CD Review: The Long Ryders “The Best of The Long Ryders” (Prima 2004)
Rating: 9 out of 10
by Jeremy Searle

Essential retrospective from alt.country pioneers. It’s scary to think that the music on this album was recorded nigh on two decades ago, and what a joyous antidote it must have been to the limp and flaccid Eighties. The Long Ryders didn’t so much blaze a trail as napalm it, whether live (check out “The Long Ryders: Live in New York City” if in doubt) or in the studio, as captured here. Culled from their two best albums, “Native Sons” and “State of our Union” plus some equally good B-sides and the like, this album stands as an epic testament to the pioneers of todays alt.country movemen, and one of the few bands that truly deserve the much abused tag “legendary”. Owing as much to punk as to Gram Parsons they played with a Ramones-like urgency that would not be denied. Their songs were no three minute mindless thrashes though, being shot through with a ferocious intelligence and nous. From the moment that opener “Looking for Lewis and Clark” blasts its way out of the speakers the band’s talent and attitude thrusts the listener against the wall and demands their attention. A clarion call to arms with passionate and venomous vocals and a thundering backbeat, it raises the intensity level to 10 from the off. Selection of highlights is nigh impossible on albums this good, but “Gunslinger Man” boasts one of the great opening riffs, “State of my Union” burns with righteous indignation, and “(Sweet) Mental Revenge” is the template and exemplar for a thousand bands paying tribute to their roots while taking them on a beltful of notches. Everything is fresh enough to have been recorded yesterday and puts most of todays bands to shame. Seventeen glorious tracks with just one duffer (”If I were a Bramble and you were a Rose” is an odd working of a traditional folk song that sounds forced and ill at ease in this company) is an impressive strike rate. None of the participants subsequent ventures have quite recaptured the glory days (although Sid Griffin’s Western Electric come close, albeit in a rather different vein) and perhaps that’s how it should be. They lived fast, they died young, and boy did they leave a good-looking corpse. Beautifully packaged and including a wonderful Pete Frame family tree, Sid Griffin (surely alt.country’s Dorian Gray) deserves all the plaudits going for compiling and issuing this album. Essential.

http://www.americana-uk.com

CD Review: The Long Ryders - The Best Of 1982-1987 (Prima)

Given the cult reputation Sid Griffin's old outfit has garnered over the years since they split up it's surprising it's taken this long for a single (and the usual live cuts and rarities) compilation to emerge, especially given it's through his own label. But then, with the band reformed (with their most settled original line up of Griffin, Stephen McCarthy, Greg Sowders and Tom Stevens) for their first tours in 17 years, timing is clearly everything.

Inappropriately lumped in with the Paisley Underground movement when they were patently more a kick ass rebel country rock n roll band of the same ilk as Jason and the Scorchers, the Ryders hit the ground running with Looking For Lewis and Clarke, a blistering slice of punk influenced barroom rowdiness (produced like many here by Will Birch) that was really never quite as good as the reputation its accrued over the years. The band had far better material (largely down to the more countrified McCarthy) under their belt as is clearly evident from running the random button over a selection that includes the rousing Lights of Downtown, Chuck Berryish rock n chugger State of My Union, the jangling cover of I Want You Bad, I Had A Dream and Stevens' moody psychedelic folk Years Long Ago.

To be honest any real best of would have elbowed the cover of Masters of War (from the Metallic B.O album) and the Flaming Groovies I Can't Hide in favour of such glaringly absent numbers as Run Dusty Run, Harriet Tubman's Gonna Carry Me Home, The Light Gets In The Way and You Just Can't Ride The Boxcars Any More, and really the ragged live version of Capturing The Flag, easily one of their best songs, really isn't a patch on the blistering studio recording. Still, if devotees may be disappointed, it's an undeniably useful primer for newcomers and full marks for including Sid and Christine Collister's plaintively lovely folky B side If You Were A Bramble And I Were A Rose.

Mike Davies
www.netrhythms.com
July 2004

'Never Too Old To Rock And Roll' by Stewart Lee: Sunday Times June 2004 Go>>

Live Review: The Long Ryders at Lock 17 - The Independent Review, Monday 5 July 2004 Go>>

Live Review: The Long Ryders - Live @ Irish Centre - Wednesday, 7 July 2004
The Long Ryders + Greg Trooper + The Prowlers

Solo American Greg Trooper fills the gaps between the Prowlers and the Ryders with cheeky Nashville professionalism. Considering most of the audience flouncing around the Irish Centre tonight are polite grown-ups his brand of, equally civil left-of-centre alt/country folk, complete with comedy hat, a rather battered Martin and no little amount of songwriter shtick, is simultaneously applauded and disregarded – a symbiotic audience participation that the first band can only admire with gob-struck realisation. His penultimate epic, a sensitive lyric interpolating his own personal and awesome Damascus, received through first-hand experience of the relationship between Muhammad Ali and Christmas, fits well. One can imagine how his new LP, Hanukkah with Billy Graham is sure to grace the turntables of all exemplar Leeds Americana/Tequila nights for the foreseeable future. (This may not be true.) When he is joined by the Ryders’ Steven McCarthy (who also plays for the Jay Hawks) on Lap Steel for the last ‘sing-along’ song the audience grudgingly mumble the words before reaching for their wallets and heading to the Inis na Noamh. Well played Sir!

