The Verve - "A Northern Soul"

Sorry for the lack of updates here.  I guess everyone who writes for this thing, including myself, have been busy with other real life things.  Happens, sue us.  In fact, I had a really fucked up and weird week... I'm gonna ramble about it now... I just got back from my 10 year high school reunion, which I was very reluctant to attend but had a surprisingly great time at.  Sometimes I forget why I live in California, so it's good for me to go back home to Washington State and Idaho, if for nothing more than to realize why I left there in the first place.  It was nice to see all of the smart and interesting people I had forgotten I liked, most of who were not considered cool in high school.  But I must admit, there's nothing like seeing a bunch of people you went to high school with and didn't like, older, fatter, balder and from the looks of things very unhappily married.  Not to mention really fucking drunk on top of all that.  I felt like I was on acid the entire weekend.  It really made me feel a bit better about what I've been doing in my life and I highly recommend attending yours.  If for nothing more than the life experience...  as lame as that might sound. Oh, get this... someone from my class has shit out six kids in ten years!  Insane right?  Anyhoo.... this is The Verve's second record and it's insane too! In my opinion it's the best album these blokes made.  Their first record, "A Storm In Heaven" is cool too.  But by the time they made this one they were writing much better songs.  Their last album "Urban Hymns" is good as well, but it almost sounds like an entirely different band, it's very clean sounding. Richard Ashcroft wrote it thinking it was going to be a solo record or a new band.  But if you get really into The Verve, like I have been lately, you can also hunt down all their singles, eps, the bside record "No Come Down" and their singles collection "This Is Music: The Singles 92-98".  All of it's pretty boss and not too hard to find.  And if you can locate one, the Mojo with Richard Ashcroft on the cover talks about all The Verve records in depth, how they recorded em, how Richard wrote all the songs, why they broke up, how he stole Jason Pierce's girlfriend (married her and made kids with her too), his solo shit and about how he lives in a mansion, hangs out with Liam from Oasis and has an ego that rivals his.   Supposedly The Verve and their producer did so much ecstasy while they were making "A Northern Soul" that they were all total emotional wrecks and were insanely disfunctional because of it.  Richard vowed to "never make a record that way again", which is why their sound changed so much after this album I bet.  It just doesn't get much better than lyrics like "I'm gonna die alone in bed!" or "I stand accused just like you for being born without a silver spoon".  Yeah man, high school reunions are fucked up...

(Download - "A New Decade")

(Download - "This Is Music")

(Download - "A Northern Soul")

Comments

[Jackson Bollock]

Seeing Mad Richard live was my first gig. I'd seen a gazzilion pub bands, but this was my 1st real gig. They were supporting Oasis at my hometown and I felt like I was the luckiest cunt in the world.
Thankfully it was during the Northern Soul period. They started off with a new decade, then this is music and by that point the skunk made me go all funny... boo hoo..

This record sounds so modern, makes you wonder.

Also Richard Ashcroft used to blab about how he could fly... hmmm.

When I first heard Bittersweet Symphony I was fucked off coz it was all homo strings and no scud guitars n feedback.. I wish they'd stayed split up and maybe we would have never seen SHITEPLAY duet with Ashcroft at Live8... that was cruel.

[poop]

ha ha ha ha you are old Travis.
you are about 28 right? give away 1 or 2 years if you were a good student. and what the fuck,didnt you drop out? are you telling me that the great man Travis M Keller who says all the time that school is for chumps didnt drop out of school 'cause I guess that's the cool thing right? cause who gives a fuck about school?
betta give a good answer for this Travis. DAMN

[Ryan]

i'd be way 2 embarrassed to go to my reunion in 2 years. i had one of those best friend took girl things so i really dont wanna see some people from HS. yeah, it doesn't seem like u would go to one of those, is there something we're missing?

[Travis Keller]

Yeah I finished high school, I didn't have enough money saved to move to califronia til a year after high school. And you gotta not have a pulse to not finish high school in the states.

As for telling people to not go to school... I think what I said was college is boot camp for a desk job.

[patrick]

hey Travis,

did you get that saying from one of Death By Stereo's songs? or is that a fairly common saying...either way its funny.

[Travis Keller]

I've never listened to Death By Stereo enough to know any of their lyrics. I think it's a pretty common saying.

[Shaun]

I have a somewhat humourous Verve story. I sent to their big show in 1997 at the Pond, and there was a guy in a parking lot wearing a band shirt for...The Verve Pipe! I was laughing for 5 mins straight. I wonder if he was totally bummed out?

