Verve FAQ

Who is Verve?

Verve is a great band from Wigan. They broke up in '95 and now they are back. They aren't really known in America but people say that they were on the brink of major sucess in America. They have a spacy pop rock sound and the only way to understand what I'm talking about is for you to listen to She's A Superstar.
Wowa.. I wrote that a long time ago. Verve are now a rather successful band in England and they are gaining popularity in America. You may reconize them from such hits as, "Bittersweet Symphony" and "Lucky Man". It's late 1998 and they have just finished touring for Urban Hymns. A possible breakup is rumored but only time will tell what happens. Visit the News page for the latest and greatest.
And now a March 2000 update. Verve have broken up Richard Ashcroft (lead singer) is going solo, Nick McCabe (guitarist) is doing various projects, Simon Jones (bass) is working with John Squire (ex-Stone Roses) on a new band, no one knows what Simon Tong (guitarist) is up to, and Pete Salisbury (drummer) is working with Richard Ashcroft.

Please check the News Section of my page to get the latest and greatest info on Verve.

Jason Olsen wrote to tell me that he found a bunch of rare bootlegs on soulseek. So that might be your best shot.
Don't email me about getting live stuff.

Voyager 1 is a rare record of Verve playing live in 1993. It was recorded somewhere in New York and London. There are 6 tracks on the record and I'm not sure when it came out. You can probably get a copy from someone on the mailing list.

This was sent to the VIN by Scott Cannon
The Urban Hymns Box Set is limited to 500 copies world wide.
This box contains the 4 singles from the Urban Hymns album (Bittersweet Symphony, Drugs Don't Work, Sonnet and Lucky Man) all packaged in a green suede box that says "Verve-Urban Box" on it.
It includes a numbered certificate, an authentc Zippo lighter that is engraved "Drugs Don't Work" and a pack of rolling papers. All of this is securely packed in foam and placed inside of another (cardboard) box that also reads "Verve-Urban Box" as well as a listing of everything inside.

I have a copy of the second tape, my friend Lisa has a copy of the first tape. She's almost down with her's and I'm working through mine. Yes, it has been a while since I announced that I interviewed Nick and it will be online. If you email me asking about it, don't get upset if you don't get a reply. Even though this question is here in the FAQ I still get several emails a day about this.
UPDATE!: It's now March 27th, 2000. Lisa and I have transcribed the interview in full about two weekends ago. She has sent me the edited version and I've just made some minor corrections to it. She'll take another look at it and then it should be ready to send nick for the final approval.
(11/19/02) Update!: The interview is online over at Excellent Online

What's happening when you print any page on this site is Netscape (or IE) is telling the printer to print the text, but make sure you keep the same color (white), but don't go crazy and try to print a black page (waste o' ink). So what you get is white text on white paper.
To solve this, you need to tell your browser to print "black" text. Either go into your "options" or your "printer settings" and fix it. There's help all over the place for this stuff so it isn't printed here.

As far as I know they never released one. Your best bet is to try and track down the original Rolling Stones track that Verve used to make BSS. Remember that it's an Andrew Loog Oldham instrumental version of 'The Last Time'.
I got an email from lantier@noos.fr:
In your FAQ you say you don't know about any, but I found an "instrumental" of Bittersweet symphony on a site!! Well it's quite short, but well done nonetheless. You can find it on this page: http://www.melted.com/storage/sounds.htm. But it's not at the very top, scroll down a bit first.
UPDATE: Ben Rice made an instrumental version for his wedding. Obviously I can't put it online but if you contact me I might be able to help you find it.

The tape tree was a great way to get live tapes if you didn't have any. Basically one person would have a master and he/she would roll like 5 copies. The people who got the copies would roll 5 more and send them out... rinse and repeat and you'd get a live tape for the price of shipping the tape. Well I haven't seen anyone organize this in a long time so I'm removing all the "tree" questions from this FAQ.

There are two main mailing lists. The official Raft mailing list and the VIN (Verve Information Network) which I run. The Raft list is a free-for-all mailing list in that anyone who subscribes can post a message to the list. The VIN on the other hand is a moderated list and I have to approve all the posts before they get sent out. The VIN might sound like a stupid idea but after getting bombed with 50+ posts a day on the raft list (and none of the posts containing anything useful) you might agree with me. :)
If you want news and only news, join the VIN. If you want to discuss Verve and Verve-like things then join the Raft list but make sure you setup those mail filters.

If you are on the "official" mailing list then send an email to: majordomo@vmg.co.uk with the body of the message as "unsubscribe" (no quotes) if you want to get off, and "subscribe" (again, no quotes) if you want to join.
If you are on the Verve Information Network, then check here for all the info.