POO; Ride

"Nowhere" always.

"Dreams Burn Down" is really magnificent. That wall of guitar in the chorus was especially effective live, oh MAN.

though I have to say really really early Ride live stuff tat I watched this weekend, Drive Blind was just amazing, with this crazy bottleneck slide and feedback solo in th emiddle them they segued straight back into the riff without missing a beat. how much do I love tis band?

Today Forever wwas where the early noisy stuff merged perfectly with this sort of floating cocteau ethereality.

(plus there was that bit in the video where Mark and Andy were singing so close together it looked like their noses were almost touching and you just wanted them to turn aroud and give each other a big snog and ... whooo, I think that's the painkillers talking! Never mind me.)

They were a lot better live than than the other shoegazers too. They used to pound the hell out of their guitars - like a pre pubescent stooges or something.

"In a different place"

On record: either Seagull or Close My Eyes.

Live: either Seagull or Chelsea Girl.

Like a Daydream.

vapour trail

chelsea girl

The 1992 Reading festival footage on You Tube is insanely good. Yes, they really WERE that great live. Best live band ever, in my opinion. I wish I still had all my cassette tapes of shows from 1991...but that's probably because god hates me. Please email me if you know how to get hold of shows from them from 1991. Thanx much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRw8K-YMdIA

Leave Them All Behind. It's like a shoegazed Who's Next being mashed with a 90s boy band. This was a good thing though!

here and now

I was just going to say, as much of a fan of Ride as I am, it doesn't bother me at all that some folks choose Leave Them All Behind as their favourite. The first time I heard that was seeing them do it live, and it's a very special memory for me. It wasn't available on CD or record yet at the time and it was supposed to be this new hint or dawning of where they would go next, musically. But it didn't quite turn out that way.

xpost Howard - I think you are right, I have not yet pulled out Here & Now and it has got to happen right now, no pun intended.

And if Seagull isn't the second coming of your own psychedelic Jesus, I'd like to know what is.

Today (the song) always sounded brilliant live but never came across as well on the ep. Been listening to OX4 alot recently too...

Ride! Such a get start and then to so quickly lose the plot. First ep's and Nowhere still classic though.

I remember liking Ride during their heyday but I couldn't tell you what a single song of theirs sounds like.

Loud and fuzzy and sugary. A compliment.

so many people are so wrong about GBA :(

Please email me if you know how to get hold of shows from them from 1991

I had (and probably still have, somewhere) bootleg cassettes of:
a) a gig I went to at the Town & Country, Kentish Town, October 1990
b) some VERY early stuff of theirs, possibly their first gigs, at the Jericho Tavern, Oxford, circa late 88 / early 89
c) some gig somewhere up north (maybe Leeds?) in 1991 (I think this was shortly before they supported The Pixies at Crystal Palace, so maybe May or June 91) which featured Leave Them All Behind for the first time
I've also got a bootleg video thing which included a gig at ULU early in 1990 (probably around the time the Play EP came out because there were loads of daffodils), and another gig I went to in Kilburn in March 1991, and their Reading performance from 1990, and various bits off minority TV channels (including an excellent version of Seagull).

I haven't listened to / watched these for a very long time. If I can ever be bothered to find them again (I think they're somewhere at my parents' house), and to get the technology to put them on the web, I'll let you know.

Yeah well, in a way you're too late. I finally gave in and sent a letter to my mother this morning telling her I'd pay $60 for each Ride cassette she found in my room and could send me. This was not an easy thing to do for me cause I don't speak to her anymore, but when I realized the last time I'd drafted a similar letter to her asking for Ride stuff was almost exactly a year ago in July of 2006, I figured it was time to go ahead and bite the bullet and send a goddamn letter already, family problems be damned. I tried Bit Torrents and they got me nowhere (pun intended I suppose). I also had a VHS bootleg cassette of them doing an early gig I think at Jericho Tavern pre-1990. I asked her to find and send that as well. I'd have to get it transferred to NTSC format, though. It was funny because at the time I bought it I knew I'd only be able to watch it a few times on friends' PAL VHS machines and that once I left Europe, I wouldn't be able to watch it again.

I can't force you to make the effort to find your stuff, Nasty, you must decide if you want to do that on your own, but to hear the first time of them performing Leave Them All Behind would be especially appreciated.

The Ride Town and Country 91 gig is currently up here.

Oh and there's a 1992 concert from Milan online here. They open with Leave Them all Behind.
This thread makes me want to dig out the early eps. Such brilliant stuff. I was totally heartbroken when I put on Carnival of Light for the first time and it bored me to tears. I still haven't heard Tarantula.

I know, and that's wonderful, but I already have that T&C gig from s!sk. What I'm hoping for is the Pukkelpop festival in Belgium, 1991. Sonic Youth made a whole film out of that festival that featured them and Nirvana and the lack of accompanying footage in that film by Ride from the same festival keeps me up at night. Fuck the goddamn American bands with their disgusting Nirvana & Dinosaur JR! Where is the freaking Ride footage??? And I'm also hoping for a recording of some other southern England gig they did that year that I can't remember now where it was. Was it not the Reading Festival, 1991? Did they not play some festival in England in the summer of 1991? Maybe it wasn't Reading, but some other festival.

But every Ride fan knows, in the depths of their heart...that Grasshopper is king. A biased Bimble opinion I know, but still true. The pinnacle of Ride is Grasshopper.

the cover of "European Son" off a VU tribute

I saw Ride live some time in what mustve been 1992 just after I moved down to Melbourne, they were fantastic. And then too they opened with LTAB. Which is a great song. They did "Dreams Burn Down" at this gig too OMG blew me away.

