AN Oxford rock star is to present a special city screening of a documentary about Creation Records, the home of Oasis.

Ex-Ride singer Mark Gardener will present Upside Down – The Creation Records Story and answer questions about the London-based label. Director Danny O’Connor will also join music fans at the Ultimate Picture Palace, Jeune Street, East Oxford, to talk about the documentary on Friday.

Creation was a key independent label, signing Ride, Primal Scream, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Boo Radleys and Oasis before folding in 1999.

Mr Gardener, of East Oxford, was interviewed for the film and wrote the soundtrack.

He said: “I am a bit wary about nostalgia because too much nostalgia stops forward movement, but after Danny came and interviewed me, Loz Colbert from Ride, and Adam Franklin from Swervedriver, I thought he was the right guy to make the definitive account of those times.”

Ride were formed in 1988 and were labelled part of the “shoegazing” scene led by Creation act My Bloody Valentine.

Ride split in 1996 after four albums and 13 singles, one of which, Leave Them All Behind, reached number nine in the charts.

Guitarist and vocalist Andy Bell, a fellow ex-Cheney School pupil, joined Oasis in 1999.

Mr Gardener said: “It was a fantastic time for me.

“I had a childhood ambition to play with my own band at the New Theatre in Oxford, but I never really thought I would. About three years later I achieved it and went on to world tours and the Albert Hall.

“I have great memories.

“For me it really fits the film and I think it is the right place to show it, an independent cinema showing a film about an independent label that did very well.”

Mr Gardener said the city which also produced Radiohead and Supergrass had a place in music history.

“I hold Oxford dearly in my heart,” he said.

“When I was 18, Oxford was on a map for the university and for great writers, and rightly so, but now it is also on the map musically.”

Picture palace owner Becky Hallsmith said: “I thought it sounded like an interesting film that I should show and I happened to notice that Mark was around so I asked him and it all fell into place.”

The film will be screened at 9pm, followed by the Q&A. Tickets are £10 and are available from wegottickets.com fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk