Been listening to early Verve

Maybe check out the entirely grittier Thee Hypnotics (who copped a much bigger Stooges stance).

Now I want to find out more about this Drop band! So Dave if you're still lurking on here.

As part of a separate project I've been doing my head in with "Slide Away" more than a few times this past week.

"I was thinking maybe we could go OUTSIIIIDE..."

Let the night sky cool our foolish minds.

It just makes me unhappy, thinking of what is to come. :-(

Which song is it that has the lyric that's something like "with trees turn bright / spread arms to heaven / I'll bend them back / I'll bend them agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiin" and wtf actually IS Dickie singing?

I still like a lot of ANS and some of UH, but not enough.

i remember drop's logo it was kind of like 5:30's. they were english, i think they did a couple of 12"s, i seem to remember they were at the more rocking, loop-y end of the shoegazing spectrum

UH is right.

Eh?

Er.

Hm.

UH is shite. End of.

i seem to think there was a Drop track on one the Select free tapes that i liked ..

I still like BSS occasioanlly, and I really like Catching The Butterfly.

Where is Kerr to beat me up for asserting that?

i thought my best years had left me behind/
but i watch them *COME BACK!*

that was my fave early VERVE moment.

Three years gone, and still nobody has any suggestions? By now i'm sure you've stumbled upon most of the titles listed below and probably much much more, but, for the sake of thread continiuity...

Yeah, those early Verve singles, the EP and No Come Down are really were it's at.

Verve - No Come Down
Catherine Wheel - Ferment
James - Wah Wah
Money Mark - Mark's Keyboard Repair
Nightmares on Wax - Smoker's Delight

I'm vaguelly intrigued by James' Wah Wah. It's Eno produced, isn't it?

Yup. Actually relistened to it recently, it's...well, it's there. Has moments.

Oh wait, you want suggestions for similar stuff?

Try "Brown Hearts" by the Early Years, it's psychedelic and acheing and soaring and yeah, Eno-approved.

James really were the great also-rans of the pre-Britpop era, weren't they?

I'm vaguelly intrigued by James' Wah Wah. It's Eno produced, isn't it?

yup.
there was also a 30 minute 2 track ep lifted from the album produced by Sabres/Weatherall that takes chunks of the album, way out into the ambient dub excess that was popular back then.
been years since i heard Wah Wah .. will dig it out next week, to see if it stands the test of time ..

xpost : re neds post. soz

there was also a 30 minute 2 track ep lifted from the album produced by Sabres/Weatherall that takes chunks of the album, way out into the ambient dub excess that was popular back then.

This I own, and it's v. good. Drag it out for a listen every so often.

James really were the great also-rans of the pre-Britpop era, weren't they?

Fixed :P

James were hardly also-rans at the time! They were massive!

Or maybe that's going by T-shirts rather than album sales. But still.

It was that whole Sit Down/Laid era you couldn't move for James fans.

Yeah I was just fixing the great part, which was what stuck out most :P

Although I did buy Gold Mother when I was about 14. And I did like a couple of singles around Laid time.

...and the final James album Pleased to Meet You is their most realized effort altogether. They manage to retain all their early exuberance and later ambient adventures into a very mature, yet far from boring, effort. Their musicianship is finely honed, the topics are real, and the whole package bubbles like a fine french saucier.

why did i ever stop listening to A Storm In Heaven? it's a freaking amazing record.

Nick McCabe's guitar always reminded me of Richard Thompson, something about the tone.
There's quite a few boots from 92-94 that are worth getting. Not sure if any are being torrented right now but watch out for them when they are.

Also the '98 live gig that was televised is very worth tracking down. Its after they became famous but Nick McCabe has returned after an absence and some of the spaciness has returned to the sound.
I'm not a big fan of their really popular stuff, the 3rd lp & surrounding singles but I think it may be thanks to his absence. Band sounds way less spacey without him.

nice Quietus piece about the debut.

http://thequietus.com/articles/13826-verve-a-storm-in-heaven

Is it possible to get hold of their first radio session for Hit the North (Mark Radcliffe) on BBC Radio 5 from Feb 1992? I believe the tracklisting is

She's a Superstar
All in the Mind
Slide Away
(plus another)

Can anyone help?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldFLTTVSCDs

i know that is not what you were looking for but i found it and posted it, though it's not very good. i do own everything this band did release so you have inspired some Verve listening for tomorrow. which i'm now looking forward to.

According to McCabe and Jones, there are 2CD deluxe editions of A Storm In Heaven and A Northern Soul ready to go but Ashcroft won't sign off and the record label doesn't believe the expense of doing it will be "viable"

i says here it was a peel session, but what i'm thinking of was definitely Hit the North

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOj6hj28LMc

it's really striking/eerie how much "see you in the next one" sounds like it could be on Lazer Guided Melodies...

Not normally my style of music, but I really like A Storm in Heaven. I only own it as an advance promo cassette, it soundtracked a number of great driving trips back then.

I listened to Storm in Heaven and A Northern Soul really loud in the car the other day. I have no idea what Nick McCabe is up to. He's astonishing.

There's something about NIck McCabe's guitar sound that always reminds me of Richard Thompson.
I need to get hold of that expanded box set of the first lp.
Still not got around to it.

the drop in quality from Storm in Heaven to A Northern Soul was so disappointing at the time

lol wrong

all the songs (except for the last one, which as pointed out sounds more like an early Spiritualized song) blur together for me, the similarity is just a wash. A Northern Soul is the transitional album, but it has more variety, actual songs qua songs etc.

A Northern Soul is wonderful too, albeit not quite for the same reasons. They all are, frankly – even Forth isn't half bad..

That said, the s/t EP is the one I've played the most.

I just realized R Ashcroft is married to Kate Radley! and she is very tall.

I've just 'found' the Voyager 1 live album which I'd not previously been aware of. It sounds fantastic and McCabe is on one.

I think A Northern Soul sounds like a 'younger' album in a number of ways. It might just be that Ashcroft's weird mix of saying thank you to girls and misplaced messianic fervour is more pronounced. Either way, it's still magnificent.

Didn't he, ah, pinch KR off Jason Pierce?

Yeah, I know they toured together in 92. Not sure if that's when it happened.
Spiritualised and Verve, like

Yep, that was the start of it. RA and KR were together by A Northern Soul.

Which I happened to listen to on Tuesday, and which is still awesome. Obsessed with dying alone and being grateful for sex. So adolescent. But so powerful. And the guitar, holy fuck. No one since.

pierce and ashcroft have a similar way with cliched/meaningless song titles

I wonder if Ashcroft wrote the So It Goes 'I'm just a poor little wifeless fella' coda for JP?

Didn't he, ah, pinch KR off Jason Pierce?

― Good cop, Babcock (Chinaski), Wednesday, August 7, 2019 9:38 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, and I'm glad he did, because it lead to Pierce writing 'Broken Heart'

Love the sax in "The Sun and the Sea"!

The Kick Horns! https://www.discogs.com/artist/260479-The-Kick-Horns

the flute in “virtual world” totally rules also