Newsletter

Below is an email sent out to all subscribers of the band's mailing list in April 2015. Tomorrow Never Knows - April 2015 Last time we played there, in May 1990, it was the humble Co-Op Hall. It's been through a number of name changes since - Oxford Venue, Zodiac, Carling Academy - as well as a lot of structural changes resulting in two live music rooms worthy of gracing any city in the country. As the Co-Op Hall it played an important part in developing the opportunities available to local Oxford bands and came along just at the right time for us. We'd sold out the 200 capacity Jericho Tavern for the first time in June 1989 and with the Co-Op Hall opening up as a 500 capacity music venue just 9 months beforehand, it meant that there was now another opportunity for local bands to aspire to. So it seemed only right for our first show in 20 years to be taking place in the room that had been so key to us. We'll be back there this Sunday (April 5th), just ahead of our tour dates in California which take in two Coachella Festival appearances as well as shows in San Francisco, Pomona, San Diego (dates below) and.... ...we are happy to say, a return to The Roxy in LA on Wednesday April 8th. Well you didn't really think that the first time we would be walking on stage to play together in the US would be in front of thousands of people at Coachella, did you? The Roxy too has a special place in our past as we played two shows there in 1991 on the co-headline tour we did of North America with Lush. Moreover, one of the shows was recorded and released a few years back by Rhino/Warners as part of a special 2xCD 20th Anniversary Edition of Nowhere. They say good things come in threes... ..and so here are the details of the third club show we'll be play in the coming months. After the New York show at Terminal 5 in June sold out so quickly, we decided we would try and squeeze another show into our schedule in the New York area. Et voila. We have booked the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on Monday June 1st. By the way, the Oxford show is an early one as we have a plane to catch the following morning! We reckon we'll be on stage just after 8pm and there will be no support act on that show. In LA we have Eagulls supporting and in Brooklyn we have Penguinsrising (there's almost as theme developing here). All shows have a limit of two tickets per person. Hurry, hurry, hurry - these shows will sell fast. The Oxford show is on sale now LA goes on sale at 3pm (PST) today Brooklyn has a pre-sale that is live at Noon (EST) today, with the remainder on sale at Noon (EST) on Friday (3rd) If you don't manage to get tickets for the LA show then each of the other Californian shows this month have some tickets still available: Monday 13th: The Warfield, San Francisco - tickets Tuesday 14th: Fox Theater, Pomona - tickets Thursday 16th: Humphreys Concerts By the Bay, San Diego - tickets And if all else fails, you can catch us live on air on for a Morning Becomes Eclectic session on KCRW on the morning of the LA Roxy show (April 8th). Fancy a little taster from rehearsals? Here's (some of) Seagull. signing off with a little bit of trivia for you... The Play EP was released 25 years ago tomorrow (April 2nd) and later that week entered the charts at number 32, becoming our first Top 40 hit.

