...with a little help from Vincent
If you know Ride a little, the Amsterdam gig which followed three days only after the "final concert" at London's Brixton Academy, didn't allow the most optimistic expectances: the four Oxford guys are opposed to routine and these European dates, conceded after London's craze, would certainly not arise passion and excitement in their hearts. Belgium and France might have meant something more as they already have numerous fans there and that previous concerts have left great souvenirs on both sides, but Holland didn't appear to move them a lot. However here we go to this legendary port where we are to meet Uncle Guy and his youth club for the coach trip of the year. When we reach the Melkweg (Milky Way) Ride are there, better still, they do the soundcheck.The venue is deliciously small - my last Ride gig was in Oxford: 2500 seats - and the band seems to enjoy this recovered intimacy. After looking through Ticket To Ride n°5 ("Wow, Nirvana in our fanzine!"), Steve Queralt kindly agrees to give an interview and takes Andy along. The fan in me then leaves place to the reporter and accompanied by Cedric as sound engineer and Vincent as the devil's lawyer, I ask again my first question even though Steve has already replied to it a few minutes earlier:
C: How's been the British tour?
Steve: it's been really good. The second London was the best one, the best show of the whole tour.
C: Did you feel any difference with the Nowhere tour, in the reaction of the audience and in the way you were playing?
Steve: I think because we've done TOTP, there's been a lot of young people at the front who were getting crushed. A lot of young girls.
Andy: Quite, these songs are much better for live.
C: Wasn't it hard to arrange them live as on the album you use other instruments like keyboards?
Andy: The keyboards came as the last thing, they came when there was a gap rather than putting a guitar in it.
V: You don't use keyboards live...
Andy: No, we've got a few things on tape, like the sequencer on Leave them all behind and we've been tempted to play "Time machine" live with a tape but that hasn't really worked out.
C: I read you expected some backlash from the press with the new album. But it didn't come.
Andy: We've always expected it!
Steve: We've been expecting it for about two years, it always seemed to us to be just round the next corner but it never comes.
C: Have you had some bad reaction from fans who said you were changing too much?
Steve: A few journalists have said that when we did a few interviews in Europe. They were a bit worried that we had sold out and become a pop band instead of an indie band. In England they don't worry so much. I think in Europe people are a lot more precious about their indie bands and they don't want them to sound like Bryan Adams.
Andy: But that's what we want.
C: Are you playing with The Cure in America?
Andy: Playing near them.
Steve: I don't think we will now. It's getting very complicated between their manager and our manager. I don't know what we're doing now.
C: You're not scared of the association with the Cure? Many Cure fans now became Ride fans.
Steve: It's quite sad in a way that it takes Robert Smith to tell them to get into Ride when they can't just get into Ride on their own.
Andy: If anyone listens to us, we're happy. It doesn't matter when they come from as long as they end us with us, it's good.
C: The way you're perceived in Europe, America or Japan is totally different. In Japan you're real pop stars!
Steve: I think that lots of Western bands who go to Japan are quite surprised of that, the way they go down with the audience. It's just because any Western band can go over there and be successful. I mean Lush are pretty famous over there as well and maybe not so much in England.
C: Why have you chosen Twristerella as the next single? Has the EP got another title?
Andy: It was so well on record and people on radio would like it.
Steve: Has it got another title?
Andy: Apparently not. I was thinking of another title but then I heard it was already pressed.
C: Is the track Stampede the old one that appears on a demo?
Andy: Yes, it is. Before we came into the studio one day, before doing the album, I found the tape of it that we'd done, the first demo before we did the first album, so very, very early. I brought it in and played it to Mark and Mark really liked it and we sort of worked together and added some different words to it.
C: Why have you delayed the European tour?
Steve: We haven't got time to fit it in now, so we thought we'd had a quick run round before we go to America. But we're coming back in the autmm to do seven weeks.
