EVEN for a city with a musical heritage as strong as Oxford, Ride are a very special band. For a start, Laurence ‘Loz’ Colbert, Mark Gardener, Andy Bell and Steve Queralt, are proper down-to-earth Oxfordshire lads, forming not at a posh private school but at college in Banbury – and picking up Steve at the Oxford branch of Our Price Records. Staying close to their roots, they played their first shows at the college and the city’s Jericho Tavern and Oxford Polytechnic – now Oxford Brookes University. Fame came knocking when a demo tape they had recorded in Steve’s bedroom was heard by Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain, who recommended the band to manager Alan McGee who snapped them up to his Creation Records label.