Below is an email sent out to all subscribers of the band's mailing list to mark Going Blank Again's 20th anniversary. Wishing Going Blank Again a very happy 20th birthday Yes really. It was Monday March 9th 1992 when the band's second album made its way onto the shelves of record stores all over the world (technically the release date was Tuesday March 10th in North America, but let's not split hairs). Nowhere (and Smile in certain territories) before it had been released on different dates across a 6 month period as various international record deals fell into place, but Going Blank Again was the first global release. And very exciting it was too. Leave Them All Behind had just become the band's first Top 10 single in the UK, resulting in a second Top Of The Pops appearance and a sold-out hometown show at the Oxford Apollo in February. In fact, the week Leave Them All Behind entered the charts at 9, Jesus and Mary Chain were at 10 and Primal Scream were at 11 - it felt like the gatecrashers were taking over the party. The Going Blank Again UK tour had started a week before the album's release in Cambridge and rolled through 20 towns and cities before finishing up with two nights at Brixton Academy. It was a hectic schedule compounded by the Twisterella video shoot at Granada Studios in Manchester on one of the few "days off" and a series of in-store record shop signing sessions - with the one at Tower in Piccadilly, London lasting for nearly 4 crazy hours. But the dates themselves were lit up by having The Verve as the support act on the first half of the tour and Mercury Rev for the second half. This made the whole tour that extra bit special. Mercury Rev’s 50-minute, 2-song set in Brighton was a memorable highlight! The UK tour was followed by a very brief run of shows in mainland Europe (Netherlands, Germany and the debut Ride show in Spain) before a 7 week tour of North America with Slowdive in support for the first half and Pale Saints on the second half. Then it was on to Japan and Australia, a defining Reading Festival show and then a fuller European tour in the autumn (with the Family Cat and Moose sharing the support slots). In all, there were 102 shows between February and October - the most extensive set of tour dates that the band ever did. Now this isn't just a history lesson, there is some actual news in this newsletter... First up is news that Going Blank Again is getting a release on vinyl in North America for the very first time. In the same packaging as the original UK, European (and Australian, if i remember rightly) releases with a gatefold sleeve, the double-vinyl release is cut (like the original) at 45rpm to enhance the quality audio. And it sounds bloody fantastic. I'm not sure what the exact availability of the release is going to be but there is a link here with more information: http://analogueadventures.com/2012/03/04/ride-going-blank-again/ This follows on from last year's Nowhere vinyl release in North America alongside the 20th anniversary 2xCD edition which is still available from the Rhino website (as well as other outlets): http://www.rhino.com/shop/product/ride-nowhere-20th-anniversary-edition [this is the LP link: http://www.rhino.com/shop/product/ride-nowhere]. We are trying to get stock of the 2xCD edition over here in the UK so that we can sell them through our Ride shop (more about that very soon...) as I know that the shipping costs for a lot of you from the States has been a little prohibitive. Since the last newsletter about a year ago, there have been some nice nuggets of press. Links to various online interviews that the band members did for the Nowhere reissue are posted up in the Ticket2Ride.it forum. There are a number of Australian and American interviews and reviews listed there. Also Uncut magazine in the UK did a special feature on the Ride EP in their May edition last year – the story behind the record, basically. It was written by Michael Bonner who had, many years, ago written a feature on the band for Lime Lizard magazine (how many of you can remember that wonderful publication?). It’s great when these things come back round. Time for some movie-related news. In the last newsletter we mentioned the Upside Down documentary of the story of Creation Records. This was given a full UK TV broadcast last autumn and has stirred up a new round of interest in all things Creation. The uplift on Ride’s profile was compounded further by the release of an Oxford music documentary called Anyone Can Play Guitar. Both films feature Ride quite heavily and Mark has been involved in the promotion of both across the world over the past 2 years (Mark also composed the incidental music in Upside Down). There are a couple more screenings of Anyone Can Play Guitar lined up and at this one in London on April 24th Mark will be playing a short acoustic set: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/158945. Last year a book documenting the history of the legendary Riverside venue in Newcastle was published and this featured various Ride recollections of the show they played there in 1990 on the Play EP tour. Well, the book is now being made into a film and Mark has recently done an interview for that. One more bit of film news, there’s a major Hollywood production of cult book Perks Of Being A Wallflower being released this summer (with Oxford’s own Emma Watson in one of the lead roles). If you’re familiar with the book then you’ll know that Vapour Trail features on a compilation tape (alongside other classics) that forms a pivotal part of the storyline. We’re keeping our fingers crossed, but it looks like the track will also be used at a key moment in the film. Maybe it will finally be a hit… Now time for some “un-news”… We have had to put the planned Vinyl Box Set on hold for now. We missed the opportunity to release it around the time of Nowhere’s anniversary and there has been too much other stuff to deal with since to allow us the time needed to put something worthy together. OK. You’re probably asking what all this “other stuff to deal with” actually is. Well the UK recording rights have reverted back to the band once again after being in the caring hands of Ignition Records for the last 10 years. They have done a fantastic job since 2001 and we wouldn’t have been able to release the 3xCD Box Set and the Waves BBC Session album without them – not to mention keeping all other 6 catalogue albums in stock throughout this period. We’ve now decided to release the catalogue directly ourselves through Absolute Distribution. This means that we’re putting together amended artwork for revamped CD releases. There are no changes to the tracklisting, just a slight change of artwork layout and format (they’ll be available in gatefold softpacks). The work on these is nearly done, which means that Smile, Nowhere, Going Blank Again, Carnival of Light, Tarantula and OX4_The Best Of will be back in stock once again – both on our own Ride store (through OxfordMusic.Net) and at all UK retailers. We are also working on one more release and we have some other news to tell you soon. But that will have to wait until the next newsletter which we have scheduled for March 27th – the date is significant, we’ll leave the sleuths amongst you to work it out…