It’s been 16 years since they played together, but this, the original, line-up of The Long Ryders kicks ass. They kick the Prowlers’ ass (and lambaste them for over-running their set by twenty-five minutes. Hmmm … Where’s the stage manager then?) they kick their ex-publicists ass (‘Thanks a lot you short, bald idiot’) and then beat their way through a rather healthy set covering tunes written over the course of their twenty-odd year career, currently released as The Best of The Long Ryders on Prima Records. Singer Sid Griffin, who also plays with The Coal Porters and Western Electric still has a ‘Coal not Dole’ sticker on his Rickenbaker (ask your dad) which he handles with well dressed finesse (the guitar, not the sticker), his Chelsea boots venturing beyond the monitors and into the groundlings, who watch as his sideburns glisten with mischievous concentration - like the bastard offspring of Eastwood and McGuinn. This may be Agrarian Rock for the post-punk generation, but the Ryders are often accredited with kick-starting the whole contemporary alt/country scene, and judging by the energy here tonight it’s easy to see why. This is not Conservative Christian Country, nor is it the Melancholic Trailer Park Disaster Movie Sound-Track of, say, Lucinda Williams; this is intelligent life-affirming Rock and Roll.

All three Ryders’ front-men, Griffin, McCarthy and Bassist Tom Stevens sing, and both guitars interweave country licks against Greg Sowders’ steady beats – the whole, despite Griffin’s stalking presence coming across as a band, Run Dusty Run, I Want you Bad and Gunslinger Man are performed with much gusto. The Light Gets in the Way is one of their best while Ivory Tower, by The Byrds, and the encore songs, Dylan’s Masters of Destruction – with Trooper Greg on vocals and Griffin on mandolin, confirm their credentials with key references. Gram Parsons’ Streets of Baltimore leads up to an audience auction for song of choice, with Teenage Kicks going for £15. With a final run-through of the homage to American Cartographic Pioneers that is Looking for Lewis and Clark the band disappears into the wings of the night (or at least the green-room).

They’ll be back in Leeds, albeit in different bands, long before another seventeen years have passed. Ryan Adams eat your heart out, The Ryders will steal more than your socks, indeed, nights like this make you want to knock off Music-ground for a Telecaster. Which can’t be a bad thing really.

Review written by Annalee Call
http://www.leedsmusicscene2.co.uk

Live Review: Manchester Music

Monday, 5th July 2004: The Long Ryders @ Academy 3
by Mark Richardson 02/07/04

GUNSLINGER MEN: The Long Ryders

THE Long Ryders rode back into town last night, shook off the dust of the intervening years and took me straight back to a simpler time: the mid-eighties.

And two things - one prosaic, one profound - hadn't altered with age. Sid Griffin’s side-burns were as impressive as ever, and at the end of the night I was left asking the same question I asked when the band broke up in the late eighties - why aren’t they bigger than REM?

They rode out of the West in 1983, with a sound rooted in country rock'n'roll and post-punk energy, loudly proclaiming a connection with the American heartland.

While their contemporaries were all lycra and perms, the Long Ryders served up the sort of fare you would hope to find when you finally made that fantasy road trip across the States and pulled over at some weather-beaten roadhouse far out in the Badlands.

The Ryders took a little time to get warmed up, mostly due to a lone drunken heckler who persisted in making a fool of himself, but by the time they were into Run Dusty Run the band were firing on all six-string cylinders.

Working through a cross-section of their catalogue, highlights were Gunslinger Man, And She Rides and Final Wild Son; songs as powerful as any to come out of American eighties rock'n'roll.

The original line up of Sid Griffin, Stephen McCarthy, Tom Stevens and Greg Sowders are touring under the banner The State Of The Reunion, and on this evidence you’d say it was in pretty good shape.

