Pre-Verve Era Track, "Documentary" Surfaces Online

A former teacher at Winstanley College, Tom Sherrington, recently digitized a 1988-1990 school project (originally on cassette) featuring a track by Rain Garden, a pre-Verve band which included Richard Ashcroft and Nick McCabe (listen below).

Sherrington attended Richard Ashcroft's performance at the Latitude Festival last Saturday (July 20) and recently wrote an article on his website titled Talent. Conviction. Verve., where he made the reveal. 

To see the original and/or comment on it, please click here.

Richard Ashcroft: 'Nostalgia Is Suffocating Festivals'

Richard Ashcroft has said that he is not interested in reforming The Verve and headlining festivals with the band while new groups are being denied the same slots. 

Ashcroft spoke to BBC 6Music's Lauren Laverne earlier this month and was quizzed on the possibility of fans seeing The Verve play again and if they were playing together at all. 

Flatly denying the rumours, Ashcroft said: "It's not happening. You have to be real in life and I'm proud that we went in and recorded new material. The whole nostalgia thing is getting suffocating and it's difficult for younger acts, especially at festivals."

Explaining what he had said, Ashcroft continued: "If you look at some of the line-ups, I'm not ageist by any means, but it's dominated by nostalgia. We need the youth to create their own version of what may potentially become nostalgic but if they haven't got a place to do that because they're dominated by these big monster dinosaur acts, mopping up all the money."

Revealing that he is working on a new United Nations of Sound album, Ashcroft confirmed that fans will hear new music from him in 2013. "I've just been working for the past six, seven months in my cellar. I'm really excited, we should get the first potential tune in September. I'm just putting everything into it at the moment." The first, self-titled, United Nations of Sound album was released in 2010.

Taking a potshot at Blur frontman Damon Albarn, the singer added: "The great thing about the United Nations of Sound album is that because it wasn't something written by Damon Albarn it wasn't front page news or anything. None of my followers are sheep, nobody has been told to follow Richard Ashcroft since 'Urban Hymns' came out. Richard Ashcroft has never been in fashion. A lot of other artists feed off being the right people at the right time but to be able to play a gig 15 or 20 years later and have people sing your songs goes beyond fashion."

Richard Ashcroft was one of the performers at this weekend's Latitude Festival. The Suffolk event was headlined by Bloc Party, Kraftwerk and Foals.

The Verve - 20 Mad Facts You Didn't Know

In the other week's NME, The Verve guitarist Nick McCabe told Mark Beaumont how wild the band's speed-fuelled early days were. To accompany the feature, NME has a feature on nme.com featuring 20 things you didn't know about the band, 20 years after their debut.

Click here to see!

'My Life With Mad Richard' Interview With Nick McCabe

A new interview with Nick McCabe entitled 'My Life With Mad Richard' appears in this weeks NME to mark the 20th anniversary release of A Storm In Heaven.

In the interview Nick recalls the recording of the album, the tours that followed and the drugs that were being taken, download below to read:

http://rapidshare.com/files/3801458717/VerveNME.pdf

Coldplay Thrilled Ex-Verve Stars Are Focused On Black Submarine

Coldplay are thrilled that ex-Verve stars Nick McCabe and Simon Jones are focusing on their Black Submarine band.

The 41-year-olds presented Chris Martin and guitarist Jonny Buckland, 35, with their Best British Act gong.

Chris, 36, gushed: “We’re so thrilled to receive this from you. Why aren’t you still in The Verve?

“We’re so psyched to be on stage with two legends.”