[l1]A[/l1]bout a year ago, when my daughter started using the phrase “goodtimesgoodtimes” like it was a single eighteen-letter word to mean agreement with something I’d said or a positive comment on something that had happened, she was more excited about it than I was.
So, when she introduced me to a band called Goodtimes Goodtimes, spelled like that, two nine-letter words, I was less than enthusiastic. Fortunately, I got over it and as a result, I’ve discovered some of the best ‘feel good’ music I’ve heard in a very long time. The name that Franc Cinelli chose for his mostly one-man project is what I like to call ‘truth in advertising’. The cover of Goodtimes Goodtimes’ first album, Glue, is a rising sun of bright cheery yellow. And the music is decidedly happy. I don’t get excited about angry music; there’s a distinct lack of happiness in music today and I don’t write about music that’s not happy. Well, sad is okay. There’s a place for sad songs. But not angry. I really prefer happy. Wanna hear happy? Listen to Kids or Sunshine Sunshine, happy songs.
The entire album, right from the opening track Summer is perky and cheerful—the word perky keeps coming to mind; I hope Franc doesn’t mind. The songs are simple, uncomplicated, lyrically at least. Musically, they’re a little challenging. I’ve tried playing a couple of them and they don’t just roll out of my guitar, I tell you.
Desire is one of those songs that for some indefinable reason makes me feel, immensely and intensely. I don’t know if the chord progression reminds me of something else or maybe it really is just the intense feelings of yearning in the lyrics. The Red Sky and the Spanish Coast is just a really cool name, and at the end of it there is a little musical epilogue of sorts that I actually found (perhaps on the website?) as an mp3 called Glue, although there is no song Glue on the album. So there you go, Glue is actually the epilogue of The Red Sky and the Spanish Coast.
There’s lot of slide guitar on the album, which I really like; acoustic slide guitar. It’s a very acoustic album. It says it was recorded in the bedroom.
There’s one mystery song, For All My Kingdom. It’s not on the CD but I have an mp3 of it. I’m not sure how that happened.
The songs below, Let It Begin and The Rescue, will be on the new EP which should be out imminently—imminently means whenever Franc feels like it—and it already feels a little more mature, fleshed-out, robust than Glue, possibly because there are other musicians involved. And if you go to YouTube and search for Goodtimes Goodtimes you can watch videos of the songs. Or you can go the websites, which are linked down there in the bio, and read all about it.
Glue is well worth the paltry sum it costs to have it shipped to your home. I’m really excited not just about the EP that’s coming out, the full-length album shortly after that, but I’m especially looking forward to Goodtimes Goodtimes someday doing a tour of the left coast of the United States. When they come to Northern California, you can bet I’ll be right there in the front row, smiling.
http://www.goodtimesgoodtimes.co.ukhttp://www.myspace.com/goodtimesgoodtimes
Goodtimes Goodtimes started life as a one man band; Franc Cinelli, an Italian raised in London, filtered his roots through a multicultural sieve to forge a unique identity and distinctive sound. A true bluesman, born out of his natual era, and so he blends his blues-folk with his personal optimism. He and his cohorts create ethereally wonderful alt.folk. You’ll have each song on repeat in your head before it even finishes playing.
Drawing on traditional blues, folk and country music, the songs of Good Times Good Times are infused with the musings of a young man who is as much at home in London’s Soho as in Rome’s Trastevere or New York’s Lower East Side. Inspired by the New York coffee house scene of the ’70s and encouraged by the enthusiastic reception to his music, Franc spent much of the last couple of years playing the New York circuit. Thoroughly absorbed by the scene, Franc soon found himself playing in bars, clubs and coffee shops, developing a solid following among the music-loving New Yorkers; playing sometimes three or four times a night in different venues around the city; learning to take his guitar everywhere in case of an impromptu gig in someone’s basement or loft apartment; and often playing until five or six in the morning. Moving on to touring up and down the “Coasts” and back again doing the same in the UK.
After the well received, bedroom recorded “GLUE” LP , Goodtimes Goodtimes new live EP , produced by Danton Supple, steps everything up a notch or two. Story-telling in the night; late night drinking and early morning wanderings. Irresistibly rustic killer hooks and a new favourite band.
Hey, click the little arrow thingy and play the songs!
Let It Begin is just so darn perky. I am strongly in favor of perky; there is far too much cranky already. will someone please tell those guys in system of a down? “down dow-n down, whoah oh oooh” indeed. must add more ‘whoahs’ to my own songs.
The Rescue feels more serious, but still positive. I think that’s where you grab me, franc; all that sunny positivity. at my age, you finally realize that happy and perky are way more important than one’s angsty teen years would indicate.