The Verve The Verve The Verve were an English rock band formed in Wigan in 1990 by lead vocalist Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bass guitarist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury. Guitarist and keyboard player Simon Tong later became a member. Beginning with a psychedelic sound with their debut LP "A Storm in Heaven", by the mid-1990s the band had released several EPs and three albums. It also endured name and line-up changes, break-ups, health problems, drug abuse and various lawsuits. The band's commercial breakthrough was the 1997 album "Urban Hymns", one of the best-selling albums in UK Chart history. The
Neil Ashcroft Neil Ashcroft Neil William Ashcroft (born 27 November 1938 in London) is a British solid-state physicist. Ashcroft completed his undergraduate studies at the University of New Zealand (Bachelor 1958) received his PhD in 1964 from the University of Cambridge for research investigating the Fermi surfaces of metals. Following his PhD, Ashcroft completed postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago and at Cornell University, where he became a Professor in 1975. In 1990 he was named the Horace White Professor of Physics, and was elected to emeritus status in 2006. He served as the director for the Laboratory of Atomic and