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk

Live Review: July 03 2004 Glasgow - King Tut's Wah Wah Hut
by Lindsay Hutton

THE LONG RYDERS breezed back into old Glasgow toon on the day before the 4th July. No matter what the State Of The Union is in their homeland, here’s another American band that can still very much shake it down. “We’re the MC4” said Sid to the mature gathering. Stephen McCarthy had already been out to join GREG TROOPER close his opening set with a song he co-wrote with John Seiger (who if you've being paying attention recently made a record with THE SKELETONS). Trooper does credit to his namesake. A native NJian who lives in Nashville now with a nice line in songs and patter. He must be unstoppable with a band. Anyways, “Run Dusty Run” opened the Ryders set and brought down the hammer on the Strathclyde side. It was a fine set and by the time they get this baby to Madrid then they’re really gonna fly. The whole thing was as good an example of the perfect show as it comes these days. I can’t imagine how anybody there coulda been disappointed with the choice of songs or performance. Even the odd wee fluff here and there just added to the atmos. “Lights of Downtown”,“You can’t Ride The Boxcars” and “I Had A Dream” all reminded us of how good a catalogue these guys put together in their short existence. Added to that there’s their version of one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded, NRBQ’s "I Want You Bad" (dedicated to Teenage Fanclub) and an absolutely tingling sweet version of The Groovies “I Can’t Hide”. Now, even a jaded cynic and three quarters like me kinda gets a frisson when there 300+ people in a room that seem to be able to appreciate what is patently good music. Their psychedelicisied rendition of Dylan’s “Masters Of War” was well received in the aftermath of Wee Boaby Dylans visit to the city just the week before. If you get a chance to see them then take it. I would guess that individual schedules would point to this not being something that will run and run. That said, it certainly deserves to. This was the best I ever saw them, 20+ years after the fact. We had to leave for a train during a spirited run up the flagpole of “You’re Gonna Miss Me”, once again buoyed by the fact that people were digging it. Now how come we can’t have an audience like this at every show. Now you come to think about it how come that we can’t have much of an audience at all. I'm gonna wake up wondering about that for sure. I guess Amsterdam will be good but I really wish I could take in the Spanish shows. That could be the last truly rock’n’roll country on earth and when that rickenbacker-driven intro to “I Can’t Hide” kicks in there, then the fireworks will really begin.

http://nextbigthing.blogspot.com

Live Review: The Long Ryders - The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham - 1st July 2004
by Jeremy Searle

Back from the dead after 17 years to reclaim, albeit it just for this one-off tour, their rightful place in as alt.country god-fathers, tonight the Long Ryders are on a mission to show us how it really should be done. And show us they certainly do. From the first chords of opener “Run Dusty Run” they deliver power and passion to a hugely enthusiastic crowd (incidentally containing a fair sprinkling of people who weren’t out of short trousers when the band were in their pomp). Tom Stevens exudes danger and menace, Greg Sowders still grins for Britain, and ringleader Sid Griffin orchestrates it all with characteristic humour. But the musical heart of the band is still Stephen McCarthy’s songs and guitar work, though it’s Sid’s voice, sounding if anything even more raw and untutored than in the old days, that gives the band it’s backwoods edge. Tonight is a greatest hits set, and you can hear how everyone from Uncle Tupelo on up owes the band a debt. Fast, furious, passionate, aware of, but not in thrall to, their roots, the Long Ryders defined the template for a generation of bands and tonight they show them all that when it comes to doing it live, there’s still nobody better. As the set progresses the band start to really flow, until the whole thing is a seamless wall of sound and fury. They encore with a fiery, even by tonights standards, “Looking for Lewis and Clark”, and finish off with a 13th Floor Elevators thrash, pointing up the fact that their roots were as much in punk as in country. Wonderful, exhausting stuff.

http://www.americana-uk.com

Live Review: The Long Ryders at Spydafest - June 2004

How the bands found the site in the rain, fog and lack of directions to
such a weird ex-MOD site on the southern tip of Portland is a mystery.
Nevertheless, find it they did. In addition, arriving from Glastonbury and
on stage within a mere 10 mins or so, the first of the headliners took that
festival marquee audience by the scruff of its collective neck and played a
set that ranks amongst the best live gigs I have ever seen in, er, over 40
years of being a punter. They might have packed it in 1987, but the
original line up of Sid Griffin's Long Ryders were nothing short of
brilliant. No sound check, other than seat-of-pants opener of the Byrd's
"So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'Roll Star" (Sid on jangle Rickenbacker of course,
with Woody Woodhead guesting on trumpet blasts), it was their best numbers
from their three-only albums all the way. Total professionalism without
detracting slickness, masterful rapport with the audience and all the
vindication one ever needed for supporting the 1980's US guitar bands at
the time in the face of UK post pink stuff. What a blast.

CS & KSA Booth
www.focsle.org.uk

DVD Review: Long Ryders - Rockin' At The Roxy

Some will be stunned to realize that it's now seventeen years since the cowpunk stalwarts were taped at their height, live in Los Angeles, but it is indeed a typically energetic 16-song Februrary 1986 show that unreels on the new DVD The Long Ryders: Rockin' at the Roxy from Classic Pictures.

With the heyday line-up of Sid Griffin, Steven McCarthy, Greg Sowders and Tom Stevens, the band slashes and jangles through a set heavy on the fondly remembered Native Sons and State of Our Union album songs, with that distinctive punk and twang sound and edge that really is, on the likes of "Capturing the Flag" and "Ivory Tower," exactly half way between The Byrds and Uncle Tupelo.

In addition to the hour video show (with stereo and surround sound options), and flash card bio and information, this one adds a new half-hour acoustic Sid Griffin set with Paisley Underground reminiscences and commentary. "We wondered" he recalls, "What if you had the Byrds/Lovin' Spoonful harmonies and sounds along with punk level energy? Well, that was our act!". Finishing off with the recent trip hop/alt.country fusion of his band Western Electric, Griffin brings us right back to the present--and that never-ending effort to marry the tried and the truly new.

Barry Mazor, No Depression - May Issue 2003