The Wynona Riders

The Wynona Riders are a East Bay punk band formed in 1989 by Eric Matson, Ron Murphy, and Ron Greer. It was named after Winona Ryder.

When Ron Murphy quit the band he was replaced by Jack Cheeze. In this line-up they recorded the track "Break" for a compilation album called "Can of Pork". Subsequently, Rico was thrown in jail and replaced by Dave "E.C." Henwood.

Jack Cheeze didn't get along with Skip very well, so he soon left the band. Replaced by Richie Bucher, they recorded an EP called "Send in the clowns". In 1992, a tour across the U.S. was planned, when Erick suddenly quit the band without an explanation. Skip and Richie started the band "Here Kitty Kitty" with Joe Selby and Kreig White, and recorded some demos. As "Here Kitty Kitty" they did a tour across the U.S. in 1994.

Meanwhile, Skip asked their record company, Lookout! Records, if they would be interested to release the Wynona Riders demos on CD, as he didn't want the music of that band to fade into history. When he asked Dave for his opinion on the release of these demos, he suggested that re-recording the tracks might be a better idea.

Skip, Dave and Richie got together, auditioned for a new guitar player, but eventually winded up working with Erick again. The recording sessions resulted in the album J.D. Salinger, containing a cover of Kim Wilde's Kids in America.

After the release of this album, Erick joined the band "Jack Killed Jill" and announced that he couldn't tour with the Wynona Riders. Upon hearing this, the other three members kicked him out of the band for good. After auditioning Patrick Hynes (one of the three owners of Lookout! Records at the time) and Joe Selby the band chose Joe to fill the guitar role for their 1995 US tour in support of the "J.D. Salinger" LP/CD.

After a successful tour that saw the Wynona Riders play over 40 shows around the country in six weeks the band decided to try to stick it out with the touring line-up and began writing new material for a follow-up record. An interim release under the name The Nation of Wenonah was released on What Else? records out of Indiana as a split EP with band Lynrd's Innards. The EP was a send-up/tribute of the Washington D.C. band the Nation of Ulysses. As more new songs were written the style of the band was veering towards the agitpop styles of other D.C. bands from the early 1990's and Richie and Dave found themselves less than enthusiastic about the direction the band was headed.

Time was booked into Andy Ernst's Art of Ears studio, where "J.D. Salinger" had been recorded to do an EP for Lookout!, but before the band entered the studio they suffered something of a meltdown and broke up onstage at 924 Gilman St. in Berkeley, ironically while performing as the opening band for another Lookout! band, Fifteen's farewell show.

Skip and Joe formed the band "Toyboat" with former Red # and Hi-Fives drummer Julie Rose and bassist Adam Turk, E.C. joined the band "Three Years Down", and Richie went to work at a bakery. A short year later toyboat would disband and Joe Selby would join Three Years Down as their bass player with Skip moving to New York to pursue a career in information technology.

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL....

READ MORE