C: the album conveys lots of ideas of travels, dreams, going away. Is it what you've been doing for the last two years?
Andy: Probably, yes. It's a good picture of what we've been doing.
Steve: travelling or sleeping.
C: What do you think of Nirvana's phenomenon, their huge success? Isn't it too much and too fast?
Andy: Their success is good. How can it be too much? They're a good band. The more people who like them, the better.
Steve: That's what they're in a band for.
Andy: I feel quite sorry for them in a way. But on the other hand I know they're probably really enjoying it and I hope they can keep it together.
C: How did you manage to get Verve play with you. They had said they wouldn't support anybody anymore!
Andy: they asked us. What they said is that they didn't want to support anyone without integrity.
V: How was playing with Mercury Rev?
Steve: Really good. They're a very good band, nice people.
Andy: Really cool.
C: Last year, you told me you might release a compilation album with old stuff, is that totally forgotten?
Andy: We're still planning to do it.
Steve: We nearly released it last year. We got lots of stuff that we could put on; some live stuff, different versions of tracks we've already recorded, maybe some songs that didn't make it onto the album or the next few singles.
Andy: Some good things could come out on it, really good.
V: The cover of the album is like something imaginery, it's not real anymore. Before there were pictures of flowers, or a little girl, something real, is that a change of direction?
Steve: It's just time for a change. It was getting too easy to guess what the next Ride sleeve would look like. It's always best to keep progressive changing, keep surprising people. I think the new album generally surprises people.
Andy: I don't want to sound ungrateful but it's when people started sending in ideas for Ride sleeves with new pictures of flowers we decided we had to change it.
Steve: Yeah, like a picture of a seagull would make a great sleeve.
V: I quite like the album but I think Twisterella and making Judy Smile don't fit in. They may be good on a single but on the album they break the atmpsphere
Andy: well, you don't have to like them. Have you got a CD? You can program it and don't play them.
Steve: It's pretty hard for somebody to like every track. There's got to be some tracks that you don't like, it's the same with every band.
C: What's your favourite track on the album?
Steve: On the album, it's Chrome Waves.
Andy: Cool your boots. It's one which worked out best.
After the interview, we all went to eat and waited a few hours before the real thing could start, music. I won't mention the support band, both upsetting and stupid...nor will I talk about Ride. Time of her Time, Mouse Trap and Seagull, the only tracks played with passion, avoided a total failure, but on the whole the concert was fairly disappointing. Ride's playing was automatic and it really set us wondering whether we'd drive to Koln in Germany two days later. However we know what Ride are capable of and when a band can play so many good songs in 60 minutes , when they can avoid playing the magnificent "Dreams Burn Down" without creating a gap, they can, as anyone else, have their ups and downs. Amsterdam was definitely down, let's see Koln then...
Circumstances didn't at first seem better: after a two-hour's drive under pouring rain, searching the whole Koln to find that "Wartesaal im Hpb" which noone seemed to know, we were frustrated enough to claim a good gig. Once found, the Wartesaal offered a nice suprise. This "old waiting room" of Koln's station, as that's what it was, looks like an old Roman crypt. A vault sustained by staunch pillars overhangs the tiny stage whose half is overloaded with Loz's drums and creates a delicious anachronism with the lightshow material it sustains. All through the concert it will take different colours and evoke a mystical ceremony rather than a rock concert. The effect is both stunning and beautiful. When Ride climb on stage (I was going to say "altar"), I can only but start fearing another disappointment as Leave them all behind, just correctly played, does not reveal anything. The first tracks come unsurprisingly if only for the wild audience who shout and jump with each guitar riff. Then Mark carelessly announces one of Ride's best tracks, Unfamiliar, which they had not played in Amsterdam and, under the orange vault lit up by what seems thousands of burning candles, Unfamiliar makes the difference and gives the concert the surnatural dimension it so far had lacked. Two titles ahead, Perfect Time improves the work and gives us our first shimmer in two nights and Nowhere completes it with its mortuary spendor somewhat lost in the Melkweg. No doubt: Ride are back in shape! Our enthusiasm is however dampened by the fact that these particularly strong moments are cut by the two most distressing tracks of the tour: Twisterella, in an awckward live version which has lost the fantasy and fun it has on record; and Making Judy Smile, a confessed parody that you may accept as such on the album but which has little reason for being played live. Furthermore, stuck between the remarkable Perfect Time and Nowhere, Judy has trouble persuading us and even Ride do not look convinced. Only Mark shows a relative ardour. As to Loz, he is so concentrated on this absurdly heavy rhythm that he stupidly looses one of his sticks and needs a whole minute to take another before smiling a sarcastic smile and hitting his drums three times harder than necessary. At least he has fun!
