Here comes the Goodtime

Click on the links below to listen to tracks from Goodtime's debut album Brought Four Ways Out Of Town
I've Always Had You To Hold Me Down: regular quality high quality
Goodtimes At The Top Of The Line: regular quality high quality
Lonely Road: regular quality high quality

Goodtime John has notched four releases in the mere space of a year – a 10” EP on Julius Geezer, a Volta 7” and no less than two albums – both as a member of 46 Long on Catchy Go Go and a solo debut on Volta Sounds. “I always thought I’d be in bands and I’d just release stuff on the side, as in “there is the solo album by yer man from whoever”” Goodtime muses. “The whole thing with acoustic guitars is that people tend to pigeonhole you right away, but I haven’t exclusively being doing stuff on an acoustic.”

Goodtime’s snappy moniker is an old-standing nickname that he has appropriated in the tradition of country and blues greats. “It’s an old country habit which Papa M and Bonnie Prince Billy kind of brought back in. I like the mystery of it. I don’t like handing people everything on a plate. I don’t like being classed as a singer songwriter, and when you see somebody’s name on their own you immediately class them as that. But it’s more a nickname rather than a stage name like Alice Cooper or something like that.”

John’s induction to musical obsession was via the antithesis to sensitive acoustic troubadours – The Ramones and the Dead Kennedys. He made some early attempts at songwriting from the age of thirteen, and later became friends with Glen and Andy formerly of the disbanded Dublin guitar pop band Palomine. They later went on to play with the acclaimed instrumental outfit the Connect 4 Orchestra. Add a Redneck or two from TRM and you have the bones of a bona fide all-singing and dancing GTJ backing band ready to roll.

Meanwhile, Goodtime had a clutch of songs ready to record, so he borrowed a friends holiday home in Avoca, Co. Wicklow for a few days to commit his collection of tunes to tape. “I didn’t want to do it in a studio,” John explains. “I wanted it to be very relaxed and just see what happened and have a laugh. I also wanted it to be as live sounding as possible which was fine because we just had one big room. I listened to a lot of The Band and stuff like that and fell in love with that whole idea of them all just playing in a room.

“It’s just the idea of not being in Dublin and not being in the same company all the time and living the music as opposed to people phoning us,” he continues. “We’d no mobiles on or anything. We’d get up at 10am and start by 11.30am and play until 7.30pm, take a break and maybe do vocals at night. It all went very smoothly and it was the right combination of being relaxed but working hard. A fair bit of it was recorded on the first take. It was great not to have the crap and stuffiness of being in the city and just be clearer in our heads.”

The resultant album is a rare acoustic pop treasure, beautifully complimented by Goodtime’s passion for artwork and photography which he studied prior to getting more involved in music. The Del9 collective of Mark Flood, Sue Pendred and Roddy White assembled a very slish animated video to accompany the one-off seven inch release ‘For the Girls Back Home’. Rather than pursue a traditional linear career of follow-up albums, John is a firm believer of such wonderful one-off projects.

“I’m constantly writing so I’d love to continue to put out a 7”,” he reflects. “I hate when you hear some album and you’re waiting two years for the next one.

“I’d write every day, just about every time I pick up the guitar,” John adds. “But I could just be getting something out of my room and I’ll pass the guitar. Or it could be not being able to sleep at night or coming up with a lyric on the bus. I can’t go, ‘Tonight I’m going to write a song’, because I can’t work that way. It’s a subconscious thing I suppose. It’s like when you’re writing a song, it’s often a few months later that it dawns on you what you were actually on about. It’s a weird thing, but it keeps you going and it gets you through everything.”

The Goodtime guy has already shared a stage with Grandaddy, Bright Eyes, Kathryn Williams, Grant Lee Philips, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Smog. “You a much greater buzz from playing with people you’d actually listen to when you get home,” he reflects. “The day I stop enjoying myself up onstage is the day I stop doing it.”

With such excellent results to date before even touching his mid-20s, methinks Goodtime will be having a rare ‘aul time for a long, long while yet.