...."their first single was a minor hit, selling 60,000 copies".Nowadays that sort of figure would probably have you in the charts for about three months.
The single being referred to was Good Technology by Red Guitars, which was released in 1983 on the indie-label Self Drive Records.
Red Guitars were from Hull, and originally consisted of Jerry Kidd (vocals), Hallam Lewis (guitar), John Rowley (guitar), Louise Howard (bass) and Matt Higgins (drums). They were a band much loved by the NME for the fact that they were never slow to respond to requests to play benefit shows for all sorts of left-wing ideals (and believe me in the early-mid 80s there was at least one show a week somewhere in a big UK city that either promoted awareness of one cause or other or raised funds for a cause or disaster relief).
The first time I can recall hearing or seeing them was when the above-mentioned debut single was filmed and aired on The Tube, the pioneering and mostly enjoyable weekly live music show broadcast between 5.30 and 7pm on Friday nights on Channel 4:-
Even all these years later, it still sounds as fresh and exciting as it did 28(!!!!) years ago.
I saw the band in 1984 when they opened for The Smiths at the Glasgow Queen Margaret Union. It was one of those gigs when it was all about the main act and to my eternal shame I didn't pay all that much attention to the support band other than when they played the one song I happened to know.
But such is the joy of browsing around second-hand record shops looking for things of interest that a few months back I was able to pick up a couple of later efforts, again released on Self Drive Records. I'll get round to putting up Steeltown in due course, but for now, please enjoy the two sides that made up this 7" single:-
mp3 : Red Guitars - Marimba Jive
mp3 : Red Guitars - Heartbeat Go
The a-side is so joyous and infectious and summery - I reckon it will make an appearance at this Saturday's Block Rockin Beats event - while the instrumental b-side reminds in so many ways of the Orange Juice of the same era.
Happy Listening.
4 comments:
Superb single. Did it really sell that many? That really surprises me.
It seems strange after watching that video that the Red Guitars would compile a list of things they have, but not include the line "we've got terrible hairdressers in these parts".
By a strange coincidence, I was listening to the Red Guitars in the car earlier this evening. A much underrated band. Thanks for posting this.
Loved the band and I remember seeing them play a headlining show at Night Moves to a very sparse crowd a few months after the Smiths' shows.
Things went down very rapidly after Jerry Kidd left though and I never bothered with the 2nd LP.
The debut LP, although it features none of the singles other than MJ, is very, very good. It's been released a couple of times, once on Cherry Red and the other time on Self Drive - both versions have the early singles. A lost treasure of the 80s.
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