Fortunately once Judy has walked away, the concert goes on in an ascending wave and after Vapour Trail and the acoustic beauty of Chrome Waves, reaches a temporary climax with Mouse Trap and leaves us agape. Two loudly claimed encores later and after a whipping Seagull, (though Andy went a bit wrong with the intro), the verdict is positive and Ride discharged. Koln cannot be compared to the great gigs in Slough, Lille or Oxford, but it was worth the drive and for those who saw the band for the first time (and therefore may not be as demanding as I am) it will certainly remain vivid in their rock memory for a long time. After Koln, Ride ended their Spring tour with Berlin and their first Spanish date, Barcelona. Then they flew to the States, Japan and Australia. There is only one thing we can hope: that they'll take a long enough rest before they come back to Europe in Autumn for a real continental tour and with the devastating energy which built the reputation of their guitars. And that they'll throw Judy down in the Atlantic depths on their flight back home.
Review and interview by
...with a little help from Vincent
ln the last fanzine where you read the review of Going Blank Again, I invited you to give your opinion on Ride's new album. Among many short letters, here are five more elaborated reviews which prove that music, as any art, only reflects what a man's spirit is willing to see.
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Fan of Ride since their first fantastic EP, I was curious to see what an always difficult second album would be like. Let's say that I'm uncertain and that if they follow the path of Going Blank Again and above all the Twisterella EP, I might lose control and leave the train before it falls into the "average" precipice. Still with the concerts in Slough and Lille, the follow-up to Nowhere seemed to be as beautiful with Leave Them All Behind - long epic track which is perfect to start a concert - Chrome Waves (so smooth) or Time Of Her Time (such a melody). But what a disappointment when I heard the album for the first time. Only Mouse Trap with a riff and a melody to be included in their best songs ever, Time Of Her Time and Cool your Boots have a direct appeal. Not Fazed, burdened with a Charlatans-like intro and OX4 (Ride in fashion) disappoint me. Time Machine is just another Ride song, and Twisterella (just suitable for the Top50) does not really appeal to me. As to Making Judy Smile, which is a parody of the sixties (poor generation if that was the music of their time), it only has one quality, that of being short. As for the whole album, it sounds more elaborated and thus less spontaneous. I'm going back to the last Buffalo Tom's album, definitely better. The game is yours, dear Oxford boys. Vincent |
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Opening track: Leave Them All Behind. Ride remain faithful to their noisy range: a deep bassline sustains a hurricane of guitars: really good although not surprising. The poppy Twisterella, like a sunshine ray, makes the album lighter. Good! Back to distortioned wah-wah for Not Fazed, with perfect density and strength. Second ray of sunshine with Chrome Waves whose introduction is smoothed out with keyboards on which Andy's voice lands like a butterfly. "One hundred years from now..." announces a quiet and atmospheric future but how wrong! Ride surprise us again with Mouse Trap, which is far from being quiet and paradisiac. Time Of Her Time is superb: catchy chorus and a melody carved in gold. Cool Your Boots with its strange title and sound seem to come from the tormented space created by the four Oxford boys. Marking Judy Smile: another surprise which sounds like the Beatles and is the swinging/dancing track of Ride. Time Machine: second vision of the future: cutting guitars; a muffled drumbeat, an intergalactic voice, my favourite track on this excellent and surprising second a nostalgic ritornelle that stays in our mind long after the track has ended. With Going Blank Again, Ride prove they are able to innovate and surprise their fans. Too bad for those who are disappointed, Ride are way beyond that, somewhere over the rainbow. Igor Lacoste |
