Nikhil Swaminathan reports:<BR>Back in December, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker left his audience enthralled and confused during his band's performance as part of the Auto Festival in Rotherham, UK. After playing a portending set that served as a Pulp anthology, and offering a number of rare concert songs, the singer began to wax nostalgic during an extended denouement to the band's signature hit, "Common People". His message wasn't in aid of their greatest hits album, nor a promise to return for an encore the fans were probably expecting. Instead, he exited after confirming what many of those fans feared: "This'll be the last time you see us for a while. But we may meet again, who knows?" <P>Six months ago, when the band decided to part ways with label Island Records after the release of their Greatest Hits record, rumors began flying. In May, the band's official site claimed that "Pulp aren't technically splitting up, but neither are they making any plans to return to the studio (other than for the new extra tracks on the Best Of, already recorded) for the foreseeable future." At that point, the Auto Festival gig became the band's unofficial goodbye, until Cocker's comments effectively notarized it. A day later, a British tabloid reported the charismatic singer as saying, "It's all over." However, considering it was a tabloid, they could have been asking him about his rash. Context is a bitch. <P>Cocker recently gave an earful to the British Observer: "I honestly can't say what is going to happen to Pulp. We're going to have this gap, at least a year, and if Pulp continues to exist after that, I imagine it will be quite different." Part of the reason for the split may be linked to changes in Cocker's personal life, including a new marriage, an impending birth, and a desire to relocate to France. (We all know how well that worked out for Jim Morrison.)<P>That aside, Cocker does seem to be in a new phase of his life, and Pulp isn't necessarily a part of it: "Not getting married, not having kids, not getting a proper job-- that's what being in a group is all about. For me, it was, anyway. I thought, I'm not gonna have anything to do with normal life... it only ends up causing shit. I guess the realisation I got to only recently is that, like it or not, I am part of the human race. It took me to get well fucked-up to realise that." A recent post on their official site somberly reads: "The news page has been updated for the final time and we won't be back until April 2003... if that." It remains to be seen where all this hoopla will lead; who knows, it could be the best publicity stunt since AOL Time Warner bought, sold, and repurchased the rights to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. <BR>