Below is an email sent out to all subscribers of the band's mailing list in the winter of 2003 with various updates about the band. Some nuggets of Ride news for you... First up; available from today is a special 20th anniversary edition of Nowhere on CD. This is being released in North America through Rhino Records' "Handmade" series of specially-crafted, online-only reissues. You should be able to order this from wherever you are in the world (even though the text on the order page says "Not available in all Countries") and, of course, it comes heartily recommended: http://www.rhino.com/shop/product/ride-nowhere-20th-anniversary-edition It's a 2-CD edition featuring the re-mastered versions of all the Nowhere tracks and Today Forever tracks on the first CD; this being the first time that these re-masters have been available outside of the UK (where they have featured as part of the catalogue reissues on Ignition Records since 2001). It's a relief in many ways for these re-masters to finally get a release outside of the UK as we feel that they stand up here in the 21st century better than the original 1990 masters. Back then the vinyl version was the focus of the album mastering sessions with the CD format being a secondary concern. Ironically, Nowhere is getting a release on vinyl in the USA for the first time ever! Here in the UK, vinyl was still (just) the dominant format in 1990 but the US had made the move away from vinyl a year or so earlier and so Nowhere got a release on CD and cassette only in North America (I never liked cassettes...). So it has taken 20 years for Nowhere to get its Stateside vinyl release but we're very pleased to see it out there at last. It is available through all regular retail outlets in the US (unlike the "Handmade" CD special edition which is just available from the Rhino online store) but here's the Rhino store link, anyway, for the vinyl as we know that they'll have it in stock: http://www.rhino.com/shop/product/ride-nowhere Whilst I'm talking about vinyl, we've noticed that there's a dodgy bootleg version of Nowhere knocking about on unscrupulous websites around the world. It purports to be a Japanese vinyl bootleg and although the audio is of decent quality the artwork and packaging is decidedly dodgy. We've tried to get to the source of this and have got the lawyers on the case - someone in Chicago seems to be the culprit. But the message is that if you want a nice piece of good quality Ride vinyl then go and grab the Rhino reissue - it's even got the "RIDE" logo embossed on the sleeve like the original UK release. Lovely. And just like the proverbial buses, after 20 years of not being available on vinyl along comes a third LP version of Nowhere. About this time last year the band sat around and discussed what they could do to mark the upcoming 20th anniversary of Nowhere's original release in the UK (15th October, in case you were wondering - the original US release being 18th December 1990). We decided to lovingly put together a vinyl Box Set featuring re-creations and re-mastered versions of each of the first three 12" EPs (Ride, Play and Fall) alongside the Nowhere LP and a 24-page book all wrapped up in a space-demanding box. The plan was to relaunch the Ride website with a refreshed design and added functionality around the 20th anniversary of the Play EP (in April) and then offer the Box Set out on pre-sale through oxfordmusic.net. Once we had the orders in, we would press up the required copies and ship it out to everyone for October 15th. Well things didn't quite go to plan... The website re-design stalled and then the request from Rhino came in to put together the 2-CD reissue. [Don't worry, I realise I haven't finished telling you all about that yet. Just be patient...]. It took most of our collective resources to pull the audio and visual content together in time. The vinyl Box Set plans had to sit on the shelf for a bit. But the plans are moving once again. We can't get hold of the web designer that we were working with and so we've hit a bit of a snag there. If any of you out there are trained in the art of stunningly-original-yet-functional web design then please do get in touch. The current www.rideox4.net site is looking a bit 2001 and badly needs a total overhaul. We've re-mastered all the vinyl contents of the planned Box Set (at Abbey Road, of course) and we're now finally working on the artwork. So hopefully we'll be able to let you know all about it in much more detail in a couple of months time. It won't quite be the 20th anniversary box set - more like 20.5th - but it will be fantastic. OK, back to the Rhino 2-CD set. So I told you about CD1 with its 15 re-mastered tracks, well CD2 is equally special. On the band's first US tour in April/May 1991 they played two nights at the Roxy in LA. The tour was a co-headline with Lush and so each band was flip-flopping the headline slot throughout the series of dates. With there being two nights at the Roxy, each band got to play one headline set and one support set. Luckily for us, the Ride headline set was recorded for broadcast on a local radio show. The engineer mixed the audio live and it was this mix that was broadcast on air. Also some of these mixes were used on a radio promo edition of the Kaleidoscope single in the US later in 1991 (which some of you may have in your collection). Part of the deal for the radio broadcast was that we got to keep the master tapes. They've been sitting on a shelf for the best part of 20 years but we knew that the show was a bit special and that one day it would get its rightful airing. Once Rhino suggested the Nowhere reissue we dug out the tapes, baked them slowly in the oven for three days (it's a technical thing...) and then transferred them onto a hard drive so that our old pal Alan Moulder could get to work on mixing them to their full glory. Alan oversaw a week of sessions wonderfully mixed by Catherine Marks and the results totally knocked us sideways. Not only was the performance quite amazing but the recording quality was better than we could have hoped for. Getting Alan involved with the mixing was just the icing on the cake - after all he'd worked on the mixing of the original studio recordings of pretty much all the tracks in the Roxy set and knew what they should sound like. With the audio being of such a high quality we knew that the packaging had to live up to its contents. So we dug through the archives and pulled together a set of photos from 1990/1991 that haven't been seen before. We tried to get away from a series of standard press shots and included a range of live shots alongside some more imaginative pics. This was all topped off by Rhino suggesting that we use a lenticular version of the Nowhere "wave" for the cover. You can probably tell, we're very pleased with it. And, so it seems, are others: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15069-nowhere-20th-anniversary-edition/ The release has triggered a wave (see what I did there...) of press requests and so the boys have been busy talking to print, web and radio journalists all over the globe. We'll round them up for you as they get published but if you fancy listening to Loz live on radio from Perth, Australia tomorrow morning (Tuesday 8th February 10am UK time) then tune in here: http://www.rtrfm.com.au/mp3stream Aside from all this Nowhere news, the Creation Records documentary "Upside Down" has been completed and we were treated to a preview late last year. It is currently doing the rounds of various film festivals prior to a limited cinema release. You can read lots about it here: http://www.upsidedownthemovie.com/ Oh, and did we mention that a certain Mr Mark Gardener has written and recorded the soundtrack music for the film? For all up-to-date news on Mark's wirting, recording, producing and mixing activities then keep a beady eye on www.MarkGardener.com. Talking of which, you may also want to bookmark this site too: www.beadyeyemusic.com - Andy is back on guitar, something that will bring joy to you all I'm sure! OK, I think that's probably enough for tonight. Or maybe I can quickly mention that all sizes of the Nowhere T-shirt design are back in stock (we ran out of some sizes just before Xmas): http://www.oxfordmusic.net/product.php?link=new&id=1280