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With Going Blank Again, Ride have gone further ahead in noisy pop with a judicious use of keyboards, their talent to find subtle and simple melodies. Musically this album is very good and confirms their acquired know-how. It is especially interesting because it implies that Ride can even go further contrary to My Bloody Valentine who seem to be in a dead end street. Ride are thus progressing and this album is hopefully but one step towards an although very close already perfection. I find the last single quite revelating: Twisterella, a pop jewel; Going Blank Again and Stampede, as the perfect illustration of Ride's talent and Howard Hughes in a new quiet style, so well mastered. The only reproach is the voice. lf it was alright at the beginning with the noisier sound of the band, it should now become stronger and clearer (to compensate for the lack af noisy power, which is by no means a reproach). My favourite track on the album is Time Of Her Time which crystalizes perfection in noisy-pop. Arnaud Guillot |
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Going Blank Again was a risk. Of course. It has been repeated enough. But a risk in what? Music? Certainly not: the album is much less audacious, much shyer than its big brothers who did not include (I shan't say "were lucky to include") such poppy pieces as Making Judy Smile or Twisterella. And even then, when the chords are too beautiful and too precious, they are locked in the safe created by the bass and drum, covered by a thick shell of guitars, also protected by magnetic fields (Mouse Trap, Time Of Her Time). Honestly, to those who claim that Going Blank Again is a musical risk, I reply that after Nowhere it is the ultimate safety. The risk, however, that Ride took was with their fans. Those who, like me, had their heart shaken and their soul raised by the likes of Drive Blind, Like A Daydream and Seagull. Because despite my good will and my affection for the four from OX4, despite beautiful but vain attempts such as Leave Them All Behind, Mouse Trap or Time Machine, my heart won't leave the ground and my soul is desperately hurting. However I don't give up for so much: Mark, Andy, Steve and Loz are young, with their life ahead and their splendid polyphonies don't sound like the sirens song yet. Bernard Dubuisson |
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I thought Nowhere was the perfect album and expected to be disappointed by Going Blank Again. I was scared not to find jewels such as Paralysed, In A Different Place or Dreams Burn Down. Yet at the fist hearing of the new album, I saw my fears disappear... I could not say what's the best track on the album, such as Paralysed on Nowhere. Time Of Her Time? Cool Your Boots? OX4? Time Machine? Chrome Waves? The addition of keyboards in Ride's music is certainly a bonus although certain narrowminded fans will call it a blasphemy as they see Ride as a "guitar band". Going Blank Again sounds happier, and angrier rather than desperate (Time Of Her Time: let me just once be cruel without being kind). In short, Ride have released one of the best albums I have heard for long, since a certain "Disintegration" from Cure. Eric Florkin |
In this interview taken from the April 1992 issue of Select, Ride discuss "Going Blank Again" track by track...
1. Leave Them All Behind
Andy: "This was an important track for us because it was the first new one that really clicked. It gave us the confidence to go on. There are a fair few songs where the version on the album is the first ever complete one, but this is an old fruity one. We started playing the riff while soundchecking in Holland in November 1990. Then, about six months later, we got around to writing the words. Originally, Mark had three pages of like, semi-poetry for it (blushes from the guilty party). So we edited them down and just put in the good bits – otherwise the song might've been 45 minutes long."
Mark: It was written as an open statement -' Just Let It Flow' – but I guess it's about getting away from the band era of "Nowhere", the first chapter of Ride. Being away from it and thinking, what next? Still, it was good to not release anything last year, because it gave us lots of time to think and let things develop."
