Life Is Not a Rehearsal

I've read a few blogs where the author is despairing at his (always male, for some reason) indifference to music. Not just new music, as this goes without saying. But also the lack of impact a favourite album has. In our adolescent minds we build the album's creators into God-like figures, and the album becomes an indispensable item. It travels with us on long, hopefully memorable journeys. It wakes us up in the morning, or helps us sleep at night. We convince ourselves that no matter what happens, we'll always love this album; it'll always be there for us.

The album I'm currently mourning is this one

Released in July 1995 amid rumours of serious drug problems fragmenting the band, the album opens with an epic swagger, blasting away the shoegazing elements of their first album, A Storm in Heaven. Title presumably swiped from a pained poet. With A New Decade and This is Music, the band stamp a more muscular, psychedelic sound on their calling card.

This is Music was chosen as the first single in May, with gorgeous artwork by Brian Cannon, also working with everyone's "hmm, sorry, just never got it" pariahs, Oasis. They followed a theme, mainly Ashcroft looking wasted in black and white in front of some crumbling piece of architecture, sometimes holding a sandwich board with slogans such as 'life is not a rehearsal' and 'all farewells should be sudden' .

On Your Own was also chosen as a single, but it's link with So it Goes is so strong that it's difficult to imagine one without the other. With lyrics like "all I want is someone who can fill the hole in the life I know" they offer an insight into the isolation which was clearly helping to destroy the band. The rot clearly set in during the mammoth US tour on which Cannon accompanied them, his lens milking the misery to capture some iconic images...

This feeling of hopelessness is confirmed with the lyrics of Northern Soul 'This is the tale of a Northern soul, looking to find his way back home'....'I wanna see if you know me, I was born in a rented room, my mother didn't get no flowers, Dad didn't approve of me, do you?' It goes on like this.

'Drive You Home' is an achingly mournful comedown-song, with lead guitarist Nick McCabe switching seamlessly from the swirling riffs of 'Soul' to the smacked-out reverb on 'Home'.

'History' follows, with it's heavy strings and extrapolated (let's just say swiped) lyrics from Blake's 'London'- 'I wander lonely streets, beside where the old Thames does flow, and in every face I meet, reminds me of what I've run from'. The rest of the album continues in this way, each song linked to the last in the same way that to hear a track from 'BloodSugarSexMagick' in a compilation or on shuffle is... just not right. 'No Knock on my Door' tells the tale of lost virginity and devotion, and Ashcroft sounds as if he's drunkenly singing through bitter tears until he's drowned by McCabe's heavy guitar. The remaining tracks are like the calm period after sex, or sunrise after a heavy night, reminiscent of their earlier stoned grooves but with a new-found power driving the melody and the incantatory lyrics.

By the time 'History' was released as a single in September, it was all over. On August 5th, at T in the Park, Ashcroft announced that the band would not be playing together again. The even-handed reporter at the Strathclyde Telegraph had this to say- "Hands up who likes The Verve? What's that, three, maybe five. To be honest, The Verve are the most overrated thing since Christianity. Both are based on men with long straggly hair and both will never come back"

Fair-do's Jocko. But I wont burn my bible just yet, as The Verve were resurrected, with the rapturously received Urban Hymns.

June 1997 saw the release of Bittersweet Symphony, a video which probably helped to get me laid, and still continues to do so. It was kept off the number one spot in Britain by... I forget. In the coming months they rode a wave of critical acclaim, and actually looked happy to be together. Ironically, former Stones manager Allen Klein took ALL royalties as they had lifted a loop from an instrumental version of 'The Last Time' by the Stones, reworked by Andrew Loog Oldham. He then sold the rights to Nike, further enraging Ashcroft. Any profits they took from this deal were donated to charity. Still, the lads got their cereal bills covered when The Drugs Don't Work went straight to number one. By now Urban Hymns had sold 1.5 million copies- one in 30 Brits owned it.

In February '98, my sister entered me into a Big Issue competition for a benefit gig and I went to Brixton Academy on the National Express. Across London, the rest of the music scene powdered it's nose at the Brit Awards. It still stands as the greatest gig Ive ever been to. From the moment Ashcroft walked onstage and shimmied on his little Persian rug, the audience was rapt. The band powered through the set, clearly relishing the opportunity to play their much practised, never unleashed Northern Soul material. 'Come On' was turned into a glorious, almost Nazi-esque stomp.

6 months later, at the V festival, the old rot was back in attendance. Ashcroft was still jubilant, but the sincerity had gone. Before long, the inevitable came. Rumours about Mccabe's mental health were played down by Ashcroft, citing a new-born daughter. McCabe was more honest about the break-up of the band. "It's my fault. I have mental problems".

This blog hasn't ended up as I envisaged it, but what's new? I was lamenting the loss of a treasured memory in my life, but by writing this I realise how much I still love the album, and at the moment I want nothing more than to go home, listen to it and have a good cry. OK, maybe not the crying bit.

I've persisted in seeing Ashcroft live, but resisted buying the albums, except the latest, Keys to the World. Try as I might, I can't convince even myself that it's better than average, so I won't push it on you. He may be a total narcissist, but when the imagery is this good, sometimes you just have to go with it...