lament.us

Ride’s “Going Blank Again” getting North American vinyl release

Got this email this morning.

The tl;dr version: Going Blank Again is getting a release on vinyl in North America and the band now has their masters back from Ignition and will be re-releasing the albums with amended artwork in gatefold sleeves soon.

Wishing Going Blank Again a very happy 20th birthday - tomorrow

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…