As Rome burned and Nero behaved like Nigel Kennedy at a toga party, one suspects that the cyclonic soundtrack playing in the emperor's noodle may well have approximated the Joyriders - frenetic, hypnotic, psychotic, pneumatic. HAH! You know the drill. For only the looniest of tunes could accompany the bonfire of the calamities, and who better to bring the noise than Edinburgh's fiercest and finest, if most feckless of firestarters?

The Joyriders could have stolen the world and set it alight. It's true. But the Zippo was dry, the matches were beer-soaked and somehow the moment of grand larceny/arson passed. So much for burning ambition.

How to nutshell the JRs? Well, their firefight could be louder than any artillery fired up on Husker Du. In the heat of their sunspot-hot rock'n'roll powerpop moments, they could sweat melodies with the ease of Buffalo Tom, all the while abducting your affections in the same lazy rapscallion way as Evan Dando. Hell, had they been Yanks rather than Yankophiles we'd have loved them - maybe bought their records, even.

So ...All Hail, The Joyriders! They came, they smoked some draw, they hunkered. Yet, with their only two single/e.p. releases, these non-scene slackers somehow scored two NME "Single of the Week" awards, enjoyed the patronage of the aforementioned Mr Dando, and had Kurt Cobain join them for a secret pub gig at the time when he had just become the biggest rock star in the world. If you were Mudhoney, Doughboys, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Mega City Four, Swervedriver, Eugenius, Lemonheads, Mercury Rev, Killdozer and a bunch of other influential rock'n'roll incendiaries, then the Joyriders was the band your agent called to fire up a show for your boys when they were in town. So, with all this in their favour, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and just split up. At least, they would've done if they could've been bothered.

Irreducible, irrepressible, irresistible. Sure, they burned but briefly but, Lordy, what blazing grace. - Rodger Evans

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