by B. J. Carter
Coastal Journal Staff

2007 has been quite a year for fans of defunct bands once extremely popular or influential in their heyday.  My Bloody Valentine, the shoe-gazing pioneers in whom I take a particular interest, announced yesterday that they would be playing their first live dates since 1992 in England beginning the summer of 2008.  The Police, the Smashing Pumpkins, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, and the Jesus & Mary Chain are just a few of the mammoth acts that have called truces and agreed to play in the same room together, if only for the duration of a reunion tour. 

The Smashing Pumpkins and the Eagles have notably released new material, leaving themselves vulnerable to criticism of their music and motives.  In the case of the Eagles, the new album seems to have gone down easily enough, scoring a major hit on the album charts and rejuvenating their fans.  And the critics don’t hate it. 

The Pumpkins haven’t fared quite as well.  Due to the absence of guitarist James Iha and hapless bassist D’Arcy, detractors have accused Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain of hijacking the “Smashing Pumpkins” moniker for the sake of generating revenue that they couldn’t earn with their own careers. 

This scenario is even more likely for those bands who, up to this juncture, have no plans to record new material.  And why would they, really?  These days, touring is the more substantial source of income for most artists.  With album sales struggling to get out of the can, why bother with a new record at all when you could just charge rabid fans $500 a ticket to stand in the back of the stadium?  The Eagles and the Pumpkins score points for trying to move ahead and open a new chapter in their careers, even if the new material is an attempt to recapture the glory days.

Regardless of what the artists stand to gain, the fan can be grateful for another opportunity to see greatness on stage.  In some cases, fanatical enthusiasm may have played a role in luring these bands out of retirement.  I imagine there are only so many tearful MySpace messages you can read about how your band saved or changed a life before you start to feel a little guilty about leaving all those people out in the cold.

On the same note, it has to feel pretty good to have people eagerly awaiting your return as though you were a god.  Mid-life crisis surely brings about nostalgia for the days when people cared about what you were doing.  You’re a rock star, or at least you were.  Maybe you’re worried that you’ve become the worst nightmare you had in your twenties: a bore.  What would your mates say if they saw you dusting your house or reading non-fiction in your garden?  Even when you were throwing chairs and punches, you felt alive in that band.

The Verve, the reunion of the most significance to me, seem to have come to this realization.  In a testament to the sheer power of the internet, the Verve reportedly went into the studio for a few days of inspired jamming (rather than meeting over tea and “catching up”) and released a fraction of the material online almost immediately, to nothing but rave reviews. 

As I’ve stated in this column before, I discovered rock music pretty late in my life, so the Verve was long gone from the alternative scene by the time I came around.  I vaguely remembering hearing “Bittersweet Symphony,” possibly the best song of my generation, on the bus when I was in middle school.  Oh, and isn’t it playing at the end of the Cruel Intentions?

Since I wasn’t conscious of it when it happened, I wasn’t saddened at the Verve’s demise for any selfish reasons.  In listening to their records and reading through their bio, the Verve embodied the classic case of burnout right at the brink of music history.  Any UK band that cracks the US on its first try (the two albums before Urban Hymns had enough trouble making a dent in the UK charts) is on to something.  And unlike Oasis, the Verve’s songwriting was evolving with each record.  Becoming universal usually means becoming bland, but the Verve achieved their success through an amalgamation of shoe-gazing guitars, slick, street-wise grooves, and a resonant gospel/blues sensibility, a complicated formula. 

And then they vanished, seemingly for good.  Richard Ashcroft, the band’s shamanic frontman, famously said in an interview two years ago that all four Beatles were more likely to play together again than the estranged members of the Verve.  He then proceeded to declare Verve guitarist Nick McCabe the best musician he’d ever played with, at which point it seemed only a matter of time before he got on the phone and offered the olive branch. 

No matter the size of the paycheck a desperate music industry is offering to these bands, music fans can reasonably hope to see the “real thing” these days, whichever artist represents that for them, rather than the pale imitations flooding the market.  A little dose of the Verve might be exactly what the Brits need right now.  With the possible exception of those aloof Arctic Monkeys and grandstanding Hard-Fi, most of their guitar bands are merely standing on the ashes of their forefathers. 

And their music scene is still stronger than ours.   

So for those still holding out on a Stone Roses reunion, there’s hope yet . . . .