(Ride - obscure for absolutely no reason)

I think we're going to shelve the "theme weeks" for a while. I'm starting to realize a little goes a long way. So we're back to basics tonight.

Ride were an amazing band that broke up all too soon. They somehow got pigeonholed as "shoegaze", even though they did come about at the time when Indie was pretty much exploding on the music scene. There was very little of the mellowed out somnambulant they got saddled with to justify that. But . . what do you do?

Their first few albums were walls of guitar and vaguely ethereal vocals. But by the time of their last album Tarantula in 1996, they gave up the ethereal and went for the jugular, which was perfectly fine - and they could get away with it.

But Tarantula wound up being the last out of them and the band dissolved shortly after. Which was a shame as they evolved musically into one of the more consistently rewarding listening experiences I had in years.

But nothing ever stays the same and "Black Nite Crash" will have to do until a Ride reunion of some sort happens (they did do a one-off reunion of sorts in 2001 for the BBC). An official reunion was rumored to be this year, but was quickly denied.

Maybe someday.