Below is an email sent out to all subscribers of the band's mailing list in the winter of 2003 with various updates about the band. various bits of news hello all lots of bits of news (i'll try to be brief) RIDEOX4.COM the official website address has been nabbed by someone else and Ignition Records are currently trying to wrestle it back. In the meantime we've moved the site over to www.rideox4.net or www.rideox4.co.uk. I know that the site is desperately in need of an update but please bear with us as things are rather busy at the moment. BBC SESSIONS ALBUM The tracklisting has been agreed and we're in the process of sorting out the licence from the BBC and also getting the artwork and sleevenotes together. With a burst of energy this should see the light of day early in the Summer. It'll be 17 tracks culled from the 5 main sessions that the band recorded between 1990 and 1994 at the BBC studios in London and Manchester. If all goes well then it should be properly available worldwide (unlike the Best Of album which has been limited to the UK and North America plus any export sales). By the way, the Box Set has been re-pressed once again as it seems that demand is continuing to out-strip everyone's expectations - very pleasing! US RELEASE OF BEST OF The single album Best Of (with a four track bonus disc) has been picking up lots of nice press and radio support in the US. So much so that Mark is going out to the States very soon to do some promotion and to play some shows. The US release is on the mighty-fine First Time Records. MARK GARDENER GIGS Yes really. Mark is going out to the States to play an acoustic tour featuring about 70% Ride songs and 30% his new material. The first date is at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas on 13th March and then he makes his way around the country between the 1st and the 27th April. For a full list of dates as they get confirmed then have a look at Piero's Ticket To Ride Mark Gardener microsite. To warm up for the tour Mark is going to play a short(ish) set (about 30 minutes) at one of the regular Trailer Park nights run by Oxford's Truck Records. This show will be on Tuesday 4th March at the Cellar in the centre of Oxford. You can get tickets in advance online at www.wegottickets.com. PIERO'S MICROSITE http://www.mareasub.it/ride/mgmicro EXCELLENT ONLINE COMPILATION As part of the build-up to the US tour Mark has contributed a track to an MP3 compilation put together by www.excellentonline.com. Full details on their site, of course.

