The 30th anniversary of Ride’s debut Nowhere was technically last October, but Autumn 2020 was hardly a time where anyone anywhere felt like celebrating anything. It’s debatable how good things are a year on, but they’re definitely better, so if they want to treat the record’s 31st birthday as a do-over for the 30th, that’s okay with me.
The festivities announced so far include album recital tour dates in the UK for next Spring, as well as vinyl reissues of not just Nowhere, but their entire back catalog. And this past Friday, guitarist/vocalist Andy Bell and drummer Loz Colbert repped the band in participating in a Twitter Listening Party for the album.
Ride’s Nowhere @ #TimsTwitterListeningParty
This, of course, isn’t the first time a milestone anniversary of the record has been celebrated. There was a remaster/reissue of the band’s back catalog on Ignition records in 2001, coinciding with the box set and OX4 best of, and in 2010 the 20th anniversary saw a limited vinyl reissue on Rhino Handmade – this is the one I ponied up for a couple years ago. There was another limited vinyl run in 2015 for the record’s 25th anniversary, released by the band themselves and using the Rhino masters (I think). It’s not clear if that will be the same version used for the upcoming reissues but it’d be fine if it was – it sounds fantastic.
These anniversaries also came with interviews, though at the time of most, the band was still defunct and with little prospect of reuniting. In 2011, Under The Radar talked to frontman Mark Gardener about the 20th anniversary of his then-former band’s landmark debut, and how the Rhino reissue came about:
Ride’s Mark Gardener – Nowhere Celebrated @ Under The Radar
And that same year, he talked to music blog Digging A Hole about his recollections of making the record:
On The Road To Nowhere: Mark Gardener (Ride) Interview 2011 @ Digging A Hole
And a couple years later, Under The Radar got both Andy Bell and Mark Gardener to reflect on their debut as well as the records that followed:
Ride on Nowhere – Mark Gardener and Andy Bell on 1990’s Shoegaze Classic @ Under The Radar
And last Fall – in time for the proper 30th – The Guitar Magazine ran one of their “The Genius Of…” features on the record, with some focus on the gear they used – quite a contrast to what they had at their disposal for their 2015 reunion!