Must dig out the European Son version. Not sure if I know that one, actually. The tribute LP I had that featured Ride was them doing Eight Miles High if I recall correctly. I wonder if I still have that...*goes drunkenly to boxes of vinyl*

Actually I do still have it, it's called Through The Looking Glass, this compilation on Imaginary Records, as I suspected. But I don't think I know their version of European Son YET, I'm sad to say.

taste

A person could play air drums very, very fast to "Perfect Time" now couldn't they?

And I'm also hoping for a recording of some other southern England gig they did that year that I can't remember now where it was. Was it not the Reading Festival, 1991? Did they not play some festival in England in the summer of 1991? Maybe it wasn't Reading, but some other festival.

I know what you're talking about, but I don't know all the details because I was inter-railing around Europe when it happened. It wasn't the Reading festival: they did that in 1990. It was their own mini-festival (which they headlined, obviously) in either late July or early August 1991. I think it was in Slough (so not far from Reading). I'm pretty sure Slowdive were on the bill too, but I've got no idea who the others were (although I've got a feeling there was a 4th-generation copycat band called Revolver who might have been there).

Looks like you are right it was Slough. I recall Slowdive on the bill as well. There was some reason I had to miss that show, can't recall why now.

http://www.space-trash.co.uk/ride/

Hearing European Son now it sounds very familiar. I must have had it on cassette or something.

Here's another really helpful site with setlists:

http://homepage.mac.com/aaront/ride/old/ride/live.html

BLACK NITE CRASH was great off trantula! what are you talking about? GREAT fuckin song.

I heard from the usual friend of friend who knows someone etc etc that they're planning to get back together for a wee while again, they were supposed to play the last night of the Zodiac apparently, but "couldn't be arsed"

I'm with Zeno: Taste.

Yeah, well, it's Andy's involvement with Oasis that always ruins any real reunion plans, innit? Yet one more reason to hate Oasis...it's weird. I don't really hate Oasis but I also do hate them.

Pisces is right! "Black Night Crash" is the shit!!!!

Holy crap, that made me feel like I was in the 60's literally.

'vapour trail', by a billion miles.

Sure, we should have a poll of Ride songs and Vapour Trail would win. Not undeservedly.

re: live b00tlegs (upthread) - Bimble, I've managed to track down my dusty old cassettes. I've got the first gig at The Jericho Tavern (Jan 89) and three other Oxford gigs from 1989 plus Town & Country gig from 28 October 1990. I was wrong about this: some gig somewhere up north (maybe Leeds?) in 1991 (I think this was shortly before they supported The Pixies at Crystal Palace, so maybe May or June 91) which featured Leave Them All Behind for the first time . It's actually a gig at Leeds Poly from July 91 which was the warm up for the Slough Festival. It has got LTAB on it, but isn't the first time they played it. A lot of it is very low quality, but I'll upl0ad bits and pieces. Here's a couple of tracks taped off the radio from the Brits at Wembley Arena in Jan 91 (link only valid for a week):
Chelsea Girl
Seagull
(a few seconds missing from the second one when I had to turn the tape over!)

Ride played the Brits? That seems unlikely.

It happened, kind of. I think the Brits had become seen as stale and out of touch, endlessly giving awards to tedious Phil Collins / Eurythmics / Tina Turner / Elton John / Eric Clapton types, and there was the embarrassing nightmare when it was hosted by Sam Fox and that bloke from Fleetwood Mac, so there was a bit of a push to try and make it more credible. If memory serves me right, Jonathon King was behind this (so obviously it didn't become much more credible). They had a night (or possibly two nights) at Wembley Arena where a whole series of acts played very short gigs (just time for four or five songs each). These acts were supposed to be a bit more 'happening'. Apart from Ride, I'm pretty sure they had the Wedding Present and Carter USM. Possibly The Cure. I've got a feeling Billy Bragg was there. Unless I'm getting mixed up with something else there was Lisa Stansfield going "say no to war in the Gulf!" which got censored by the BBC. All of this was broadcast live (or nearly live) on Radio 1. The actual Brits Award TV programme was few days later, though, and didn't show much of the gig. Ride were reduced to about five seconds of Chelsea Girl, I think.

Glad to hear *your* tapes have turned up, Nasty, for my letter to my mother has gone unanswered, though I've gotten over the disappointment of this. Thanks for the links and the effort. I will give them a go.

When indeed WAS the first time they played LTAB? As far as the website I posted above's best guess it was June 8, 1991 at London Crystal Palace. I had been under the impression it was a mere gig or two before I saw them at Pukkelpop but then, these were the days before the internet and all I knew was what I'd read in the NME or whatever.

My vote goes to "Nowhere" the song.

Here's some more stuff. Gig at Town & Country, Kentish Town from 28 October 1990.
Part One: Polar Bear, Chelsea Girl, Here and Now
As before, only valid for a week, rest of the gig to follow later...

yeah the BRITS 1991 gig happened, i was there. disconcertingly i rather enjoyed The Wedding Present that night.

i'd like to bang on about Ride big time but whenever i do that about 1990's bands i feel like Homer that time, going on about Grand Funk Railroad when the kids are in the back of the car.

"We think feedback's neat, we're staring at our feet"
We're a shoegazing band"