I got into the Goodtime Boys because, in a lot of ways I kind of had to. Two friends were in the band at various points of time, they toured with my housemate's band and released a split EP with them, and they were just so intrinsically linked to the Cardiff punk scene at the time that it was impossible to avoid them. They were also quite good, despite myself not really expecting to like them; there were a bunch of bands with broadly similar sounds that I wasn't into and it was a very "all or nothing" scene. I didn't commit hard to it, so I have only a few Goodtime Boys releases and very few by the bands that moved in similar circles.
It's hard to talk about the Goodtime Boys without mentioning that the singer used to be in The Automatic and made a good chunk of money from that song about a monster coming a hill. I imagine he'll never get away from that particular bit of trivia. Some might say it's also why this band are quite so heavy - you'd never suspect there was a connection.
Anyway, I got a copy of the split with Solutions shortly after seeing them play together in London, a strange night in a pub in London I'd never been to before or after (apparently, The Flower Pot). It was nice to see Nicky and Kai, and it was fun to see Pennie throwing himself around from tables in an otherwise unsuspecting pub. As it happens, the cd release of this EP includes the songs from the split (and I know that because I got a copy of the cd for free from Palm Reader Records when they were trying to shift them).
I bought this one afternoon in Banquet about two years after that gig (I'd also seen them that January with The Saddest Landscape in another venue that I'd not been to before or after - The Star of Kings). I only bought this and a cd, so it must have been one of those times where I'd just gone in a bit bored and not really found anything I was particularly after. I dropped the bag on my walk back somehow, which is why the record has a slight ding to the corner of the sleeve. As for the music, it's basically as enjoyable as all the other music they recorded, which is to say, somewhat. Like I said, I'm not hugely into this scene, but I enjoy it every now and again. Sometimes you just need very heavy, angry music and Goodtime Boys do exactly that.
Format: 10", picture sleeve
Tracks: 5
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Banquet Records, Kingston
When: 07/05/12
Colour: Transparent blue
Etching: none
mp3s: none
