In 2012 looking back over the past twenty years it seems that so much has happened since those days and yet everything is still the same. These days to make the mainstream charts you need to be a female in a clowns outfit, the music is just a side dish to the popstar just like in 1992 when your song needed to be a theme to a film (Bryan Adams and Whitney Houston were ruling the airwaves,) nothing seems to have changed.

Access to decent music in 1992 was only to be found via the music papers which often meant buying an album just from reading a review or waiting many hours listening to John Peel or Mark Goodier on late night radio. Also in the pre-internet days of 1992 there were only so many column inches in the music papers, so the moment a band failed to deliver the goods (musically or success wise) they were cast aside only to be mentioned occasionally in a bad review or to be mocked. There were no second chances!

When Ride went into the studio in 1991 to record their second album ‘Going Blank Again’, things were very different to when they emerged the following year. The autumn of 1991 gave us Loveless, Screamadelica and Nevermind. These three albums changed the shape of modern guitar music in a way that has never been seen since. The mainstream charts also started to look very different because of Nirvana, suddenly reaching the lower end of the the charts didn’t give you automatic front pages of magazines. Nirvana had done the ultimate and knocked Michael Jackson off the top of the US Billboard album charts and it doesn’t get any bigger than that.

During this period whilst locked away in the studio in Chipping Norton, Ride were at a crossroads musically. If the band had continued to release 4 tracks EP’s that sounded exactly the same as their early EP’s they would have been cast aside for not looking forward so it was time for a change.

June 1991 saw them preview the first new track from the album supporting The Pixies at Crystal Palace Bowl. They took the ambitious step of opening their set with ‘Leave Them All Behind’ which was known at the time as merely ‘New Song’. The sonic guitars were still there but there was a sound effect vaguely similar to that of ‘Join Together’ by The Who. Things were changing…

Despite a handful of other gigs including a headlining slot at the Slough Festival the band stayed in the studio for much of the year. Starting life as a double album, the tracklisting was initially to be far longer than the 8 track debut ‘Nowhere’ which showed how creative the band had been during the year. Eventually some tracks were culled for the release including Everybody Knows, Blue, Prince Bullshit (later the intro to Time Machine), Tongue Tied and Motorway Madness (later used as the intro to OX4). On top of the album tracks there were the b-sides to the singles including the title track ‘Going Blank Again’.

Finally, Christmas 1991 saw Ride announce a new single, album and tour for the spring. ‘Leave Them All Behind’ was released the first week of February and a lengthy worldwide tour kicked off at Oxford Apollo the same week.

‘Leave Them All Behind’ was released the first week of February and did something no other Creation band had done before and entered the UK singles chart within the top ten and once again they were back on Top of The Pops. Two years previously in 1990 the band also gave the label their first top 75 single and top 20 album, in a month they’d give the label their first top 5 album. Placed at No.9 the single was one place higher then the Jesus and Mary Chain and two places higher than Primal Scream. Ride had now become pretty much the biggest UK guitar band and seemed unstoppable.

The following month Ride toured the UK and ‘Going Blank Again’ finally hit the shops on the 9th March 1992. The final 10 track album started with latest hit single and showed a whole wide range of influences that many Ride fans would have been surprised by. The band at this time had clearly been listening far more to the likes of The Who than My Bloody Valentine. The album was awash with keyboards, acoustic guitars and even a sample from the film ‘Withnail and I’.

NME stated it had restored their faith in the band and Select Magazine gave the album 5 stars and described the album as “first division” and a “giant leap into space”.

Within weeks the band even made mainstream prime time family TV when the popular BBC science TV show Tomorrows World came down to trial some new crash barriers at one of the bands two Brixton Academy gigs at the end of March.

On the 27th March the Brixton Academy gig was also filmed and later released as a video.

The following five months saw the band travel the world to promote the album. Maybe this tour was too long? Maybe their young ages meant the band took it all for granted as success had come so easy? There were also new people to consider as members of the band got married or had babies. Whatever the reasons, tensions in the band rose to the surface and this affected hugely their later work.

The first public sign that things may be stalling came in April when ‘Twisterella’, the second single from the album, stalled at number 36 in the UK chart, their lowest chart position since their debut EP.

Whilst away on tour other acts were trying to steal their thunder, Blur emerged at Glastonbury that year dressed as mods and again had clearly been listening to The Who and The Kinks. At the time Blur were seen as having gone too far as there was much head scratching and smirking at their new direction, what on earth were they thinking?

When Ride took to the stage as one of the headliners of the Reading Festival in August of 1992 it was to be the largest audience they played to (and one of the largest of the weekend). The band played for over an hour as the sun went down and were at their peak. The performance won over the Reading crowd with ease, however playing on the second stage at the same time was a new band called Suede. Most of the reviews of the weekend focused on Suede’s performance and despite it being Ride’s crowning moment the press frankly had some new friends who for the rest of the decade were to grace the front covers of the music papers. Brett Anderson was prepared to play the games of the music press, something Ride and My Bloody Valentine had always refused to do. Suede’s public feud with Blur over an ex-girlfriend gave the press much to talk about for the next few years and suddenly serious musicians were overlooked.

