Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Good Guys - A System of Grooves



Ska and reggae from Virginia from 1984. This may be their only recording. Anyone know if they had anything else?

1 Fun Lover
2 Democracy (Or Else)
3 Now that the Feel's Changed
4 Feel's Changed version
5 Beeline
6 Big Guy Town
7 Still a Mistake

DOWNLOAD

"Fun Lover"


Much thanks to James for this submission!!

13 comments:

Kames Jelly said...

Any time. "Fun Lover" has been on constant play for me for about 3 years now.

Some info from the back cover:

Band:

Jimi Gore: Keyboards, Percussion, Vocals
Harry Gore: Guitar, Vocals
Chris Gore: Drums, Vocals
Charles Williams: Bass, Vocals

with
Paul Watson: Trumpet
Danny Finney: Saxophone

"Big Guy Town" is a cover. The songwriting credits are G.Walker/M. Brown, but I've never been able to figure out who did the song originally. Anyone know?

I've put together that they were together at least until 1986ish, but that's all I know about them.

Unknown said...

anything you need to know about The Good Guys I can share. M Brown is Mark Brown..an original member of the band. Gary Walker is a song writer/musician that played in Richmond bands in the 80's. It is a Good Guys song

Unknown said...

There is another CD out by The Good Guys. "Thanks For Dancing" Live recordings and some other studio demos

Anonymous said...

Is there anything else available on CD, or online, other than "Thanks for Dancing"? Is "A system of Grooves" back in print? Or some of their other demo tapes?

These guys had a lot of great stuff, and really brought it live.

Jg

Anonymous said...

Gary Walker is also co-writer on about half of the material on each of The Taters' 5 albums (www.thetaters.com). Not ska, but lots of fun all the same!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this! I had this record,and am glad to come across it. Like many indie records of the day, I don't think it really did the band justice. Saw these guys several times when they made it down to NC (1982-83ish?) and remember we danced our tails off to them. In addition to Fun Lover, they did an excellent cover of The Temptations' "Ball of Confusion" These guys knew how to Rock Steady...

Anonymous said...

They also had a single featuring {The Ballad Of) James Watt, which WDCE used to play all the time back in the day (1982): http://www.discogs.com/release/4889288

Gino said...

Thank you!!!!! Saw this band live many times in NY at "Wetlands" back in the day. They deserved far greater recognition than they received.

Woody said...

Thanks for posting this! I have very fond memories of seeing the Good Guys play around VCU when I was there back in '79-'83. It's great to be able to relive some of those moments by listening to these songs!

Anonymous said...

Ha, I'm coming to this page waaaay late, but wanted to mention to anyone that might be interested that I was a big fan of this band back when I used to help put on concerts at Columbia University in the late 80s, early 90s. I too was at the Wetlands show in NYC where they opened for Bootsy Collins. That was definitely an awesome show. It was super nice of them to invite me. Anyway, I have two full soundboard recordings of the two times I put them on at Columbia if anyone is interested. If anyone on this thread is still in touch with the brothers Gore, let me know. I'd be happy to get them a digital copy of those two shows. One is from 1990 and the other is from 1991.

Unknown said...

Remember seeing these guys play regular around the Richmond area during the 80's. They and The Awareness Art Ensemble were two of the must see bands in Richmond area during that period. Also had the pleasure of turning some of my NYC friends on to them when they played the Wetlands in NYC. It was great getting to know them personally when we were neighbors on St. James Street in downtown Richmond VA. Great times and memories! One of there most popular songs, "Do Try to Make It In My World" can be found on the "The History of Our Furture" compilation album that came out in 1994. I believe it is still available on Amazon. This band never received the recognition they deserved.

Unknown said...

Does anyone know what happened to Jimmi Gore?

Unknown said...

He is alive and well living in NYC.