were fucked for about a month! He hadn't changed his strings for about two years. We took the old strings off, put them somewhere, put the new ones on. They sounded shit. We gave them till the morning to settle in and they still sounded shit! And then we couldn't find the original set!! So we were literally buggered. We ended up wiping dirt in to his new strings.'
To be honest, this wasn't the only headache The Verve gave Morris. The band's monomaniacal quest for the perfect vibe, though admirable in itself, led to days of fannying about. Eventually, the producer lost his rag, smashing a studio window and a pair of perfectly good monitors at the suddenly rather aptly named Loco.

'They don't really need a producer,' he sighs, 'because they will do producer's heads in. They did my head in, completely and utterly. There you go. That's life. It's a fantastic album at the end of the day, but it's not a process that I'd ever want to go through again, ha ha!'

'If we don't reach that level of inspiration then we don't play,' intones Ashcroft gravely. 'We go down the pub instead. This record was a story of three days working up to that level and three days to come down from it. I know a lot of bands that can bash out an album in a few days, but that's cutting out, like, 90 per cent of human emotion. That's machine-like. If you take a photograph of four people, the chances that all four are going to look good at that single moment in time are a million to one. And it's the same when four people pick up instruments at the same time.'

'It looks like we're going to go through producers like God knows what,' a sheepish Jones concedes, 'because it's so intense. They're there with the music on this mad heavy trip. And it's... it's ‘macabre’.'

• Source: The Guitar Magazine, July 1995

Wigan Athletic - Northern Soul Asylum

THE VERVE have split the voters ever since they appeared in '92 as The Band Most Likely To after Suede. Some loved their experimental prog-rock noise, others thought it was hippy, trippy bollocks. Now, they have more fans than detractors and, with their new album, 'A Northern Soul', they are receiving favourable comparisons to the All Time Greats. But it has been one long, mad struggle. DAVE SIMPSON speaks to The Verve about the record described as 'a diary of disaster, a symphony of pain'. Crazyheads: TOM SHEEHAN

'This is a tale of a Northern soul
Trying to find his way back home

SOMETHING terrible has happened to The Verve. You can still recognize the wide-eyed, cocksure, romantic , experience hungry youths of '92 and '93, but there's a look about them now which brings to mind the numb expressions of those returning from the Vietnam war. When I first meet Richard Ashcroft, he's wearing a green bobble hat pulled so far over his face it looks as though he's hiding from the world. Bassist Simon Jones is a sunken-cheeked apparition of his former self. When he speaks, it's in a near inaudible croak.
What the hell has happened to them?

"We've been through a lot of turmoil and had some great moments," begins Ashcroft, high up on the beacon overlooking Wigan where he and school pal Simon first dreamed up The Verve. "You can go through a lot in two years, especially if you're fortunate enough to travel and see a lot of places like we are. You're gonna get in some scrapes. You're gonna go through some extreme emotions. My brain is definitely a different brain from that of two years ago. Whether or not I've been tainted by that I don't know."

I do, and he has. And then some.

The Big Takeover: An interview with Richard Ashcroft and Simon Jones

Wow! What a difference a few months can make. When I interviewed The Verve members, vocalist RICHARD ASHCROFT and bassist SIMON JONES on May 15, 1995, in the Vernon Yard/Virgin Records' offices, there were absolutely no bad vibes, or clues that would've made one think, "This band won't be around much longer." However, during the first week of September, rumors circulated that The Verve had broken up. And then, there it was in the NME, September 9: Ashcroft had quit, saying only that he just didn't want to continue with the band, and had promptly gone camping in the U.K.'s West Country. Reportedly, the other three members were "extremely unhappy about the band's demise."

Starting out as a tight-knit unit, The Verve started drifting apart as the business of being in a band became a business. And they apparently had problems during the recording of their sophomore LP, A Northern Soul, one of which was Ashcroft disappearing for five days with no notice!

In hindsight, perhaps it's not so surprising that this vocalist would leave a band on the verge of possible international success, and more importantly, one of the better British bands (especially live) to emerge in recent years--after all, he was dubbed "Mad Richard" by U.K. journalists a while back. This interview suggests that Richard very easily succumbs to grand statements of intent and opinion, delivering them with a totally committed tone of voice, with no self-doubt whatsoever. It's quite possible that he simply didn't believe in the band anymore, and thus put a stop to it. We can only hope that he will rise again. As The Verve's manager, JOHN BEST, said, "I wish it hadn't happened this way, but he's only 23, and he'll do something amazing again." Go figure...

For this interview, which has to be among the last the band ever granted before their stunning bust-up, we naturally delve into the band as a functioning entity, and discuss the then-still-awaiting-release A Northern Soul.