The Long Ryders, Sunday Times, June 2004

The rock band reunion is no longer an inherently embarrassing concept. This Summer, their reputation having swollen considerably in their absence, and their influence evident from Nirvana’s Nevermind onwards, the 80’s American alternative band The Pixies are playing to packed stadiums of former fans, more used to seeing them in tiny clubs, and curious latter converts. Television, Wire and Mission of Burma form a trio of serious-minded punk experimentalists who have returned to touring and recording with their dignity and credibility intact. And the unduly obscure 60’s psychedelic icon Arthur Lee, fronting a youthful version of Love, has re-emerged, energised and acclaimed, playing shows with the fearsome, righteous commitment of someone who feels he still has something to prove. These non-appalling reunions mean that even the re-emergence of less well known groups, whose return is unlikely to trouble the front covers of the music monthlies, is suddenly possible. Early 80’s post-punks The Moodists recently reassembled for some shows in their hometown of Melbourne, and Birmingham’s own Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band, The Nightingales, played their first date in fifteen years earlier this month. Anything could happen. Make a wish list and your nostalgic dreams might yet become reality.

The Long Ryders, for example, burned briefly but brightly in the mid-80’s, playing a punk-country hybrid to a world full of DX7 synths and Flock Of Seagulls hairstyles, a decade before the generation of bands they inspired found themselves christened as the Alternative Country movement and granted their own rack in the mega-store. You might remember the lone 1985 hit, Looking For Lewis & Clark, which sounded like The Who playing country and western and boasts one of the great harmonica breaks. Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Chris Robinson of The Black Crows number amongst The Long Ryders’ famous fans and the major label roots rockers The Jayhawks, who used to open for them, recently recruited their former co-frontman Stephen McCarthy to their own ranks. His one-time partner Sid Griffin today lives far from his Kentucky roots in North London. Griffin has a loyal cult following that offers him an infinitely sustainable, if not massively lucrative, career, and his current band The Coal Porters will be playing the Kentucky World Of Bluegrass Festival this autumn, a fact which fills him with enormous pride. Given this, why risk it all and reassemble The Long Ryders?

“I never thought The Long Ryders would play together again.”, says Sid, sounding genuinely surprised. “I’d had offers before to tour as ‘Sid Griffin and The Long Ryders’, a kind of karaoke version of The Long Ryders playing Long Ryders songs, and it’d be easy to do that and get a couple of thousand pounds, but there’s something distasteful about it. If you’re a big music fan you’ll know why. You go to the shows and there’s only one guy from the band onstage. But this offer was to get all the originals together, so I passed it along. Our drummer, Greg Sowders, who now works in music publishing for Warner Chapel in LA, said “Yeah, I’ll do it on my summer vacation.” Then bass player, Tom Stevens, who I had not communicated with for seventeen years got in touch and said he was in. But Stephen McCarthy is now in The Jayhawks, touring and making money. I thought he’d be too busy. But The Jayhawks said he had to do it, and scheduled a break. I thought if we don’t do it now we never going to do it and we’ll do it when we’re old and grey and using Zimmer Frames. We’ll record one of the concerts for a possible live album but as for actually recording again, the logistics are impossible. Everybody in the band is at least 600 miles apart.”

After their 2002 performance at Camber Sands’ All Tomorrow’s Parties weekender, Wire were overheard around the lace tablecloths of a local bed and breakfast’s dining room discussing whether the previous night’s performance had maintained or compromised ‘the legend of Wire’. A second hand record dealer recently informed me that original Electric Prunes vinyl has plummeted in value since the seminal 60’s garage band reformed to tour a dreadful set of 80’s metal style interpretations of their old songs and I, for one, could have lived without seeing a wobbly version of The Incredible String Band at The Bloomsbury Theatre three years back, although it was enjoyable watching some would-be hippies who had ill-advisedly ingested acid before the show struggling to negotiate with the blue florescent lighting above the gents’ urinals. The Long Ryders finished on a creative high in 1987. Even The Clash petered out with the conveniently forgotten Cut The Crap album. Is there a danger of a re-union undermining fans’ perfect memories of a band in its prime?

“If you are a snotty record collector like me you know that Rock and Roll reunions stink,” agrees Griffin. “There’s about nineteen different bands all called The Drifters. And a few years ago, before Brian Connolly from The Sweet died, I saw this news story on TV. Peter Sissons was explaining, with a perfectly straight face, how The Sweet With Brian Connolly and The Sweet without Brian Connolly had both somehow pulled up on the same garage forecourt in Devon or somewhere and started arguing about who was allowed to play Ballroom Blitz. I was in tears of laughter, but thought ‘There but for the grace of God…’ But in the last few years Wire at The Royal Festival Hall was great , and The Blasters, who I saw 30 times in LA, were as good as they’ve ever been. I saw The Who with Zak Starkey on drums five years ago and it was the best I ever saw them. So with Wire, The Blasters and The Who I started thinking maybe you can have a re-union that works.”

Does Griffin secretly harbour dreams of, belatedly, being vindicated in some way? “I saw Love with Arthur Lee in the 70’s and he was not on form, but I saw two of his shows recently and I couldn’t believe it. I thought “Way to go, Arthur!”. I’m older myself now and I don’t want Arthur Lee to die with just an arrest record and thirty years of being ignored. I’m thrilled for him. You do want that kind of recognition.” And then, perhaps wary of seeming bitter or ambitious, Sid Griffin, former and current Long Ryder concludes, “And you know what? I’d really like my little girl to see me play Rock and Roll.”

The Long Ryders play the Glastonbury Festival and The SpydaFest, Portland on June 26th, followed by London Dingwalls 29th and 30th, Nottingham Rescue Rooms July 1st, Manchester Academy 2nd, Glasgiw King Tuts 3rd, Leeds Irish Centre 7th, Bristol Fleece 8th. Prima Records’ Best Of The Long Ryders (SID016) is out on June 28th. sidgriffin.com