Andy: "Before we had the words, we jokingly called it 'Sputnik', because just the tune on its own is pretty whooshy.We decided to have different sounds coming in and out, the solos and the sequencer bit. Actually, Alan Moulder wanted us to call the album "Prog-Rock"!
2. Twisterella
Andy: "We realised early on that we didn't have to put a loud bit and a quiet bit into every song – the Indie Trick Number One. So this one is really light and poppy. "The last ten years in music have been good in terms of guitar sounds, but not for guitar tunes. Personally, I've always got all my ideas for guitar lines off stuff from the '64 to '66 period, and modified them – Beatles, Kinks, Byrds. I'm not saying I'm just a '60s kid, but it's a good period to get tunes from."
Mark:"This and 'Time Machine' came from a bedroom session we did last spring where I used to live in Horton-Cum-Studley. I was quite depressed at the time, so it's weird it came out totally happy-sounding. The focus behind the lyrics is about going to London on the bus from Oxford and going mental. Afterwards you always wonder why you've done it – you wanted something more. But you always go back again the next month."
Andy: "The last thing was the title, which comes from a song in the film Billy Liar. Billy and his friend write this track for a dance club they go to at night called 'Twisterella', and our chords, coincidentally, fit their song!"
3. Not Fazed
Mark: "We were definitely 'up' the day we recorded this, Loz was desperate to jingle around on these sleighbells he'd got and it sounded brilliant on this, gave it a sort of Christmas sound."
Andy: "All the original ideas came in my bedroom. It's definitely one of the, compact ones lyric-wise. It'e got three lines. "I won't be a monkey in anyone zoo/And I won't get fazed whatever you do', and 'Hit hirn egain, he's crazy!' It's about school-type situations, people's reaction to you having your own tastes."
4. Chrome Waves
Andy: "There's a specific memory about this one. On the America tour, we had this driver called Ernie who used to drive Elvis around and was about 80. We had these really long drives, all night and sometimes through the day as well. There was one which was 24 hours long through Nevada, and we were sitting at the back of the bus with acoustic guitars,playing around with this. "We were listening alternately to 'Holland' by The Beach Boys and a compilation of Nick Drake stuff. His 'Chime Of The City Clock' was probably the direct ancestor of this song. It doesn't really sound like it now, but that was the original feel. We let ourselves change it, so it became more us as we went along."
Mark: "The way it worked out on the bus was enough, really lovely, but even at that point we thought that strings would fit in."
Steve: "They're just samples on a keyboard. I played these chords along to it and it sounded alright. We really wanted to play it live so there had to be a band version, which is the one on the B-side of 'Leave Them All Behind'.
Andy: "Everything on this album is played by us. It's a lot nicer if'you can do it yourself. I'm not sure where the lyrics came from. They were just things I jotted down in America about how I felt one evening. I was in a bit of a strange state of mind and everyone's skin went silver and started rippling. The rest of the band were shimmery, silvery things."
5. Mouse Trap
Andy: "Occasionally you discover a chord sequence you'd be quite happy to play for two hours non-stop. To everyone else it sounds terrible but when you're doing it you're having a spiritual experience. During soundchecks in America, we did a few prog-rock journeys through time, and this one came like that from nowhere while we were rehearsing one afternoon for the album. So don't be fooled – that's the vibe of this song."
Mark: "That Boxing Day feeling when you're bored with your Lego set. Also we put on the end what I call my lonely surfer solo. I'd just been to Camden Market and bought some really nice things, so I felt pretty euphoric."
6. Time Of Her Time
Andy: "This is from the same era as 'Leave Thern All Behind'. I got the idea in my bedroom, banged about with it and then worked it out with the others. It's certainly pretty droney, but, while it's probably true to say we tried to sound like My Bloody Valentine in the beginning, I think they're almost the antithesis of what we're about now. You wouldn't ever find the Valentines jamming, and spontaneity was where every song on this album came from. "The title is from a short story by Norman Mailer, but I can't remember much about the words...(pause) I'll quote Bob Dylan on this one: 'What's this song about? It's about three and a quarter minutes'."
