Good Technology

We've got photographs of men on the moon…

Good Technology was recorded at Fairview Studios, Willerby between the 18th and 28th of April 1983 and re-mixed on the 8th of May. The recording was engineered by Roy Neave and produced by Roy Neave and the Red Guitars and released on the 24th of June 1983.

To mark its 40thanniversary an extended remix has been released as a limited edition 12" on red vinyl. There's also a radio mix and a remix of the band's second single Fact as a bonus. Each of the 500 copies is signed by the band and includes the code for a top quality digital download of all the tracks.

We've got buildings that are very tall…

Good Technology 2023 (Extended Mix).

GoodTechnology 2023 ReMix Front Cover.

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1983: it was a different world. The world wide web hadn't been invented yet, Facebook and iPhones were another 20 years away and there were a mere 100 McDonald's in the UK.

Thatcher had just won her landslide victory and the first cruise missiles were arriving at Greenham Common. Unemployment was over 3 million. A hundred years of industrial might was to be scrapped in favour of the deregulated banking and service industries which would make us all wealthy. The burgeoning new technology promised a brighter future for us all. Life would be easier. Culture Club were at number one.

Some very popular songs fade over time as tastes change but a great song should be able to speak to every new generation that discovers it. At its core there is a truth. Alternative facts don't exist despite what the New Right would have you believe.

Good Technology is a very simple three chord song based on a hypnotic kick drum and bass that remain constant and unchanging throughout the entire song. In essence it is a call and response song. For each vocal line telling us of the wonderful new things we've got, there is a response from the guitars starting with simple harmonics and building slowly and uneasily to a blistering breathless solo before the pay off. Politically it is pin sharp but there is no tub thumping here. A dystopian prophesy of things to come. It's all there. It uncannily predicts the power of the internet and social media, environmental catastrophe, reality TV, the fast food industry and an ever more grotesque arms industry.

40 years on and the promise, like the country, is broken. Public services have been hollowed out to the barest shells. Levels of poverty are unprecedented since Victorian times.

The new gig economy has left people who are working minimum wage jobs struggling to survive. Today there are more food banks in the UK than McDonald's.

It seems the right time to rerelease this song to a new audience… JR 2023”

It was our third attempt to capture Good Technology on tape. The first was recorded by a one‐off ensemble comprising Jerry, Hal, JR, Stuart Ross, Arthur Smee and Mark Douglas at a studio in Mayfield Street in November 1981. The second, by the Czechs, was recorded at Ken Giles' studio in Bridlington, in the Summer of 1982.

Good Technology was released on the 24th of June 1983 as a 7" single with Heartbeat Go! (Love Dub) on the b‐side. It was the first release on Self Drive Records and had the catalogue number SD006. The band played Dingwalls in Hull that evening to launch the single.

The first promo copy went, of course, to John Peel. It is impossible to overestimate John's influence on popular music at that time and we were thrilled when he played Good Technology on his show.

Good Technology re-release sleeve.

At about the same time we met Tony K who ran Red Rhino Records in York, part of the Cartel, a coalition of independent music distributors founded by Rough Trade in London and including Probe in Liverpool and Revolver in Bristol. We had heard about Tony K because he had released Spyderman, a single by Hull band the Akrylykz featuring Roland Gift, and we were excited when he offered to distribute Good Technology.

Good Technology lyric sheet by Stuart Ross.

The track was re-released in 7" and 12" formats in April 1984. The 7" (SD009) backed with Paris France, the 12" (SD008) having an extended mix of Paris France and Fact on the b‐side.

The song was voted number eleven in John Peel's Festive Fifty, Christmas 1983.