Despite their attempts to distance themselves, Ride were in the frustrating situation of being categorised as ‘Shoegazers’ by the music press. In 1991 this made them media darlings, however with the arrival of Nirvana, Suede and emerging dance acts such as Orbital and Aphex Twin, shoegazing had become a dirty word.

Six months after their Reading performance Ride played two dates with The Charlatans in Brighton and Blackpool under the ‘Daytripper’ name and you could argue that Britpop was born. Mark Gardener appeared on the cover of NME with Tim Burgess, whereas in 1992 The Charlatans had faced a real challenge with their second album failing to make the UK top 20 and the press turning on them, Ride had sailed through the year.

‘Going Blank Again’ was also in many ways the end of a chapter of great releases on Creation, from the House of Love’s debut in 1988 until 1992 there were a large group of albums that are timeless to a generation, albums that didn’t compromise and pushed for change after the terrible mainstream music of the 80′s. It was also one of the last albums on Creation before Sony bought shares in the label. The game had changed, after 1994 even the smaller bands on Creation were now having top ten hits.

Looking back twenty years, it’s easy to see despite the fact the album failed to achieve the success of many of their peers a few years later, ‘Going Blank Again’ helped to knock down the wall and shape the guitar sound of the 1990′s.

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My Bloody Valentine have announced details of the release of a trio of re-issues on Monday May 14th 2012 through Sony Commercial Music Group.

They will release their 2 full-length studio albums, Isn’t Anything and Loveless, plus EP’s 1988-1991, a brand new compilation which draws together their 4 EP releases, Feed Me With Your Kiss, You Made Me Realise, Glider and Tremolo alongside 7 additional rare and previously un-released tracks.

The original studio albums have been painstakingly re-mastered by Kevin Shields at Metropolis Studios in London and Loveless comes as a 2-disc set featuring a previous re-mastering from original analogue tapes, completed by Kevin Shields but never released.

Alongside their EPs, the compilation album features a mixture of rare and unavailable and previously unreleased tracks.

My Bloody Valentine remain one of the most unique and thrilling bands of the last 25 years. Sonic pioneers, they stood alone in the late 80s / early 90s, their two albums sounded like nothing that had gone before. Loveless in particular was a breathtaking piece of work exploring the outer reaches of a guitar’s capabilities – it’s no surprise that 20 years later the album is still influencing a new generation of musicians from The Horrors to Radiohead.

Isn’t Anything, released on Creation Records in November 1988, was My Bloody Valentine’s debut long-player. Formed in Dublin in 1983, prior to Isn’t Anything they had released a number of EPs and mini-albums. The album was preceded by You Made Me Realise, an EP which gave some indication of the avant-garde musical direction of the album, which, on release, was heralded as peerless.

Isn’t Anything was Recorded in Wales over a two-week period in the late spring of 1988 and produced by the band and following some personnel changes it featured the line-up of Kevin Shields (guitar, vocals), Bilinda Butcher (guitars / vocals), Colm O Coisoig (drums) and Debbie Googe (bass) which would go on to record and release Loveless 3 years later.

Their second album, Loveless, was released in November 1991. Recorded over a two-year period between 1989 and 1991, the album’s gestation was long and complex with numerous studios and engineers used, yet on its eventual release it was soon apparent My Bloody Valentine had released a hugely innovative, original anddefinitive album, the legacy of which still resonates today.

My Bloody Valentine played a number of shows in 2008, their first in a number of years, including performances at the Roskilde, Benicassim, Electric Picnic,Fuji Rock and Bestival festivals and in 2009 they curated the All TomorrowsParties ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ event.

The track listings of the albums are as follows:

ISN’T ANYTHING

1. Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)
2. Lose My Breath
3. Cupid Come
4. (When You Wake) You’re Still In A Dream
5. No More Sorry
6. All I Need
7. Feed Me With Your Kiss
8. Sueisfine
9. Several Girls Galore
10. You Never Should
11. Nothing Much To Lose
12. I Can See It (But I Can’t Feel It)

LOVELESS
Disc 1 – Re-master from original tape

1. Only Shallow
2. Loomer
3. Touched
4. To here Knows When
5. When You Sleep
6. I Only Said
7. Come In Alone
8. Sometimes
9. Blown A Wish
10. What You Know
11. Soon

Disc 2 – Mastered from original 1Ž2 inch analogue tapes

1. Only Shallow
2. Loomer
3. Touched
4. To here Knows When
5. When You Sleep
6. I Only Said
7. Come In Alone
8. Sometimes
9. Blown A Wish
10. What You Know
11. Soon

EP’s 1988-1991
Disc 1

1. You Made Me Realise (from You Made Me Realise EP)
2. Slow (from You Made Me Realise EP)
3. Thorn (from You Made Me Realise EP)
4. Cigarette In Your Bed (from You Made Me Realise EP)
5. Drive It All Over Me (from You Made Me Realise EP)
6. Feed Me With Your Kiss (from Feed Me With Your Kiss EP)
7. I Believe (from Feed Me With Your Kiss EP)
8. Emptiness Inside (from Feed Me With Your Kiss EP)
9. I Need No Trust (from Feed Me With Your Kiss EP)
10. Soon (from Glider EP)
11. Don’t Ask Why (from Glider EP)
12. Off Your Face (from Glider EP)

