Well, it's been several years but the new Ride EP has been released. "Coming Up For Air" is the title and it ws recorded with all four original members for a UK show called "Pioneers". Since only a minute of the music was actually used, Ride decided to release the EP. We've covered this before here and here. Piero has the full announcement inside.

Piero runs the Ticket To Ride site and has announced that there will be new Ride material released this year. Click on 'Read More' for the full announcement.

This is probably a bit late, but my brother just found the current issue of Magnet (Mar/Apr 2002). Ride's on the cover and they talk about the 'History of Shoegazing'. They have small interviews with Andy Bell (Ride), Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine), Neil Halstead (Slowdive/Mojave 3), Alan Magee and others. It's pretty interesting as they talk about what happened the the followup to MBV's 'Loveless'. Click the 'read more' link to see their list of shoegazing's defining albums.

Man, what a daunting task this paragraph seems to be. Somehow, in some way, I'm supposed to provide a proper introduction for an interview with my favorite musician ever. This is tough.

Let me try the professional approach first:

Once upon a time, there was a band from Oxford that captured the essence of post-Madchester UK psychedelic rock. Crafting layer upon layer of fuzzy guitars over hypnotic basslines and pounding white-hot drums, they somehow managed to push the sonic envelope time and time again, without once losing their knack for a captivating hook and powerful melody. The press dubbed it 'shoegazing,' but when push came to shove, the music defied labels, defied description, defied definition. There were dozens of these bands around at the time - several of which were great, several of which were crap. But only one of these bands had the ability to break through the underground to achieve massive critical acclaim AND commercial chart success. That band was called Ride.

Flash forward to 2001. Ride, like most of their contemporaries, are no more. But just in time for the holidays, the boys of Ride have given us a mighty present: a remastered back catalogue, a greatest hits collection, and a triple-disc box set with two entire CD's worth of unreleased tracks (one live, one studio outtakes.) To commemorate the release of the box set, Excellent Online was able to e-mail off some questions to Ride drummer Loz Colbert.

Ah, f**k it. I've never been a professional, I'm not starting now.

That's right - we're NOT kidding, though it IS just a one-off reunion. NME is reporting today that all 4 original members of RIDE are reforming to perform ONE track for a BBC Channel 4 television programme. The new series, "Pioneers," is a fifteen minute programme spotlighting seminal bands - Ride will be featured on an episode devoted to Sonic Youth, and will likely air sometime in December. Though no sort of permanent reunion is remotely in the offing, it's still bloody brilliant to hear they're doing at least one song together.

This is not a joke. We repeat, this is not a joke. Creation Records is confirming today that the new bass player in OASIS is ANDY BELL, former lead guitarist of RIDE and HURRICANE #1. I've now been sitting here for five minutes trying to think of something to say about this. I can't.