7. Cool Your Boots
Andy: "Another one of those two-hour riff things that seem to be so attractive to us at the moment! It was in my head from the beginning to have a song with a long, really juicy fade-out outro, so this one was purposely constructed that way, almost like the whole song is just an excuse for the ending. Basically, our songs are just an excuse for us to indulge our fantasies! (Embarrassed laughter from Steve and Mark) It's really true! "I don't have any idea about these lyrics either. You have a set written and then they change right up to when you do the vocal take. Suddenly, it's the moment of truth at the mike and you think, This is gonna sound stupid. You focus it up then, but afterwards it's impossible to pin them down because they're just an amalgam of things. "The voice bit at the start is from the film Withnail And I, which is where the title comes from too. An excellent phrase that the dealer chap says, but that's not much to do with the song itself."
8. Maklng Judy Smile
Andy: "These lyrics were written in five minutes about learning to drive."
Mark: "Not exactly learning, was it? Just driving, badly!"
Andy: (after some ribbing) "Someone got me into a car in America and they were convinced I could drive it because it was an automatic."
Mark: And everyone else was convinced he couldn't!"
Andy: (weathering more mirth) "I made a go of it but I couldn't make the car stop, so it's about that little experience. It was another ongoing song through last year, and the general idea was almost to do a parody of everything we like about mid-'60s pop."
Steve: "That's why it's over-tuneful and really sickly."
Andy: "Totally twee, totally sickening and lightweight. A lot of bands do parodies and everyone thinks it's a serious song. That's probably what will happen with this. Like 'Yer Blues' off The Beatles' 'White Album'. Everyone now thinks it's a seminal John Lennon angst track, and he was just taking the piss out of Eric Clapton's band!"
9. Time Machine
Steve: "We wanted a dubby track on the album so, as the intro to 'Time Machine', there's a little bit of a much longer track we'd done. We'll probably get slammed for dabbling. Another indulgence..."
Mark: "The initial idea for the main bit came at the bedroom sesh when we did 'Twisterella'. Then Steve and Andy changed it around in the studio, so it had a different, surreal atmosphere. I wanted to do some words for it that were different from anything I'd written before, like thought-rushes made into a little story. I've always been into the idea of time travel, and it was a case of the imagination running wild on that."
10. OX4
Andy: "The start was probably the earliest thing recorded for this album. It sounds a bit far-off because we then played it through a little speaker in this massive room at The Church (Alan Moulder's studio - Ed.) and recorded it again through a microphone about 50 feet away. That's why you can hear the noise of the cars going past outside. We cross-faded that with the first few seconds of a 12 minute track of us buckling down to some guitar noise, and then cross-faded the actual song, which is the end-of-alburn head-bobbing number. So the whole track is condensed from about half an hour of music. It was supposed to be indulgent. The lyrics on the main bit are about being away from home all the time so we called it 'OX4', which is our postcode."
Grasshopper (instrumental single B-side)
Andy: "We had this riff for the start and finish of a song, and a signal for when to come back to it again. So we just rolled the tape to see what would happen in between. We went off to tea afterwards, thinking it was alright, but then we heard it was eleven minutes long and there wasn't a weak bit we could edit out. We put it out as it was - totally live and spontaneous. "The only overdub was the little kids' voices, which involved me and Steve getting up very early one morning, taking his tape recorder down to this school in Cowley and hanging around outside the gates in playtime."
Mark: "In long raincoats!"
Steve: "We looked incredibly dodgy."
Mark: "The whole thing is for people who like a band's obscure B-sides."
Andy: "If you put the four of us in a room together these days, this is the sort of thing you get."