Disc 2

1. To Here Knows When (from Tremolo EP)
2. Swallow (from Tremolo EP)
3. Honey Power (from Tremolo EP)
4. Moon Song (from Tremolo EP)
5. Instrumental no. 2 (distributed on a free 7” with the first 5000 Isn’t Anything LPs)
6. Instrumental no.1 (distributed on a free 7” with the first 5000 Isn’t Anything LPs)
7. Glider (full length version) (B side on the Soon (The Andrew Weatherall Mix) 12”)
8. Sugar (promo only B-Side on Only Sallow LP, France only)
9. Angel (previously unreleased)
10. Good For You (previously unreleased)
11. How Do You Do It (previously unreleased)

You can order the EP’s 1988-1991 by clicking here

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The gig is followed by some Japanese dates in early 2012.

You can find a Facebook event page for the gig by clicking here.

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For a city of its size, Oxford seems to produce a large amount of bands. A film now has set out to give the history of the city’s music scene from Talulah Gosh in the 80′s to currently successful bands such as Radiohead and Foals. Along the way there were many other bands such as Five Thirty, Supergrass, Ride and Swervedriver.

To celebrate the films release there’s a UK tour lined up for November 2011 including a Q&A with Ride lead singer/guitarist Mark Gardener and video director Jon Spira. The dates are as follows:

4th – London BFI Southbank SOLD OUT
9th – Hereford Courtyard Arts Centre
15th – Oxford Phoenix Picturehouse
17th – Sheffield Showroom Workstation
18th – Nottingham Broadway
22nd – Preston Continental
25th – Leeds Hyde Park Picture House
26th – Bristol Watershed
29th – Edinburgh Cameo

The film is narrated by cult comedian Stewart Lee and was made completely independently by film-maker and music video director Jon Spira over the course of three years.

For more information visit the Anyone Can Play guitar website.

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The schedule for the evening is as follows:

21:00 – Upside Down: The Creation Story Profile of the UK’s most inspired and dissolute independent record label, Creation. Repeated at 3am

22:40 – Creation at the BBC With My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream, Oasis, Ride, Boo Radleys and Teenage Fanclub. Repeated at 2am

00:30 – Do it Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade Documenting the history of Rough Trade, from small record shop to successful record label. (R)

You can view the full schedule for the evening on the BBC website by clicking here.

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From their press conference this afternoon in Manchester, Granada Reports has tweeted that Mani has stated “it’s heart breaking to leave Primal Scream, but they’ve allowed me to follow my dream. I’m so grateful.”

The band have so far announced two dates in Manchester at Heaton Park on June 29th and 30th next year.

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The new Pete Astor album marks a change in direction from his more experimental, post-Creation work in groups such as Ellis Island Sound and the Wisdom of Harry. Backed by the woodwinds of Keiron Phelan (State River Widening, Phelan-Sheppard) and Jenny Brand (Kluster Ensemble), together with layers of guitars, drums and keyboards from David Sheppard (State River Widening, Ellis Island Sound) and supported by the harmony vocals of Angèle David-Guillou (Piano Magic, Klima), the eleven essays on Songbox offer an abundance of lushly arranged, timeless chamber-rock, brimming with wry lyrical insight and haunting melodic hooks.

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3. Pete Fijalkowski and Terry Bickers announce debut London date

Pete Fijalkowski (Adorable) and Terry Bickers (House of Love) are playing their debut London gig on October 22nd at Club AC30 @ Wilmington Arms, Clerkenwell, London. Doors 8pm Tickets £7 adv. Support from ‘&’ (who is the ‘&’ from Fujiya & Miyagi) + Club AC30 Djs. Tickets are £7 available from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/129949 or details from www.clubac30.com.

2 days before on the 20th October, they’re also playing a warm-up gig with ‘&’ again in Brighton, supporting Hollow Moon at The Latest Music Bar, Brighton. Tickets are available from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/131719.

At the time of writing this post, the duo are adding the finishing touches to the album with mixing to start this week. As soon as there’s any news on a release date we’ll let you know.

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Several albums have been reissued this summer on vinyl from the likes of Slowdive, Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream.

The albums have been repressed on 180-grams audiophile vinyl by Dutch record label Music On Vinyl whom have previously repressed classic albums from other acts such as Sly & The Family Stone, The Clash and Bob Dylan. These releases will be a great relief to many people as some of these have been hard to find for many years.

The first two albums by Slowdive are available to order. ‘Just For A Day‘ has just been released and will be followed on August 1st by ‘Souvlaki‘.

Teenage Fanclub’s 1991 classic ‘Bandwagonesque‘ was released last month.

Finally, ‘Exterminator‘ and ‘Vanishing Point‘ by Primal Scream have been released alongside the bands 2002 major label debut ‘Evil Heat‘.

All albums can be ordered by clicking on the album titles above.

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