Below is an email sent out to all subscribers of the band's mailing list in the summer of 2002. new stuff hello I only realised today how large this email list had now got. The list is now bigger than it was in 1992. Scary in a way! anyway some big news at last... available to order on-line (where they will be exclusively available) are a new Ride T-shirt design and also the promised new EP - "Coming Up For Air". Click on the links through from www.rideox4.com. The EP features the band's brief reunion for the Channel 4 Pioneers programme last year. There are three tracks, the first two are "soundchecks" where the band are working out the basis of the track that they then later performed and then the full 30 minute jam (an excerpt of which has been on the website in MP3 form for a little while now). There are only going to be 1000 copies of this CD EP release and hence we're going to limit online orders to 4 copies per order. It's the first time the four band members have all recorded together since August '95 and so we're really proud that this can finally be released. Meanwhile the Best Of album, the Box Set and all the back catalogue have continued to sell really well here in the UK. For those of you outside of this country I hope that you've been able to get hold of the various UK releases on import. However soon in the US the 15 track Best Of CD will get a proper domestic release. Nice. The new T-shirt design is in response to lots of you pestering us for a new design (in the nicest possible way). We thought that a definitive Ride T-shirt was in order and so the design encompasses the Ride record sleeves logo that's on the front page of the site with a list of all the album releases. Classy. The old T-shirts have now nearly all sold out (just a few Going Blank Again long sleeves - very early nineties! - and a few Reading Festival '92 ones to go) which now means that my garage has become my own again. Both the EP and the T-shirts are being manufactured now and so orders will be mailed out when the stock arrives in about two weeks' time.

Below is an email sent out to all subscribers of the band's mailing list when the band briefly reunited in 2001 for a tv show. yesterday's moment of surreality So yesterday at the John Henry rehearsal complex in North London, Andy, Mark, Steve and Loz all turned up, set-up, plugged-in and put together about an hour's worth of un-rehearsed sonic jamming to accompany the forthcoming series of Channel 4's Pioneers. The show is about the influence of Sonic Youth and is effectively "presented" by Andy and Mark. They talk about Sonic Youth's influence generally to 90's music and specifically the influence on the then-fledgling Ride. As part of the idea for the show, the producer had asked Mark and Andy to play 10-15 minutes of guitar-based feedback which they wanted to film and use as a backdrop to the programme. It was Andy's idea that if he and Mark were going to get together to talk about Sonic Youth's influence on Ride then any "performance" to accompany the programme should feature all 4 ex-Ride members. Mark flew in from France for the day, Andy delayed his return to Sweden after the Oasis tour for a day and both Loz and Steve managed to juggle their existing commitments to make way for the day's filming. Everyone arrived about 11 and everything was set-up and ready to roll about Midday. Once the TV people had sorted their sound and camera positions out, the band started to work on a loose jam that they'd put together on the spot. It was a simple recording - one stereo mic for the drums, one bass mic and one each for Andy's and Mark's guitars. No vocals. It was truly amazing how quickly the whole sound slotted into place, that old adage about riding a bicycle was never more appropriate. There was a break while the sound levels and the overall mix were checked: and also while the lighting team sorted out their part of the equation. After a spot of lunch the band started playing about 1:30 with the cameras and the tape rolling until it came to it's natural conclusion about 2:15. Mark and Andy then filmed the interview and they all packed up and went their separate ways - Mark and Andy off to Heathrow for their respective flights, Steve back to Oxford and Loz back across London. It was very strange to witness how natural the whole event was and also how enjoyable and inspirational it was too. They talked about whether to base the jam on perhaps Grasshopper or even the middle section of Drive Blind but in the end a completely new piece of music came out of the day. There will some snaps of the day and maybe some camcorder footage up on the Ride site in the next couple of weeks or so - don't touch that dial.

Below is an email sent out to all subscribers of the band's mailing list following the release of OX4. hello this is just a quick note to say that the web shop that sits next to my office here in Oxford has just had it's stock in of the Box Set, the CD and Vinyl Best Of plus all the catalogue albums. It's the same web shop where we've been selling the remaining Ride T-shirts that had been filling up my garage for the past few years. There are only about 40 T-shirts left now and after those have gone that will be it, I'm afraid. So go off shopping to www.oxfordmusic.net if there's any gaps that you still need to fill. Also you've probably seen some of the reviews and interviews that have been going on around the release. Conveniently the Ticket To Ride site (linked from www.rideox4.com) and the www.creation-records.com/ride site (a fan's creation records site) have got a full list of all the recent activity with links and downloads of sound files so that you don't miss anything. Thanks to all of you who've signed up to the Ride email-list, it has been quite frantic both on the list and on the website guestbook. Things have been selling well: the Box Set, Nowhere, Going Blank Again and the Single Best Of CD have all had to be re-pressed already. It's been really exciting to walk into record shops and see the "ride" sections full once more. That's all from me but since I'm sat here with Andy at the moment I thought it only right and proper to leave him with the last word. Dave Newton Dear all: YARBLES!!! with love Andy Bell p.s. look out for the secret track!

Newsletter number 15 of Tomorrow Never Knows.

image courtesy Mark Taylor / Ride - The Network

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