[Ryan]

i know it's not the topic at hand, but the best part of those angry, crazy guy phones messages was when he said 'aaron, with his sucky band, and travis, with his......(funniest pause of all time) whatever it is u do.'
what a dumbass!

[Daniel]

I am digging these songs and I never thought I would like the Verve.

And Travis didn't you go to school with the bassist from the Hunches?
I just got Hobo Sunrise and I am loving it.

[Travis Keller]

Yeah, I dunno is she actually went to school though. But we grew up in the same town. She was the punkiest girl in town by far and was the person who turned me onto The Misfits. I remember she got the skull logo tatooed on her leg. The drummer of the hunches went to college there too. They have the best single name lately... FUCK DISCO BEATS! So cool.

And folk singer Josh Ritter, who just signed to V2 was in my grade as well. Just saw him at my reunion.

http://joshritter.com/

What's the verve pipe sound like anyways?

[shelbot]

This album changed my life... a band at the end of their rope as they broke up after this and reformed more as the Richard Ashcroft britpop experience with Nick McCabe (guitar) not so much in the limelight. I can releate to a band that makes a record and ends.. i have done it myself once. There is an urgency and intensity to this record, emotions on the surface, the real deal. The guitar on the track A NORTHERN SOUL is probably one of the sickest most original guitar wah washes i have ever heard... yet to be duplicated.. unbelievable playing and in my opinion one of the best albums of all times, esp for guitar music.

[Ally]

This is amazing. Why doesn't Britain have any new great bands like this any more? Plus, even though Richard Ashcroft marrying Kate Radley meant he got all contented and made those crappy solo albums I’m glad, otherwise we wouldn't of got Ladies and Gentlemen...

[poop]

well I dont know what kind of schools you have in the states but now I have a better clue. and I was just saying that cause I hate when fucking pepole say all this shit about if you finished high school then that is dumb cause "real pepole dont give a shit about school". look I can understand what you're saying about college but some pepole need it just to put off life cause they are too scared to move out of their mom's and dad's house but now that you said you moved to CA from what ever shit hole you lived in and took your life to your own hands.. I have to take my hat off for you (if I had one then I whould). wish I had to guts.

[skinny ben]

I agree with Shelby, this is one of my all time favs. Check out the biography, "star sail." It talks about how Richard was all tore up about being dumped by his girlfriend for one of his best friends right before they wrote this album. (this is before he stole Kate from Jay Spaceman.) I guess that's why this is one of the ultimate breakup records. (in my opinion) Anyway, if you're looking for a decent new british band that kind of takes up the torch where the early verve stuff left off, you should check out the Engineers. Their music is kind of an updated shoegazer sound with some BOC type atmospherics thrown in for good measure. The singer is no Mad Richard, but the music is solid.

[peter]

Travis- 10 year High School reunion, 28 years old? When your name comes up all I hear is how you love High School girls and how they love you. I had assumed you were younger, but is it true you're 28 and you're lucky enough to still score with High School girls? Or are you getting married and having kids like your old High School buddies?

[Travis Keller]

Yeah I'm 28. Why you wanna know who I date is a little weird to me... but seeing as how you asked, lately I've been with your mom.

[Ryan]

ouch! that was an old-fashioned zinger, and i'm sure it stung.

[Michael]

Travis is robbin' the fucking cradle.

[peter]

wow dude, I didn't mean to piss you off. I was really just sayin' that you're awesome if what I have heard about you is true, especially if you're 28. I didn't mean to ask you who you're dating, just saying that you have a reputation of getting really fine girls, that most guys couldn't get with. I had just expected you to be younger is all. And, my mom's a fat old bitch, so if you were gettin' with her i'd feel sorry for you.

[ESG]

Travis I can't believe you grew up in Idaho. That's where I am at the moment. It's dreadful. What city did you live in?

[poop]

Idaho, hahahahahahaha.
man you must have stood out like a girl in an all men gay party

[shelbot]

Travis I thought were dating me... f-in two timing bastard!

[Ryan R.]

look, i'm gonna go ahead and say it: teenage girls are bad in bed. try it. it really isn't that cool. if anything, it's just a way of showing the world you are, in fact, superman.
i'm still 7 years away from my reunion.

on the college tip: my friend just gave away all of his stuff and hitced a ride out to brooklyn to sleep on floors. he just told me he wished he would've finished school (he dropped out because he's crazy. literally. he used to take meds and count constantly) because without a degree he pretty much can't get a job out there.

- Ryan

[dan]

Are you insane? Teenage girls are the best in bed because they want it so bad. You just have to teach them how to do it.

[Ryan R.]

maybe i'm just not around the right teenage girls.

- Ryan