Ride

"You fucking do my head in" - Mark to Andy, 1996

Who?
Mark, Steve, Loz, and Andy, four pretty chaps who moulded and melded the Smiths and the Pixies and the White Album into a distinctive brand of shoegazing/scene that celebrates itself/ dreampop for a while at the start of the nineties. Very much a mainstay of the Snub TV era.

Essential?
The first couple of albums show them at their best, before they started to fall apart through increasingly bitter and public in-fighting, and the pumping in of sums of money and other things that led to the music getting more and more "experimental" (i.e. self-indulgent and unlistenable). In fact, nothing comes close to the perfection of the first two eps. From the perfect sleeves (red roses for the Ride ep and daffodils for the follow up), to the beautiful sound inside - Chelsea Girl, Dreams Burn Down, Perfect Sense - it all promised so much. Those first two eps have been rereleased as a mini album, Smile, and should be owned by anyone who respects their ears. The debut album, Nowhere, contained some wonderful tracks, too - Polar Bear, inspired by Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenter and live favourite Seagull bookending Ride's two styles, lost and murmury against loud and jumping. By the time of the next ep, Andy was having a greater input into the band - Silver was the first time he sang, and although the song sounds okay on record, live it took on the importance of a commercial break, and the tensions between 'Mark' songs and 'Andy' songs started to become obvious. Going Blank Again and Carnival of Light both have much to recommend them, but neither album felt as rounded as the earlier work. From this period, Twisterrella (Billy Liar made song) and OX4 are the most vital tracks, but there's little else that would make you rush and save them if your house was burning down.

Yes, Anna, they came from...
Oxford. They had offices in the beautifully named Summer Town. The Face attempted to build a Thames Valley Scene round them, including Revolver, Slowdive and Chapterhouse. It failed, simply because there is no Thames Valley cohesion - as Robert Maxwell found out when he tried to merge Reading and Oxford's football teams.

Obscure?
There was a time when any parody drawing of an indie kid would have to have a Ride t-shirt on. My friend Paul once wore his 'Ride Play' shirt (white, with pink 'RIDE' on the front and 'PLAY' on the back) into university, and was congratulated on his bravery by a girl. Bemused, he asked her what she meant. "I think it's just great, you're being so open about it... Gay Pride. Well done..." Conversely, I once wore my Twisterella shirt - bearing the cover image of a angellic looking child sleeping, hands folded across chest - to work. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that child pornography was inappropriate for the workplace. Charles Saatchi, eat your heart out.

Then came the split:
Andy went on to form Hurricane #1, with a former boxer of some sort called Alex Lowe. Highlight of the calumny of this band was allowing The Sun to use 'Only the strongest will survive', one of their more dirgesome tunes, in a commercial. H#1 split, leaving us with the prospect of an Alex Lowe solo career. Which is scary.
Mark recorded the so-beautiful I'm filling up now Magdalen Sky for Shifty Disco, and since has been reunited with Loz in the AnimalHouse.
Steve is apparently doing some stuff somewhere.
Andy Bell finally became the rock god he always wanted, and signed with Oasis to become buttmonkey to the chimpy brothers.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Bell, Idha, somehow managed to get signed to Ride's label, Creation, and released a series of increasingly erratic singles. It's often been suggested that Idha was Ride's Yoko, which is unfair and wrong. But it still beggars belief that Alan McGee can poke a stick at the Boos for spending Creation money while he was happy to pour cash into these sorts of projects. The 'Get Undressed' single (for which read 'getting desperate') would have marked a peak of Creation nepotism, were it not for Ed Ball's career.

Trivial details:
Mark Gardener - still one of the most gorgeous people in music, by the way - was pilloried by Baddiel, Newmann et al in The Mary Whitehouse Experience, who portrayed him and The Charlatan's Tim Burgess as head-swaying jessies. And useless in football matches. Tim and Mark got to share a stage during the Daytripper event, when Ride and the Charlies combined to play a gig in Brighton one night, and then reversed the bill for Blackpool the next. It may have been the perfect early 90's thing.

UPDATE:
The band surprised everyone when they got back together to play some stuff for a Channel 4 show, which apparently they didn't realise at the time was meant to be for a Sonic Youth tribute programme. They also collaborated on the contents of a box set. It's possible other delights may be forthcoming.