bittersweet symphony : the verve story
the verve collectionI’m fairly certain that the final feature assignment of my (first) photo career was to shoot The Verve in LA for Vox. We stayed at the Chateau Marmont, the famous old party hotel where John Belushi died, we ate at lobster thermidor at The Musso and Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard, we ran into old friend Ranking Roger and the rest of The Beat at the Hyatt on Hollywood, and we went to Santa Monica beach to take photos.
We also visited Johnny Depp’s club, The Viper Room. There was a line at the door that wasn’t moving. After a while there was a kerfuffle, the door flew open, a bout a million paparazzi appeared out of nowhere, and Madonna exited the club and zoomed off in her BMW, chased by the pariahs with cameras.
Strangely, the doorman who let us in looked a lot like Adam Duritz, lead singer with Counting Crows. Same face, same dreadlocks, same size, but sitting on a bar stool at the back door of The Viper Room.
Eventually we entered, and sidled up to the bar to order drinks. There, behind the bar, was dreadlock dude.
We got drinks, went upstairs, and hung out. After a while the same barman came up and took our glasses, and I said tentatively, “Adam, I made a Counting Crows web site” and he looked at me sideways. Not because he wasn’t Adam Duritz, but because he hadn’t heard of web sites. Well, it was 1995.
The Verve were absolutely adorable, and I thought the photos were lovely. But when I heard the photo editor editor at Vox didn’t like them, I realized it was probably time to hang up the cameras and move on to my next career.